Tight deadline question about creating a seamless loop

[Walter Soyka]

[Mike MacKenzie] “I’ve mainly tried doing this with position keyframes, trying to get the first and last to line up properly, but I cannot make it happen seamlessly.”

That’s your problem — if the first frame and last frame match precisely, then you’ll get a little stutter in the loop. You want the frame AFTER the last frame to match the first frame, so that the end leads back to the beginning.

Does that make sense?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Mike Mackenzie]

Thanks, but no, I understand that aspect. I think the problem lies with it being diagonal…I cannot get the lines to line up properly when they recycle.

Motion Graphics Designer / Art Director
Boston, MA

System:
Mac/Leopard
2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
10 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

[Mike Mackenzie]

Thanks but I don’t think that will work for me either. It’s not a text layer, and I cannot get two-minute ram previews.

Motion Graphics Designer / Art Director
Boston, MA

System:
Mac/Leopard
2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
10 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

[Walter Soyka]

Whether the lines are diagonal or not shouldn’t affect their loopability; the image just needs to have an end state that leads back to the initial state.

Can you post a screen shot to help us visualize your problem?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Brian Charles]

What about using the Offset Effect to animate?

[Mike Mackenzie]

I figured it out, based on your suggestion (not exactly what you said but it pointed me in the right direction).
Thanks everyone!

Motion Graphics Designer / Art Director
Boston, MA

System:
Mac/Leopard
2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
10 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

[Walter Soyka]

One potential downside to using Offset for building loops — it doesn’t work with the built-in motion blur. Any motion blur must be faked.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Mato Kokotic]

Why not use text layer in nested comp?
Bunch of non-serif IIIIs, scale font verticaly and horizontaly. Instead of Offset simply keyframe position (you can even add motion blur if prefered), nest it and rotate in master comp.

Downside is that you cannot do loop with Interpret Footage on nested comp (or can?), so i added simple expression.

AE CS5 project:

2212_linescrawl.aep.zip