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Still Animated Video Loop App?

edited August 2018 in Other

Hey, I know I must have something that already does this... but I've already run through my motion apps and none of them appear to do this very simple, basic thing.

I've got 2-3 still images. They were taken at night of neon signs on the street in downtown Las Vegas. Each taken from the same spot and framed the same. Some lights are on in some, some are off. I wanted to just drop a still frame on a timeline, then a sequential one right next to it, same for the third. Wanted to align them all, then hit play and watch the lights flicker on/off in the images. Then, export a video loop or looping GIF anim. Would like to make the canvas portrait or landscape.

Easy-Peasy right?

I've tried my easy Flipaclip animation app and it won't let me import stills. Only video. I've tried others that won't let me adjust canvas size, or playback speed.

Could likely make Lumafusion do something like this, but I don't think it exports looping GIF anims.

Anyone know of a good animation app for just messing around with animating still images and cutouts of still images stacked on layers?

I'm guessing Core Animator is what I likely need for this... but wanted to run it by the hive to see if maybe I already have something that does this. Maybe the Tumblr app?

Comments

  • As a two-step solution you could arrange your stills in LumaFusion and export a short video which you then import to an app like Giffer (import Video) and output an animated gif.

  • edited August 2018

    @Proppa said:
    As a two-step solution you could arrange your stills in LumaFusion and export a short video which you then import to an app like Giffer (import Video) and output an animated gif.

    I could do the same thing in Flipaclip, but that seems like more effort than it should be. Doesn't it seem like most animation apps should be able to import a simple still image?

    Your solution is good though. Thanks! I could just drop them into Lumafusion, export video, then import video into Flipaclip. As the movie imports into Flipaclip it converts it to individual frames on a timeline, I can then just delete all the frames I don't need, then either export a GIF anim, PNG sequence, or movie.

    I bet Core Animator would do this with a fair amount of ease, and even export HTML5 to embed in a site if I wanted. Even supports 4K export. Don't have it yet. But the overall description reads like it does pretty much everything I'm looking for.

  • Does anyone here have and use Core Animator?

    The site forum for the app hasn't had any activity for a year and almost as long for their twitter/facebook accounts.

    I contacted the dev and he said it's kind of temporarily back burnered due to lack of enough downloads. That their desktop version likely won't get any more attention, but he was hopeful that the iOS version might at some point.

    This looks to have some of the most "pro" level features and output options than any other app of it's type in the appstore, so it's kinda tragic that they can't sell enough of this at such a low price point.

    Of those of you who have it (I know @jakoB_haQ has it and uses it) is it a solid enough app that you'd buy it again even if there's a chance that it's no longer being developed anymore? Does it seem stable enough to withstand the average iOS update?

    And, if you have and know Core Animator... but have found something else on iOS that does the same sort of stuff, only better or with solid developer support... care to share?

  • I picked up Core Animator a while ago after watching some videos and seeing the potential it had. To be honest I don’t know if I would buy it again. It does depend on what your user-case and previous knowledge is but I just find certain things missing and other things just don’t work in a way that is intuitive for me. Can you achieve what you a looping gif with a few different images.. I’d say yes, but I would be pulling out hair by the end of it. I think the biggest problem is the timeline.. firstly it doesn’t work in frames but instead is time-based. Each layer isn’t clearly exposed, there is no audio import and scrubbing, and there is no set timeline length. You can’t easily move frames on the timeline once they’re keyed and you can key a first frame as is but have to move it first. The different easing options are a nice touch but are actually more of a hinderance when you want to make slight changes to motion. All in all I would say don’t waste your money if you want to do much more than very simple movements in a photo or video, I have had an easier time getting text animated ontop of video in Lumafusion to be honest. For importing images as an animated sequence and exporting a gif.. go with Rough Animator. It’s super straightforward to do. One limitation with the gifs though is they seem to have a limitation to the amount of color information sometimes so your gifs can come out a bit trippy if they are over complicated. I will give it a try with some photos and let you know.

  • edited August 2018

    @Keenan said:
    I picked up Core Animator a while ago after watching some videos and seeing the potential it had. To be honest I don’t know if I would buy it again. It does depend on what your user-case and previous knowledge is but I just find certain things missing and other things just don’t work in a way that is intuitive for me. Can you achieve what you a looping gif with a few different images.. I’d say yes, but I would be pulling out hair by the end of it. I think the biggest problem is the timeline.. firstly it doesn’t work in frames but instead is time-based. Each layer isn’t clearly exposed, there is no audio import and scrubbing, and there is no set timeline length. You can’t easily move frames on the timeline once they’re keyed and you can key a first frame as is but have to move it first. The different easing options are a nice touch but are actually more of a hinderance when you want to make slight changes to motion. All in all I would say don’t waste your money if you want to do much more than very simple movements in a photo or video, I have had an easier time getting text animated ontop of video in Lumafusion to be honest. For importing images as an animated sequence and exporting a gif.. go with Rough Animator. It’s super straightforward to do. One limitation with the gifs though is they seem to have a limitation to the amount of color information sometimes so your gifs can come out a bit trippy if they are over complicated. I will give it a try with some photos and let you know.

    Thanks for the detailed reply! That's kind of what I was looking for. I'd really like to find THE neare "pro/premier" motion app for the iPad and this one seemed to tick a lot of boxes. But some of the hinderances you cite, would likely bug me too. I'd still drop the $6 on it if at least I knew it was being maintained. But it seems like it's almost nearly been abandoned at this point.

    Will have another look at rough Animator too. thx!

  • Rough Animator is the closest thing on iOS to a basic version of the old Macromedia Flash program for desktop.
    It has a simple timeline editor, multiple layers, and works with photos or short videos with lower frame rates.

    I agree with @Keenan about Core Animator, it isn’t very intuitive and feels quite limiting.
    That may not be the case for everyone, but if you’ve ever used Flash to animate you’ll probably feel more comfortable using Rough Animator.

    AnimationPro can do everything Core Animator can and more, it’s a better alternative if you want to do a similar style of animation. I believe it has a feature to animate faces based on camera input, something similar to Adobe Character Animator for desktop. The developer has made some good tutorials as well.

    Rough Animator is my favorite for most frame by frame stuff, or short rotoscope style animations.

  • Ok so Rough Animator sucks at exporting decent gifs. Unless it’s a black and white line drawing the colors get totally whack on export. I tested a simple sequence of three imported drawings which I had actually previously made into a gif in photoshop for a paying client so I know it does work.. but the gif export from Rough Animator sadly had a few ugly artifacts. Then I tested a sequence of photos and as you can imagine that export looked horrendous..way too much information for it to handle obviously. It’s a shame and something I should contact the developer about as it’s something really useful but sadly lacking on iOS. I don’t want to have to go into photoshop just to put a little gif together but I haven’t found anything yet that lets you take a few images, time out the increments and export a gif.. you’d think it would be easy. Rough Animator is the best solution I have found but then the gif export doesn’t exactly work properly. Back to the drawing board. It’s a pity Affinity Photo or Designer can’t have a timeline for exporting gifs since they’re kinda a photoshop clone. I’ll see if I can try and do a test in Core Animator tomorrow, it seems like the gif exports actually export properly but there’s just figuring out a painless way to reveal the frames.

  • I'm not sure I'm writing off Core Animator just yet. I like the live animation drawing, the HTML5 and 4k output. The dev basically said they weren't going to spend any more time on the desktop version, but he sounded reluctantly positive about continued development of the iOS version.

    I'm going to check out Animator Pro that 3sleeves suggested too. Rough Animator looks like it gets regular updates, so at least it appears that it's being maintained.

  • ImgPlay makes this incredibly easy. And has a ton of features besides.

  • @TheAudioDabbler & @gothamoddisee this inquiry of mine was from 3 years ago and I found solutions I was looking for since then. However, I DID go have a look at ImgPlay and it's really nice. I haven't bought it yet, but it does a lot of useful, basic stuff REALLY easily and the output quality seems to be great too. I'll likely buy the "Pro" version, but this close to holiday sales I'll wait.

    Still, great find and thanks!!!

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