Animating objects
Give an object a looping motion (bob, spin, pulse, or sway) that plays for visitors without disturbing where you placed it.
Open in the interactive manual →The interactive version has full-text search, a table of contents, and light/dark themes.
Any object can move on a loop. Select it, open Properties ▸ Animation, and pick a Motion. The control appears on geometry, 3D text, groups, and cables, the same object types that take tap actions.
| Motion | What it does | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| None | The default: the object sits still. | Everything you haven't singled out. |
| Bob up and down | Floats up, then back down. | Pickups, hovering signs, a product on a plinth. |
| Spin | Turns a full revolution around its upright axis. | Turntable product shots, logos, coins, trophies. |
| Pulse | Swells slightly larger and back. | Buttons, beacons, anything asking to be tapped. |
| Sway | Rocks side to side. | Hanging lamps, foliage, a boat, a sign in the wind. |
| Follow a path | Rides along a curve in the scene, nose first. | A car on a road, a train on a track, a drone circling a building, a boat on a river. |
Following a path
Draw a curve where the object should travel (tick Closed for a lap), then pick Follow a path on the object and choose the curve. The object sits on the curve from then on, so its position and heading belong to the path: the move gizmo stands down (and the rotate gizmo too, unless Facing is Keep its rotation) and you steer the ride by dragging the curve's control points. Scale still applies, in the object's own frame (a box stretched into a car body stays a car body as it turns), and a bob or spin the Assistant adds on top still stacks as an offset. The selection pill stays, and a note in the viewport says why the arrows are gone. The Position and Rotation fields under Transform are where the object waits before a delayed ride begins and the heading it turns from; they are not where it is drawn. Only a curve outside the object can carry it: a curve inside the object's own group is not offered (it would move with the rider it carries).
- Facing: Along the path points the object down the curve, Toward a point keeps it turned to one spot in the world (a camera drone that never stops looking at the house), Keep its rotation slides it along without turning.
- Front of the object: which side leads. Models come in facing different ways; if a car drives backwards, switch +Z to -Z here rather than rotating the model.
- Up: which way is up while it rides, the roll reference the heading is built around. +Y for almost everything; the object does not bank into turns on its own.
- Start along the curve: where the ride begins, 0 to 0.95. Give three cars 0, 0.33 and 0.66 on one loop and they space themselves out. (On a ride that plays once or back and forth the ride covers the rest of the curve from there, which is why it stops short of 1.)
- Ride it backwards: the same curve, the other way.
- Turn into facing (s): when the ride begins the object eases from the way you placed it into the path's facing over this many seconds, in and out, instead of snapping. A camera drone placed looking at the house turns smoothly onto its route. 0 snaps.
- Pacing: Constant for a loop (so it never slows at the join), or ease in, out, or both for a ride that plays once or back and forth, so it pulls away and brakes. Switching from Bob or Spin to a path starts at Constant; it does not inherit the bob's easing.
Duration is one full lap; a looping path plays at a constant speed by default so it never slows at the join. While the object is selected it holds at the start of the path, already facing the way it will ride, so Facing, Front and Up show their effect as you change them; the preview and the published scene always ride. A curve something rides is a helper on the published site and in the preview: it carries its riders and is not drawn, so a swing arc never shows as a green spline across the door and you do not need to hide it (the editor still draws it, handles and all). To draw the track for visitors anyway, turn on Show on the published site in the curve's Inspector (it appears once something rides the curve), or set data.renderCurve to true through the Assistant or over MCP. A ride that is paused (animation off) rides nothing, so its curve shows again. Delete the curve and the rider sits back at its own Position with its move gizmo returned, and the Animation section names the missing curve; the published scene does the same, and the scene check warns about it. Amount does nothing on a ride and is not shown.
Shaping the motion
- Amount: how big the motion is, as a multiplier on the preset's natural size. 1 is the default; 2 is twice as far, 0.5 half.
- Duration (s): how long one full cycle takes. Longer is calmer.
- Loop: Loop repeats forever, Back and forth plays the motion then reverses it, Once runs a single cycle and stops.
- Delay (s): hold still for this long before the first cycle. Staggering the delay across several copies stops a row of animated objects looking mechanically in sync.
Previewing it
Animation is off in the editor viewport by default, so precise editing never fights a moving mesh. Tick Play in the editor viewport to watch it: that's a per-session preference, not part of the scene, so toggling it doesn't dirty the scene or enter undo history. The preview and the published scene always play it. Editing an object's shape in component mode freezes playback too.
Beyond the presets
The presets are the whole authoring surface here, deliberately, since a keyframe grid is a lot of UI for four kinds of motion. For anything more specific, ask the AI assistant or Claude over MCP: they can write arbitrary keyframes on the position, rotation, and scale of a node (up to 16 keys each). A scene carrying hand-authored keys shows as Custom in the Motion menu, and the Duration / Loop / Delay fields still apply without clobbering those keys.