It would appear that Microsoft Research has solved the problem of animated GIF videos and their typically ‘jarring’ lack of fluidity & continuity when repeating.
“Video Loops” is a very comprehensive application that makes it possible for people to generate Animated GIFs that fluidly repeat. It also allows the creator to select which areas of the video are activated for animation, saving space & providing more focus on specific areas of motion. As it’s described:
An application to extract a 5-second looping video from a non-looping input video. Also a viewer application to enable both interactive control over the level of dynamism of the output video, as well as manual editing of which regions animate or are static.
Here’s a video explaining how this works:
For more details, read the following paper:
- WHITEPAPER: Automated video looping with progressive dynamism
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/hoppe/proj/videoloops/
To try the software, download it here:
- DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Research, “Video Loops” (53MB)
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/d02f3198-7896-45eb-89e8-5a75859b67c8/