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Overview
When you are working with complex scenes or simulations, the viewport can have trouble playing back at 24 FPS (or whatever your frame rate is). However, displaying the scene in the viewer is still faster than rendering the animation.
You can use a flipbook as a "middle ground" between playing back in the viewer and actually rendering the animation. It lets you view the OpenGL representation of the animation at full frame speed.
When you start a flipbook, Houdini plays back the animation in the viewer, but at each frame it captures the viewer content as an image. After Houdini captures each frame, you can view the images as an animation at full speed in mplay. Alternatively, you can save the images to disk to allow storing and sharing the flipbook.
How to
| To... | Do this |
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Create a new flipbook |
(If you haven’t created a flipbook before in the current session, you can just click the icon to open the dialog box.) |
Recreate the previous flipbook |
In the tools (on the left side of the viewer),
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Render Flipbook controls
Tip
At the top of the window Houdini prints the amount of space necessary to hold the images that will be created with the current settings.
Output tab
Frame range/inc
The start frame, end frame, and number of incremental frames to render.
The default start and end frame are variable references($RFSTART and $RFEND), which grab the current values from the Houdini timeline. The menu at the right has a list of common frame ranges.
Leave Playbar at Last Frame
Instead of setting the playbar frame back to the frame it was at before the flipbook was started, leave it at the last frame the flipbook wrote.
Flipbook to MPlay
When enabled, all frames will be written to MPlay for interactive viewing.
Output Files
Allows saving of the frames to image files. Normally this is blank as frames are only written to MPlay ( Flipbook to MPlay defaults to on). If a filename is placed here, it will additionally write the frames to files as well. If __Flipbook to MPlay is off, frames will only be written to disk.
Flipbook Session Label
When Flipbook to MPlay is enabled, you can render to separate flipbooks at the same time by giving them different labels. If you use a label corresponding to an open mplay window, Houdini will send the new frames to that window.
Visible objects
Only objects whose names match this pattern will be visible in the flipbook. Use this to focus the flipbook on one or a few characters/objects.
Render
What part of the Scene View to render to the flipbook.
Current Viewport
Render the currently selected viewport.
Current Beauty Pass
Render the beauty pass of the currently selected viewport, which excludes the background, grid, handles, and decorations.
All Viewports
Render all viewports into a single image, including any viewer annotations such as messages, Draw Time, and Geometry Information.
Object Types
Which objects to include in the flipbook, by type.
Currently Visible
All object types that are currently visible will be rendered.
Geometry Objects
Only geometry objects will be rendered, which excludes bone, muscle, null, camera, light, and blend objects.
All but Geometry
All currently visible object types except for geometry will be rendered.
All
All object types will be rendered.
Append frames to current flipbook
Adds the frames on to the end of the last flipbook you created, instead of starting a new flipbook. This lets you put together a flipbook of different parts of a larger animation.
Scoped channel key frames only
Only render at frames where there exists currently scoped keys.
Enable block editing
When Flipbook to MPlay is enabled`, generate a flipbook with keyframe information to enable blocking in mplay.
Initialize Simulation OPs
Reset all simulation nodes in the scene before creating the flipbook.
Flipbook tab
Audio filename
A sound file to play during the flipbook.
Audio offset
Time (in seconds) of the audio that corresponds to the first animation frame.
Background images
When Output is ip (that is, you are rendering the flipbook into mplay),
an image to show behind the flipbook animation.
Gamma
When Output is ip (that is, you are rendering the flipbook into mplay),
the gamma correction value to use in mPlay.
LUT
When Output is ip (that is, you are rendering the flipbook into mplay),
a color look up table (LUT) file to use in mPlay.
Effects
Antialias
Whether to do anti-aliasing of the viewport graphics, and how much. The default uses the current setting in Houdini.
Motion Blur
Render motion blur when creating the flipbook.
Frames
When Motion blur is on, the number of subframes to use when computing the motion blur. More frames produce better results, but take longer.
The menu determines when the subframes are sampled.
For any frame F…
Forward
Blurs F to F+1.
Previous
Blurs F-1 to F.
Centered
Blurs F-1/2 to F+1/2.
Shutter
When Motion blur is on, how long the camera shutter is open. Longer shutter time produces more blur. The default ("from camera") uses the current camera’s setting in Houdini.
For example, if the value is 0 there is no blur. If the value is 1 there is full frame blur.
Depth of Field
Simulate depth of field in the flipbook.
The default ("from camera") uses the current camera’s setting in Houdini.
Quality
When Depth of field is on, the number of renders done per frame to simulate depth of field. Higher numbers produce better quality flipbooks but are slower.
Focus Length
When Depth of field is on and set to Specify, the distance from the camera at which objects are in focus.
Aperture
When Depth of field is on and set to Specify, the amount that the iris is opened. Higher numbers produce more DOF blur.
F stop
When Depth of field is on and set to Specify, how quickly the focus drops off from the focus distance. Large F-stops produce a long area of focus (less blur). Small F-stops produce a very small area of focus (only the objects at the Focus Length will be in focus).
Size
Zoom
Reduce the size of the images as they are saved (to disk or in memory). Use this to save disk/memory space.
Resolution
Specify a custom size for the flipbook images. When the checkbox is on, the flipbook uses the current viewer size.
Crop Out View Mask Overlay
When this option is on, areas of the flipbook image outside the camera’s aspect ratio are cropped.
When this option is off, areas outside the camera’s aspect ratio are grayed out.
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