i seem to remember a node called interleave.
you can take 2 clips and join them into 1 clip with every other frame from clip 1 and 2
like this.
clip 1
clip 2
result clip 121212121212
it was used many years ago before alpha channels.
where frame 1 would be fill and frame 2 would be matte.
and then you could DEAL the clip out back into 2 separate clips.
sorry for the long-winded explanation.
is there a node to do this?
thanks.
Hello! That capability is still available as a desktop tool, under Tools->Clip.
thanks very much.
sure wish i could put it ina batch.
If you wanted to get crafty, you could build a timewarp/multi-input mux widget that slowed down your input clips and then cycled between them, but it would be kinda tedious.
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I think you could basically build the same thing by timewarping your two plates to 50%, creating a 2 frame clip with one black and one white, then using a mux to repeat the clip and using it as a matte to comp one shot over the other.
edit: hahaha kirk beat me to the punch!
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I might like your solution better! Only works with two inputs though…
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I suppose if you really wanted to you could do an rgb matte with each frame being one color, slow the timewarp down even more and then use separate to get more than one “matte” after you used the mux to repeat the clip. You could probably even use a bunch of different colors and then use one of the cryptomatte tools to pick each individual color. Definitely starts to get tedious pretty quickly though!
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No matte needed. Tw both clips to 50%, plug them into a 2 input mux node. Set the input to 0 on frame 1 and 1 on frame two and set extrapolation to “loop” (or cycle, whatever) and it’ll deal them together.
You could even scale it up to three clips (33.3%tw) and three looping inputs, or more.
Have fun breaking the Harding test!
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That’s awesome! Never had cause to use cycle before. Didn’t even know it existed.
Are there other good use cases for it that I’m too lazy to think of?
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Talking animation curves cycle? Well, anytime you got something you need to animate transparency or anything going up and down or side to side or whatever, so like a glowing graphic that needs to be consistently fading in and out, set yourself some two or three keyframes and then “reverse and cycle” for days.
Edit: better example for “cycle” and “reverse and cycle.” I’ve used these a ton of times for animating cursor transparencies in texting app comps, same goes for the little iPhone 3 dot bubble animations for when someone is typing on the other end. Also, sorry if this is too obvious and/ or not what you were asking about!!!
Haven’t been able to read through all the comments, but if you need to do it in Batch, what about a mux with 2 inputs, and you keyframe frame 1 to frame 2, being clip one and clip 2, and in mux animation curves cycle that?
OT, what is a run-on sentence
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The use cases aren’t huge, but it can be nice on occasion. I have used it. Can’t remember the specifics though.
You can also use it to generate Playstation 3 era fur, which is really niche to the point of being pointless. Make a displacement animation that loops every frame and then turn on motion blur and you get a sort of semi-transparent “geo blur” which is how they’d make video game characters like Telken’s Kuma and Panda seem furry.
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For Cycle? I use it all the time. Mostly with TW to repeat a series of frames, but I have also used it for animations. If I want something to continually rotate in z, I will make one 359 deg linear rotation and cycle it. I can adjust the duration at will and it will always cycle. I find Cycle and Cycle+Rev to be very handy.
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