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MotionAtelier

Preview

The preview runs a marker along the current output curve, in a loop, so you can judge the timing before anything is written to the scene.

A preview marker on an Elastic curveA marker travels along an Elastic curve from left to right at constant speed in time; its height follows the curve.
Like the panel's preview, this marker moves at constant speed in time, so the curve's shape shows up as changes in vertical speed. Plotted from MotionAtelier 0.4.2's own curve code, outside Houdini. An illustration of the curve, not a screen capture.

Controls

Section titled “Controls”

The transport sits under the graph:

Control What it does
Play preview / Pause preview Starts or pauses the looping marker.
Restart preview Jumps back to the first key.
Preview duration Seconds of real time for one pass, from 0.10 s to 30.00 s. The arrows step by 0.5 s. Default 1.00 s.

Behaviour

Section titled “Behaviour”
  • The marker shows the output curve: the current shape with its Motion Stack effects.
  • Preview duration is wall-clock time. The scene’s frame rate, frame range and timeline have no effect, and the Houdini playhead does not move.
  • Changing the duration while playing restarts the pass.
  • Preview duration starts at 1.00 s in each new panel; it is not remembered.
  • Nothing is written to the scene.

To see the motion on your actual object, commit the curve, play the Houdini timeline, and undo with Edit ▸ Undo if needed. See Safety and undo.

Section titled “Related”