Lin Evans

Hi David, No, and Yes (in order asked). Best regards, Lin

Been playing - Just a little sample of the possible with 7.0 and such.... http://www.lin-evans.org/wind/wind.zip (zipped PC exe - about 19 meg) For those who prefer a video: http://www.lin-evans.org/wind/wind.htm Lin

Hi Moises, The presentation is "paused" for other "slides" unless you press "Pause/Play" when you go to each other presentation. Think of your presentation as if it were simply slides. If you press "pause" or have a key designated as you do a button via mouse click, the show will "pause" on whichever slide you happen to be on. It will then "resume" when you again click the button. Video is just another "slide" in the view of the program. I believe this is the way it works for a single exe file. To get your show to work differently, such as immediately playing when opening the second or third video, I think you need to make them small separate exe files and call the exe with a "return." Best regards, Lin

You're certainly welcome... I'm certain there is a limit to the number of tracks which can be added, but one is unlikely to reach that limit in practical use. Best regards, Lin

Add your first music selection via the Project Options "Music Tab". Next click on "Add a Track" and add your second music to the second track. Adjust the volume for each via the Customize Tab. Best regards, Lin

Cool!! I like the curtains and Dom's countdown works really well here! Good use and smooth integration! Best regards, Lin

One option which "will" work if you have the original PTE files is to simply install 7.01 and recompile everything. If all you are dealing with is a simple menu (the rest are mp3's) and no real "slideshows," just install 7.01 and compile your menu from you PTE file. This should solve the problem quickly. 7.01 will co-exist just fine on your system with your older version.... Best regards, Lin P.S. I've made you a working sample - menu with two songs and all associated PTE 7.01 files zipped into a single archive and linked below: http://www.lin-evans.org/eric/foreric.zip (about 28 meg) Just download and extract the files into a single folder. Click on the menu executable and test it. I think this is what you are looking for - it will just bring you kicking and screaming into version 7.01 and when you have finished with the menu you can go back to 6.xx Best regards, Lin

By all means read the tutorial Ken pointed to, but for now just put your menu music in as a "comment" from the Main screen rather than add it via the "music" option from the Project Options - that "should" solve your problem... I no longer have the older version on my system, so can't check it - but my suggestion would be to build a very simple one button menu which calls one exe file and post the PTE file so we can check it and see what you have done. I don't see that problem with 7.01 with either the sound comment or the music added via the project option as long as you set the button property to run a slideshow and return. I can't remember when changes were made. If you have the original PTE files for all the exe's which constitute the show, you could just recompile in 7.01 and quickly open your menu there and test it. Best regards, Lin

Often, in both business applications and in personal applications, your viewers might like to see specific areas of your slide up close. Of course we can always set up zooms where we "think" it might be nice, but we can't always be certain where viewers might like to see more details. An example for private use could be a large panorama which would appear wide and rather small vertically to fit the horizontal aspect of a wide screen. We really never know what our viewers might like to see, so how can we deal with this? Let's say you are putting on a slideshow in the conference room for business partners, etc., and you have a high resolution flow-chart or organizational chart. You can have dozens of slides each with a "crop" of this high resolution original and show them sequentially, or you might find it more expedient to do it this way. What I have done for an example is take a reasonably high resolution original and zoom in to areas of interest - take screen resolution snaps of the zooms and make them into individual slide. Then I setup hot spots using invisible "rectangles" (you could use buttons, frames or any object for this) for each area of interest. So now the person running the slideshow simply moves the mouse cursor to the invisible "hot spot" and the cursor changes. Left click the mouse and that area is immediately enlarged to reveal the slide which was cropped from the original high resolution slide. When done with this slide, just left click the mouse in the upper right hand corner of the slide and the show will return to the original slide. When you are finished, right click the mouse to exit the show. This entire method takes very little resources and rather than zooming in on a high resolution slide multiple times, the "collection" of small individual crops serves the identical purpose, works much quicker, uses very little resources, etc. Just another neat feature of PTE: Try clicking on the horses heads, the driver of the fire wagon, the front and back wheels of the wagon, the driver's head getting into the car, the license plate on the old car, the sign with writing above on the building - etc. You will find the "hot spots" when the cursor changes.... http://www.lin-evans...jump/jumpto.zip (a couple meg download) Best regards, Lin

Hi Gayland, LOL - You're hurting me!! Of course in the summer when it gets to 105 there, we can head up to the mountains here (about 15 minutes away) and enjoy 70 degree comfort - HA! I just wish that parts of Texas had some relief from the drought. At one point it looked like Lake Travis was about 50 feet low - lots of boats hanging by their moorings.... Best regards, Lin

Hey Tom, I sent you a PM.... I still have a couple old "typewriters." They work really well. Actually, one of them is also used as a "keyboard" for my old CPM Systel word processor. It's a dandy Olympia made in Germany. I think I paid over $5000 for the Systel back in the early 80's. I realized after playing with it that I could format a Systel disc and download software from my Kaypro II such as dBase II, etc., and it worked perfectly on the Systel. I actually made lots of money in those days doing that for people who purchased this word processor. They just bought the software for Kaypro CPM systems and I used a 150 baud "modem" to copy the software to the Systel format for them. I ported over dBase II, VisiCalc, WordStar and a number of other programs so people who had paid $5000 for a dedicated word processor now had dandy CMP "computers" as well - LOL. Best regards, Lin

Hi Colin, Wonderful job!! Nice landing in Johannesburg, by the way! Flight Simulator has come a long way since I last used it back in the 80's! Excellent mix of video with stills. You aerial photos reminded me of flying my little Aeronca Chief back in the early 60's - fun times. That was quite a production! Best regards, Lin

Hi Moises, It's a very nice intro and very similar to one sold by GenArts in Sapphire Edge. SE is, as you point out, quite expensive but also very good. I'm certain PTE users would love to have the web address where you found the beautiful freeware clip! Best regards, Lin

Sapphire Edge? Best regards, Lin

We've had twenty inches of snow in two days so I've been playing..... I thought about how several tools might be used together with PTE and came up with a letter to a couple friends - Ken will appreciate this - LOL... If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll provide all details...... http://www.lin-evans.org/lettersample./letter.zip (about 19 meg zipped exe) And for those who prefer video.... http://www.lin-evans.org/bf/bf.htm Lin

Hi Harold, Not to answer for Xaver, but it is a bit tricky to get perfect sync when muting the video and copying the audio track. It can be done, but it's not the easiest thing to fine tune. In a future version, Igor has said that he will have audio controls for the video much like the present audio controls for audio which are very good short of audio editing. I don't believe that there are plans to have a full audio editor or video editor - those things are best left to software which is designed specifically for that purpose, but having the same degree of control over audio in a video clip as we now have with the audio track would be a welcome addition in my opinion. Best regards, Lin

http://www.lin-evans...n/halloween.zip The Sequel - LOL (13 meg PC) (Thanks Herhey) Lin

Hi Brian, Good "head's up." The G3D numbers are just a relative indication of what one might expect. I only use them to exclude some cards from consideration. For example, if the rating is 300 on one and 2600 on another, it's a pretty good bet that the one with a 300 rating isn't going to be able to handle a PTE application with heavy use of masks and animation demanding smooth execution which the one with 2600 will handle about anything PTE can throw at it. Some of the integrated cards are just fine as you say. The only caveat is that when one starts using and sharing resources with the CPU, how well the system will perform depends partly on how heavy the loading is on the CPU and what's being shared. With the dedicated cards, the hardware rendering concept gives the user a bit more probability of a good outcome when system resources are taxed because "most" software doesn't use the GPU that heavily. PhotoShop CS5 is now using hardware rendering, but people will generally not be playing a slideshow "and" using Photoshop simultaneously. I have a fairly large database of the performance with my test files on relatively new integrated systems. I generally tell people who are anticipating doing heavy masks and mixing video with stills and animation and are in the market for a new video card to not consider anything with less performance than my old nVidia 8800 GT. I have a friend who used a high end MacIntosh which has a card rated #73 (from the top down) while my old nVidia 8800GT is rated #114. My card (on my old Dell with XP home and maxed out on RAM for XP) actually outperforms his Mac on the same test files for smoothness, etc. So you are correct that the numbers are not always indicative of exactly what to expect, but they still are about all we have in general to work with right now. The post was made back in 2009 and there have been some major changes since then. One thing I do know for certain is that if you have a card which consistently scores above 2000 on the G3D it will be just fine for anything we have managed to throw at it yet. An excellent buy is the Radeon HD 6850 which sells for around $140 U.S.D. and has sufficient power to handle anything PTE can throw at it. Of course, as you note, one must have a power supply up to the task. I had to shoehorn a 750 watt power supply in my Dell to handle my 8800 GT. I'll probably eventually buy the HD 6850 which I've tested, and put my 8800 GT in my Gateway along with an upgraded power supply. The 8800 GT is absolutely silent and never produces any heat under the loads I throw at it, but I'm noticing that adding "some" multiple videos in separate slides seems to be yet another issue for the old 8600 GT which "used" to be pretty smooth on everything. Since PTE incorporated masking, the loading has greatly increased. When one adds video "and" masking it begins to tax the system. Best regards, Lin

Create your MacIntosh output with the "zip" option then put the zip file up for Mac users. MacIntosh requires a number of files, not a single executable file like the PC. If you don't know the Apple system, you are far better off using the Zip option. All necessary file will be included inside the zip folder. Just "publish" the zipped folder and everything should work fine for most Mac users. Best regards, Lin

As a user of PicturesToExe since its inception, I've watched this fine software evolve to its present position as the leading worldwide choice for audio visual creation where quality of image and flexibility of features are paramount. PicturesToExe or "PTE" as it is known by users, is a magnificent tool. Whether one wishes to make a simple presentation of their photographs, or create masterpieces for audio visual competitions, PTE serves them equally well. In addition, it offers those who wish to experiment with animation and unique video implementations a platform where one's imagination is the only real limiting factor. In my opinion, and based on having used nearly every competing product, PTE simply stands head and shoulders above the rest. It is truly a "nuts and bolts" product which can be used by the complete novice to quickly and easily create a simple and elegant presentation, or can offer the experienced user myriad challenges and opportunities to facilitate their creativity. I congratulate the Wnsoft development team for their creation and for their willingness to listen to their users and quickly and efficiently make suggested changes which continue to make this product the industry leader where price, performance, image quality and flexibility are essential ingredients. Lin Evans Berthoud, Colorado

O,K. - here's how it is done: The opening sequence was a mix of a portion of a fire video with normal PTE text manipulation. The first "Ring Of Fire" behind the PTE Lepona Cube is a video I created manually using ParticleIllusion SE 2.0 software (hereafter I'll refer to it as PI). ParticleIllusion is a particle emitter software used by makers of multi-million dollar movies in Hollywood. It's a wonderful software which lets the user import still images or videos and "modify" them with thousands of particle effects including water, fire, dust, smoke, flashes, lights, objects, etc. The SE variety which I used is relatively inexpensive ($99 U.S.D) and there is also a slightly more sophisticated Version 3.0 which costs about three times as much, but does some more sophisticated things. I'll provide a link to the website after this message. So ParticleIllusion was used to not only create the "fire ring" but I took a jpg image of one of my wooden frames into PI and added the fire effects then created an AVI file of the frame and fire effects to which I added a mask and image of one of Lisah's paintings. PI allows you to work on a timeline of "frames" and add effects at desired frames. Though I only used single effects for this demo, it's possible to add any number of effects to the same screen, object, video, etc. You choose the display resolution which can be way higher than HD and adjust your display resolution accordingly. The single PTE in fire was created manually along this frame time line then made into an AVI video. The second wooden frame was made like the first, then that AVI was brought into PTE and a mask was added to put one of my landscape photos of fall color into. The final page was also done with PI and PTE. I created the white text script "RING OF FIRE," in a broad and bold font with PTE, screen captured this font and used it as the "mask" to run the flames inside. The flames were created quickly in PI (about 20 seconds) then an 800 frame AVI was exported and this was run behind the mask for the lower portion of the last screen. A second 800 frame video of the actual Fire Ring was created and both these videos were displayed simultaneously and their positions adjusted in PTE to get the final page with PTE generated text. ParticleIllusion is very easy to use for simple "particle effects" but you can also learn to "modify" and "create" your own particle emitters to make incredible special effects such as those used with PI in multi-million dollar Hollywood studios productions. Right now, you can download and install PI for a free, no restrictions 30 day trial. If you intend on using videos with PTE, PI is well worth the investment in my opinion. Here's a link: http://www.wondertouch.com/index_2.asp Best regards, Lin

Hi Moises, You have the synchronization correct where the bass drum is in sync with the lights which light up with each drum beat. Where did you get the mp3? You said that the sound on the video was bad? Sometimes, in the process of creating a video, the reason for not having perfect synch between video and audio by "time" is that the video may have been made with 25 frames per second then changed to 30 frames per second (PAL versus NTSC). When this is done, the actual "pitch" of the sound track is slightly altered to match the change in video frame rate. I don't know if this is what happened in this case but it's entirely possible that the reason the sound was bad on the original was because of someone using video software and changing from 25 to 30 fps. This could be the reason for you having to put in the 2 second into the show start time. It could also be that the mp3 you have has been slightly altered in pitch using a sound editor. In a selection of this length, a slight pitch alteration using a sound editor would not be noticed in the mp3, but when you tried to match it to the video, it might not come out exactly correct. Best regards, Lin

LOL - When you were a kid, didn't your mamma tell you not to play with fire??? O.K. - Before I reveal the Halloween secret formula for making and playing with fire - let me whet your appetite with a little further fun and then I'll confess the whole demonic plot and explain exactly how it's done.... http://www.lin-evans...eoffireshow.zip (42 meg) Lin

http://www.lin-evans...e/pteflames.zip (11 meg zipped exe) UPDATED 10/29/11 http://www.lin-evans...eoffireshow.zip (For PC - an enhanced and more sophisticated sample of fire techniques) 42 meg http://www.lin-evans...fireshowmac.zip (For MacIntosh - an enhanced and more sophisticated sample of fire techniques) 43 meg NOTE: The above two shows will tax your video card and resources. If you have less than perhaps the performance of an nVidia 8800GT you might have issues with smoothness, especially at the flame run around the elk picture frame and with the last page which runs simultaneous videos and a mask. Lin

Hi Ken, I edited my reply because I realized the the word was intended and correct because it rhymed with "Lot". Interesting history though.... People have various ideas about "why" the word "upsot" was used. Hard to say what the original author intended so tis a mystery - LOL Lin