Animation and timeline

Animation in PostRoll lighting comes from three layers stacked on top of each other:

1. The effect stack (presets + per-step animation) — see Presets and effects.
2. Animation modifiers — per-light dials that scale or flip everything in the stack uniformly.
3. Timeline keyframes — author-defined points in time that drive intensity, colour, and origin over a loop.

Plus flicker as a quick stand-alone option for old-school candle wobble, and attached particle emitters for embers / sparks / motes that follow the light.

Flicker

The simplest animation. In the Animation tab, expand Flicker:

Field	Effect
Enabled	Master on/off
Speed	How fast the wobble cycles
Amplitude	How big the wobble is (0..1)
Target	inner, outer, or both — which radius wobbles

Useful for torches, fireplaces, fluorescent fizzling. Pair with a noise BasePulse step in the effect stack for richer behaviour, or use flicker alone for cheap candle vibes.

Animation modifiers

Below the preset picker:

Modifier	Range	What it does
Speed	0 to ~5×	Multiplies every effect step’s speed. 2× = twice as fast.
Animation strength	0 to ~2×	Multiplies every effect step’s intensity. 0 = stop the animation entirely (handy for “freeze” moments).
Reverse	toggle	Flips the direction of the entire stack. XORs with each step’s own reverse flag, so a preset with one reversed step stays consistent when you toggle this.

Use these to fine-tune a preset without re-authoring it. A cinematic/eldritch-altar preset that feels too fast becomes elegant at Speed 0.5×.

Animation origin

For animations that have a centre (rotation sweeps, ring expansions, sunburst spokes), the Origin X / Y sliders move that centre off the light’s geometric centre. Range is -1..1 across each axis where 0 is the light’s placement point and ±1 is the sprite edge.

Useful for off-axis cones — a wall sconce where you want the visible animation centre to sit inside the wedge rather than at the cone apex.

Timeline (keyframes)

Below the modifiers is a Timeline editor. A timeline is a list of keyframes; each keyframe sets values at a specific time in seconds, and the engine interpolates linearly between neighbours.

A keyframe can drive any combination of:

• Intensity (0..1) — overall brightness
• Colour — hex tint, lerped between bracketing keyframes
• Origin X / Y — animation origin (lerped)

Fields you leave unset on a keyframe hold the previous value rather than reset to zero — so a colour-only keyframe and an intensity-only keyframe at different times don’t fight each other.

Adding keyframes

1. Click + Add keyframe at the bottom of the Timeline section.
2. The new keyframe is added 1 second after the last one, copying the light’s current intensity and colour.
3. Edit the t (s) field to move it in time, Intensity to set the value, and the colour swatch to set a colour.
4. Add as many as you need. There’s a soft cap at 64 keyframes.

Loop

The Loop (s) field next to the keyframe list controls how often the timeline cycles:

• Empty / unset — defaults to the time of the last keyframe.
• 0 — plays once and clamps at the last keyframe.
• A specific number — loops every that-many seconds.

Use a non-default loop to extend the silence between repeats — set Loop 10 on a 2-second pulse animation to get one pulse every 10 seconds.

Clearing

The Clear timeline button removes all keyframes and resets the loop. The light goes back to whatever the rest of its animation stack produces.

Tip

The timeline does not replace your effect stack — the stack continues to run on top. Use the timeline for macro changes (slow ritual chant intensifying, dawn breaking through a window, distress beacon dimming over minutes) and the stack for micro animation (flicker, pulse, hue cycle).

Attached particle emitters

In the Animation tab → Attached emitter select, you can bind a particle effect that follows the light around. Available presets:

Emitter	Looks like
embers-up	Hot embers drifting upward — forge, brazier
sparks-burst	Sharp sparks bursting outward — spell impact, electrical
dust-motes	Slow drifting motes lit by the beam — sunbeam, attic light
magic-glints	Sparkly glints around the source — enchanted item, fae light

Pick None to remove the emitter. Particles re-position automatically when you move the light.

Putting it together

A “ritual chant” candle:

1. Apply preset postroll/eldritch (or build your own pulsing recipe).
2. Drop animation Speed to 0.5× so the pulse is slow.
3. Add a 4-keyframe timeline that ramps Intensity 0.5 → 1.0 → 1.0 → 0.5 over 8 seconds, looping every 8.
4. Attach magic-glints for sparkle.
5. Done — the candle slowly intensifies, holds for a beat, and fades, while sparkles drift around it.

Related

• Presets and effects — what the effect stack actually does.
• Lights — basics — the foundational controls.
• Tags and preset packs — saving your animated lights as a portable JSON pack.