I am currently trying to add a smoke effect to a shot that has 245 frames. I need to make the smoke start at frame 192. I have two questions below that I hope anyone can shed some light on:

1. Is there a way for Houdini to understand that frame 192 is frame 1 as far as simulation goes? For example, I can't even adjust the size of my smoke container unless I'm in frame 1. ( The shot is pretty complicated because the camera is moving, so what the camera sees in frame 1 is different compared to frame 192. Hence, resizing the container in frame 1 is futile.)

2. The other alternative that I have in mind… is there an easy way for frame 192 to become frame 1 (as far as the animation of all objects in the scene is concerned)? If this is easily achievable, I can just then start the effects at frame 1. Though, I reckon that this is pretty messy because I might need to go through the graph editor for each animated controller/object).

Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks!

each DOP network has Start Frame and Scale Time parameter

then you can use $SF (simulation frame) and $ST (simulation time) inside that network to get frame and time relative to that Start Frame and scaled by Scale Time

you can also check Creation Frame Specifies Simulation Frame checkbox on your RBD ans Smoke Objects so that they will be created on you offsetted frame

so set Start Frame to 192 and check that parameter