How to Loop animated movement ongoingly

[alexisbaydoun]

Hi guys,

Im trying to do a GIF of a music line that's ongoing (attaching references)

I want to be able to create a loop that infinitely moves toward the same direction.

Currently using the position i adjusted the animation from beginning to end, but once it starts again it starts from the beginning again, so there's no real loop-like feel of the GIF.

Any idea how i can do this?

Thanks

[Dave Merchant]

For starters if something is going to loop seamlessly, don't use easy-ease keyframes. The motion must be linear.

Second, you need your graphic to be symmetrical around the loop point (e.g. precompose two copies side by side and animate the 'join' from one side of the window to the other)

[Rick Gerard]

A loop expression isn't going to help you generate a looping gif file. You don't need more than one motion cycle.

If you want to make a seamless loop your start and end frame must be identical. Then you can just render an animated gif, or better yet render a lossless movie, import that into Photoshop and render your gif there. Your project has two problems. The first is that you have applied easing to the keyframes so the animation speeds up then slows down. The second problem is that the first and last frames are different. You'll have to edit your comp or your artwork so the first frame of the animation and the last frame are identical. You'll also have to set your animated gif to loop continuously when you export the gif. you won't want to export the Gif directly from AE unless you have spent some money on 3rd party tools for using AE to create web graphics. As I said, render a visually lossless movie with identical first and last frames then use Photoshop to turn the movie into a gif.

[Dave Merchant]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Rick+Gerard  wrote

If you want to make a seamless loop your start and end frame must be identical.

No - the end frame must be one frame before or you get two identical images in the sequence.

[OussK]

First you must follow Dave tips also You can use loop expression.

Check this link for more info about this expression https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/loop-expression-after-effects 

[Rick Gerard]

Dave - True, unless you use the loopOut() function with only 2 keyframes. The sample is nowhere close to being loopable. If I were designing an animated gif in AE or a sequence that I was going to loop I would:

1. Make the first and last frame of the animation identical
2. Go to the out point of the comp by pressing the O key with no layers selected
3. Step back 1 frame by pressing Ctrl/Cmnd +left arrow
4. Press N on the keyboard to set the work area out point to one frame before the end of the animation
5. Press Shift + Ctrl/Cmnd + X to set the comp length to the work area
6. Press Shift + Ctrl/Cmnd + / to add the comp to the render cue using the default lossless profile
7. Choose a destination for the movie
8. Render
9. Open the Rendered file in Photoshop then, if no timing or frame rate adjustments need to be made to any of the frames export the file as an animated GIF making sure that loop continuously was selected.

That's it.

If the looping animation was nothing more than position or rotation I would still make sure that the start and end frames were identical, then I would set the CTI to the last keyframe by using the K key, then press Ctrl/Cmnd + right arrow to move the CTI onbe fame past the out point, then select the last keyframe and drag it to the CTI's current position while holding down the shift key. This would take aou10 seconds.

It looks like the Music.AI layer (file) would be very easy to edit in Illustrator. All it would take is copying the right side of the artwork and then pasting it on the left end, then adjusting the position keyframes so the first and last frame are identical - or, if you want to fuss with the artwork a bunch

[Warren Heaton]

1. Go the first fame of your Comp and turn off the Position Time-vary Stopwatch for Layer 4 music.ai.
2. Assuming that Layer 4 is positioned at the horizontal center of the Comp, apply the Motion Tile effect to Layer 4 music.ai.
3. Under the Motion Tile effect, enable the Time-vary Stopwatch for Tile Center (while still at the first frame of the Comp).
4. Go to the last frame and change the current X value for Motion Tile to negative.  For example, if it is 960,430 at the first frame, change it to -960,430 at the last frame.  If you jump to the first frame and then to the last frame, the Comp should look the same.  If you Preview, Layer 4 music ai should move from left to right.
5. To create a clean loop cycle, nudge the second Tile Center keyframe so that it on the next frame after the last frame.

-Warren

[alexisbaydoun]

It worked guys, thank you!

I changed the animation type to Linear, and i made sure that the first frame is exactly the same as the last frame and worked like a charm 🙂 thanks!