I would like to create an animation where the source image changes at certain points. Cycles' Image Sequence setting on the Image Texture node looks hopeful. However, I can't seem to figure out what kind of input it wants.
Is this one of those images that are literally just a sequence of different images loaded on one? Thanks for any help!
You can use a sequence of numbered images as the input to an Image Texture node set to Image Sequence. The key is to ensure your image filenames include a numeric element to represent the frame as the last part of the filename before the file extension - eg, 'flame_heat_fuel_000002.exr'.
Blender will identify the 'frame' part of the filename (in this case '000002') and use that to determine which image to pickup for the current animation frame, with the Frames, Start Frame, Offset manipulate how the Blender current frame maps to one of the image sequence frames :
Enable 'Cyclic' so as to loop the animation over the specified number of frames.
The Image Texture node shows the actual in-use frame just above the 'Frames' field. As you move along the timeline this will update to show which of the image frames is currently selected.
You can compile your images into a movie clip in the VSE. Note that each frame an image is present in your VSE video will be the number of frames it is shown by the Image Texture node (exceptish Offset:).
You can load a movie file into the Image Texture node. It will give you these settings:
Start Frame: should always be 1. Frames: should be the exact number of frames in your movie. Offset: is counted in frames and employed to start a clip later then the first frame.
You could also opt to load in multiple images and toggle them by keyframing a Mix Shader's Fac: value as shown in my answer here.
