Creating a seamless loop using fractal noise

[bionicgirlny]

HI there,

I am on the latest and greatest AE and have troubles getting my fractal noise animation to loop perfectly.

I pretty much followed every video on how to do this I found on the web...

What I have: 30s composition at 30fps

Here is what I tried:

1) Keyframe approach: 

- Set first and last keyframe of the Evolution property. 1st: 0 evolutions. Last: 8x +0.0 evolution

- Having Evolution Cycle checked and set to "1"

- Followed instructions to move out the last frame by one frame (didn't help)

2) Expression approach:

- Added the following expression to the evolution property: time*100

while having Evolution Cycle checked and set to "1"

3) Have the following expression on the Evolution property:

loopTime = 1;

speedMultiplier = 0.1;

revolutions = (time / loopTime) * speedMultiplier; revolutions * 360;
and having Evolution Cycle checked and set to "1"

Also tried unchecking Evolution Cycle.

Note: The fractal noise effect exists on the main timeline and is not nested.

Please advise and even better if you have a few minutes to do a quick video recording of the steps, that would be immensly appreciated! THANK YOU!

[Dan Ebberts]

Your first method worked perfectly for me. What issues are you seeing?

[bionicgirlny]

It just doesn't seem to loop seamlessly once the animation is done. It seems to start at a different place (not at 0). Sigh. Did you use the move last keyframe one frame up method or just have the last keyframe on the end?

[bionicgirlny]

Ideally I would like to use expressions to be more flexible. So am curious to hear solutions if anyone has any? Thanks so much!

[Dan Ebberts · Accepted solution]

OK, I got rid of the keyframes and added this evolution expression:

time*8*360/thisComp.duration

to get 8 revolutions over the comp duration, and it also loops perfectly.

[bionicgirlny]

Thanks so much, will try this right away. Do I keep the "Cycle Evolution box checked (on) for this to work? Thanks!

[Dan Ebberts]

Yes.

[bionicgirlny]

Thanks! Sorry, but do I need to enter 8 for "Cycle (in Revolutions) to match the expression or does that stay "1"? This property confuses me. Thanks!

[Dan Ebberts]

Leave it at 1, which says to loop the whole 2880 degree (8 x 360) evolution just once over the duration of the comp.

[bionicgirlny]

Ok I did that but it's still not looping: You can download the sample here:

https://we.tl/t-3GtXMlDbKa. I viewed it in both the browser (set player to loop) and inside the Quicktime plater (also set to loop) an there is a hickup when it restarts and there is no smooth transition.

[bionicgirlny]

The first and the endframe are also not the same which they should be for a seamless transition.

[Dan Ebberts]

Have you animated any of the other settings (particularly the Transform settings)? That would mess things up.

[bionicgirlny]

Nope. None of the other settings are animated 😞

[Dan Ebberts]

What's going on with Offset Turbulence?

[bionicgirlny]

Aaaargh! Yes! That was the culprit! That's what 4 hours of sleep do to you, you don't see the forest for the trees! Thanks so much for troubleshooting Dan!

[Dan Ebberts]

I just slid the last keyframe one frame to the right (beyond the end of the comp), but it actually looked pretty good even before I did that.