Motion Loops and Animated Backgrounds

Motion loops and animated backgrounds are used along with your editing software's chroma Key function to create a realistic environment, a transition, or a background for your videos. When used correctly your subject can be placed over a wide variety of scenes. They can be bundled together in several different themes or they can be offered as single loops.

You will have to record your subject with a green screen background in order to seamlessly blend them into the scene with the animated background of your choice. This is a simple process. Keep in mind that some green screens and stands can cost a bit especially if you go with fabric and/or reversible green/blue screens. You can always keep costs down by going with green screen paper instead.

How to Get Animated Backgrounds

Animated backgrounds can be made, purchased, or downloaded for free online. The free animated backgrounds work just as well as the those you have to pay for. There can be a gap in the quality of these loops. The price tags on these backgrounds can be quite high so you may have to sacrifice some quality in order to stay within your budget. If you want to skip the download process and keep some money in your pocket you can make your own animated backgrounds.

These instructions provide you with a basic concept for creating animated backgrounds.

• Record a moving scene or background that you want to loop. Record at least 30 - 45 seconds in case you have to correct any errors.
• When recording try to make the beginning and the end of your recording as similar as possible.
• Edit the video clip to insure that the start and end point are as similar as possible.
• Pick a spot about mid-way on the timeline and split the video into two halves.
• Place the first half of the video (which you split) in back of the second half of the video clip.
• The original first and last frames of the video (which you made look similar when you originally recorded it) are now touching each other in the middle.
• Adjust the beginning and end of the entire clip so that the video is 10 to 15 seconds in length.
• Add a cross-fade transition where the first and last frames meet.
• Depending on your clip, you may need to make a longer cross-fade to make it more subtle.
• Congratulations, you have just created an animated background!

The first time you create a motion loop we suggest using a recording of clouds. It is one of the easiest loops to make.

Purchase Your Motion Loops

There are several places on the internet where your can purchase motion loops. You can download purchases, have them shipped to you on a data disc, or both. Here are a few of the sites that we recommend for purchasing animated backgrounds.

Digital Hotcakes has over 40 different motion graphic products that are easy to use with no conversion required. There’s an online preview for every single video background.

Click here to see Digital Hotcakes selection of animated backgrounds.

Motionloops.com offers an extensive library of animated backgrounds. They have a newsletter email which allows you to download one free animated background a week. The site is setup to always give you one free collection for every two that you purchase.

Motion In Box offers a huge animated background package. It includes 600 high definition and standard definition loops. There are many useful categories included in the package.

Digital Juice has one of the largest selections of animated backgrounds on the internet. Their site has the most themes and some of the most impressive loops around.

Check out the selection of animated backgrounds and motion loops at B&H Photo.

Download Your Loops for free

Here are two of our favorite websites for downloading free animated backgrounds.

Get ten free animated backgrounds at footagefirm.com.

Download unlimited animated backgrounds at ignitemotion.com.

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