= Control flipbooks and renders in MPlay =

When you open a [flipbook|/anim/flipbook]  or [render|/rendering]  in
MPlay, you can use controls in the MPlay to control the generation of
the sequence to some extent.

tasks>>
    Cancel the flipbook/rendering:
        * In MPlay, press ((Esc)) or click the  [stop rendering button
          in the menu bar|mplay_menus] .

    Render the most important parts of the image first:
        * Click in the image area to control which tile in the image
          will be rendered next.

    Start a new sequence:
        * By default, new frames rendered from Houdini are appended to
          the current sequence. Click the  [start new sequence button in
          the menu bar|mplay_menus]  to begin a new sequence.

== Reusing MPlay instances ==

    MPlay can listen for renders and flipbook requests from Houdini.

    To have MPlay listen for flipbooks, start it with `mplay -K` or
    `mplay -flipbook`. To have MPlay listen for renders, start it with
    `mplay -k` (lowercase `k`) or `mplay -render`.

    A flipbook or render will automatically start an MPlay session if no
    MPlay session is listening for them.