Lin Evans

Hi Peter, It's not a simple thing to do in PTE, but it can be done. I'm not sure exactly which part of the transformation you want to reproduce. It's very easy to simply change from a black and white to a color or vice versa, but to do it in stages requires png masking. Have a look at this zipped executable which does something like what you are demonstrating. I would suspect this effect was done with Proshow Producer. There are some things easily done with Producer which are not easy with PicturesToExe and vice versa. There are some things which you can do with PicturesToExe which can't be done at all with Producer or Gold and there are some things such as certain types of masking which can be done with Producer and not with PTE. http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/flowerpower.zip Best regards, Lin

There are always ways around protection for those who are cheats and who would rather compromise their programs which avail themselves of calandar/clock times for internal purposes such as appointment calanders for business purposes such as Microsoft Outlook, etc. The point is that "most" users will not think of resetting their clocks to "get around" this protection and if they do, so be it. It will protect the majority of the time because few users know enough about computer systems to even try this. There is no perfect way to copy protect or time protect without distributing the program on rewritable media and assuming that the user has a write device and that the media is being used in such a device. If the program is installed as executable code on a hard disk it's always possible to erase code or "change" internal code at some given date which will destroy the program itself assuming the really astute users hasn't set the clock back before the date on which this is set to occur. The bottom line is that there is no perfect way to achieve protection from either copying or from playing beyond a perscribed date. The system as-is works well in the "majority" of cases and that's about all that is to be expected from a practical stand point. Lin

Go to Go.com and do a search on Presentation Slideshow Software. In the #4 position, a link to an announcement I made about PicturesToExe on Luminious Landscape.... Amazing! You can't pay for that kind of advertising - LOL. What amazes me is how fast the web bots or spyders pick up information which finds its way into major search engines. Lin

Hi David, I'm glad you enjoyed this. It's always fun trying new effects with PTE which has so many great capabilities! Yes, the little coyotes (God's dogs) have been fun to photograph this year. We've had some issues in some of our suburban towns in the Denver area with people's "poodles" being snatched for tasty snacks so one town has begun trapping them (coyotes) using steel leg traps, a practice which should be outlawed in my opinion. Other than the cruelty which it imposes on the coyote, already several domestic dogs and cats have been trapped and have lost limbs. If people who live in these outlying areas had a lick of sense they would choose a breed of dog which is capable of taking care of themselves and leave the toy and mineature varieties for city folks. In our many years of rural ranch life we've never had any losses of livestock or pets to coyotes, cougars or bears, but our dogs are quite robust and routinely run fox and coyotes off the ranch. It's fun observing the behavior of these smart and beautiful creatures. They are very much like domestic dogs with the exception of their vocalizations during the hunt. A couple of coyotes can sound like a dozen when they begin their early evening and night hunts. I suspect they tend to frighten and confuse their prey (mostly rabbits, at night) and sound like they are having a great time. During the warmer parts of the day they sleep and in early evening and early morning they are out after their primary source of food which are voles, ground squirrels and mice. They have developed some serious skills at pouncing on unsuspecting voles and ground squirrels. They often jump straight up into the air and come down face first right on top of their prey. I think they have found that the prey frequently "freezes," not knowing which way to run when approched in this manner. Just a split second of hesitation and they become a quick meal. Lin

Thanks Andrew, It's too bad that the season is late in arriving, but perhaps in another week things might change! We had strange weather this year with an unseasonably long duration of cold during late December through January and February. We just missed a record with measurable snowfall on the ground for 60 days. Unlike the north eastern and northern U.S., we generally have heavy snows followed by a couple weeks of relatively warm and sunny weather which repeats all through the fall and winter, but this year was a bit different. I had seven foot snow drifts in my yard which were still melting off in March. We only had about 40 inches on the level, but the winds were brutal and drifts piled up and confined us to the house for several days while digging out the 4x4 truck. Even my tractor (seen in the video) was buried a couple days after this photo was taken on Christmas morning. Let's hope things look better soon for your local ski resorts! Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Quite a while back we experimented quite a bit. With a decent video card, PTE can do full resolution single frame sequences at very near 30 frames per second. In the Beta modes it would drop a few frames, but it wasn't noticeable in most cases. With the old PTE (4.x) it was very easy to do a full 30 frames per second and I think Igor has optimized the latest beta to handle faster individual frames, but there is a good bit more involved in terms of GPU loading from the standpoint of dropping in a video clip as an object. I think Igor has said he will work on this, but not to expect anything until 5.1 or 5.2. For now it might be feasible to do as a DVD rendered show, but probably not as an executable. The problem is that many, especially those in France are running on very marginal GPU units. They struggle, and sometimes will not even play some of the slideshos which have multiple large PNG files as objects. Having video clips would simply make the shows impossible for them to play. Here's a link to one of the old samples I did with full frame 30 frame per second. The introduction, second text screen and elk in the rain with rain effects were all sequenced stills consisting of hundreds of frames. Lin http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/effects2.zip

Nice! Thanks, I used it in my latest sample: http://www.lin-evans.org/p2e/dec25.zip Lin

If you do it by menu, then the absolute reference works because it references the slide number. For example if you delete slide six then add two more, you still have order to your slides in the slide list and as long as you know which slide references which number the menu will always "go to" the slide which occupies that position. If you reference them by slide name, then delete a slide, you would have to change the reference or have an illogical condition. Look at this sample. Left click the mouse on the upper 1/3 rd of any image. After a short delay a menu will appear. Click on any number and that slide will appear. In this show there are 20 slides. Slide number 20 is the menu slide. The numbers 21-25 have been set to go to slide 1 but could have been made Null or simply set to go to slide 20 (the menu) for a "no change" condition. Just a sample of what you "might" want to do. Actually I posted a link earler so anyone can download this menu PTE and copy/paste it in any show. The menu could easily be expanded to perhaps 50 slides, but might encounter memory issues depending on hardware. http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/fullmenudemo.zip Lin

Hi Alain, Very nice tour! Antarctic? I see even there - recycling - LOL. I see lots of SnowCat tracks but no vehicles?? Signs in English. I does show the nice features of an MOV/QTVR type virtual reality. It would be nice to be able to display one in a slideshow. Lin

Hi Stephane, The problem is technical. Proshow doesn't hardware render images, it software renders at DVD quality then interpolates or resamples down depending on whether the user needs executable at higher display pixel count or NTSC or PAL DVD resolution so the Video Card isn't taxed, but neither is output image quality anything near PTE. With PTE the GPU is busy with processing the render request in real time thus Igor's explanation. This is the primary reason Photodex did not go to hardware rendering like they originally promised for 3.0 - it simply meant they would not be able to also provide drop-in video. Sometimes one must make hard choices about whether "features" or "quality" is preferred. Right now in the state of art of graphical processing units it's just not practical. Best regards, Lin

I love this program! This small show explores a couple very interesting but subtle effects. First, I want to thank TheDom for his very nice "Dusty Light" Photoshop action which is used in this show in a transition from relatively heavy snowfall to the cessation of snow and the sun rays peaking through the tree branches. Then an almost imperceptible and most subtle change from the overcast to full blown sun brightened snow just prior to the tempo change in the second music selection. Enjoy two selections by the acoustic guitar flat-pick virtuoso Dan Crary who is one of the truly gifted artists whom I've had the pleasure of meeting and jamming with. http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/dec25.zip Lin

Hi David, There is, but you may not be entirely happy with the quality. It must be done via a video capture software which captures video and audio from any running program. The "quality" depends greatly on the codec (compress/decompress) algorithm supported. Generally, with the better codecs you can set the frame rate capture and audio quality up to whatever was used in the original production. That is, regardless of how you set audio it can't be "better" than the original, only equal to regardless of the sampling rate. The frame rate of the capture will be limited to 29.97 frames per second for AVI creation which "may" not reproduce some of the very, very smooth animations from a well constructed Executable file which might go as high as 60 frames per second in some cases. Another issue is that the very fact you have an additional piece of software running (the capture software) in the background can often (probably) deleteriously affect the quality of the production play. Probably it would be best to start with a "free" version which is still quite powerful such as CamStudio: http://www.camstudio.org/ Best regards, Lin

Hi Alain, Just set a long period for that slide delay - perhaps 5000 seconds. You could perhaps not begin any animations until the second slide with a seamless start such as "Quick No Transition" and using the identical zoom, pan, rotate settings for the second slide. So the first slide would then do nothing until you pressed "next slide" then the show would begin. Of course if you wanted background music you would also have to start the background music with the second slide via the Customize Slide feature. Lin

LOL - Sherry, my wife of 30 years always introduces me: "This is my "first husband, Lin" .... Keeps me on my toes! Lin Cheers Andrew P.S. Maureen - That's how I picked my current wife and things turned out really well! Though I did have to overlook the driving category :-)

Even if PTE would "support" MOV format or QTVR format it would be possible to include 360 degree virtual reality slides in a manual slideshow. This wouldn't allow "creation" of the show, but would allow an MOV or QTVR created in other software to be used in a PTE slideshow. For example, you can play MOV files in Irfanview. The Flash implementation could be used to play them on DVD's but there would be no controls, of course. But with a manual slideshow it would be possble for the executable user to manually zoom in, zoom out, click on hotspots to call yet other MOV or stills, then return via hotspots. We use this technology for displaying the inside of art galleries and for real-estate demos, etc. Lin

Hi Gracie, If you have any anti-virus or spyware software running, temporarily turn it off. You can do this by pressing CTRL ALT DEL simultaneously. When the Windows Task Manager pops up, clicl on the "Processes" tab and look for the name of the anti-virus software then highlight it and click on "End Process". If you don't feel comfortable doing this maybe ask your husband to help. Once you have the anti-virus disabled, try to create the AVI again. What it sounds like to me is that something is preventing PTE from making the necessary file in the System 32 folder. I'm not certain, but trying won't hurt anything. If you are concerned about a virus threat while you are doing this, disconnect the computer from the cable or router or whatever is connecting it to the internet. When you are finished testing, then just reboot the computer and it will reload the antivirus software. Then plug it back to the internet and tell us what happened. Lin

Gracie, Click on the "Display" tab when you run dxdiag and you will find the information about your video card. Lin

I think when any non-linear motion is checked, then the default should be that "seperate" is automatically applied to each keypoint pair. Of course they all need to be "glued" as now when linear is selected. It would make it much quicker because more uers will want all animations for a particular slide to be non-linear when they choose this option than will want to have mixed linear and non-linear in a single slide. My guess is that the most popular non-linear function will be "smooth" and that most will want all motion for a single slide to be smooth. Another thought would be to make an "option" to have a particular non-linear function applied to all objects within a slide. Right now, if there are 10 objects in a single slide within a time frame and you want each to perhaps have "smooth" action, it's a major time sink to have to separate multiple keypoints for each object. If you miss even one, it takes a good deal of time to check each and correct. Lin

Hi Dom, If you don't already have it, download the ACE Mega Codec Pac and install at least the Microsoft codecs. The as mentioned above, use the Create Custom AVI feature from the Video tab and manually enter 800x600 as the size. Give the program a location to save the file and a custom AVI of the size you want will be created on the HD. I use the MPEG IV codec myself. Lin

Hi David, Exceptional photography and a beautiful presentation. I love the variety of flower and cacti. Very nice flow and synchronization with the music too. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, I haven't experienced this, but the PTE file I loaded which was originally saved in beta 5 had the strange issue I explained. Unfortunately I did the dumb thing of saving the "fix" under the same PTE name in beta 12 as I was experimenting so I can't duplicate the problem now. I should have zipped the whole thing and then could have sent it to Igor so he could trace the problem. I'm now searching through other older PTE files to see if I can reproduce the problem, but so far having no luck finding another which demonstrates this strange behavior associated with the sound files. Best regards, Lin

I just heard via another forum that one of our members Peter Frampton has passed away - no details, but I know some of our members know Peter so thought it might be important to pass on the news. Apparently this was a couple weeks ago in the latter part of April, so some may already know - but I just heard this..... Lin

It's not absolutely "necessary" to change all (PZR) to smooth or whatever non-linear motion you need, think of it a "insurance". The issue is that in the majority of cases when you zoom there is frequently pan involved as well. "Sometimes" there is also a bit of rotate, especially if you accidentally move the rectangle from the zero rotate status. Since there is no penalty or harm from changing a keypoint to a non-linear mode when there is "no" movement, doing so simply provides insurance that if you have accidentally envoked a pan or rotate when all you really intended was a zoom, there will be no unexpected consenquences. I agree that it might be useful to have a "shortcut" so that when one is chosen the other could optionally be selected and actuated as well. That may happen in the future. The reason for having the necessity to separate keypoints is that in some cases it might be desirable to have a non-linear motion between two keypoints and a linear motion at another point in time. I can think of a particular example such as wanting to rotate a propeller on an airplane. Perhaps when the airplane engine is first started, the propeller may gradually accellerate in rotation. Once the engine is running then perhaps between a different set of keypoints linear motion might be desired. Having the ability to group keypoints under different non-linear or linear motion then becomes a useful option. To have different object performing different motions just go to the Objects and Animations screen and add PNG objects. You will need to create the objects in Photoshop or other software. You can create PNG text objects quickly in in PTE to play with by exporting text as "Rasterize Text to PNG" from the "Properties" tab in the Objects and Animations screen. These can be treated just as any other object so you can get a feel for how to manipulate things. Use care when adding objects that you do not add them unintentionally as "children" of existing objects. There are two ways to avoid this. Left click your mouse in the white area below any object in the Objects list, then right click and choose "add" image, etc. Another way is to adjust the view percentage so that there is gray area outside any bounding rectangles and right click the mouse in an area outside of any green rectangle and then choose "add" image, etc. Once you have a second object in the objects list which is not "offset" under another object you can apply any PZR effects to that object. Each object has it's own timeline and keypoints so any PZR effects you choose will be reflected by the timeline shown when that object is "selected". Yes, I agree, Stephane has some incredibly great slideshows and watching them can give you many ideas of how the PZR effects can be used very effectively. Best regards, Lin

Perhaps this is not a problem for everyone, but I loaded one of my older PTE files done in Beta 5 into Beta 12 to change motions to smooth from linear. Everything worked perfectly except on the first slide which I had set to 80 seconds with about 12 objects all doing different things, the timing suddenly changed and the slide would not run for more than 40 seconds. Also some text was scrolling at a completely wrong time. If I manually advanced by dragging the blue arrow on the time-line, the timing was perfect. Deleting the time from the "customize this slide" Main Tab and entering another value then saving did nothing. Re-entering the 80 seconds did nothing to solve the problem. The problem was solved when I removed the three MP3 selections, saved the PTE file and re-opened it. Everything worked perfectly. I reloaded the three MP3 selections and the timings as well as the text scroll was perfect. But until I actually deleted and saved, then reopened PTE it would not function correctly. Something about the sound card (Audigy SoundBlaster) and the MP3's as encoded with PTE beta 5 was simply not compatible with beta 12. I tried Beta 11A and it had the same issue until I removed the music, saved and then reopened and reloaded the music. So the advice is, that if you are having problems which seem very strange in terms of display times with an older PTE file and you have music, try removing the music, saving the PTE then get out of PTE and re-open the file and reload the music and save again. Worked for me! Lin

Did you watch the AVI I pointed you to? The problem is happening because you are not separating the keypoints and possibly because you are not setting both zoom and pan to smooth. Don't try to use linear on pan and smooth on zoom because the results fight with each other if you don''t thoroughly understand what's happening. Set zoom, pan and rotate all to smooth. The "easy" way to do this is to set it all up as linear. When it is working correctly click on smooth for all three (PZR) then go to the second keypooint and click on it. Next go to the setup for each of Pan, Zoom and Rotate and click on each line which says "Separate". Do this for Pan, Zoom and Rotate. When you click on each line you will see the message change to "glue" and each "pair" of keypoints will show a bracket connecting them. This shows you graphically that the action between this pair of keypoints is now independent and reflects one of the non-linear motion effects. In this case, "smooth". Don't miss any, be sure you click on each one. Use the down scroll bar to be certain you have no reference left which says "separate". Once you have done this for the second keypoint the remainder of keypoints will reflect the changes and nothing more needs to be done to make the motion act like you expect. Watch this AVI again, or for the first time if you didn't view it the last time. This shows precisely what you need to do. http://www.lin-evans.net/tutorial/nonlinearavi.zip Lin