---
title: autoPlay
framework: usd
role: article
role_heading: Article
path: usd/autoplay
---

# autoPlay

Metadata that specifies whether an animation plays automatically on load.

## Overview

Overview Set the autoPlay metadata on the document’s stage, that is, the outermost container for scene description. For more information about setting stage metadata, see UsdStage > Stage Metadata. Set a value of true to play an animation automatically when the scene loads. If this property is false, the animation won’t play on load. If an asset omits the autoPlay property, the animation plays on load for backward-compatibility. To support assets that disable autoPlay, an app should provide a way to start the animation. For example, when an asset sets autoPlay to false, AR Quick Look displays a scrubber and a Play button the user can tap to start the animation. Reality Composer sets this property to false when it exports a USDZ to enforce that only behaviors (Preliminary_Behavior) drive animations. Declaration bool autoPlay Disable automatic animation playback The following asset demonstrates autoPlay alongside existing animation properties, like startTimeCode and endTimeCode. Because this asset defines autoPlay as false, the runtime doesn’t automatically play the animation after it loads this asset. #usda 1.0 (     endTimeCode = 300     startTimeCode = 1     timeCodesPerSecond = 30     autoPlay = false     upAxis = "Y" )

def Xform "AnimatedModel" {     def Xform "body"     {         double3 xformOp:translate.timeSamples = { ... }         uniform token[] xformOpOrder = ["xformOp:translate"]         ...     }     ... }

## See Also

### Animation

- [playbackMode](usd/playbackmode.md)