I have an AVI which I produced on Blender in which a camera revolves around a model.

I want the camera to continuously circle the model over and over again.

I know I can do this in a GIF file format, but are there other formats that will do this?

What software can I use that would accomplish this?

Many thanks,

Dave Coventry

Where is the video to be used ?

Just on a PC. I'm hoping to email it to a few people and they can view it on their PCs.

I have no first-hand knowledge but I would assume that the continuous loop is a function of the player. Try Google using--eg--"AVI continuous loop"

The only thing I know of that can do continuous looping natively is a dvd. The discs menu structure can be programmed to tell the player what to do when it reaches the end of a title, and that can be to start over at the beginning.

There are several dvd authoring programs available that you should be able to use to create a simple menuless, looping disc image, and most players should be able to play that without the need to burn it to physical media.

Hmmm.

As I say, GIF can accomplish this natively in the file format.

I guess I have to look for an AVI to GIF converter.

mplayer can dump an avi to jpeg with -vo jpeg then the GIMP can be used to convert the jpegs into an animated GIF by opening the jpegs as layers then saving as GIF and telling it animated
no sound in an animated GIF though

I don't think that's true.
It's still down to whatever is displaying the gif. Either a web browser or other viewer.

I have animated gifs on my disk but they don't play unless they are opened in the relevant viewer.

My gut tells me that converting a video clip to a GIF is going to be a bit cumbersome.

"normal" video is 30 frames/second. Suppose the clip is 5 minutes (300 seconds).
You'll need 9,000 individual jpegs, which will be a bit unwieldy if converted to layers in GIMP.

animated GIFs are not really intended for this purpose

The easiest solution is to use ffmpeg to make a flash movie and embed it in a web page. Then send the friends both files.
Otherwise you will be dependent on the player they have installed. You could make an ogg video but loop isn't implemented yet in Firefox.

Your gut feeling is correct. It looks terrible! Moreover the file size is monstrous.

However, I have at least established that the GIF file format DOES have the capability to specify continual loops which is specified with a tick box when using GIMP.

it's not really just a tick box as much as
1. dump the frames using mplayer or some other softare
2. open the first frame in the gimp
3. select 'open as layers' and add the rest of the frames in sequence by dragging them from the open dialog into the window
4. use 'scale image' to scale to a more attachment friendly size
5. save as, give it a name with a .gif extension
6. when prompted the tick box would be 'save as animation'

note you will probably not want to import every single frame, every third or fourth and possibly even a slightly larger interval will be adequate, you can experiment on this to achieve the best balance between smoothness and file size

--good luck--

Yes.

That's what I did.

The tick box comes up in the last dialog when saving as GIF:

Attached Thumbnails

 

I think you can make a VLC playlist with the loop in it.

So, basically the bottom line is that it's not possible?

Without the end user making some adjustment to their software? Whichever software that might be?