After Effects Tutorial – Loop Fractal Noise

Fractal Noise is one of the most useful effects available in Adobe After Effects. Since the pattern is generate randomly, you might be wondering how you could loop it. Good news: it’s simple to do!

With fractal noise added to a layer, set a beginning and ending Evolution keyframe. For example, set 0 at the beginning of your timeline, and 1 at the end. With these keyframes set, twirl down Evolution Options in the Effects Control panel and select Cycle Evolution. Once you select that, your fractal noise will readjust and you should notice that your end keyframe matches your beginning keyframe.

I would imagine matching the Cycle (in Revolutions) value to your ending Evolution keyframe value would be good practice (this value specifies the number of revolutions the cycle makes before a repeat), but you may not see a difference if you do.

The final step is to move out your final Evolution keyframe by one frame. This is because technically your first and last keyframe are matching now, so you are showing the same frame twice. Extending out the Evolution keyframe will avoid that, although depending on the speed of your Evolution it may be difficult to notice.

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