Lin Evans

Hi Gary, Sorry, have been out of town for a few hours. Go to the "Burn DVD Video Disk" and uncheck the "Create Menu" feature and drag the PTE file down like you would to make a DVD. Click on "Next" then put a check by "Create MPEG 2" and uncheck "Burn DVD Disk". Be sure to place the path where you want the file to end up under "Create MPEG 2 File" then click on "Start" and PTE will create an MPEG 2 for you. Here's a new wrinkle to consider. If I change the timing for the slides to four seconds then go back and check auto spread slides and synchronize music it makes a perfect AVI. Be sure to save the original and don't change anything until Igor gets a chance to look at it. Also if I check music plays independently and uncheck synchronize slides and auto spread slides it works perfectly. Go figure. There is something about the combination of the timing, synchronization and such which is causing this problem and it's definitely a bug of some sort. This is why it's important to save the original. If you want to experiment save the PTE under a different name. Try changing the timing to four seconds then apply to all slides and remaking the AVI. Best regards, Lin

Never mind Irfanview, I just tried it and still have the problem..... Lin

Hi Gary, The fact that you tried and failed with the original's from the camera is significant. I just tried your music with different slides to eliminate that as a variable and it worked fine. Just for testing, you may want to open each of these files in Irfanview and save them again to a different folder and try with the files after saving. There is something in one or more of these image files which is definitely throwing a curve to the AVI generation tool but not to the MPEG generation tool which works perfectly. Irfanview will often "correct" difficult images and uses a very conservative save method so sometimes if I have a difficult image which fails to open in Photoshop I simply open it in Irfanview, save then it works fine in Photoshop. It wouldn't hurt to try this but preserve the originals for Igor to look at. You can work around the issue by converting to MPEG then using one of many conversion tools to convert to AVI but better to get to the bottom of what it is that's causing the problem. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, Click the link below to retrieve an AVI and MPEG file of your slideshow. There is something about the files which the AVI generator doesn't like. My suggestion would be to email the link to the PTE zip to Igor and perhaps he can determine what the problem is. I had the same problem you have but the work-around was to create an mpeg file then convert that to an AVI. Probably you should tell Igor what software you used to reduce the size and how you saved the files as jpeg or jpeg progressive, etc. here's the link to the successful conversions: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/Xmas-2007.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, Thanks, I'm glad it was helpful. You may want to read my reply to Mary to get some more ideas and details. best rgards, Lin

Hi Mary, I'm glad that it was helpful. As I recall, about a year ago Dominic (theDom) made a slideshow using this method and that touched off a whole series of map-type shows. Depending on the specifics of your trip and the direction and degree of turns, etc., it may be necessary to use more than one colored (red in this case) file to make it work. Also, the reason I used a PNG file for the red with a transparent background is that sometimes it's helpful to make a portion (corner, circle, spot, etc.,) of the red rectangle transparent to allow a feature to show or prevent the red from showing up at the wrong time or place. I didn't get into that in the tutorial to keep it as simple as possible, but when you do a lot of these sometimes it can be helpful to have this option. Also somtimes the route file may need to be circular as a small red circle can be used to make sharp turns then another rectangle can be brought up behind once the difficult area is passed and the opacity of the temporary red circle PNG can be turned back to zero. There are numerous permutations I'm sure you will appreciate once you get into doing your map. Another is the creation of small PNG files to overlay on the top layer to preserve details like bridges or any area unavoidably obliterated by the red cut out. Sometimes something as simple at the text for a city name, etc., which crosses the route may need to be preserved. The nice thing is that once you realize how easy it is to use the overlay/cutout principle the sky is the limit. Actually we played with moving boats and ships down the inland waterway around lakes, etc., and it was lots of fun coming up with new and innovative ways to use this approach. Best regards, Lin

Hi Henri, Not as far as I know. The Camera Raw.8bi file is an Adobe product and couldn't be used without special and probably very expensive licesensing agreements if at all. There are some less expensive alternatives used by some software developers such as IrfanView but the problem is that new dSLR cameras keep using new and different RAW algorithms and even Adobe has problems keeping up. For example if you have Photoshop CS you can't use the latest Camera RAW files. I think Adobe forces upgrades by not furnishing the Adobe Camera Raw as a separate program as they did when they first sold it. I paid $99 for it when I was using PhotoShop 7 then when Adobe released Photoshop CS they included the Raw Converter. But when CS2 was released the RAW converter (CameraRaw.8bi) was not compatible any longer with CS and you had to "upgrade" to CS2 and they no longer sold it as a separate item. Then CS3 was released and the RAW converter wouldn't work with earlier versions. So I bought Elements 5.0 just to get the RAW converter. It also works with Elements 6 but I would be willing to bet that when Elements 7 and the next Adobe version of Photoshop comes out the RAW converter having the latest and greatest dSLR RAW conversions won't work with earlier versions. It's almost a full time job keeping up with all the new RAW files being developed by Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony, Olympus, Samsung, etc. There may eventually be a way of doing this with PixBuilder but I'm guessing that would not be something of primary interest for the development team since it would be terribly time consuming. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, My suggestion would be to describe it like this is there is room: Anti-shimmer (Mipmapping) Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, Mary may be correct. Could you try using the Zip feature to zip up the content of your show including the PTE file then place them all in a new folder on the C: drive, open the PTE file from that location and try making the AVI again. I think also that there may be an issue with the images not being available when the program needs them if they are possibly being loaded from an external device too slow to present the images in a timely fashion. If this doesn't work, post the zipped file and others can try to make an AVI and rule out any issues with a particular image, etc., causing the difficulty. It would seem that you have adequate resources to easily make an AVI file. I'm not certain about the video card but certainly you have sufficent RAM and storage space on your C: drive, but the attempt to read from E: is perhaps a clue. By doing the zip and moving the whole thing to the C: drive it should eliminate any possibility of not having the images available quckly enough for the creation of the AVI. Best regards, Lin

I got exactly the same results as you. I think perhaps Mary may be on to the solution for the issue in that perhaps the images are not being loaded quickly enough for creation of the AVI from the source. Lin

Hi Gary, There is yet another possibility which we have not ruled out and that is that perhaps there is no problem with the created AVI at all, but a problem with the media player being used. If you have one or more of these created AVI files which play only four slides and quit or where the music is a problem, could you possibly post a link to one or two so that we could try playing them on several different players? Best regards, Lin

I suspect the reason for some confusion concerns what the setup indicators say. When you first look at them pay no attention to the wording but look at the bracket. The default is for them to be "glued" but the wording says "separate here" which is perfectly logical but anti-intuitive. When you click on each of the points which says "separate here" they change to "glue here" Glue here means they are actually separated. So when you do everthing in linear then go to the keypoints (I recommend choosing the second one) then click on the default "separate here" on each keypoint between the first and last for pan, zoom and rotate respectively, the process separates all keypoints between the first and last at one time. It may seem counter-intuitive but when you think about what is actually happening it makes sense. I hope this explanation isn't too confusing. You don't need to burn a DVD to test, just make an executable and see what happens with it. The DVD should work in exactly the same way with the exception of the "viewable" portion where the horizontal ends of each file "may" be cut off depending on the difference in aspect ratio between your monitor and your television. When you are actually making your slideshow if DVD will be the final destination be sure to go to the Project Options, Screen Tab then choose the aspect ration corresponding to your DVD screen display then click on the Tools tab at the bottom of the Objects and Animations screen and choose "Show TV Safe Zone" and keep the areas of the slide you actually want to see within that blue boundary. Best regards, Lin

Hi Henri, PixBuilder isn't an "addition" to PTE, it's a totally different program designed to create and manipulate graphics and photo files. To my knowledge, just like other graphics programs it doesn't support RAW file formats. Even Photoshop doesn't support RAW files, you have to have specialized plug-ins (8bi) for that purpose. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mario, This media player, like any other will not play a video if the codec is missing - no media player can do that. You will still need to have the correct codec. Many codecs are included, but should the author of the AVI or MPEG file use codecs not supported you will still have to find and install them if you want to play the file. There are other reasons why I prefer this one to Windows Media player including size of code, compatibility and flexiblility, ease of use, no "nanny" nagging, etc. Best regards, Lin

Hello Mario, VLC Media Player is free. I have no idea why you would think otherwise. Even the source code is available free. Here are multiple links where you can download: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ http://www.download....4-10781296.html http://www.versiontr...fo/macosx/14738 Lin

The AVI tutorial on how to do the map route is now up and ready for download here also linked from Tutorials: http://www.lin-evans.net/smart/routedemo.avi Lin

Hi Hugh, About a year ago there were numerous "maps" done with PTE. Here's a sample and following, an explanation of how to do it: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/cimarron.zip I will be making an AVI tutorial on how to do this effect and adding it to the PTE for Smarties section in the Tutorials. Here's how to proceed. Get a jpg of the map you want to use. Go to Photoshop or your choice of editor which allows transparency and copy and paste the map on top of an identcal sized transparency then use the Eraser tool with an appropriate sized brush to trace the route you wish to display. Save this file as a PNG alongside the original. In PTE place the PNG map on the top layer in the Objects and Animations screen with the original map in the layer beneath. Between these two layers place a red circle, square or rectangular PNG file which will be moved at the speed you wish to trace the route. You can make this a simple moving area of you can make it stay as a trace of the route depending on the size of the PNG you use. Think of it as two identical maps lying on top of one another with one having the route "cut out" with an Xacto knife and a piece of colored paper sandwitched in between and slid along the route. Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, Yes, that was a very quick and dirty example and as you can see would only work in certain cases where the background can mask the rectangles. I actually used a similar arrangement long ago when I did the first "book" page turn examples when we were first learning how it might be accomplished. Of course it's possible to use a white background with white rectangles or any solid color as long as the rectangles are the same color as the background but it does limit the application to amenable type animations. Dominic has created some really super nice animations and is a master with shadows which, as you observe, can be very useful in creating an illusion so his approach can be very useful. Perhaps in a future version of PTE it will be possible to directly manipulate the Z axis and do some of the really neat 3D animations possible with 3D animation software, but after all PTE really is a slideshow software first with some pretty sophisticated features already which are not found in ordinary presentation slideshow software. Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, I'm afraid there is no way at the present time to do this within PTE. Though it's possible to distort the Z axis for some purposes such as creating the appearance of horizontal rotation of an object, it's not possible to do a uniform geometric distortion of the type you want however it may be possible to "simulate" this depending on the details of the desired effect. For example, it's possible to use a partially transparent mask to alter a shape but this depends on the background, foreground and specifics of the desired animation. Perhaps the easiest approach would be to do the transform in Photoshop then deal with the change in perspective in PTE. Perhaps if you could show the specifics of what you are attempting I could make a suggestion about how to proceed. Here is a tiny zipped file with two executables. One shows a possible way of doing this and the other shows the completed effect. The first "perspective.exe" shows the effect. The second "explanaton.exe" shows how is was done. This may or may not be amenable to what your want to do. http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/explanation.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Arthur, I'm not a big fan of Windows Media Player - I've had issues with it in several versions so disabled it from my own system. The best free video player I've found can be downloaded here: http://www.click-to-download.com/vlcmediap...ID=120997483512 It's called VCL Media Player and plays many more formats than Windows media player with superb quality. It has a moving control which you can slide forward or backward to any point in a presentation to repeat. You can Pause change speeds, etc. The installation is very quick and easy and I think you will like using it for this type application much better than Windows Media Player. Best regards, Lin

Hi Sergio, The best way to learn is to download the PTE file and look at the way it's done. You have separate timelines for each object. Perhaps you may want to start with the basics of pan, zoom and rotate by downloading my AVI tutorial from the Tutorials section. Once you understand how to move one curtain in one direction then its' very easy to see how to move the other in the opposite direction. You have separate timelines for each object. You create keyframes then size and position the curtain at the beginning with the first keyframe selected and at the time when you want it completely open with the next keyframe selected. During the time between the program creates the intermediate steps. You duplicate the keyframe times for the other side except you drag the other curtain in the opposite direction. To avoid confusion with too many variables, download the sample I provided on the first response (the second link on the same page) unzip and open the PTE file in PicturesToExe then look at the curtains and check what's happening at each keyframe. I took out everything except the curtains opening so it won't be confusing. Best regards, Lin

Hi Sergio, Essentially you have either two curtains which meet in the center, or one curtain which opens in a single direction. Once you have the two PNG files containing the curtains you place them as objects in front of the main scene in the closed position and sized to just cover the stage, etc. What you do next depends on how realistic you want the opening to be. Essentially you move the two file simultaneously either off the monitor to the left and right or behind an object on either side which exists in a higher layer. If you want realism you can also set the horizontal axis to distort and "compress" to simulate the folds of the curtain becoming compressed. The essence is that you make a PNG file of the theater with the area for the stage and show transparent. Then you place the theater curtains on either side meeting in the center with whatever it to be revealed on a layer visible through the transparent opening and the curtains on an object layer in front of the subject which shows up in the transparent opening but behind the PNG theater file. Then on the timeline you create keyframes for the curtains and at the appropriate time slide the PNG files of the curtains right and left while distorting the X axis. The net result is that the curtains open and the folds compress. Other variables such as spotlights, music and so on can be programmed appropriately. Here's a link to an old example Dom and I did about a year ago. http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/theater2.zip and a link to just the essence to see how it was done - PTE file: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/theatersample.zip Best regards, Lin

If you click on the Windows "Start" then "Run" and type in "dxdiag" then press "Enter" on the keyboard a diagnostic will be run. When it finishes click on the Display tab and you can find out all about the video card and environment. Best regards, Lin

Hi YG, There are many good FTP programs to choose from. It all he is doing is sending image files of 15 to 25 meg (those really are not large in the realm of digital photos which can easily be up to 300 meg depending on the camera or scanned file) then he can either choose a very easy to use freeware program like FTP Commander which is easy to use and very reliable: http://www.internet-soft.com/ftpcomm.htm Of if he want's something with more frills he could use one of their commercial products like FTP Commander Pro. Another good one which I have used for many years is WS_FTP Pro: http://www.ipswitch.com/downloads/index.asp There really isn't any appreciable difference in transfer speeds which are primarily dependent on the ISP and host. Just about any FTP program will perform essentially the same differing only in error checking protocol, etc. Best regards, Lin