looping particles in motion 4 don't loop in 5

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Level 1

140 points

looping particles in motion 4 don't loop in 5

This is a little hard to explain so bear with me.

I've long been creating looping particle emitters in Motion 4 using the trick where you set a constant birth rate that suddenly drops to 0 final keyframe at the end, duplicate the element, slide the duplicate element so that the final keyframe is at frame 0, extend the length of the element so that the dying particles for the duplicate creates the overlap for the loop. In other words, the end of original element is exactly the same as frame 0 of the copy. Works great as long as you don't add any randomness like gravity or wiggles.

HOWEVER, this method doesn't work in Motion 5! If I bring in a project that I've gotten to loop nicely in 4, it's goofed up in 5. When the element is duplicated, their endings are exactly the same. As soon as I slide the copy backwards on the timeline, its ending changes. The emitter shouldn't be different depending on where it falls on the timeline but in Motion 5 it is. I don't know how to fix this!! Looping backgrounds are my bread and butter so I may not be able to move to Motion 5. Before you suggest the FCP overlapping movies trick, I've done that in the past and it's usually not as good looking and fast as the method I've been using.

Here's a link to the project in 4 so you can compare them in 4 and 5

http://www.muellermultimedia.com/images/example.motn

Any ideas on why 5 is different now?

Posted on Jan 13, 2012 1:08 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Patrick Sheffield

Level 7

29,175 points

Jan 24, 2012 2:09 PM in response to Lauri

Hey Lauri, I've downloaded your project and I see what you're doing - very clever. And I have to say that it's the first project I've had that actually ran faster in Mo5 than Mo4. I was only getting 7fps in Mo4, but 30 in Mo5.

What I did in Motion 5 to get it to loop properly is to extend the length of the project by 300 frames, slide everything downstream, so the initial period doesn't take place before the project starts, then set my play range to start 300 frames later.

So it loops, but the working part is within the range of the timeline.

Here's the modified example:

http://howtocheatinmotion.com/viewing/example5.zip

best,

Patrick

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Answer 2

Chandosx

Level 1

25 points

Jan 24, 2012 3:15 PM in response to Lauri

Holy awesome! This is so unbelievably helpful!! I'm glad you asked this question, as I didn't ever think of doing it this way. Genius!

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Answer 3

Lauri Author

Level 1

140 points

Jan 24, 2012 3:15 PM in response to Patrick Sheffield

wow, Patrick, I'm impressed you came up with that solution, thank you. BUT, isn't that kind of a strange behavior to have to deal with? Now I have to wonder: Is it always 300 frames in or does it depend on the settings and type of emitter and requires a bunch of experimentation when it used to be so simple? I see your ending keyframe is past the endframe a certain number of frames so there's another unknown value to determine. Why does resetting the startframe make a difference when everything else is the same? Have they made the pre-0 frames a dead zone that nothing works within-- because I've had other things start in the negative timezone to accomplish certain timings. And, why do I have to give up being about to use the "jump to start" button to quickly check my looping and other project duties? Nice that there's a way to make it loop but it's just not practical and a bug that needs to be addressed before I can switch to 5. Guess I have to submit a note to Apple.

Thank you for your help!

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Answer 4

Lauri Author

Level 1

140 points

Jan 24, 2012 3:35 PM in response to Chandosx

Thanks but I can't take credit for the technique. I stumbled upon a tutorial on someone's site years ago and it has been a godsend for easily making seamless emitter loops. So sad it doesn't work the same in 5 😟

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Answer 5

Jan 24, 2012 3:36 PM in response to Lauri

You're welcome.

I don't generally use Motion 5 as it's lost too much and the main gains are in the smart template interface to FCX, which I can't use to do my job. I think I used 300 frames simply because I slid the particle emitter elements forward until they were within the timeline proper.

I also noted that the end, instead of looping exactly, was repeating a few frames (I didn't investigate why). So I slid back the end point until it looped - I thought it would be only one frame, but I think it was 3...

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Answer 6

Jan 25, 2012 6:36 AM in response to Patrick Sheffield

Have either of you tried cloning the emitter rather than duplicating it? I haven't but it's a thought..

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Answer 7

Lauri Author

Level 1

140 points

Jan 25, 2012 9:28 AM in response to Mark Spencer4

Hi, Mark, your solution to worked! I was skeptical because I'm not duplicating the emitter in the v4 method and you can't clone an element. At first, cloning the emitter, sliding it over and extending the end didn't work because the extension was just a freeze frame of the original ending frame. But, if I extended the end of the emitter past the 0 birthrate keyframe before I cloned it, the extended clone included the decay and I could use it to overlap. Thanks for the solution!!

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Answer 8

Jan 25, 2012 12:07 PM in response to Mark Spencer4

Interesting, Mark... the first response I'd written up (before actually opening the project), was to suggest using a clone layer to provide the looping, but then I thought - hey, open the project before you start speculating...

Clones are our friend! 😉

So handy!

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Answer 9

Lauri Author

Level 1

140 points

Jan 25, 2012 12:24 PM in response to Patrick Sheffield

What I don't get is why a clone acts differently than a duplicate. I thought clones were simply a convenience so that you could edit key parameters in the original and have them automatically migrate to the clones. Now clones seem to have a new significance.

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Answer 10

Lauri Author

Level 1

140 points

Jan 25, 2012 12:48 PM in response to Lauri

Hey, Patrick, just Googled you and had no idea TWO Motion powerhouses were helping me 🙂 Thank you for your assistance and I'm sure I'll be bending your's and Mark's ear repeatedly in the future as I progress in my career. Hope you guys don't mind helping a grasshopper out occasionally.

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Answer 11

Jan 25, 2012 12:53 PM in response to Lauri

We were both grasshoppers once :-)

We like helping other grasshoppers - and we find it best to always think like a grasshopper...

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Answer 12

Jan 26, 2012 7:54 AM in response to Mark Spencer4

Indeed... We were grasshoppers when Motion was a grasshopper...

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