-
movie loop from a different point
hello all. I was wondering if there is a way i can have my rendered movie play to the end then jump to a different point in the time and resume playing/looping from that point till the end? Appreciate any feedback and help, job is for a client.
-
8 Replies
-
Hi Rooben,
Set your composition to your desired end length.
Duplicate your video layer.
Trim the heads of your 2nd layer to your starting point.
Set the new layer at the tails of your first layer.Enable Time remapping on your second layer.
Add the expression “loopOut()” without quotes to the time remap property.
Extend the tails of your time remapped clip to the duration of your comp-For more information on the loopOut expression check out this tutorial-
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/ebberts_dan/layer_looping.php-Andy
https://www.chiselindustries.com
-
it depends on what the client is looking for…
you can make a footage layer loop back to any point you want and continue that loop for as long as your comp is… but that is only within ae. if the client is looking for a 3-point loop to be used elsewhere, then i comes down to their other device… ex. if it is a lower third that has an animation effect in, then loops after the in and that needs to play back live through an on-air device, then their on-air device needs to be able to do a 3-point loop. i guess i’m trying to say that you can’t render a file that automatically loops back at a specific point, it requires hardware that will do that.
if it is within ae, an easy way to do it is to enable time remapping (select footage layer or nested comp, then choose layer>time>time remapping). then choose animation>add expression and type the following expression:
loopOutDuration(type = “cycle”, duration = 1)
the ‘duration’ value is in seconds and counts backwards from the end of the layer… so a value of 1 will skip back 1 second and continue looping that last 1 second. modify that value as needed. now you can extend the outpoint of that layer for as long as the comp is.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
thank u all for responding. I did learn a couple of things there but I guess I need to be more clear about what i have and what i need to end up with.
In my comp I have an image with the vegas effect applied to it. Text and other images fade in over time while the vegas effect plays on. Client wants this to loop back right after the final text appears and keep looping from that point on. Text and other images stay on. Now this needs to be output to flash, so i usually output to flv and in flash output to swf, get better control as well as smaller files that way and better quality too. It seems a simple gotoAndPlay command in flash wouldnt do it, keeps coming up glitchy, so i thought maybe i can go back to AE and have the loop done in AE somehow. -
If I were you I would keep playing with it in Flash… from what you’ve described, you should definitely be able to use some simple Actionscript in flash to jump back to different points on the timeline. This would be beneficial both in making the file size smaller (as you don’t need to render out as much video) and also more customisable.
If there are other factors that REALLY prevent this being an option, why don’t you just render your AE movie, re-import it and cut out the section you want to play again? Not an elegant solution but will work, and is very quick and easy, particularly if it’s just for this one occasion you need it.
The solutions suggested with LoopOut are good, and it’s worth learning about that expression.
-
I tried the loopout instructions but it wouldnt give me the result that i needed, for that matter it didnt make much of a difference not sure why.
For the cutting out method not sure how, animation needs to start from the beginning then just loop from where the text + other images are fully up. The image with the vegas effect sits behind everything else. -
the loopOutDuration expression will only work within after effects… say you have an animation that is 6 seconds long. the first second is the effect-in and the last 5 seconds is the loop. you want that animation effect-in and continue to loop for 30 seconds.
putting that animation into a 30 second comp, enabling time remapping and adding the expression loopOutDuration(‘cycle’, duration = 5) will make the animation play out with the 1 second effect-in and then loop the last 5 seconds for the length of the comp — note you may need to extend the endpoint of the animation for the length of the comp.
this, however, will just allow you to render a 30 second animation that you will then take to flash… to my knowledge, the expression would not transfer to another application even if you imported the project into another piece of software — maybe adobe’s dynamic link feature would prove me wrong, but that’s something i don’t have and i can’t test…
since it sounds like you need this 3-point-loop to happen in flash, you will need to create it in flash, or create an animation that is long enough for what you need.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Kevin I truly appreciate your post. Your second post helped me figure what i was doing wrong with the expression itself. So now the loopout expression in correctly utilized and working smoothly within AE. That, and the time remap feature, helped me shorten the length of the animation (i shortened the comp and remapped 2nd keyframe to half the comps length to maintain the same speed) renders faster now 🙂
Alas the problem in flash persists, i know thats irrelevant to this post, still cant figure why there is a pause right before it loops..starting to suspect it has to do with the flv format.
Either way i appreciate the input by everyone. If anyone has any idea how to do this please let me know, i also have a post in the flash forum. cheers -
I just updated the flash post that i had, this is just for those who may come across this problem and are looking for answers. So I got the AE part to work correctly but the flash part was doing that pesky pause before each loop. I realized that flash inserts an extra still frame at the end of my movie upon import, which is what caused the slight pause. Hope this helps someone out there one day. Thanks for all the replies.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up