How do you make a video loop

[sevver]

So, I am interested in knowing just how you make video loop backgrounds like the ones from digital juice? Seems like all the time I spend looking for them could be better spent making my own. What software do I need? know of any tutorials?

Another thing, do you know of any sites that offer free downloads?

[rev_65]

Check out this great little article by Chris & Trish Meyers on creating loops using Adobe After Effects. These techniques can be modified and used in most any NLE.

http://www.artbeats.com/pub/goodies/...for_a_loop.pdf

[cjlowe]

I once had a friend suggest to me a simple way to make any video loop, and I think it's a great idea. It goes like this.

First of all you have to have the finished video that you want to loop. Try to make the start and end point as similar as possible - for basics, let's say you have some time-lapse footage of clouds; try to pick the start and end points where it's overcast and the clouds are in a similar position.

Then what you do is pick a spot about mid-way on the timeline and split the video into two halves. You take the first half so it starts after the second half. What you now have is the original first and last frames of the video touching each other in the middle.

Now, apply a cross-fade transition between the two half-clips at the point where the first and last frames meet. Depending on your clip, you may need to make it a longer cross-fade to make it more subtle.

Since the frame which is now at the END of the video is the frame just before the one at the START of the video, the video now loops seamlessly! Congratulations; you've just made a looping clip!

[tedanderson]

I once did a tight zoomed in shot of a couple of rubber bouncing balls hitting the sidewalk. I parked the camera on a tripod and then I kept bouncing the balls in front of the camera lens over and over again.

When I went back to edit, I cut out all of the "dead" space where the balls were not in the process of entering/exiting the frame and kept about a half-second of the empty sidewalk on the front and back of my rendered clip. Now I can chain several copies of this clip together and it looks like I have a bunch of balls consistently bouncing into the frame over and over again.

[JHVideoGuy]

The stuff from Digital Juice and alot of other loop creators are probably using After Effects and a 3D software of their choice. In After Effects the foundation for a lot of generic motion loops is going to be Fractal Noise. It's a very deep effect you can use to create and loop some very interesting backgrounds. You then use other effects to color and style the video.

Here's a link to a free primer on creating backgrounds in AE at toolfarm

[worshipgal]

Check out this link from CMN

http://churchmedia.net/video-product...ideo-loop.html

[sempei13]

I wrote the tutorial above and it's exactly how Digital Juice Does it. If you watch, there's always a transitional element in their loops. It might be an object wipe (a wipe hidden behind something in the foreground) or something else, but doing this in multiple places of a multilayered project makes it even less noticeable.

Paul

[mci44]

In After Effects, there is often an "Evolution" setting in several effects. If you set a keyframe at the beginning and then go to the end of your timeline and set a keyframe to how many times you want it to loop, then check the "cycle" option below the Evolution option; it should loop the effect. The option is in the Fractal noise effect but also in many other AE FX so it's a pretty useful thing to know and can allow you to create some cool looping stuff.

Also, sometimes you can start an animated element one frame into your project, stop it at the next to the last frame... all you really need are the first and last frames to be the same so if you carefully control your timing you can really add a lot of elements to an animation and still make it loop.

Also, you were asking about freebies-- most of the big worship media sites, do a monthly freebie-- WHM, Sermonvideos, Sermonspice, etc. You just have to keep checking...

[Smob]

I've used the method that Chris suggests many times and you do it even in Windows Movie Maker, so it doesn't take an expensive NLE to to the trick. The key - make the start and ending scene as close together as you can make them. Othersise, use a long crossfade time.

[streamkoinonia]

I know this is a very very old post, but for anyone viewing this forum page from this point on, Brad Zimmerman from Church Media Design http://cmd.tv has a few great tutorials for creating loops in After Effects! I have a few up for free http://www.youtube.com/user/StreamKoinonia and vimeo.com/ministryfx

[ceddy]

Your loops should be complimentary to your video. They also need to be high quality! You can try to create your own video backgrounds, but unless you're a professional they are probably not going to look as good as they could have. You will also be wasting a lot of time you could have spent on other areas of creating your video. Buying loops that have already been made is a great way to save time, and even money.

[saltlakestudio]

There are some looping video backgrounds available for free on this site: Check this out to know more...

downloops.com