# Make an animatic

An animatic is the cut before the renders – your shots laid out end to end with timing, ready to scrub. In a real production the animatic is what tells the director the cut works before anyone burns rendering hours. In Intangible the animatic is built from the same shots you composed, so the timing reflects your actual cameras and animation.

This guide assumes you already have shots in the project. If you don't, start with [Build a storyboard](/overview/how-to/ai-storyboard.md) first.

## Steps

1. **Open Compose mode.** The mode switcher is at the top center of the editor. The bottom panel exposes the three Compose-mode views.
2. **Switch to the Sequence tab.** Three tabs at the bottom: Storyboard, Sequence, Scene Timeline. Click **Sequence**. The view changes from card-grid to a horizontal timeline. Each shot appears as a segment sized to its duration.
3. **Set each shot's duration.** Click a shot segment, drag its right edge to extend or shorten. Default is approximately two seconds; trim to the beat the shot earns. Animation inside the shot scales with the duration – an animation extended past its original length plays at a slower rate unless you also adjust the keyframes. See [Animation](/compose/animation.md).
4. **Reorder shots into the cut.** Drag a shot segment along the timeline to move it earlier or later. Storyboard order isn't sequence order. The storyboard groups shots in authoring order; the sequence is the cut. Shots play back-to-back with no gaps.
5. **Scrub the playhead.** Drag the vertical playhead line. The viewport plays the assembled cut, switching cameras and animation states as the playhead crosses each segment. You're watching the animatic.
6. **Iterate.** Trim, reorder. The sequence is non-destructive – the underlying shots aren't modified, only their layout in time.
7. **Hand off.** Use [Presentation mode](/publish/presentation-mode.md) to play the animatic fullscreen for review. Or [Export video](/publish/export-video.md) to render the cut as a single output once the timing is locked.

## Cross-scene cutting

A sequence is scoped to a single scene. To play multiple scenes end-to-end as one cut, use [Publish mode](/publish/publish-tab.md), which strings scenes together for review and playback.

## Why this works in Intangible specifically

Most animatic tools are sketch-first or paste-up tools – you bring images in, lay them out, fake the timing. Intangible's animatic is the actual sequence of cameras and animation in the actual scene. When you adjust a shot in Compose mode, the sequence updates. When you re-render a shot in Visualize, the animatic picks up the new render. The animatic stays in sync with the work, without re-importing.

## Tips

* **Name shots before you sequence.** A timeline of "shot-1" through "shot-12" is unmanageable past five shots. Use [Shot details](/compose/shot-details.md) to give shots descriptive names from the brief.
* **Sequence after coverage, not before.** Build all the shots first, then arrange. Trying to cut while still authoring shots costs more time than it saves.
* **The sequence is the input to Export Video.** Lock the cut here and the export is one click. See [Export video](/publish/export-video.md).

## Limits

* **No audio mixing in the sequence.** Audio is not mixed at the per-shot or sequence level. Audio assembly is downstream work in your editor of choice.
* **Resizing a shot doesn't auto-scale animation.** Extending a shot's duration leaves the animation completing in its original window and holding for the rest. Adjust keyframes in the shot's own timeline if you want the animation to stretch.

## Related

* [Timeline (Sequence)](/compose/timeline.md) – the panel reference.
* [Build a storyboard](/overview/how-to/ai-storyboard.md) – the prior step.
* [Shot details](/compose/shot-details.md) – names and descriptions.
* [Presentation mode](/publish/presentation-mode.md) – fullscreen playback.
* [Export video](/publish/export-video.md) – render the cut to file.


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