Export looped clip Topic is solved

[martimiz]

Hi all,

I've created a small walking cycle and now I want to quickly export it as a loop, say 5 times. As a newby, the only way I can figure is to copy all frames in all layers five times, but I feel there must be a simpler way I've not been able to find?

Would be so nice if there would be some (export)setting somewhere. like 'repeat: 5x'

Thanks, Martine

[slowtiger]

2 simple workarounds:

- create another layer and extend it to the frame count you want, or
- extend the last exposure of your cycle and use the faux-fixe method (see manual).

[D.T. Nethery]

My first thought was the same thing Slowtiger mentioned.

- create another layer and extend it to the frame count you want

Say you have a 12 drawing cycle ON 2's ... so it's a 24 frame cycle . Set it to loop.
Underneath make a new blank Anim layer an stretch it out to 120 frames (24 x 5 = 120)
So when you export this to a .MOV or .AVI it will repeat 5 times.

(click image to see larger)


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[martimiz]

Thanks Slowtiger and D.T.Nethery,

Adding an empty long layer active, and setting the other layers to loop does indeed work. Nice and quick! Only thing is it won't play nice with a CT layer.

The faux-fixe solution works fine with the CT layer - only it's not in the docs anymore. For anyone like me that's looking: in TVP 11 it is now called 'Repeat Images', found by rightclicking the exposure.

But anyway, I guess as there is no option that leaves the project intact anyway, working with a duplicate project and flattening/merging layers is probably best

Nevertheless: TVPaint rocks, I'm happy!!! Thanks again for your help guys

[slowtiger]

If you have Pro, you can always duplicate a clip and tweak one version for export.

[martimiz]

Thanks Slowtiger, I have Pro, so all is possible

[martimiz]

Getting back to this - I find myself exporting loops all the time, to play on (and send from) my iphone, meaning I have to (temporary) adapt my projects every time just for that.

So for me it would be great to have a feature like 'repeat <number>' in the export window... Or is that a nonsense feature, do you think?

[slowtiger]

It would already be nice if the "last frame" input field in export window would accept larger numbers than the last drawn frame in a clip, so if you have 12 frames set to repeat/loop, you could enter 120 and get a 10x repetition video file. (Just to catch accidental entering of too high numbers, an alert could come up if that value is more than, say, 500 frames than the current last frame. "Are you sure? Last frame set to 512. Discard / Confirm")

[martimiz]

Yessss that would work too - I even tried it again yesterday just to check I really didn’t miss anything...

Thought I’d make a feature request of it: http://www.tvpaint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=13184

you never know...

[martimiz]

wel... eh... and oops...

Found out that it is actually soooooo easy, and I knów I tried it before but I must have made a mistake then, because (and here it comes):

- set all layers to loop
- set outpoint to some frame in the future

[D.T. Nethery]

wel... eh... and oops...

Found out that it is actually soooooo easy, and I knów I tried it before but I must have made a mistake then, because (and here it comes):

- set all layers to loop
- set outpoint to some frame in the future

Good.

This should be added to the User Manual under Exporting. Because I think people do frequently have looped animation (such as a walk cycle) they would like to export so that on the .MOV file it will repeat , but without having to copy & paste the animation numerous times on the Timeline.

To export a repeated/looped action:
-Set all Layers to loop
- Set Mark-Out frame to however many times you want the animation to repeat.
(for example , a 24 frame walk-cycle, Set the walk cycle layer to Loop. Now set Mark-Out to 120. This will mean
that it repeats the 24 frame cycle 5 times upon exporting. Set Mark-Out to 192 means the 24 frame walk cycle will repeat 8 times, etc.)

Screen Shot 2020-01-13 at 1.18.03 PM.jpg (64.47 KiB) Viewed 212330 times

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[martimiz]

On a side note: you cannot set a CT layer to loop, so you need to convert (a duplicate) to anim first, but that is a small price to pay...

[daninski]

I use this all the time for looping, it's not what you're asking for but it's useful to know about so you don't have to slip layers to have things looping and boiling for animated elements of characters etc.

https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index ... eat-images

[deruji]

I just tried my hand at writing a script to automatically setup a layer for looping with the above information.
This will set markin and markout for you depending on how many loops you want and sets the layer to loop. You just need to manually export the clip and perhaps refresh the markout option.
Add it to your panel as a button and use when needed. Anyone can feel free to improve it.

Code: Select all

// Script to set layer Markout and Status for loop length

// Get the Layer variables
tv_LayerInfo [tv_layercurrentid]
PARSE Result layerDisplay layerPosition layerOpacity layerName layerType layerFirstFrame layerLastFrame layerPrelighttable layerPostlighttable selectable editable stencil

// Calculate values for later, assumes possible offset of layer start
Anim_Offset = layerFirstFrame - 1
Anim_Length = layerLastFrame - Anim_Offset

// Get number of Loops
Loop_Count = 0
Loop_Min = 1
Loop_Max = 10
Loop_Title = "How many Loops?"

tv_reqnum Loop_Count Loop_Min Loop_Max Loop_Title
PARSE Result Loop_Count Loop_Min Loop_Max Loop_Title

// Calculate Markout for length of the loop
Loop_Markout = (Anim_Length * Loop_Count) + Anim_Offset

tv_markin [0] ["set"]
tv_markout [Loop_Markout] ["set"]
tv_layerpostbehavior [tv_layercurrentid] ["repeat"]

[martimiz]

Nice! Simple but it works and it takes away the hassle of calculating where the mark out should be

Made me dive headfirst into George today - I've been a coder for so many years and had thought I might leave that behind for a change, but I guess not...