Lin Evans

Hi John, Do you want to limit this to "plugins" or do you want to include very useful Photoshop "Actions?" Lin

Hi, The only way right now which we are aware of is to use a screen and audio capture tool such as BRS Screen Recorder. There are also a few free screen recorders, but this one has been tried and appears to work best: http://www.bsrsoft.com/ Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, Your very welcome - glad it worked for you. Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, It's not quite clear whether you mean that the slide itself is in the top left position on the screen and you wish it to rotate on its own center in that position or whether you wish the center of rotation to be in the top left corner of the image. If you want the top left corner of the image itself to be the center of rotation so that the rectangle which describes the image rotates about the corner as if you were to take a piece of paper and place a thumb tack in the top left corner and spin it, then you must move the "center" to that top left corner before setting up the rotation. You can do this visually by first highlighting the initial keyframe then by holding down the keyboard "shift" key and clicking and holding the left mouse button on the small dot in the very center of your image in Objects and Animations. While holding down these keys, drag the small dot to the upper left corner. Then you can position the image on the screen where you wish and do the rotate via keyframes. As an alternative you can place the values -100 and -100 into the two spaces provided for "center" values. Best regards, Lin

You won't be able to copy and paste the music so that will have to be entered manually after stringing the slideshows together. To do that, open the slideshow you want to copy. Go to main menu and select all slides. Do not "close" this slideshow but rather just do a "file" "open" and open the slideshow which you want to add to. Paste the copied slides in the main slide list and all slides, animations, etc., will be there when you save this show. Next add the music tracks and save again. Repeat by opening the second slideshow you want to copy from.... Lin

Hi Jean, Absolutely fantastic! A work of art! Best regards, Lin

Hi Iougarou, There are some free ones, but I "think" you can get a free trial to the "Rolls Royce" of screen capture tools here: http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp?gclid=CNqU5Iqfk6ECFRBLgwod0Q6YNA You might try it and see how successful it might be... Best regards, Lin

Hi Iougarou, That is not so easy to do. If you have the original PTE file then it's very easy, but converting an executable format to video as far as I know would require you to play the executable slideshow and use a screen capture program which also captures audio. There are several of these available, but the "quality" of the capture will vary depending on your hardware. If you have a "very" strong computer with lots of RAM and an excellent video card you "may" be able to get a decent AVI capture which could then be converted for your DVD. The probability of success is low. Best regards, Lin

Hi Joe, Before you get any more confused; there are several ways to enter text in PTE. The way Peter suggested has absolutely "nothing" to do with the Comments section or the Comments Tab in Project Options. First: If you do it like Peter suggested, the word "Text" will always appear as a default "until" click on the Properties Tab in Objects and Animations and change the word "Text" to whatever you wish to write. You can also change the font, color, drop shadow, etc. at the same time. Second: If you want to use the Comments feature in Project Options you have the "option" of having the identical comment appear on each slide by clicking on the "Set for Existing Slides" button. Doing this will place the same comment on every slide which is not what you apparently want to do. Third: On the Main Slide List (not in the Objects and Animations screen) at the top of your screen, you can type in a comment which will appear on the currently selected slide. The big advantage of doing it as Peter suggested is that you have complete control over where, when and how the text appears. You can use keyframing to make it scroll horizontally, vertically, etc.; you can rotate it, use 3D transforms, make it zoom, pan, and even appear and or disappear anywhere you wish. I would strongly suggest you read the "Unofficial User Guide" which can be downloaded from the link below. It was written for version 5 of PTE but the section on "text" is quite applicable. Also visit the Tutorials and Articles section of the forum where there are numerous AVI tutorials to help you with various features. http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7202 Best regards. :om

Fantastic Igor! You've been busy!!! Best regards, Lin

Hi Glenys, You can edit the path in "Customize Slide" so that it simply says "\executablenamehere.exe" (place the name of the executable application where I have typed executablenamehere) and be sure to place that executable code in the root (not in a folder) on your pen drive. By taking out drive designators, PTE will simply look for the executable code on the same device it is being played on. This "should" solve your problem and allow PTE to find the external application. I would test the program on another computer to be certain that your syntax is correct before the real event. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, Could you tell us which version of Windows you are using? If you go to the command prompt (dot prompt) then navigate to the folder where your PTE file is located and type "edit ptefilenamehere.pte" Windows has a built in editor. Perhaps if you are not familiar with DOS commands and navigation, you could post your PTE file and one of us will check it for the file names and find out exactly where PTE thinks this duplicate file is located. Then we can determine the exact nature of the problem. Best regards, Lin

Hi Jose, Open the PTE file you are trying to backup and carefully check your spelling wherever this file name is being used. What it sound like is that perhaps you have called the file in question from more than one place (folder location) in the slideshow or possibly changed the name by substituting another image. You could also open the PTE file (copy it first to a different folder) with an editor and search for the file name and see where it is located. PTE will allow you to call a same named file from several locations and the show will run, compile and execute fine but a backup will not work unless any duplicate file names are in the same folder. I would be careful about using dashes (-) in a file name as well because this might create a problem with some systems. Best regards, Lin

Hi Carol, Thanks! That answers lots of questions. So the issue with smoothness is quite probably directly related to bitrate as Ray suspected. What isn't yet clear is why playing the mp4 h.264 directly via a high speed hdmi cable results in less smoothness than after conversion to BluRay. It perhaps means that the system playing back the h.264 can handle real time rendering and display even at 60 or greater frames per second better than it can display 25 frames per second of video from an h.264 file. This may have implications about the h.264 encoding. The increased jaggies on the BluRay can likely be explained by the great differences in frame rate between the executable and 25 fps rate of the BluRay. As the image moves, being refreshed at over double the rate probably fills in the "gaps" left by the lower frame pulse rate. What we then need with PTE in the future is the ability to directly burn to BluRay and perhaps something which Igor has been working on for some time now, a leading edge blur for video display. With time we can probably equate video with real-time rendering. As a side note, I am also testing the freeware MakeInstantPlayer which transforms video into executable format. I've noticed that when I convert the mp4 h.264 in question from video back to executable, the playback is much smoother than with the h.264. It's not as good as the original executable - it still has micro "jumps" rather than completely smooth rotations, etc., but it is visibly better than the h.264 it's derived from. Here's a link if you would like to try this converter: http://download.cnet.com/MakeInstantPlayer/3000-2064_4-10759598.html Best regards, Lin

Hi Dom, It works well with mp4 h.264 conversion as well. There is a command line parameter to remove the gif "splash" and the text in the read.me file says that this will greatly speed up the appearance of the executable but so far I'm unable to get it to work. It's probably a syntax problem on my part. I've registered at their forum to ask about how to remove the splash (exact syntax including spaces, etc.) but they require a five day wait before posting (go figure!!). Best regards, Lin

Hi Ray, I suspect that the difference is sixty plus frames per second versus thirty frames per second. I recently (several months) installed a forty inch Samsung LED 1080p television and have played the samples back in both executable format and all manner of mp4 h.264 formats which I've been able to create and output using both USB memory stick and by connecting directly to my development system via high speed hdmi cable. I can still see a clear difference in motion smoothness between the executable and mp4 h.264 version in the outputs at 1080 x 1920. It seems logical (though perhaps I'm missing something) that my system is sufficient to produce optimal output on the mp4 since it plays the executable flawlessly and at a much higher frame rate. Unfortunately, I don't have a BluRay burner so can only use AVCHD to test output on my Samsung BluRay player and as you have mentioned, that bitrate is quite inferior to BluRay. I share you enthusiasm for the future, but for now, I just don't believe that h.264 in its current configuration is up to handling the very complex animations smoothly. Having said this, however, I'm perplexed as to why we are seeing what amount to significant differences in output and wondering what part the system configuration might play if any? The question, I suppose, is why would a computer system and video card which is capable of rendering perfectly smooth animations on this sample with executable output at over 60 frames per second not be also capable of rendering an mp4 h.264 at half that frame rate smoothly? Perhaps there are system differences which prevent smooth "playback" of a properly rendered h.264? The actual rendering process should be actually a slam dunk for such a system, so the playback seems to be the problematic area. I fully understand why my AVCHD would not be smooth because of inferior media constrained bitrate, but when the direct playback via high speed hdmi cable using the same video card which produced the rendering is inferior, then there would appear to be other variables at play. Perhaps someone with both a BluRay burner and a powerful video card can burn the h.264 to BluRay and report back on the results played on a good 1080p television. It would be interesting to try to get to the bottom of this dilemma and perhaps then be able to prepare documentation so PTE users can know what to expect. Best regards, Lin

Hi Andrew, Are you clicking on the down arrow beside smooth then clicking on "setup" and clicking each "separate here" point for each of Pan, Zoom and Rotate? Best regards, Lin

http://www.aleosoft....aker/index.html This tool creates a Flash driven gallery and slideshow which can consist of stills or videos including Flash versions of your own PTE shows. You can mix stills and video and have a music background which can be switched on or off with a button control at the bottom right of the image. You can allow the slideshow to auto-advance or you can pause and use it as a manual slide advance. It's possible to click on an icon and have a full screen slideshow and press "ESC" to return to the normal mode. I'm not a big fan of Flash galleries, but this one is very easy to use. I created a small test show with just still slides linked below. It takes a while to load because I added an MP3 background track. Before I added the MP3 the load size was about 400K and after it was about 11 meg. The actual MP3 additional size was about six meg so adding sound does slow things down. I'm sure that adding a Flash slideshow in the mix would also greatly slow down loading, but there is a counter which lets the user see what's happening. I discovered later that only if the sound is made part of the SWF file does it really slow down the operation. I found a checkbox to make the sound external and not part of the SWF and now the SWF is back to about 400K, the site loads nearly instantly and the sound works fine. Just something which may be useful to those creating websites. The code for the Gallery is generated very quickly and you can just FTP the files to a folder on your website without including the embedding code necessary for adding the Gallery as a link from a web page. If you simply create a folder on your server and upload the "images" folder and three files you will have a rather neat and extremely quick photo gallery which can also hold Flash SWF slideshows. In addition, the program will convert from mp4 h.264, AVI, etc., automatically to Flash so you can just add an AVI or MP4 h.264 like a slide and it will automatically be converted to Flash FLV and added as a slide. You click on the slide icon and your slideshow plays. You have choices over the bitrate, framerate, etc. It's not perfect, but it's one way to display your photography slides and slideshows created in PTE in a very easy to construct gallery. If you try it (30 day trial) I've found that you can get decent results with PTE shows, especially if they are not too complex. Make them reasonably small and they work well. Here's a link to my sample: http://www.lin-evans...test/slide.html Lin

Hi Ian, With a blank slide, I don't know any way to prevent this. Why don't you use some "special slide" which can be used for all your transitions to other shows and set the display time for that slide to a bit longer time, then use the first keyframe to set the opacity to zero and fade it in after a few seconds with opacity set to 100%. If it works the way I think it will, then the screen will snap to black after leaving the externally run slideshow and fade in to your "special slide" and continue from there. This special slide could have something indicating your club or whatever and be used over and again rather than a black screen. It's unavoidable to have the black after exiting the last show, but this black would fade in to your slide and I think it would look more professional this way. If there is a way to force an end to a show where the last slide remains on screen I'm not aware of it. It would have to be done with an external program which works within the operating system because there needs to be an "interrupt" signal to end such a show. This is generally done with the "ESC" keyboard command, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, The larger (in dimensions and file size) the file used for this type of animation, the more likely there will be jerky movement. The "anti-shimmer" or mipmapping really has nothing to do with this issue. There is lots of complexity in this type of animation and only with top-end video cards will certain motions be smooth. In my development system, I have what was at one time a top-end video card (the nVidia 8800GT) but which now isn't even close to the really good ones. If I use the large eleven megapixel image used in my demo and try to zoom on the "Z" axis while panning a 3d transformed image rotated on the Y axis, the motion is jerky even on my system which generally will play "almost" any PTE animation smoothly. If I resize this image to around 1084x768 I can do it smoothly. It's just asking too much of most systems to create on-the-fly 3D transformed images of large sizes with "Z" axis zooms simultaneously with pans. The answer is to use as small an image as useful for your viewing audience. I wouldn't recommend doing this type of animation even with a two megapixel (1920x1080) image unless you are certain that the system your show will be played on has a top-end video card and plenty of available RAM. Also be certain that no anti-virus software is running in the background and usurping resources. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ian, On the slide from which you wish to run the external PTE show, if you click on the "Customize this Slide" button you can choose under Advanced Options to Run an External Application which would be, in this case, the external exe file to be run. After this external file is closed then PTE will return to your slide and continue. This assumes that you have the slideshow located on the hard disk of the system being used to run PTE so you can properly inform PTE of its location. Unless I misunderstand your need, this should be a satisfactory solution for you. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Is it the red flower with the yellow floral background and reflection which appears just after the first screen and moves in from the left side that you are referring to? If so, that's just done by changing the Y axis rotation and using the pan feature on a slide like this: http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/slidein.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Here's a quick sample of what I think you describe. Just unzip and load the PTE file and you can see how is was done by looking at the 3D transforms. http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/sampletest.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, My "PTE for Smarties" tutorial section is continuously updated as PTE evolves, but the tutorials are all still relevant since they show the basics of how PTE works and this has not changed since the version 5 betas. You have some misconceptions which I think will be easily cleared up if you just follow the logical sequence of the tutorials. In the next beta release of PTE (which will be available to all registered PTE users) there will be some simplifications of 3D transforms which will make that part much easier to understand, but I think your misconceptions stem from an apparent belief that "masking" has something to do with 3D animations. It doesn't really. First, animations are simply linear changes from one slide or object (an object can be a complete jpg or a PNG with transparency and only the opaque parts visible) to another with a different position. For example, a zoom consists of a starting slide, an ending slide and a number of intermediate slides which smoothly transition between the two. You simply use the automatically placed keyframe for the starting slide, place a second keyframe somewhere (your choice) along the timeline and highlight this second keyframe. You then zoom the image visually while this second keyframe is highlighted and PTE automatically creates all intermediate images necessary to smoothly transition from slide one to the fully zoomed slide. The identical concept is use for pans and rotates or for any combination of pan, zoom and rotate. The 3D transform is also done via the keyframes and can be combined with pans, zooms or rotates. 3D transforms allow perspective alterations of any image or object and this includes the ability to completely rotate the image or object in 3D space. Think of a 3D transform as if you were holding a picture printed on a thin sheet of paper at arms length. You can then rotate it horizontally, vertically or any combination of horizontal and vertical using your hands. Let's use a vertical rotation as an example. Hold the paper and rotate the top downward toward you and you will note that the top edge appears wider while the bottom edge appears more narrow in width as you continue to rotate this picture. Eventually, you see only a thin horizontal line and then as you continue to rotate you begin to see the back of the picture in the same perspective. As you continue to rotate you eventually see the bottom of the front of your picture which appears wider than the top. As you continue to rotate through a full 360 degrees the picture eventually looks exactly as it did when you started. This was an example of an "X" axis rotation. This is how 3D transform works. From the Animations Tab of the Objects and Animations screen click on the 3D parameters button and you can set the X and Y parameters in degrees. This will rotate the image vertically and horizontally. The "Pan Z" is a setting which determines the position in 3D space of the object or image you are working with. This position is relative to how close or far away and whether it is seen directly in front of your line of vision or (in conjunction with Pan) to the right or left. Hold the picture in your hands at arms length. Now bend your elbows and this brings the picture closer to your eyes. That's a "Pan Z" effect. Now imagine that there were two pictures. The first being held at arms length and rotated 45 degrees clockwise while the second was held in the same position it would occupy with your elbows bent and also rotated 45 degrees clockwise. If you had two objects visible on the scree simultaneously seen in these relative positions you would be seeing the effect of 45 positive degrees of Y rotation with one object set to zero Pan Z and the other set to some arbitrary value other than zero. So Pan Z determines how far away or how close the object appears while the animation parameter "Pan" determines the left or right position. Now you may be wondering about "solid" 3D objects and how they are made to appear to rotate in 3D space. To create a "solid" object with PTE you must place 2D objects in various positions using Pan Z and various X and Y 3D transform positions and "hold" them in the proper perspective as "children" of a controlling object. This controlling object is usually an invisible "frame" When you rotate, pan or zoom the controlling frame, the child objects of that frame are rotated, panned or zoomed in unison. It is only possible to really do this with PTE using objects which "fit" together from a geometric perspective. PTE is not a 3D modeling software such as Maya or Rhino or Blender, etc., it simply allows three dimensional transforms. For example, if you create some "square" images using your favorite photo editing software, you can place six identically sized image in their proper perspective positions as outlined in my "cube" tutorial and create a 3D "cube" which can be rotated, panned, zoomed, etc., in 3D space via a controlling frame. If you are really ambitious, you could create tetrahedrons, octahedrons, etc., which are much more complex and these also could be manipulated in 3D space. To create and rotate a sphere is a totally different issue and this really isn't done the same way but there are some "tricks" using masks, etc., which can be used to simulate the rotation of a sphere. These are much more complex and you can learn to do this, but first you need a thorough understanding of how PTE works. My suggestion is to start with the tutorials and go through them in order until you have a thorough understanding of the basics. Here's a link to my tutorials in the Tutorials section of the forum. If you have problems seeing the AVI's I would suggest downloading and installing the free Kantaris Media Player here: http://www.kantaris.org/ Tutorials Here: http://www.picturest...?showtopic=7901 Best regards, Lin

Hi Robert, Michael was fantastic and there was never a doubt about whether his "dunk" would exit the net! I'm never certain that my efforts will pan out but sometimes lucky.... When we lost JPD, we lost the one true "master" of PTE. His approach was thorough, mathematical and reasoned. My approach is more experimental with lots of trial and error. Sometimes things work out, but there are many failures along the way. I thank you for the compliment, but mostly I'm just wandering in the wilderness looking for that light at the end of the tunnel - LOL... Best regards, Lin