Motion Stack
The Motion Stack lets you layer procedural motion generators on top of keyframes without touching the keys themselves. It is on by default.
What the Motion Stack does
A channel's stack sits between the keyframe evaluator and the scene. At each frame, VIZid evaluates the channel's keyframes and then applies any stack slots in order. This means you can add a continuous camera turntable on top of keyed orbit positions, or add subtle jitter to a hand-held camera, while leaving the original keys fully intact and editable.
Stack rows appear in the Animation panel's channel tree with a wider layout whenever any channel in the document has a generator.
Adding a generator
Right-click a part, group, light or camera row in the Animation panel's channel tree, or a key on one of its transform or camera channels, and choose Add Generator ▸. Once a channel has a stack, its stack header row also offers Add Generator ▸.
Available generator types: Turntable, Orbit, Dolly, Crane.
Stack slot controls
Each slot appears as a sub-row under its channel. Generator slot and effect slot have different controls.
Generator slot controls:
| Control | Effect |
|---|---|
| Before / After pill | Whether the generator runs before or after the keyframe evaluation |
| Weight | How much of the slot applies: 0 = keys only, 1 = full, above 1 exaggerates, below 0 inverts |
| Enabled | Toggles the slot on or off without removing it |
Effect slot controls:
| Control | Effect |
|---|---|
| Driver | The driver picker; reads Base when unset |
| Weight | How much of the slot applies: 0 = keys only, 1 = full, above 1 exaggerates, below 0 inverts |
| Enabled | Toggles the slot on or off without removing it |
Generator parameters
Right-click a generator slot row to access parameter options:
| Entry | Effect |
|---|---|
| Set <parameter>… | Sets a named parameter value |
| Set start to playhead | Pins the generator's start time to the current playhead |
| Axis ▸ X / Y / Z | Sets the generator axis to X, Y, or Z |
| Turn on / Turn off | Enables or disables the generator without removing it |
For Dolly generators, Speed and Distance are alternatives — only one is active. The unused one is labelled Not in use in its row.
Slot ordering
Use Move Up and Move Down from the slot's right-click menu to change its position within the stack. Drag-to-reorder is not yet available.
Fading a generator in or out
Right-click a generator slot and choose:
- Fade out at playhead… — creates a weight key that ramps the slot's contribution to zero; the ramp is centred on the playhead.
- Fade in at playhead… — creates a weight key that ramps the slot's contribution to full; the ramp is centred on the playhead.
Fade in / Fade out are available on generator slots only. Effect slots show the message An effect slot cannot be faded — key its Amount instead.
Removing generators
Right-click a generator slot:
| Entry | Action |
|---|---|
| Remove | Removes this slot |
Remove All Slots (N) is on the stack header row (not on individual slots). It removes every slot on that channel.
Effect scope
Right-click an effect slot to find Effect scope ▸, which sets the reach of the effect:
- This part only
- This part and everything under it
Effect scope is not available on generator slots.
Motion Effects
A Motion Effect adds a continuous procedural layer on top of a part's (or camera's) keys, without replacing them. Effects are separate from generators: a generator drives a whole channel; an effect colours that channel's output with noise, bounce or lean.
Adding an effect
Three surfaces offer Add Motion Effect:
- Right-click a target or group row in the Animation panel's channel tree.
- Right-click a part or group in the Outliner.
- Right-click a selected part in the viewport.
A continuous value (such as a light's Power) offers Add Effect when you right-click its slider or its row in the Animation panel. It lists Jitter, Wiggle, Turbulence, Drift — lateral, Wave, Staccato and Drag, and starts each one at 5% of the value. Channels that jump from key to key show Add Effect greyed, with the reason.
Choose an effect family from the submenu. Each family shows its default settings so you know what you are adding before you click. The effect appears as a row in the channel tree under the Effects domain.
Effect families
| Family | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Jitter | 1 mm · 15 Hz | Fast, small random displacement — simulates a hand-held look |
| Wiggle | 3 mm · 2 Hz | Smooth random displacement — organic floating or breathing |
| Turbulence | 12 mm · 6 Hz · across | Layered noise across the cross-path axes — chaotic movement |
| Drift — lateral | 40 mm · 0.1 Hz | Very slow sideways drift |
| Drift — speed | 20 mm along · 0.1 Hz | Very slow drift along the travel direction |
| Drift — orbital | 2° roll · 0.1 Hz | Very slow rolling drift |
| Wave | 10 mm · 1 Hz · one axis | Regular sinusoidal oscillation along one world axis |
| Pendulum | 8° · P 0.225 s · D 10 | Damped rotational swing around a pivot |
| Squash & Stretch | 5% cap · volume held | Scales along an axis and compensates across it to preserve volume |
| Staccato | hold on 2s | A wiggle whose motion holds on every second frame — a stop-motion "on 2s" look. Your keys are not stepped. |
| Bank to path | scale 0.1 · limit 90° | Leans a camera into the turns of its keyed orbit path |
| Inertia (follow-through) | ¼ travel · settle 0.33 s | Rings the part past its keys and back — follow-through |
| Drag | Tc 0.125 s · trailing | Low-pass filter on the animated channel — the part lags behind its keys |
| Speed squash | k 0.35 · 5% cap · volume held | Squashes along the travel axis in proportion to speed |
Bank to path is offered on a camera's row in the Animation panel. It is available once the camera's orbit is keyed; otherwise it is greyed with the reason Needs a camera with a keyed orbit — a camera that does not move cannot bank.
Editing an effect
Right-click an effect's row ▸ Edit Effect… — or, without hunting for the row, right-click the target row ▸ Modify Motion Effect — to open the effect's parameter sheet.
The sheet's title names the effect, the part and the channel. At the top right are an Enabled switch and Remove this effect. The rows depend on the family:
- Jitter, Wiggle, Turbulence, Drift, Wave, Staccato, Squash & Stretch: the amount (Amplitude, or Amount for Squash & Stretch), Frequency, Phase and Seed offset. All except Wave add a Character group: Octaves, Gain, Lacunarity.
- Pendulum: Swing, Period, Decay, Arrival.
- Inertia (follow-through): Follow-through, Settle, Period, Decay, Anticipation (below zero, the ring starts before the key).
- Drag: Strength, Time constant.
- Speed squash: Gain, then Max stretch and Keep volume under Axes.
- Bank to path: Bank limit (the maximum lean), Bank scale, Stencil. It has no Fit or Axes rows.
On a value channel (such as a light's Power) the amount is a percentage, and a Relative switch makes it a fraction of the value.
Every sheet except Bank to path has a Fit group: Influence; Anchored (the effect fades to zero at every key, so it can never move a pose you authored; always off for Drag and always on for Speed squash); and Step (holds the effect's motion on a frame lattice; off by default).
Effects on a part also have an Axes group: Frame (World / Axis / Travel); Axis (shown when Frame is Axis); Acts on (T, N, B; not on scale effects); Pivot (rotation and scale effects); Max stretch and Keep volume (scale effects).
Travel follows the part's motion direction. Its frame depends on the motion driver, so changing the driver can change the direction of the effect even with the same amount settings.
Keying the sheet. Right-click the amount dial (whatever its name — Amplitude, Swing, Follow-through, Strength, Gain, Amount or Bank limit) to key it. On the noise families, Frequency and Phase are keyable too. A keyed dial then follows its curve.
Changing or removing an effect from the part
Right-click the part's row in the Animation panel, the part in the Outliner, or the selected part in the viewport:
| Menu entry | What it does |
|---|---|
| Add Motion Effect ▸ | Adds a new effect. A family already on the part shows — N applied; choosing it again layers a second one. |
| Modify Motion Effect (N) ▸ | One entry per effect, such as Wiggle (wiggle1). Opens that effect's sheet. |
| Remove Motion Effect (N) ▸ | One entry per effect removes that effect. Remove All Effects (N) at the bottom clears them all; one Undo puts them all back. |
Modify and Remove appear only when the part carries an effect. On a locked part the entries are greyed until you unlock it.
Effect rows
In the Animation panel's Effects domain, right-click an effect's row for Edit Effect…, Enabled (turns the effect off and keeps its settings and keys) and Remove Effect. Removing an effect removes its parameter channels with it; nothing else is touched.
Animation Wizards
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ offers one-click setups that write ordinary, editable keys across the timeline's start-to-end range, plus entries to delete a wizard's keys and to link parts. There is no separate wizard mode — every key a wizard authors is the same kind you would write by hand, and can be moved, deleted or retuned in the Animation panel afterwards. After a wizard runs, the playhead returns to the start frame and the status bar reports the number of keys, channels and frame range.
The Camera panel's Turntable button only starts and stops playback. To spin the camera, use Turntable (camera) below.
Camera turntable
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ Turntable (camera) — keys the active camera's azimuth channel from the current angle through one full revolution. The product itself does not move.
Selected-part spin
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ Turntable (spin the selected part) — keys the selected part through one full rotation about its Z axis. Select a part first; if nothing is selected, a message appears in the status bar. Each selected part spins about its stored pivot, or about its own origin if it has none. The spin repeats past the end of the range.
Orbit
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ Orbit (camera rises as it circles) — keys the camera through one revolution while raising the elevation by up to 30° (capped at 80°) and pulling the distance in to 75% of its current value. The starting angle is the current camera position.
Explode assembly
Edit ▸ Explode Assembly (animate) — keys every part in the document spread outward from the assembly centre, proportional to each part's distance from it. Play or render the result. The menu item is under Edit directly, not inside the Wizards submenu. Each part moves out to 2.5× its distance from the centre; only position is keyed, so a part that already spins keeps spinning.
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ Assemble (explode, run backwards) — the same motion in reverse: parts start spread and move inward to the assembled position.
Fade in / Fade out
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ Fade in the selected part and Fade out the selected part key each selected part's Opacity from 0 to 1 (or 1 to 0) over the timeline. Select a part first; otherwise the status bar reads Select a part to fade first.
Environment spin
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ Environment spin — keys the HDRI environment through one full rotation over the timeline.
Removing wizard keys
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ Delete a wizard clip… — lists every wizard clip in the document. Choosing one removes exactly the keys it authored and nothing else. Undo restores them. If there are none, the message reads This document has no wizard clips.
Linking and unlinking parts
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ Link the selected parts' animation — select two or more parts, the first one already keyed. Every channel the first part animates is linked to the same channel on the others, so editing any one of them edits them all.
Edit ▸ Animation Wizards ▸ Unlink the selected parts' animation — separates the selected parts again. Their keys are unchanged.