Octane does not natively have support for animated instances. But the Houdini plugin does support ways that make time offset instances possible.

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Note: Each set of instances offset by x amount is treated as a separate instance in terms of memory and performance (this means that all instances that are offset by 2 frames will be treated as one octane scatter object, and all instances that are offset by 4 frames as another etc).

This means you will only see performance gains if multiple instances share the same time offset. If no instances (or very few) actually share the same time offset, it might be more effecient to just use direct geo, as instancing has some overhead.

1. Packed disk sequence method

Example file here:Time Offset Instances

  1. First you need to cache you sequence to a bgeo sequence. This is easily done using a filecache node.

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    Inflate.mp4

  2. Load the sequence with a file node and set “Load” to “Packed Disk Sequence”. To properly see the geo in the viewport set “Display As” to “Full Geometry” and you can then duplicate this Packed sequence (for example using copy to points) .

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  3. To set the frame of the sequence you will need to use the “index” prim intrinsic. An easy way to do this is using a point wrangle:

    int index = (@Frame + @offset)%chi("sequencelength"); //the % part makes sure the frames are looped at the end.
setprimintrinsic(0, "index", @primnum, index, "set");

    In this case the point wrangle is taking an “offset” attribute (which defines the frame offset for each item) using an attribute adjust integer, and then write it to the index.

    Or another much easier way to do it is using the “MOPS Set Sequence Time” node which is part of the free MOPS toolset. You can find the MOPS operators here: https://www.motionoperators.com/

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