# Animation and shot time

In Intangible, animated movement belongs to a shot. Move an object in Compose mode while a shot is active and the move is recorded as part of that shot's timeline. Move the same object in Build mode and the move applies globally, with no animation. This catches every new user once.

## Why it exists

A scene is a 3D environment. A shot is a camera framing of that environment at a moment in time. Cinematography happens in shots; world-building happens in scenes. Animation is something that happens in time – which means it has to belong to a shot, not to a scene.

Pixar's pipeline does the same thing. So does ILM. The reason is operational: the same scene appears in many shots, sometimes years apart, and the animation that's right for shot 4A would be wrong for shot 4B if the camera angle changes. Binding animation to the shot lets you author per-shot motion without any of it leaking into the world-state.

Intangible inherits the convention so that downstream pipelines (and the user's mental model coming from those pipelines) line up.

## What it looks like in the product

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    A[Scene] --> B[Build mode: world-state]
    A --> C[Compose mode: shot 1]
    A --> D[Compose mode: shot 2]
    B -->|object moves| E[Move applies everywhere]
    C -->|object moves| F[Move recorded on shot 1 timeline]
    D -->|object moves| G[Move recorded on shot 2 timeline]
```

The mode you're in determines whether a move animates or commits to world-state:

* **Build mode**: every transform you make is part of the scene's permanent state. Move a chair, the chair lives in that new position from now on.
* **Compose mode with a shot active**: every transform you make is recorded as a keyframe on the active shot's timeline. The chair moves only during that shot.
* **Compose mode with no shot active**: same as Build mode for transforms.

The shot's timeline lives at the bottom of Compose mode, beneath the storyboard. Each shot has its own. Animations don't cross shots.

## The trap (and the fix)

The most common mistake: a new user sketches an animation in Build mode by moving the object around, then switches to Compose, adds a shot, hits render, and gets nothing animated.

The fix is sequencing:

{% stepper %}
{% step %}

#### Make the shot first

Switch to Compose mode. Click **Add Shot**. The shot is created with the current camera framing.
{% endstep %}

{% step %}

#### Stay in Compose mode

The shot is now active. You can tell because its thumbnail in the bottom storyboard is highlighted.
{% endstep %}

{% step %}

#### Move the object

Drag, rotate, scale. The move is recorded as a keyframe on the shot's timeline. A new shot in the Scene Timeline defaults to approximately 2 seconds; extend or shorten per shot as you author.
{% endstep %}

{% step %}

#### Scrub the timeline to confirm

Drag the playhead at the bottom of the screen. The object moves through the keyframes. If it doesn't, you weren't actually in Compose mode with the shot active.
{% endstep %}
{% endstepper %}

The webinar covers this directly: *"the reason you have to make shots first is because our animation system is set up for kind of like storyboarding."* Shots are containers for time, scenes are containers for space.

## What animates per shot

* Object position, rotation, scale
* Camera position, rotation (covered in [Camera controls](/compose/camera-controls.md) and [Animation](/compose/animation.md))
* Character pose (bone transforms, when characters are animatable)
* Parenting (attach / detach across keyframes)

What does **not** animate per shot:

* Camera lens parameters (FOV, focal length, aspect, near / far). Dolly-zoom and focus-pull effects can't be authored as keyframes today. Render variations as separate shots and cut between them.
* Visibility (show / hide an object across the shot's timeline). Hiding a prop mid-shot isn't keyframable; use scene-level visibility in Build mode, or render variants and cut.
* Sun position, fog, terrain. Environment is scene-level. To animate a sunset across a shot, build the lighting variation as separate scenes and cut between them in the [Sequence Timeline](/compose/timeline.md).
* Materials and color. Color transitions and fades can't be keyframed inside a shot; treat them as post.
* Asset swaps. If a chair becomes a tree mid-shot, that's a Build-mode change and applies globally.

## How shots and scenes interact

```mermaid
flowchart TB
    P[Project] --> S1[Scene: kitchen]
    P --> S2[Scene: parking lot]
    S1 --> SH1[Shot 1: wide]
    S1 --> SH2[Shot 2: closeup]
    S2 --> SH3[Shot 3: hero]
    SH1 -->|own timeline| T1[Timeline 1]
    SH2 -->|own timeline| T2[Timeline 2]
    SH3 -->|own timeline| T3[Timeline 3]
```

Shots can't cross scenes. If your edit needs to cut from a kitchen interior to a parking lot exterior, that's two scenes' worth of shots assembled in the [Sequence Timeline](/compose/timeline.md), not a single multi-scene shot.

## Sequence tab

The Sequence tab plays the current scene's shots back to back, no gaps between them. It's scene-scoped: one scene's shots only. To preview cuts across multiple scenes, use Publish mode.

There's no audio mixing in Sequence. Each shot plays only its own audio.

## When to reach for it

You don't reach for the concept; you avoid the trap. The signal is: you set up motion in Build mode and the render is static. Switch to Compose, add a shot, redo the motion inside the active shot, and the render animates.

The deeper signal: any time you're authoring time-based behavior, the answer is "set up the shot first". That includes camera moves, character actions, prop movement, anything dynamic.

## Related

* [The three modes](/overview/concepts/the-three-modes.md)
* [Projects and scenes](/overview/concepts/projects-and-scenes.md)
* [Shots](/compose/shots.md)
* [Animation](/compose/animation.md)
* [Timeline](/compose/timeline.md)


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