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howbehindwow

@howbehindwow / howbehindwow.tumblr.com

Seamless Loops | Original Content | CG Compositing
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Hi there, really cool work! I occasionally experiment with looping animations as well, and so far haven't been able to loop dynamics like particles, like you did with the volcano. Any hints how that works? Or did you create the loop in post?

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Hello, thanks for your question... for the volcano loop, it’s a hybrid of both. The lava chunks have almost a dozen identical particle systems baked back to back, while the smoke is actually just a continuous simulation with a slightly sneaky linear crossfade in post. The particles are just carefully timed to fit frame-by-frame with the crossfade, so that the lava doesn’t give it away too obviously. 

That loop honestly became a pain to work with because I had to re-bake the smoke sim several times to get it to feel just right, and the calculation took about an hour. Simulations can be tricky to work with, especially when they’re behaving unexpectedly, so I usually try to keep the variables as simple as possible.

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