Lin Evans

Posted 15 June 2009 - 12:41 AM O.K., it's been a long week, but I have finished a template which will allow the dedicated PTE user to rotate the included images of Earth or their own transparent background PNG images prepared properly through 360 degrees of rotation. The template took many, many hours over a number of days to complete. It's not a project for the faint hearted - LOL. There are 640 separate PNG objects which were decompiled from a video I made using the excellent freeware Celestia Astronomy program. The saved files were converted to transparent background PNG files then sequenced as objects in PTE using over 1900 keyframes. Because of memory issue in doing this type thing, only about 20 image could be programmed and sequenced before saving, quitting and re-opening PTE. This meant hours of frustrating data entry from my prepared Xcel spreadsheet to get proper opacity on and opacity off for each object. I'm only telling you this because this template will save you days of work if you decide to pursue this approach. You will still spend a day or so to create your own transparent PNG files so first play with the provided ones and see if it's something you want to do. There is a demo file below which I created quickly using the template. It shows some of the extreme flexibility of PTE. This demo could not be done with Proshow Gold or Proshow Producer, etc. They simply don't have the features which are needed. Some have asked why not just throw in the 640 images as separate files and sequence them to get a rotating image such as Earth? That can be done, but then you essentially have a "video" which is severely limited in utility. You can't have other things going on simultaneously, you can't size or position the objects unless you want to attempt to create programming for all 640 slides. In essence, doing it this way is like running a video. By making each image a child of a single controlling object such as a rectangle or frame, you can dynamically control the position and size of the spinning object as you will see in the demo. In the demo below, the Earth rotates on it's own axis very slowly and smoothly while orbiting the sun. The Earth is "canted" 26 degrees to the left as you view it and changes size as it orbits the sun. I didn't spend a lot of time with this little demo so the Earth doesn't become shadowed like it should when it crosses the sun. The size and speed of rotation are obviously not to scale, but it does show the possibilities of doing things this way. The down side for some systems is that this method is heavy on memory. The demo show uses 342 meg of RAM while running, so best to not have lots of other programs running simultaneously. However, most modern systems will not be taxed by this but I would appreciate learning how the demo runs on various systems. Any feedback will be welcome. Have fun if you decide to play with this and let me know what you think: http://www.learntoma...hrotatedemo.zip (about 30 meg) http://www.learntoma...ewithreadme.zip (about 23 meg) Best regards, Lin Best regards, Lin PTE AV Tutorials http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net [email protected]

Posted Today, 10:24 AM Hi Guys, This is a template you can use to make the reflections show I posted on the Slideshows forum: Unzip into a folder of its own then just name your images image001.jpg through image020.jpg and copy into the folder overwriting the placeholder images. You can add additional images by just copy and pasting one of your twenty then changing the names of individual files to image021.jpg....... http://www.learntoma...iontemplate.zip Best regards, Lin

Moved my templates Under This Heading: In the future I will place all my templates (not all that many) under this title and put a temporary note in the PTE section of the forum which I will delete after a couple weeks. I think this will help organize what could be a difficult thing to control. Lin

Hi Isabel, You're making this too difficult on yourself. Did you read my last message to you?? Go to the tutorials section of the forum. Download and play my AVI tutorial on PZR in the PTE Made Easy - (PTE For Smarties) section here: http://www.picturest...?showtopic=7901 Some of the menu features I discuss at the beginning of the tutorial have changed over the past year or more, but the essential timeline process of Pan, Zoom and Rotate are identical in function. If you play this AVI you absolutely "will" understand the essentials of PZR. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, Congratulations! This represents a MAJOR change and improvement to an already fantastic program!! The decision to call this version 6 is absolutely justified and makes perfect sense. You and your development team have done an incredible job of releasing this last beta with a plethora of great new features which make producing a delightful presentation even easier and more effective. We are proud of your work and I think I can speak for the majority of users who will definitely appreciate and enjoy these terrific new features you have integrated into this great product. Thank you!! Lin

Hi Isabel, Why don't you go to the tutorials section and download some of my free AVI tutorials posted there. The Official PTE User Guide and the Unofficial PTE User Guide which Jeff, Ray and I authored isn't really designed to teach you how to use the program, but rather what each feature is designed for and just to give a brief example. The tutorials I have posted in the PTE Made Easy (PTE for Smarties) section will show you exactly how to do keyframes and such and after watching it I don't think you will have any problems at all. Start with the one on PZR (Pan, Zoom, Rotate)... Here's a quick link: http://www.picturest...?showtopic=7901 Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Hang in there! I will have an AVI tutorial up in the PTE Made Easy series in a day or so which will show you how to do the 3D transforms, etc. In the demo, the things which take advantage of the 3D Transform are the rotating snow scenes, the OOB (out of bounds) photos where the perspective changes dynamically, and the reflections at the end, etc. The OOB shows are very easy to make. You simply adjust the perspective using the 3D Transform (which as you will see is very easy) then adjust the "canvas" and "border" right in PTE. The only thing you must do outside PTE is create that portion of the scene which you need for the portion which lies outside the frame as a PNG object. Just take the original photo, copy and paste it on a transparent background and erase the areas you don't want shown. Then simply make that PNG object a child of the original image, adjust to fit exactly over the original and the PNG object overlay will extend out over the borders after you adjust the canvas size in PTE. It's then very easy to set the 3D Transformation via keyframe so that it changes dynamically as you like. The animation within a 3D Transform is also fairly easy to accomplish. When I get a chance I will also make a tutorial showing how this is done. I have already posted a template so you can just drop in images for the reflection animation. That's also done via the 3D Transform by just a horizontal flip of 180 degrees and some masking for shadows and opacity, etc. You can see how it is done by examining the template PTE. The Earth rotating around the sun was done with my video clip template which uses decompiled video for the Earth's Rotation. The apparent rotation of the sun was done with a technique developed by Dom which involves masks and flat pano type images of the sun, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hi Isabel, You are really going to enjoy PTE Version 6. One of the new features allows you to put a border around your image right in PTE without creating anything in Photoshop or other software. You can simply decide how wide and which color you want for your border. Just go to Objects and Animations, select your image in the Objects List, click on the Properties Tab then on the Adjust Image and Border and you can decide how wide and what color you want. You can also adjust the "canvas" which means you can decide all or any part of the image to be surrounded by the border. Essentially, this feature allows you to "crop" the image and place a border around it without actually affecting the real image. It's really a fantastic feature! Best regards, Lin

Hi JPD, Great demo of the potential of PTE. I love the waving flag!! Best regards, Lin

Do you want to test your video card and system for animation stress? Do not download this 100 meg show unless you have a pretty powerful video card you wish to test. This one demonstrates a bit of many of the animation possibilities with PTE 6.0. as well as animations of snow, water, OOB (out of bounds) and video clip template transformation, etc. This one "really" stresses the video card and will reveal any weaknesses there may be. If you can run this one completely smoothly, you can run about anything which will be created with 6.0, etc. http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/pte60demo.zip Best regards, Lin

Here's a sample of one of the things you can do with new Version 6 Beta 15. This entirely done in beta and an actual demo of how you might use this as a real slideshow. http://www.learntoma...ereflection.zip Here is a quick demo of using "slices" - this is not meant as a serious slideshow, or even suggesting that you may want to do this with a real slideshow - just a demo of the "possible" with using slices of an image and 3D Transforms. Just fun playing around folks... http://www.learntomakeslideshows.net/sample/slidedemo.zip Lin

Moved to Lin's Templates

Hi Bill, Give me a few hours and I will download the codecs and install them on one of my other systems which is not online. I have to be gone for a few hours today, but will do this as soon as I get back. Since I haven't actually used this codec pack I can't say until I install it how to proceed, but should know something this afternoon. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bill, Actually, I "think" that the XP-Codec-Pac 2.5.0 should be installed by default under "Program Files" as here: http://www.xpcodecpack.com/pictures/screenshots/xp_codec_pack_menu.htm But once it's installed, this is only the "container" for the codecs - one still must open the codec pac and choose the particular codecs which the program will then install. Not being familiar with this particular codec pack, I don't know exactly how they proceed, but the one's I am familiar with generally present a menu from which you choose individual codecs which the program then places where they need to be to be recognized. Also after they are installed I believe you need to reboot before Windows recognizes their presence. So you may want to uninstall the codec-pac via Windows Control Panel and reinstall as the default. After installation look in the folder for an icon to "run" the codec pac program which "should" then present you with a menu to choose individual codecs to be installed. Don't install all of them but rather choose individual ones. Usually there is a check box which you use to select the ones you want and the program takes care of placement. You may also want to read this: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/08/15/how-to-install-windows-xp-and-2000-default-codecs-manually/ Let me know how you get along with this because we can continue to work out this issue. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I suspect that the PTE codec worked O.K. for Bill since he was able to create a DVD with PTE. Creating a stand-alone AVI requires a custom codec since the PTE codec creates a temporary "template" which is holding and distributing all the PTE file parameters just until the DVD is created then erased. In the early days, before PTE 5.0, burning the DVD required another program such as Pinnacle which could read the temporary file and use it to burn a DVD. Once Video Builder and 5.0 became available, then the PTE Codec was, as far as I know, only used when creating a DVD and not for other video processes. Video Builder itself, AFAIK, furnishes the requisite information for the MP4, h.264. Why one system might "hang" at 99% yet apparently create the DVD while another appears to finish more quickly and reach 100% is problematic and may hold a clue as to the issues. The one thing I'm fairly certain of is that Bill's present codec choices are not sufficient for producing a stand-alone AVI file. As for why the PTE codec might work for one and not another could depend on a number of possible issues. One past issue was conflict of burn drivers. At one time, people who had EZ CD Creator and Nero both resident on their systems could not get either to work. They had to completely erase all vestiges of one to get the other to function properly. Issues with DVD burning got so bad at one time that Photodex support was suggesting that their users actually use different software to burn DVD's. It's really a complex issue trying to get the wide variety of DVD burners, different types of media, etc., to all work harmoniously. I really wish there were a simple solution, but apparently there are some situations which are seriously difficult to resolve. That's one reason I suggested using the Windows Task Manager to eliminate as many variables as possible to see if some conflict might be responsible. Best regards, Lin

Hi Herhey, Great one! Good to see you back here! I remember the animated card you made for your sister's birthday quite a while ago - excellent job with the "running skeleton!" Best regards, Lin

Hi Bill, None of those are actually much help. I would download the K-Lite full pack or the Ace Megapack (perhaps the K-Lite has more current codecs) and install a few of the more popular ones such as Mpeg II and maybe Mpeg 4 and DivX, etc. Don't install any more than six or eight. You can get the Microsoft Mpeg 4 here: http://www.afreecode...icrosoft-mpeg4/ Once you have a few of these you should be able to make a stand-alone AVI and MP4 without problems. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bill, Just a couple thoughts: First, the codec used by PTE for burning an AVI to DVD is not designed to create a stand-alone file. This stems from earlier versions of PTE where one could burn a PTE show to a DVD by creating a temporary "template" hence the PTE codec. You are on the right track by choosing "custom AVI" and then choosing an audio and video codec. Both the audio and video codec's resident on any particular computer will be highly variable depending on previous software which has been installed. PTE simply reads the available codecs and presents them in a Windows provided tabular form for selection. There are numerous free codec packs such as found here: http://www.free-code...Codec_Packs.htm They include the ACE Megapac, K-Lite, etc., and any of them can provide codecs such as the Microsoft MPEG 4 or MPEG 2, or others which will allow you to create a stand-alone AVI. The one you have chosen for audio is fine. That you are able to burn a DVD means that a codec is available (the default is the PTE codec) so your system including the DVD burner is properly operational. The way I would approach this is to get some rewritable media to experiment with for h.264. Next would be to try to create a stand-alone avi file without the preview. If you can tell me which video codecs are available in the drop-down list, perhaps I can help you choose one which will work for testing. For the purpose of your MacIntosh use, just use the 5.7 beta to create a native MacIntosh executable. This is one of the options, and what I would suggest is to choose the "zip" output. This puts all files necessary to play a full resolution slideshow on the MacIntosh exactly as the show plays on your own Windows computer. This is "far" superior to h.264. Truthfully, I'm not overly impressed with h.264 as implemented by "any" slideshow program. h.264 works pretty well for video, but I've yet to see any really smooth pans or even zooms when a high resolution (1920x1080) slideshow having much in the way of animation is played back on a computer. My take on it is that MP4 h.264 is not there yet for presentation slideshows make with any really demanding animations. On the other hand, the shows which are output for the MacIntosh via the native Mac exeutable format in PTE are absolutely fantastic - just like the PTE executable shows on a Windows machine with a decent graphics card. The other issue with h.264 is that there are very few players (if any) which actually handle the files correctly when they don't conform exactly to 1080 or 720 wide angle. For example, I can create a 1600x1200 h.264 which will convert on Youtube and play perfectly as the Youtube Flash file, but which absolutely will not play properly in "any" player which I have tried, and that's about every player available. Even with the Classic Home Cinema player (about the best) the bottom of the image is cut off; yet, when I send the same file to Youtube, the Flash conversion plays properly. This tells me that there are still unresolved issues with computer players and h.264 which can complicate an already complex issue. Since it's possible to play an executable Windows show directly to a large screen 1080p via an HDMI port, I would just skip the h.264 all together unless all you are doing are simple transitions and no animations. Of course the important thing is to get your system to create a stand-alone AVI and h.264. This can be worked out, but it's difficult to say without some testing what might be causing the problem. The first thing I would do would be to disable any other software temporarily, especially virus protection. Just disconnect from the internet and kill other programs via the Windows Task Manager and see if you can create a file then. If you can, then re-introduce other items into the task manager one at a time to see what may be causing the problem. Best regards, Lin

Hi Isabel, Actually, it's pretty easy once you remember that you have to click in the "Create Custom AVI Video File" circle. Next you must choose from your available video codecs, so you click on the Video Codec Tab and choose something fairly generic. If you have a Microsoft Mpeg II or Mpeg 4 that would be good. Next click in the Audio Codec tab and see if you have a 44,100 16 bit stereo choice which would be nice. Since you have done this before, you obviously have at least one Video Codec and at least one Audio Codec which will work. You can always download free Codec Packs such as the K-Lite (free) pack, etc., but probably won't need to. Finally, you just choose an appropriate size such as 720x480 and an FPS rate such as (59.94) which indicates the "frames per second" and finally click on "Create" and choose the folder where you want it to go. If you are creating a wide show then choose the appropriate dimensions instead of the 720x480 which is actually correct for an NTSC DVD. That's all there is to it! The program will create a stand-alone AVI file for you this way..... Best regards, Lin

Hi Fried, According to the table the GeForce 9800M GTX has a rating of 722 which makes it very good for a laptop. My desktop card, an nVidia GeForce 8800 GT has a rating of 966. It requires a minimum of a 450 watt power supply just to supply power for the video card! Among the top rated cards, the GeForce GTX 285 has a rating of 2025. The very top card right now, an overclocked model of the GeForce GTX 295 has not yet been rated in the chart, but some systems use twin GTX 295's which are liquid cooled and have incredible throughput. Technology moves so fast that it's difficult to keep up! The important thing to realize is that you can easily create smooth running shows with your laptop which simply won't function that way with the vast majority of older systems so it's always best to try to hang on to a less powerful model just to test with and be sure that you don't overdo your graphics for older systems when you widely distribute your shows. Best regards, Lin

Hi Fried, I neglected to put the link to the videocard test site above, but have since edited and added it. You can pass this link to your users and they can find out how their video cards stack up against better ones. I have what was "once" a top-of-the-line nVidia 8800 GT card which now falls less than half way among the really powerful new cards. For desktop systems running Windows and having a modern bus such as a PCI Express, I would recommend a minimum of an nVidia GeForce 8600 GT card. They have plenty of power to run most graphic intensive PTE shows and don't cost an arm and a leg. They have a rating of 402 which is a tad beneath my suggestion above, but since I have one to test I can assure anyone that they will do all but the most demanding of PTE shows. With the new features coming out in the next release such as 3D Transform, it will be possible to exceed even what they can do if you get too carried away. I just created a test show which even gives my 8800GT all it can handle. Hopefully, as systems are replaced with Vista and Windows 7 capable machines, the problems of video cards lacking sufficient power will become a moot issue. Best regards, Lin

Hi Fried, I just watched your executable show and have some suggestions which may help. First, the show was excellent and the pans, zooms and the one rotate were butter smooth on my system. From your description I can assume that there are some things which may be a bit confusing. First, you mentioned jpg "quality" and this concerns me. Usually when I hear "quality" and the word jpg it means degree of "compression." Whether you save your jpg at Photoshop 12 or Photoshop 3, the file will expand to its full eight bit size in memory so there is absolutely zero gain by using high jpg compression. The way to increase performance is to decrease jpg dimensions, not increase compression. So if you use higher compression, there will be only loss, not gain. In case you haven't already done so, use a product like Irfanview and resample your originals to a new folder so you don't affect the originals. Resample them to the precise dimensions you are using such as 1920x1080 pixels. Leave the compression at the best quality setting. Second, for your images with zooms and pans, click on the "anti shimmering" (mipmapping) in Objects and Animations Property Tab. This will minimize or eliminate the shimmer or flicker on detail objects especially during zooms. Third, use the beta 5.7 to output native MacIntosh executable code for the majority of your MacIntosh users. This works for all users who have Intel based MacIntosh (any sold in last three years) with OS 10.4 or better operating systems. MP4 h.264 simply can't handle pans smoothly and certainly not fast rotates. It's not the systems, it's simply not that great regardless of what you might hear. This has been proven with countless different programs which output h.264 MP4 files. It works well for video taken with video cameras, but not for conversions to video via slideshow programs. Straight images without animation work well, but animation is always jerky regardless of the software used or the size of the output. It's just not there yet. If anyone is having problems with your executable being not smooth enough on the pans or zooms, it's a hardware limitation, not the show itself. The way to get around this is to decrease the pixel dimensions. Even when you do this, those with graphic's challenged video cards may not get smooth pans or fast rotates. The PTE output is hardware rendered using the graphics power of the GPU in the video card. Some of the animation will go as high and higher than 60 frames per second and a fairly decent video card is absolutely necessary to play this back smoothly, especially when you are outputting at 1920x1080 pixels. I have a variety of systems to test with. Any video card which scores around 440 or better on the tests as seen in the link below, will render the show smoothly. Any of the really poor video cards typically found in older laptops will not. To find out which video card your users have, ask them to go to the "Start" "Run" and type in "dxdiag." This will give the manufacturer of the video card and the amount of dedicated video RAM. Next go to this link and scroll down and find the "white" table (the fourth of four tables). Type in the video card description in the "search" field and read the number in the G3D rating column. If it is less than about 440 then the video card "probably" isn't up to snuff. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ Link above to videocard test site: NOTE: If you use 5.7 beta 14 to output to native MacIntosh format (suggest doing it as zip), then do not save the original PTE file under 5.7. If you "do" want to save the file, use an alternative file name. Files saved under 5.7 can't be opened with earlier versions of PTE. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ron, It's not your mistake, it's mine. I read Audition as Audacity. I've never seen a file type 30 either so am in the dark about that as well. What happens when you try to play the file in another program like Audacity or Irfanview? I know PTE is very "particular" about the "correctness" of MP3's so something must be upsetting the apple cart with the output. Just for fun, if you have Audacity, try loading the file in there and exporting under a new mp3 file name and see what happens.... Another thought: where did you get the original file which you output from Audition? Could you be running up against an issue of DRM? Best regards, Lin

Hi Ron, It's not your mistake, it's mine. I read Audition as Audacity. I've never seen a file type 30 either so am in the dark about that as well. What happens when you try to play the file in another program like Audacity or Irfanview? I know PTE is very "particular" about the "correctness" of MP3's so something must be upsetting the apple cart with the output. Just for fun, if you have Audacity, try loading the file in there and exporting under a new mp3 file name and see what happens.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Ron, I've not seen a .30 file extension, but a .030 extension is a printer driver file. I would first delete completely and reload Audacity then try again and see if you still get this .30 extension. By doing as Dave suggests, you can at least see if the output is correct and being simply mislabeled for some strange reason. Which operating system are you using? Best regards, Lin