Sequencer Cinematic Editor Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 5.5 Documentation

The Sequencer Editor is the main interface you can use to edit Level Sequences assets, in order to create cinematic content in Unreal Engine.

The following document provides an overview of the Sequencer Editor's user Interface, tools, and properties.

sequencer editor overview with highlights

The Sequencer Editor Toolbar contains a suite of tools, options and settings you can use to interface with Level Sequence assets.

sequencer toolbar overview with highlights

Name	Icon	Description
World		Lists information on the current world context, Level Sequence Actor, and playback realm. It contains options for specifying whether you want your sequence to autobind to Play In Editor (PIE), Simulation, or other runtime sessions.
Save		Saves the current sequence and any subscenes or shots.
Find in Content Browser		Locates the current sequence's Level Sequence asset in the Content Browser.
Create Camera		Creates a new Cine Camera Actor. A new Camera Cut Track will also be created and will reference this camera if one had not already been created.
Render		Opens the Render Movie Settings dialog, or the Movie Render Queue if its plugin is enabled.
Director Blueprint		Opens the Director Blueprint for this sequence, from which Event Track logic can be accessed.
Actions		Lists various sequence editor actions such as saving, import/export, baking, and selection editing.
View Options		Lists various sequence view options.
Playback Options		Lists various playback options such as playrate, start/end times, and playhead behavior.
Keyframe Options		Lists settings for Auto Key transform keyframing behavior, and what default tangents are created.
Auto Key		Enables Autokey mode, where keyframes are automatically created whenever a property or transform changes.
Edit Options		Lists settings for how edits from the Details panel are interpreted by Sequencer when using Auto Key.
Snapping		Enables snapping. The dropdown menu next to this lists options for setting snapping rules for keyframes, sections, and the timeline.
Frames Per Second		Lists settings for various Frames Per Second (FPS) targets at runtime. Also contains options to enable the runtime to lock to the chosen frame rate.
Curve Editor		Opens the Curve Editor which is used for fine tuning of animation keyframes and tangents.
Breadcrumbs		Displays the current sequence name, and is used to navigate master sequences and shots.
Lock		Locks the entire sequence to prevent editing.

Refer to Sequence Editor toolbar for more information about Sequencer's toolbar.

Outliner

The Sequencer Editor's Outliner contains a list of the Level Sequence asset's tracks, as well as tools to add, filter, and search for tracks. Tracks can represent Actors attached to your Level Sequence such as Cameras, Characters, Audio, and Effects.

Refer to Sequencer Tracks for more information about different types of tracks.

Timeline

The Sequencer's Timeline is a non-linear editing environment that represents the entire playable region of your Level Sequence asset. The Timeline includes horizontal regions for each Track, and can include assets, keyframes and timeline controls.

The playback range of your Level Sequence asset is contained within Start (Green) and End (Red) markers. The current location of your playback is indicated by the Playhead.

To navigate your Level Sequence asset in the Sequencer Editor, you can pan and zoom within the timeline.

Panning

You can pan your Timeline view vertically, to see additional track regions, by dragging the right-side scrollbar up and down.

You can pan and zoom the Timeline view horizontally, to see different content in the playback, using the Range Slider at the bottom of the timeline.

Dragging the middle area of the slider pans, while dragging the left/right margins will zoom your view.

The Range Slider is enabled by default and can be disabled from the View Options dropdown in the Sequencer toolbar.

Image

Holding the right mouse button and dragging along the timeline enables panning horizontally and vertically.

Scrolling will pan the timeline up and down, while holding Shift and scrolling the mouse wheel will pan the timeline left and right.

sequencer horizontal and vertical shift pan scroll wheel

Zooming

You can zoom in the timeline by holding CTRL and scrolling the mouse wheel.

By holding ALT + Shift and clicking and dragging left and right with the Right Mouse Button, you can free-form zoom.

By holding CTRL and dragging along the time bar to the right, you can define a zoom region. Holding CTRL and dragging the time bar to the left resets the zoom back to full.

The zoom pivot is relative to the playhead by default and can be changed by locating the Zoom Position preference in the Level Sequence Editor section of the Editor Preferences.

If your zoom and timeline framing have overextended, you can reset your zoom and timeline framing by pressing the Home key, which also resets the bounds of the range slider.

Playhead

The playhead displays the current time in the sequence and is one of the main controls for timeline interactions. During playback it will move across the timeline at the specified playrate and can be stopped in place by pausing.

You can Left Mouse Button (LMB) drag the playhead to change the current time in the sequence, and preview changes in the viewport. This is commonly referred to as "scrubbing".

Middle Mouse Button (MMB) dragging causes the playhead to change to the selected position without causing the sequence to evaluate. This technique is used to change time, without changing property values and can be used to create same-value keyframes quickly. When manipulating the playhead in this way, it will change its color to yellow, to indicate the sequence is not evaluating.

sequencer middle mouse button keyframing

The current time of the playhead is displayed and can be manipulated from the sequence outliner. You can press CTRL + T to focus selection to this field and type in a new time value.

You can also right-click the playhead or anywhere on the time bar to reveal additional options.

sequencer timeline playhead context menu

Name	Description	Hotkey
Set Start Time	Set the start time of the sequence to the current position of your cursor.	[
Set End Time	Set the end time of the sequence to your cursor.	]
Set Selection Start	Set the start point of a custom timeline selection range to your cursor.	i
Set Selection End	Set the endpoint of a custom timeline selection range to your cursor.	o
Clear Selection Range	Remove the selected range.
Add Mark	Create a custom timeline mark at the current playhead time.	m
Delete All Marks	Remove all custom marks from the sequence.
Locked	When enabled, all marks will be locked, which prevents marks from being edited allowing you to scrub the timeline slider freely.

The Playhead time indicator can display with an asterisk (*) if the current time is on a sub-frame or in-between frame. This can happen if snapping is disabled.

Selection Ranges

Selection ranges are custom regions you can define in a sequence to assist with timeline selection and playback.

To create a selection range, right- click a point in the timeline bar and set a Start and End Selection Range.

The selection range handles can be adjusted similarly to the start and end times of the sequence.

You can also set the playback of the sequence to loop within the section range.

Selection ranges can also be used to select keyframes and sections within them by clicking the Actions toolbar button and selecting Select Keys in Selection Range or Select Sections in Selection Range.

To remove a selection range, right-click the time bar and select Clear Selection Range.

Custom Frame Marks

Custom frame marks are points you can add to call attention to areas or provide annotation for your sequence.

To create a mark, right-click a point in the timeline bar and select Add Mark.

Frame Marks can be selected and multi-selected in the Sequencer Timeline in order to edit their location.

To edit a mark, right-click the mark flag in the Sequencer Timeline to access its context menu. Here you can customize its properties such as Frame Number, Label, and Color.

Use these properties to observe and set Custom Frame Mark behavior when creating cinematics in the Sequencer Editor:

Property	Description
Marked Frame	Sets or reference the frame number the mark is located in your Level Sequence.
Label	Sets a name for the Custom Frame Mark. The value set will be visible in the Sequencer Timeline at the top of the Mark flag.
Comment	Adds comments associated with the custom mark.
Color	Sets a custom color for the Mark flag in the Sequencer Timeline.
Is Determinism Fence?	When enabled, the Mark is treated as a Determinism Fence, which ensures that all Sequencer Components are evaluated at the Mark's location in the Sequencer Timeline. Determinism Fences cannot be crossed with a single evaluation, and force the evaluation to be conducted in two separate parts, ensuring an accurate evaluation of all present Sequencer components. It is recommended to add Marks, with the Is Determinism Fence property enabled, to important frames in your Level Sequence, in order to ensure accurate playback at runtime.
Add Mark	Creates a new custom mark at the timecode your cursor is at. Only one custom mark can exist per level sequence frame.
Delete Mark	Deletes the currently selected mark.
Delete All Marks	Deletes all custom marks within the level sequence asset.

Playback Controls

The playback controls can be found in the bottom-left corner of Sequencer and function similarly to standard media playback applications.

Buttons for toggling playing, pausing, and other playback-related functions are found here.

Icon	Description
	Records the motion of a selected actor in the Sequencer Outliner, using Take Recorder. In order to use this playback control, you must install the Take Recorder plugin. For more information, see the Take Recorder documentation.
	Sets the start time of the sequence to the current location of the playhead.
	Jumps to the start of the sequence.
	Jumps to the previous keyframe in the selected track.
	Jumps to the previous frame.
	Plays or pauses the sequence in reverse from the current position of the playhead.
	Plays or pauses the sequence from the position of the playhead.
	Jumps to the next frame.
	Jumps to the next keyframe in the selected track.
	Jumps to the end of the sequence.
	Sets the end time of the sequence to the current location of the playhead.
	Toggles between looping and no looping. Selection range looping is added if selection ranges are being used in the timeline.

Toolbar