Seamless Fractal Noise

I was testing out trying to make seamless fractal noise in AE CS3, but so far I haven't. I've tried the PS method, where the solid layer a power of 2 (ie 128x128, 256x256, etc.) but that hasn't worked. I tried using Motion Tile, with Mirror Edges selected, but that makes it look worse.

It is possible to make seamless fractal noise (not seamless in the sense of looping but seamless in the sense tiling w/o seams) in AE?

 

I don't know of a method in AE but if you export the noise as a image and open in PS and use the offset filter and then brush away the edges and again use offset to get the edges back into place... that would be one way to do it

 

Well, that would work if I want the image to stay still. But for what I'm working it doesn't stay still, it evolves.

 

I'm wondering; are you trying to move a fractal layer? Don't. Move the fractal effect base point itself. This is seamless and infinite. I.e. change the fractal transformation in the direction you want.

/Z

 

When playing with the evolution of it, it's pretty seamless. Sure, you won't have the same pattern repeating all the time, but who the heck wants that anyways?

 

My guess, because he's motion tiling it to a size not achievable by a standard AE layer. Evolution won't work either, because as mentioned, he's offsetting it, implying movement in a specific direction, which evolution isn't.

CaptSparrow, you could try exporting a hi-rez still of the texture of your choice to photoshop, then taking the edge at one side, flipping it, moving it to the other edge, then clone tooling it in. This way when joined the edges will appear seamless. Of course, if you are using specific tools on the fractal noise itself like evolution, this won't help you much. However, you could try and pull the same thing off in AE by parenting one fractal's paremeters to the main's, flipping it, moving it to the side and feathering it in a bit.

EDIT: I may test this later.

 

oops, I meant the "offset turbulence", of course, and not evolution. My bad.

 

But the noise transformation is.

So link the noise transformation with an expressio to a Null that moves the way he would like the noise to move, and bob's your proverbial mothers brother.

/Z

 

That's not going to work either, if i know what he's getting at. I think he's trying to tile fractal noise, and trying to avoid the seam at the edge of the tile. You have to use a tile, because you can't really make single layers big enough to compensate for the size you want, and in tiling, you get a seam, even with edge mirroring in certain circumstances. Offsetting is useless in this case, because it just offsets the turbulence on each individual tile, which don't line up anyway - worse still, if you edge mirror, the offset will go in the wrong direction every other tile.

If i take my tunnel tutorial as an example, here you get a seam along the top:

[image=http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/2277/34300645qf2.jpg]

Offset and such isn't going to solve that. Edge mirroring takes care of the z-tiling if you like, but not the wrap join. I think CaptSparrow was looking for a way for the edges to join up together, and can't use the photoshop method of power 2 on a single exported texture because he wants to add things like evolution or whatever to it.

One idea to get rid of the seam like this is as i mentioned above.

[image=http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/9202/88571100fu1.jpg]

Precomp:

[image=http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/4033/58225925ds6.jpg]

 

but since he's not going to use it for a 3d-ish tunnel, and just a 2d effect, the offset will work perfect.

 

It depends. Also, i think he -may- be using it for a 3d effect, because he was curious about this same point in the thread of my tunnel tutorial (or someone was, as i recall).

Of course, i haven't tested this in practice, so i don't know what kind of results it'll give you. Just an idea.