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There are several ways to cycle animation in Houdini. For this example we will explain how to cycle the first 25 keyframes through the remaining 125.

Channel Before/After extrapolation

The simplest way to cycle animation is to set the Before and After Extrapolation to Cycle or CycleOffset.

  1. Scope the channels that you want to cycle in the Animation Editor.

  2. Click the Gear menu next to the Scoped Parameters list and choose Select All Values.

  3. Click on a value field in the Scoped Parameters list.

  4. Select Channels and Keyframes > Edit Channel Properties for Selected Channels to open the Edit Channel Properties dialog.

  5. Select all of the Before and After dropdown menu cells by holding ⌃ Ctrl while dragging with .

  6. Change the value to Cycle or Cycle Offset.

Expressions

One way to do this is by using the cycle() or cycleoffset() expression in the Animation Editor.

  1. Scope the channels that you want to cycle in the Animation Editor.

  2. Set a keyframe at frame 125 in the Graph view of the Animation Editor.

  3. Select the channel segments from frame 25 to 125.

  4. In the Function menu, choose cycle() or cycleoffset().

Tip

cycle() will continue from the starting value of your channels.

Dopesheet

If you want to create actual keyframes for the cycle, use the Dopesheet in the Animation Editor.

  1. Scope the channels that you want to cycle in the Animation Editor.

  2. Switch to the Dopesheet view.

  3. Select frames 1 to 25 (inclusive) in the All Displayed Channels row.

  4. In the Edit menu, choose Copy.

  5. Select frames 26 to 125 (inclusive) in the All Displayed Channels row.

  6. In the Edit menu, choose Paste Special ▸ Cycle (or Repeat).

Motion Effects

For more procedural cycling of animation than the cycle() or cycleoffset() expressions, you can use Motion Effects.

  1. Scope the channels that you want to cycle in the Animation Editor.

  2. Click the playbar and choose Motion Effects ▸ Cycle.

Note

In the Extend CHOP parameter window that pops up, you can change the Right Behavior from Cycle to Repeat if you want to repeat the animation instead.

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