Lin Evans

After having dug to a depth of 10 meters last year, Scottish Scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came To the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone Network more than 100 years ago. Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, British Scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters, and shortly after, headlines In the UK newspapers read: "British archaeologists have found traces Of 200 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors Already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred Years earlier than the Scots." One week later, "The Klub", a Sunburg, Minnesota newspaper reported The following: "After digging as deep as 30 meters in corn fields Near Games Lake, Ole Johnson, a self taught archeologist, reported That he found absolutely nothing. Ole has therefore concluded that 300 years ago Norwegians were already using wireless." YOU BETCHA! Lin

Hello and welcome aboard! The longer and deeper you look at PTE the more you will appreciate features which are not available from the competition at any price. First there is image quality - this is first and foremost the feature which endears PTE to the professional photographer. Hardware rendering allows the user to demonstrate the images up to the maximum resolution of the display device. Some of my clients have 9 megapixel monitors and I deliver shows to them which allow them to truly appreciate the quality. Software rendering, though very convenient for PZR effects with DVD quality (this is what all the competition uses) looses big time when you try to display the shows at native resolution on high resolution monitors. It's truly night and day. There there are other extremely powerful features introduced by Wnsoft on PTE 5 betas such as completely adjustable centers of rotation allowing a savy user to create bezier-like curves in animation action. Rectangles which with 100% opacity control and parent/child/grandchild relationships allows manipulation of objects in space in ways other software simply can't match. All this and "still" maintain super resolution quality for executable shows. Add to this the ovearching abilities of object manipulation, unlimited keypoints (keyframes), ability to call external executable code then return seamlessly to the slideshow, use this great power interatively to create your own menus and such the way "you" want rather than the way some programmer decided, fantastic transitions unmatched in smoothness and such and you have a product which really appeals to those looking for the ultimate in presentation slideshow power. It doesn't have all the "frills" which others offer - it also doesn't have all the "problems" introduced by trying to be everything to everyone. All in all a great program for no-nonesense presentation slideshow productions. It just gets better with every new release. Best regards, Lin

Hey Igor, Nice April Fools Joke on us - HA! LOL - doesn't that just about say all!! The cobbled code of most "modern" software written by "teams" all contributing to the final "broken and crippled" code and the developers selling their beta-ware as released products and "allowing" the user the privilege of beta testing the software they paid for. Finally, never "fixing" anything - just sell them an expensive "upgrade" to the next beta version - HA! Interestingly, some of the greatest software ever written came largely from single individual efforts such as Dan Bricklin's VisiCalc, later improved on and developed into Lotus 1-2-3 by Johnathan Sachs, the three amigos at Ashton-Tate who produced dBase 2 & 3 - a couple Mormon boys who wrote Word Perfect and so on. The "modern" software always pales by comparison.... Best regards and keep up the great work!, Lin

O.K., here's mine - LOL I guess I could have gone a bit further and moved the clouds, etc., but that "may" have pushed the graphics memory over the edge for many - even this one might..... http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/waves.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Marjolaine, Welcome to the PTE fourms! Thank you for a lovely show which not only lets us see these beautiful creations, but also demonstrates your very excellent skills as a photographer. Many years ago my wife and I took a class from a very fine Ukranian artist in egg decoration and I have a real appreciation now for the talent and patience necessary to create these works of art. I was a pleasure seeing these indeed!! Best regards, Lin

So sorry to hear about this and we all wish Jean-Pierre a speedy and complete recovery. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family. Please Cèlou, keep us informed on how he is feeling. Lin & Sherry

This is great! You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. I had a great idea which was working beautifully. Butter smooth wave action and allowing PZR effects on top of the gently rolling sea. It looked beautiful right up until the time I crashed my system by running out of memory - LOL. I had too many objects at once in the objects list. Essentially I duplicated the slides until I had enough to fill a 60 second time frame with four slides per second. I set all objects except the first to zero opacity at zero time then opened the first at zero seconds with 100% opacity then at .25 second I set it to zero and the second object to 100% then set the opacity to zero at .5 second. The third was set to 100% opacity at .75 second and to zero at 1.00 second and so on. In testing the preview this produced a flawless smooth rolling sea, much better than a movie effect because of the slowly progressing and building opacity from multiple frames. When I got to about slide 28 I simply locked up the system with out of memory. On the system I was working on I have one gigabyte RAM so this approach is going nowhere. I tried multiple slides in the slide list with various sequential timings and fade ins matching the slide duration which gave a rather nice effect but doesn't allow for PZR since it's simulating a movie. I'm impressed with what you have done and still scratching my head trying to figure out how you did it. Since you were able to zoom I would assume that other effects including movement of other objects would be possible such as a boat moving across the water while the waves were rolling in. Anyway I love your effect which could be also used with just open water wave actions I suppose to enhance the effects of a ship moving through the open seas. I can see this perhaps with a few icebergs. If possible this would work well with Ron's HMS simulation, etc. Best regards, Lin

This question is best answered by Igor, but let me say that it is much more complex than running an AVI. PicturesToExecute hardware renders at the resolution you feed it. AVI. MPEG, etc., are low resolution movie formats which are quite different than the executable files created by PicturesToExe. High resolution intermediate images (intermidiate between the start and ending keypoints) are rendered then played back at speeds which allow smooth movement in scroll, rotate, pan and zoom. These are then wrapped into an executable format designed for the PC. You could create an AVI or MPEG file on your Mac then find a utility which would convert this to an executable format by including a run-time engine, but the results would be far from the quality of images produced in a PicturesToExe executable file. Your best bet, however, would be either to use PicturesToExe with one of the Macintosh utilities which allows running Windows on the Mac or use one of the MacIntosh slide show programs to create the original. Then convert it to Flash 8 which can then be seen on either Mac or PC machines. Flash is the most common format which is cross-compatible via the web. If you create an AVI or MPEG this can also be downloaded from the web then played on either a Mac or PC since each can play these formats. But as far as I know, there is nothing native to the Macintosh which can produce PTE quality in a presentation slideshow. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Look at the linked jpg's. The html is to run the Flash.SWF player which in turn will play the Flash.FLV. It's a bit convoluted in how it all works but an SWF file is required for the player itself. You can embed the FLV or SWF directly in your web software without a player and it will play within the confines of your space alloted. Which web software do you use to create web pages? Most have a Flash import facility which is sometimes the easiest way to go. If you zip up your files which you have generated and post a link I will look at them and see what else you need and produce a page for you which you can link to via your host as a sample. http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/flix1.jpg http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/flix2.jpg Here's a link to an early test show I did when I was still trying to figure out how to center the display as I mention in the tutorial. This one was from a PSG show made into an MPEG then converted via Flix Pro to Flash 8 and using the optional Player from On2 Technologies. You will see the script I described in action with the "loading" message while my 10% preload was downloading. http://www.lin-evans.net/flixtest/flix.htm Lin

Hi Mike, It's found in the same reference as in your script sample below. Search for "Movie" Value= and find the slideshow name following. I don't know if you can substitute a PTE AVI filename in the Photodex script or not. It would be worth a try. The last time I was on the Enthusiast forum there were complaints about the Photodex Flash implementation not working quite right. I don't think that it's Flash 8 and I don't know if there is a Flash detection Java script in it or not. I no longer post there because the site owner emailed me that he had received "complaints" from about a dozen forum users who complained about theDom and about me posting instructions on how to use PTE created AVI files with Proshow Producer and Gold. Apparently there is a Fan Boy attitude with some there who feel threatened by any other products and felt we were "promoting" PTE. I can tell you with absolute honesty that that wasn't the case with either theDom or me but we were simply showing people who had emailed and asked how to create things with PTE then output to AVI and drop this AVI into their Producer or Gold slideshows. It it were possible to do with Producer or Gold there would be no desire there for using other products, but obviously it's possible to do things with PTE which can't be done or can't be done easily with Photodex products. The administrator removed a long and popular thread about theDom's Photo Album template and how to use it with Gold and Producer. I think the Fan Boy attitude by some users there is out of hand a bit - LOL. I returned his email and explained that I would not tip-toe around and compromise my honesty in answers to the many questions so therefore wouldn't be posting on his forum any longer. The bottom line is that I'm probably not the best source to ask about whether or not this can be done. It's definitely worth a try, but you may want to check the forum there and see if the problems with Flash output have been resolved yet. Best regards, Lin

In the first installment I covered general Flash information and gave links so you could investigate various Flash implementations. In this installment rather than tie up lots of bandwidth, I will post a link to a PDF I've created to discuss various issues with running a Flash 8 FLV slideshow on your web host server. I've used On2 Technologies Flix Pro as my sample, but the Java script sample and discussion can be used with any Flash 8 generated FLV slideshow. The issues I want to cover concern how to detect whether the visitor to your website or link has the Macromedia Flash 8 player installed and if so just play the slideshow and if not send them to the Macromedia site to do the very quick installation. The second part of the PDF concerns using the optional On2 Technologies Flash 8 player which is a very low priced solution to having a formatted framework to play the slideshow in. Remember in the previous installment I discussed the difference between the Macromedia Flash 8 Player and a Formatted Flash 8 Player necessary to have controls such as "start" "stop" "volume" and so on. In the next installment (not this one) I'll discuss converting a Riva Flash Player for use with Flix Standard or other Flash 8 FLV generated shows in case you decide to use Flix Standard or other Flash 8 conversion tools. Here's the link: http://www.lin-evans.net/tutorials/Flas8.pdf Best regards, Lin

LOL - I love it! Nice frame and great way to exchange images!! Best regards, Lin

I'm assuming you don't mean the reflection "wave" or rain falling in water "ripple" effects but rather something like a boat floating in water with waves lapping at the hull? If so, it may not be an easy thing to animate. The various "reflect" and wave action effects and ripples in water from drops, etc., are essentially done by multiple frames in a movie type action. This makes it difficult to put in other objects with their own animations simultaneously because to work correctly the other objects must appear in each frame of the sequences with slightly different positions to create the illusion of movement. With the reflection and water movement effects the same still image is repeated for each frame giving the illusion of only the water/ripple moving. To get wave actions using PTE it would be necessary to use multiple images each with a slightly different frame and to do this would require one of two alternatives - neither very easy to achieve. First one could animate the various objects in each frame and sequence the frames in movie fashion as separate slides. The other way would be to have multi-frames as separate "objects" each on their own individual layer and turn them off an on using the opacity function. Doing it this way would allow normal animation of other objects and achieve the movement effect of the water via pattern repetition. If the effects could be created with only a few (perhaps 10) frames for the water, then it might be possible to do without overloading the graphics environment but it would almost necessitate a recreation of the difficult timing sequence each time the effect was needed - in other words not terribly amenable to templating. If I get a chance, I may try to do this just for the curiosity of seeing if it could be done. On the other points of animation demos versus slideshows enhanced with animation - PTE is primarily a tool to produce superior presentation slideshows - on that I think we can all agree. But to explore the power and use it to its full advantage it's helpful to some of us to probe the depths of its power. That's how we learn what can and can not be done and how we can best use these effects in a show to elicit the desired emotion or response from the audience. The nice thing is that we "can" do more than pan, zoom, rotate and scroll if we so desire. There is no reason for anyone who only wants to use only the PZR effects (or not) to need to learn these alternative powers, but as many of you may have noticed, there have been numerous great slideshows created which "did" take advantage of more than just PZR (spotlights, opacity masks, falling leaves,etc.). So we should be thankful that we have a choice. The power to animate and the restraint to not animate when it doesn't fit. Just remember that most of us who are creating animation demos are doing so with the intent to learn more and to pass on that experience to those who may not have the time, energy or aptitude for experimentation. There is a method behind the "madness" folks.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, Let me just make a couple comments. Storage is dirt cheap. Let me give you an example. My hosting is through 1and1 (very good company). I have 250 gigabytes of file storage space, 2500 (two thousand five hundred) gigabytes per month of transfer bandwidth and this costs me less than $90 per year. You can get 120 gigabytes of storage and 1200 gigabytes of transfer per month for less than $45 per year: http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/MsHosting...amp;__lf=Static There is absolutely no reason why anyone who wants to host their own slideshows on their own site should have to worry about storage and expense. As a professional photographer and storing hundreds of slideshows, demos, thousands of images, etc., I haven't even began to use the capacity I have. I'll begin gathering the data I have put up in the past on Flash and such and get it organized and re-posted. It may take a couple days, but I'll get on it. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mike, There is no reason why you can't convert PTE's AVI output to Flash, I do it all the time. There are a number of good AVI to Flash converters and some are quite inexpensive. If you have a website, you can always post your slideshows there, there is no need for a dedicated server to do this. Long ago I posted many examples of Flash and rather complete information about the differences in Flash SWF and Flash FLV. One thing to keep in mind is that Flash is designed as a way to highly compress information and doing so has its downside as far as image quality is concerned. If you compress sufficiently to make your slideshows amenable to web use, the quality will suffer. If you don't compress greatly then the problem is that the file size is so large it takes a long time to upload and those who don't have the latest broadband connections will have problems playing the shows over the web. Besides Flash, there are other web formats which are also amenable to use. If there is sufficient interest, I will repeat the content of my posts about how to convert to Flash and other amenable formats and furnish samples. Best regards, Lin

That's a good question. I think sometimes it definitely does raise expectations and sometimes it's not feasible to do a really good simulation of reality. I think that's why animated movies often don't try to do more than "simulate" a modicum of reallity - just enough to let our imagination do the rest. For example, moving the grass in a realistic manner "can" be done, but I didn't do it. It would take far too many resources and too much time to do it correctly - at least as far as I know how to do it. So sometimes the animator would be smart not to use certain backdrops, etc., It would have been far easier to land the helicopter on a rocky mountain top and perhaps just stir up some dust - but not having a suitable image handy made me lazy and I settled for less than good... But it did give me something to play with this afternoon while dreaming of what beta 9 might bring!! Best regards, Lin

Just messing around - bored, I suppose - LOL http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/helicopter.zip Lin

Another great one Dom, I don't know where you find the time - LOL. Best regards, Lin

Also some very nice "unintended" (perhaps) consequences. By using a soft mask frame around the peripheral of a moving photograph the aliased edges (sparkles) are eliminated for that portion of the photo as one can see when you have both the masked and unmasked photos simultaneously moving on screen. Excellent use of the mask to highlight portions of a photo and draw and focus the observers attention to that area. Very nice effects and lots of work! Thanks!! Best regards, Lin

It was indeed "messed up" because it wouldn't let me report them either. I tried multiple times to report the spam messages (the one's with the yellow smiley face) and the system wouldn't respond. After trying about six times I finally was able to get two of the three I tried to report to go through and return the "message sent" reply but it's as if the system locked up every time I tried to use the "report" function. Since there doesn't seem to be any repeat these sex, spam, etc., posts right now I think the new system security is presently working very well. Best regards, Lin

Hi Brian, That certainly solves the problem of running the program and developing slideshows using PTE on the Mac. Of course anyone wanting to actually "play" the slideshows on a Mac would need to also have it or convert to DVD or Flash. Another situation I encountered a while ago was how to create really good Flash implementation so that anyone using a Mac could see the show on their own operating system without going through the web and the resulting losses of bitrate and quality. I discovered that one of the Flash programs I use to convert my AVI's from PTE to Flash (Flix Pro - by On2 Technologies) has a feature which not only lets the user wrap a Flash 8 player up along with an executable file which automatically calls and runs the Flash show even if there is no Flash 8 installed on the machine, it also can create a Mac and Linux projector to wrap the show and use it directly with those operating systems. It's not an "inexpensive" solution, but it does solve the problem of how to get a quality show in Flash to other operating systems without relying on them already having an installed Flash 8 player. This works equally well for SWF or FLV Flash implementation. Best regards, Lin

I would like to ad to the list and say that our own forum contributor Barry Beckham (Beckham Digital) carrys a great line of excellent royalty free music at very, very reasonable prices. Personally I have purchased eight or nine of Beckham Digital's Royalty Free CD's and find them very useful. http://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/index.htm Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Actually it's a heavy sandcast sterling silver bracelet by famed Hopi silver and goldsmith Preston Monongye (deceased) and many, many years old (a bit hard to tell that from the photo angle). Preston was one of the early innovators in inlay work which was followed on very successfully by his son Jesse Monongye. In the old days they didn't have some of the fine tools to work with that they have today so often split work into two pieces rather than try to drill holes with rather crude tools. On this particular piece I can't truly tell if it's a cracked inlay or if it was made that way. There are some chipped turquoise pieces on certain areas of the piece which just adds to it's aura. This piece sold for over $4000 U.S. about 15 years ago and is probably valued at twice that today so a rare find. His son Jesse does extremely fine inlay work, but he has the tools which his father didn't enjoy. Preston's pieces are rare today - most owned by collectors who don't turn loose of them very often. As they age, dirt gets down into the cracks and makes them more visible so I'm guessing that this may be a natural crack from shrinkage in the material over the years rather than a designed split but it's only a guess. Best regards, Lin Hi Ron, Someday when I can save enough I would love one - the prices of Plasma are coming down in the states now that LCD screens are being "hyped." Personally I like the Plasma, but they do have issues at high altitudes . Right now I live at about 6,000 so no problem but some areas in our states are too high for plasma. Best regards, Lin

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/plasma.zip About 14 meg...... Lin

Hi Sylvia, I honestly don't remember which font and size I used, but you can use any font just so the text fits in the space of about 800 pixel width. My original text was very large as was the PNG file which was simply reduced with PTE's zoom to fit inside the scroll. As JPD has shown, it works much better to use smaller PNG files which you create and link together with a parent/child relationship using a rectangle as the parent. Then the first four paragraphs are introduced one at a time in sequence to avoid having the text appear on the back of the scroll as it unrolls. When I created the text, I used the layers in Photoshop to place a drop shadow, bevel and contour on them to get a dimensional effect. I have created a simplified version of JPD's sample which you may want to download and examine. It removes the text from the back of the scroll but doesn't correct the black from showing on the bottom of the scroll as it unfolds, but most everything is done with a single animation slide frame - only the ending white background occupies a separate slide. Here's a link: http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/scrollbetterpte.zip Best regards, Lin