How To Create A Looping Animation

[budwzr]

Yeah, I know it sounds simple, but the footage is generated randomly and doesn't ever come back to matching frames.

Is there a blend technique? Or workaround?

[poisondeathray]

Yeah, I know it sounds simple, but the footage is generated randomly and doesn't ever come back to matching frames.

Is there a blend technique? Or workaround?

Not if it's randomly generated

[budwzr]

OK, thanks.

[Gavino]

How about just repeating the sequence as often as necessary with a dissolve between each repetition?

[intracube]

Yeah, I know it sounds simple, but the footage is generated randomly and doesn't ever come back to matching frames.

Is there a blend technique? Or workaround?

What software are you using?

After Effects can do seamless looped particle animations:

[Cornucopia]

There is one thing you CAN do for Random footage, but it depends alot on the type of footage:

Say you want to loop 30 seconds out to 2 minutes. You take 15 seconds (and 1 frame) of your footage (IOW, ~1/2 the length), and REVERSE motion. Then you drop the 1st and last frames of the reverse motion. Then add the reverse back-to-back checkerboarding with the original clip.

B= reverse A
A+B+A+B+A+B+A+B

Like I said, really only works with certain types of footage. If it is already periodic or linear motion in either translational or rotational ways, it will probably be too obvious that it's a reverse. Otherwise, you can often get by with this cheat.

HTH,
Scott

[budwzr]

Great ideas, but alas I have to take i-Cube's advice and create the original as a loop.

I'm not using AE, but similar software.

Thanks. (Donke Schitt)

[Gavino]

Say you want to loop 30 seconds out to 2 minutes. You take 15 seconds (and 1 frame) of your footage (IOW, ~1/2 the length), and REVERSE motion. Then you drop the 1st and last frames of the reverse motion. Then add the reverse back-to-back checkerboarding with the original clip.

I thought of that too, but looking at the original clip (which seems now to have been deleted) there are several rotating motions all in the same direction, so the reversing would look too obvious at the switchovers.

[budwzr]

Sorry I deleted the sample, didn't expect any more responses. I put it back in the first post.

[intracube]

Great ideas, but alas I have to take i-Cube's advice

You say that as if taking advice from me is a bad thing!

[budwzr]

Hahaha, heck no. The "alas" here refers to ME not thinking to do it as a loop at creation.

Example: "He was right, to my chagrin. Now I will have to do over".

[intracube]

Hahaha, heck no. The "alas" here refers to ME not thinking to do it as a loop at creation.

Example: "He was right, to my chagrin. Now I will have to do over".

lol, it's ok I knew what you meant.

But it'll probably be a challenge translating that tutorial to other programs. I tried with Blender, but it's particle system is either 'too' random, or not random at all.

I managed to fake something similar without using particles at all, but that method has its own limitations.

Gavino's suggestion of crossfading would probably work well with videos like yours, as long as the fades are long (several seconds).

[aedipuss]

does it really have to be a loop? couldn't you just create it to the exact total time you need?

[budwzr]

What software are you using? After Effects can do seamless looped particle animations....

Yes, that tute explains it. Actually, the method is a workaround. AE doesn't actually HAVE a "make loop" function.

AFA the method translating to other software, I think the important key is that the loop must be EXACTLY the same length as the particle life. That way you get a black frame at the end.

[budwzr]

.... couldn't you just create it to the exact total time you need?

Yes, but often these things are just an element of something else. Like a spinning helicopter blade loop could be any length so you could reuse it and never have to make it again.

The problem of looping randomly generated content is not so easy as the helicopter blade, yeah?

[aedipuss]

random is a pesky thing...

[poisondeathray]

AFA the method translating to other software, I think the important key is that the loop must be EXACTLY the same length as the particle life. That way you get a black frame at the end.

Don't you mean the loop has to be longer than particle life, so there is overlap of birth & death ?

The beginning and end match, but note this isn't a true loop unless the particle generator uses the same random seed (in some plugins called "seed", or "evolution", or "cycle" - but really no generator is truly "random"). He alluded to this in the video - but this means you will get problems with certain types of animated loops

[budwzr]

The tute was saying the true "end" wasn't until the black frame I think. I caught what he was doing right away, easy enough to understand, but like you say, does that only apply to certain types of animations or global?

I think I'll watch it again......after I eat this bigass sandwich.....

[poisondeathray]

The tute was saying the true "end" wasn't until the black frame I think. I caught what he was doing right away, easy enough to understand, but like you say, does that only apply to certain types of animations or global?

I think I'll watch it again......after I eat this bigass sandwich.....

Actually no, in that example: from 0-5 seconds the generator emits, but 5-7 seconds the remaining particles die off, from 7+ there should be nothing (because particle life is 2 seconds, and the emitter stopped at 5 seconds). It "looks" like it's looping because the generator is set to zero to begin (no particles), that overlaps with the tail end of dying particles on the duplicated layer (so as particle generator starts up, there is overlap with the dying particles, otherwise there would be "black" nothingness). Thus, the loop length has to be longer than particle life.

The potential problems occur when you use certain custom emitters and particles , physics calculations, and 3d space when you animate emitters. For some particle effects, the overlap area just won't look right - in those cases it's actually better just to use a long animation

[budwzr]

Oh, I get it now. The emitter is set up with a ramp up and taper off behavior that gets trimmed and composited later. What a hassle!, but at least the newburgs won't be able to fathom it.

[poisondeathray]

Well there are other ways to do it, but none of them are perfect, they are all workarounds and have potential issues. But by definition, "random" means you will unlikely get the animation to loop seamlessly, because it will never match up (or likelihood very low that all the random birth/death of various particles will match up on its own at any point)

All that's required for a loop is that the very last frame is one frame before frame 0. So you can take a longer animation, cut layer in half (split the layer) move 1st half to the end and 2nd half to the beginning . So because you are actually using the exact same animation and breaking it up, it will loop (the end is 1 frame before the beginning), but you can have problems with the overlap point in the middle ; again - depending on the type of animation, particles used, and emitter type/characteristics. Thus it's not a true loop like where you have non random, linear footage

[budwzr]

Reversing it helps a little: