Looping Clouds

Sunday, November 11, 2007 by Pugboy | Discussion: Animated Wallpapers

I am not a graphics artist, and do not want to spend money on CS3 or Photoshop, so is there any way to create a looping cloud effect, so that clouds move in the background of an avi or mpeg?

Thanks!
11 Reply 11 Referrals
Pugboy
Reply #1 Sunday, November 11, 2007 6:33 PM
Also, any good codec you would recommend?

TheMasterBaron
Reply #2 Sunday, November 11, 2007 8:32 PM
Instead of Photoshop, I suggest: Gimp

I let Google find a free 3D renderer: Blender

Google also says this is a free video effects tool: Jahshaka

Let us know how these tools work for you and good luck!

I know ffdshow has a free MPEG2 encoder.

Pugboy
Reply #3 Wednesday, November 14, 2007 12:11 AM
I got the codec, and I have used Blender and Gimp... Let me check out Jahshaka now..

Thanks!

chaorendabusi
Reply #4 Saturday, November 17, 2007 7:46 PM
Why don't you download a Creative Suite CS3? big savings man! it's worth like a thouthand dollars and you get it for free.

Tripdog
Reply #5 Saturday, November 17, 2007 10:17 PM
cs3 and bitTorrent= free and alot of other great programs...you people out there making these sweet dreams for free for us users, you need all the breaks you can get.....

Neil Banfield
Reply #6 Thursday, November 22, 2007 11:33 AM

Please do not suggest users pirate other companies software.


Pugboy
Reply #7 Thursday, November 22, 2007 3:06 PM
Yes, it is illigal, and I do not want to risk viruses on my new computer. Any free tools, or any tutorials (I guess for any program, if it is free or not.)?

Excalpius
Reply #8 Thursday, November 22, 2007 4:05 PM
As far as your root question, how to loop a random effect like clouds, the simplest way is to create a long cloud sequence, then cross dissolve the end over the beginning over many seconds - preferably in a place where the clouds are in roughly similar spots. Since clouds are semi-transparent in areas, if you do this over a long enough spot and a long enough dissolve, you can make the transition invisible to the naked eye.

Pugboy
Reply #9 Saturday, November 24, 2007 1:45 PM
Uh... Can you explain this in further detail? I am really new to this graphics stuff...

TheMasterBaron
Reply #10 Saturday, November 24, 2007 2:48 PM
What Excalpius is saying is that you start with non-looping clouds. Say 30 seconds. You the CUT the first 8 seconds of the video out and fade it in on top of the last 8 seconds of video. The start of the fade-in (8 seconds from the end) should look as similar to the start of your original cloud video as possible so that when you fade in the beginning that you had cut, it's not as obvious. Since the end of the video has the beginning of the video faded-in, it will loop.

The number of seconds I chose are random, you need to decide how many seconds look best to remove from the beginning to fade-in on the end.

Hope this helps

Pugboy
Reply #11 Saturday, November 24, 2007 6:58 PM
Ah... Ok, thanks!

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