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Activity Forums Apple Motion Random Cell Sources?

  • Random Cell Sources?

    Posted by Quartet4 on August 18, 2006 at 12:47 pm

    Is it possible to have a folder of images be a source for one of the replicators? I’m trying to use one called “Box Random In” iirc, but can only specify one image at a time. I want it to pick random images from inside the folder as the object source instead of using the same single image. Is this something you can do in Motion?

    Adolfo Rozenfeld replied 20 years ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Adolfo Rozenfeld

    August 21, 2006 at 7:09 am

    Sure. The easiest way is to turn the images in your folder into a numbered sequence. You can do this quickly, without the pain of manually renaming files, by using Automator. The Rename Finder Items action in Automator allows you to quickly batch rename all those images. You just need to choose the “make sequential” option and also enable the option to add a fixed number of zeros. Drag the images to Automator before the Rename Finder items action, hit play and you’re done. After that, you import the image sequence in Motion and use that as the source for the replicator. Uncheck the Play Frames checkbox so each cell won’t loop continously but rather show a single image from the sequence. Check the Random Start Frame option so that each cell contains a different image, taken randomly from the sequence.

    Adolfo Rozenfeld
    Buenos Aires – Argentina
    https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
    adolfo(AT)adolforozenfeld.com

  • Quartet4

    August 21, 2006 at 10:24 pm

    Thanks Adolfo! That worked beautifully!

  • Adolfo Rozenfeld

    August 22, 2006 at 2:08 am

    No problem.
    Automator and Motion, two beautiful things, aren’t they?
    The same tasks, five years ago, would have taken a full day of repetitive manual work, spent in terms of both preparing files and building the design.

    Adolfo Rozenfeld
    Buenos Aires – Argentina
    https://www.adolforozenfeld.com
    adolfo(AT)adolforozenfeld.com

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