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. |
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.