is there a quick way to stairstep loops in After effects?

[djmattyz]

im creating seemless visual effects loops for a project

when i have a short loop created i want to make it repeat a few times and have some changing graphics overlayed ontop

so...

is there a quick way to copy / paste and stair-step the loops in the timeline so that they connect end to end without any gaps?   because moving it around manually is a bit tedious

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

That's what the Sequence Layers kexframe assistant is for (as are several scripts out there that stagger layers in all kinds of ways).

Mylenium

[djmattyz]

youv no idea how much time you have just saved me today

[Dave_LaRonde]

If you'd rather not have a ton of layers in the comp for the looping animation, do this:

Render out the o0riginal loop & reimport into AE.

Highlight the new clip and go File>Interpret>Main.  Find the Looping value and loop it as many times as you want.

Now when you add the clip to the comp, it comes in as one layer, but it loops... well, as many times as you told AE to loop it.

[RemusBlueFX]

Why don't you loop the layer using the loop expression:

loop_out(“cycle”,0)

If you're unsure on how to use it, here's how to add it:

https://bluefx.net/loop-animation-effects/

[seejayjames2017]

Old post I know, but a good reason not to do the Expression (as you'll see in other threads) is the last-frame-is-blank issue which needs a workaround that is not intuitive. AE really needs a simple workaround for this, it has caused a lot of people a lot of headaches. (That said, time remapping and the Expressions are powerful once you deal with the nagging last-frame issue.)

The alternative is to duplicate your pre-comp however many times you need, use Sequence Layers, and pre-compose that.