Documentation
Animation
How a static graph becomes a moving effect.
An animated effect in VFX Loom is the same graph evaluated repeatedly, with time fed into it as an ordinary input.
Overview
There is no separate animation system. A Time node produces a value that
advances across the render, and that value flows into node parameters like any
other value connection. Every frame is a normal evaluation of the graph at a
different time.
How it works
The common route is:
Time → Motion → Mapping → procedural texture- Time provides the animation value.
- Motion turns that value into a moving offset.
- Mapping applies the offset to the coordinate stream feeding the graph.
- The generator downstream is sampled at shifted coordinates, so the texture appears to move.
Because the movement happens in the coordinate stream rather than inside the generator, the same generator works for both static and animated effects.
Other routes exist — Time can also drive transform parameters directly, or be
shaped through a curve before it is used.
Notes
- Animation is deterministic. The value at a given frame does not depend on wall-clock time or on how long the render takes.
- Parameters that are declared animatable can be driven either as a local parameter or through a typed graph input, depending on the node.
- The render produces a fixed number of frames, which are assembled into a flipbook at export time. See Export.
Troubleshooting
Nothing moves. Confirm the Time output actually reaches a parameter that
affects the output node’s result, and that the parameter is one the node
declares as animatable.
The motion is too fast or too slow. Adjust the speed on the motion source rather than the frame count — frame count controls the flipbook resolution in time, not the perceived speed.