Skip to a frame number without the scene re-evaluating

[rich_lord]

In maya, middle clicking within the time slider will move to that frame without updating the view. Its really useful for, say, jumping to frame 100, and setting keys there without the scene reevaluating.

I cant find the equvalent in Houdini. I guess moving to Manual update mode and then jumping to a different frame number works - but its a slow process for something I use so often.

Is there a way to just click, or drag in the timeslider to get to frames without a scene update? Or is the onluy option to set up a hotkey for manual updating?

I watched the whole SIdefx video on traditional animation, and either they didnt show how this works, or I was snoozing when they did.

Thank you!

Edited January 6, 2013 by rich_lord

[gui]

in the botton right corner, there is an "auto update" button. Just click it and select "manual". In the left side of it there is an update button. In manual mode, you will have to click it for the viewport to redraw.

[rich_lord]

Unfortunatley, this isnt exactly what I want. Although it dosent update the scene view, it still updates the channel data.

This means that if I have a complex anim, and want to grab a value from frame 10, and repeat thoose exact values at frame 230, I cant do it.

It dosent sound like much, but if im creating an animation where I want to achieve the same contact point over and over again, I have a really long process in the graph editor to get the position the same.

Maybe Houdinis updating dosent work the same as mayas DAG, and im thinking something would be really easy to implement when in fact its not.

Thanks tho gui, I missed the refresh button next to the auto-update, so thats useful to know for when im doing dynamics.

[anim]

this is the way how you can hold values and move to another frame to set them

http://www.sidefx.co...laybar#id512461

it will still update viewport as you are moving, so you may want to combine this with manual mode

maybe not exactly what you want but may help in some cases

but I know what you are talking about, I was using that feature all the time in Softimage (marking the frame at which the values will be set, without leaving current frame) I havent seen it in houdini though

Edited January 8, 2013 by anim

[rich_lord]

Hmm, that is crazy. Its pretty much exactly what I want, with the bizarre requirement that I scope the channels first, and that only the scoped channels arnt updated in scene view.

Its usable, and seems more like I just need to get used to the Houdini way of doing it - but it puts the scene in some very odd states, where some objects are updated, and some arn't. Its not that clean I guess I`m saying. Seems like one middle click on the timeline could just take care of all of this.

Regardless, that helps a bunch and will speed me up no end - Thanks for the tip anim!