Continuity — Usage

Installation

Follow the Installation guide for the plugin distribution. To enable Continuity in your project:

1. Copy the Continuity folder into your project's Plugins/ directory.
2. Open Edit > Plugins, search for Continuity, and enable it.
3. Restart the editor.

Continuity's module loads at the PostEngineInit phase. This is intentional — UToolMenus and ISequencerModule must be fully initialized before toolbar and filter bar extensions can be registered. Do not attempt to load the module earlier in your own Build.cs rules.

To add a compile-time dependency from another editor module (such as Panoptic):

// YourModule.Build.cs
PrivateDependencyModuleNames.AddRange(new string[]
{
    "ContinuityEditor"
});

Configuring Naming Conventions

All hierarchy parsing is driven by the naming convention settings at Edit > Project Settings > Plugins > Continuity > Naming Conventions.

For example, if your sequences are named A01_S03_SH0050, set the delimiter to _ and configure the Act, Scene, and Shot patterns to match the A01, S03, and SH0050 tokens respectively.

Opening the Sequence Browser

Open the Sequence Browser from the main menu: Window > Continuity > Sequence Browser. The panel is dockable and can be placed alongside the Content Browser or Level Editor Outliner.

Alternatively, if the Sequencer toolbar is visible, the browser icon (a film-strip list) opens the panel directly.

The browser populates when a level is fully loaded. If sequences are added to the level while the browser is open, click Refresh at the top of the panel to rebuild the tree.

Navigating Sequences

The browser displays the ACT/SCENE/SHOT hierarchy as an expandable tree. Each level shows:

• Act row — act identifier, total child sequence count
• Scene row — scene identifier, total shot count, combined duration
• Shot row — shot name, duration in seconds, frame range (start–end at sequence tick resolution), in/out working range markers

Click the disclosure triangle on an Act or Scene row to expand it. Double-click any Shot row to open that sequence in Sequencer. The Sequencer tab title updates to reflect the opened shot's full name.

Right-clicking a Shot row shows a context menu with: - Open in Sequencer — same as double-click - Add to Render Queue — queues this shot using the currently selected Render Pass Preset - Rename — renames the sequence asset and updates all parent sub-sequence section references - Duplicate — duplicates the Level Sequence asset and inserts a new shot row

Using the Toolbar Extensions

The Continuity toolbar group appears at the right end of Sequencer's native toolbar after the editor restart.

Working Range

• Mark In — with a sequence open, click this to set the working range start to the current playhead frame. Equivalent to pressing I in Sequencer but always visible.
• Mark Out — sets the working range end. Equivalent to O.
• Lock Range — prevents the working range from being moved by scrubbing or playback. The button appears highlighted when the range is locked.

Navigation

• Jump Prev Cut / Jump Next Cut — moves the playhead to the nearest camera cut boundary in the Camera Cuts track. If no Camera Cuts track exists, the buttons are grayed out.

Track Management

• Collapse All / Expand All — collapses or expands every track row. Useful before exporting or taking a screenshot of the sequence.
• Isolate — hides all tracks except those currently selected. Click Isolate again to restore all hidden tracks. Isolation state is cleared when you close the sequence.

Auto-Size

Click Auto-Size to open a dropdown with two operations:

• Fit Parent to Children — expands or shrinks the currently open parent sequence's working range so it exactly contains all sub-sequence sections. No children are moved.
• Fit Children to Parent — trims or extends all sub-sequence sections to fill the parent's working range exactly. Children are repositioned at the working range start if they are outside it.

Both operations are wrapped in FScopedTransaction and appear in the undo history as a single action.

Rendering

• Show Handles — toggles the handle overlay. When enabled, each sub-sequence section shows a colored band on its leading and trailing edges representing the handle frames that extend beyond the cut boundary.
• Render Shot — queues the currently open sequence as an MRQ job. Before clicking, select a Render Pass Preset from the dropdown next to the button.

Managing Handles

Handle duration is set globally at Project Settings > Plugins > Continuity > Handle Manager > Handle Frames. The default is 8 frames.

To apply handles to all shots in the hierarchy:

1. Open the master or parent sequence in Sequencer.
2. Click Apply Handles from the Continuity toolbar dropdown (or right-click the root Act row in the Sequence Browser).

Continuity extends both the inner sequence's working range (pre-roll and post-roll frames become part of the playable range) and the parent sub-sequence section's overlap region (the section in the parent timeline is stretched by the handle duration on each side).

Use Show Handles to audit the results. Sections that have not had handles applied will show no color band on their edges.

Filtering Track Types

The Track Type Filter adds a set of grouped category buttons to Sequencer's native filter bar. Click a category button to toggle the visibility of all Sequencer tracks that belong to that category.

Toggling a category applies immediately and does not modify the sequence asset. The filter state persists per editor session but resets when the editor is restarted.

Batch Queuing Renders

To queue multiple shots for rendering:

1. Open the master sequence in Sequencer or select shots in the Sequence Browser.
2. From the Continuity toolbar, click the Render Shot dropdown and choose Queue All Shots (or Queue Selected Shots if shots are selected in the browser).
3. In the dialog that opens, choose a Render Pass Preset from the dropdown. Available presets are any UContinuityRenderPassPreset DataAssets in your project.
4. Review the output path preview, which shows how the naming-convention tokens will expand for each shot.
5. Click Add to Queue. Continuity creates one MRQ job per shot and opens the Movie Render Queue window.
6. In MRQ, click Render (Local) or Render (Remote) as normal.

Exporting EDL

The EDL exporter produces a CMX 3600 .edl file from the assembled cut. Use this for DaVinci Resolve conform or NLE import.

1. Open the top-level master sequence (the sequence that contains all shots as sub-sequences) in Sequencer.
2. From the main menu, choose Sequencer > Continuity > Export EDL.
3. In the Save dialog, choose a destination and filename. The default filename uses the master sequence's name with a .edl extension.
4. Click Save.

The exporter writes one edit event per shot sub-sequence. Each event contains: - Event number (sequential, starting at 001) - Reel name derived from the shot's naming-convention tokens - Source in/out timecode at the sequence's frame rate - Record in/out timecode in the master cut

Import the resulting .edl into DaVinci Resolve via File > Import Timeline > Import EDL.

Exporting CSV

The CSV exporter writes a flat production sheet suitable for import into ShotGrid, Google Sheets, or any spreadsheet tool.

1. From the main menu, choose Sequencer > Continuity > Export CSV.
2. Choose a Profile from the dropdown: Master, Colorist, VFX, or ShotGrid.
3. Click Export and choose a save location.

Each profile writes a different column set. The file is UTF-8 encoded with a header row. Open it in Excel or Google Sheets, or import directly into ShotGrid using the ShotGrid CSV import wizard.