Equation for # of frames in an animation from color cycling?

One of my favorite uses for the program is for color cycled animations, but minimizing the number of frames for an animated gif can be difficult. I checked the Pro Motion help file for the guidance, which suggests that users will successfully achieve a low frame count when the products of each cycle times its number of colors are factors of each other. In the example:

1. length: 10, speed: 5; length * speed = 10 * 5 = 50
2. length: 20, speed: 10; length * speed = 20 * 10= 200
3. length: 30, speed: 20; length * speed = 30 * 2 = 600

The gradients of this example will synchronize after 120 frames

However it seems especially when the speed and # of colors have few factors in common that this is no longer true, even when the products have a low common factor:

1. length: 16, speed: 6; length * speed = 16 * 6 = 96
2. length: 8, speed: 6; length * speed = 8 * 6= 48

The gradients of this example will synchronize after 2131 frames(!!)

How, precisely, are the number of frames in an animation from color cycling determined?

Yes please. I’m sometimes getting upwards of 4000 frames and I have no idea why?!

Hi @Deivore ,

i just created a project with these settings and the result was a project with 120 frames.
Did you possibly have other gradients activated for cycling as well?
What I could do to help limiting side effects from unused but color cycling active gradients, is searching the image and only use those gradients that are used in pixels at the image.
But can you please check if this was the cause for your problem? If this is not the cause then please send the project to me via email so that I can check.

-Jan

I really couldn’t say, I made that post way back in 2018 :sweat_smile: