Blend Frames for seamless loops in After Effects

I love this and have used it a lot over the last decade. I use it to create smooth animations from vector design image sequences. To create image sequences from your vector designs, make sure to check out my Stepper/Chaser tutorial. If you haven't tried it check it out here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/90725740

Tutorial Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfQstb6dw40

Project Files: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KslzaVq2iq3xPtFYUgY23TqiWHEo6TEH/view?usp=sharing

I use three effects and a Regular Expression to transform an image sequence into a seamless animation. It’s like a perfect version of the "Trails" effect in Resolume. Single frames from an image sequence are blended together. You can also adjust the loop length and slow it down!

Effects Used:

• CC Wide Time (blends frames; set the blending strength)

• Levels (boosts brightness)

• Black Solid (used in the background to enhance brightness)

• CC Toner (adds color variations)

Regular Expression in After Effects

In After Effects, you can use code to do powerful things. These are called expressions. You can experiment with parameters, variables, and functions to control almost anything. Let me know in the comments if you're interested in my favorite 10 expressions!

For this effect, we need to loop the clip with this simple expression. CC Wide Time requires the frames before and after the loop to make it seamless:

loopIn("cycle") + loopOut("cycle") - value;

How to Add the Expression:

• Enable Time Remapping in the layer.

• Go to Animation > Add Expression (or ALT-click the clock symbol to enter the expression).

Then, you can extend the Start Point and End Point of your clip, and it will loop.

After this, I add an Adjustment Layer to apply the effects CC Wide Time and Levels. In CC Wide Time, you can set the number of frames to be blended. This Adjustment Layer will affect all layers below it. It’s important to add a Black Solid as the background so you can boost the brightness effectively.

I like to duplicate the clips, add color variations, shift the loop slightly, and then blend everything together using the Screen Layer Blending Mode.

Have fun with your artworks! 😊

For this tutorial I created a moebius style eye vortex 3d model and exported polygons for Illustrator.





 

Update for the Stepper/Chaser Tutorial

Before exporting your shapes, you need to organize them in the correct order. The quickest way to do this is by creating a keyboard shortcut to send a selected element to the back. Then, you can systematically click through all your shapes to reorder them.

To make this process smoother, I recommend using a "separator" layer or object to distinguish between the elements you've already reordered and the ones remaining. Personally, I use Ctrl+D for this task, but you'll need to configure this shortcut in the Keyboard Shortcuts settings.