Lin Evans

Hi Al, The problem is that there is no horizontal scroll bar for the codec choices and some of the text is too wide to see which codec to select. Many are short enough to read, such as PicturesToExe video codec but a sizeable number of those which I have loaded are not readable. Three of mine all begin with "Mpeg 4 Video Codec Compres........ and the actual designator which delineates the difference is outside the boundaries of the window. A horizontal scroll bar is needed to allow reading the complete text to allow choosing the right one without trial and error. Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, I changed the levels in Photoshop on the yellow ball so that the "golf ball" type detail could be better revealed, then gave it a 360 clockwise rotation on the first slide and a -1440 degree rotation on the second. Here's a link to the modified pte - see it this is more what you are looking for? http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/rollingball2.zip Lin

Actually the drop-down menu of codecs needs to be modified with a scroll-bar so it's possible to read the choices. I've emailed Igor a screen capture showing the problem and I'm sure he will look into it. Do you have a DIV-X "Fast" option which is visible? If so, try that one and probably you should alter JPD's show in PTE so it will end after running rather than loop. I'm not certain, but I suspect Producer may not know how to deal with an AVI which loops endlessly so that could be part of the problem. Best regards, Lin

Thanks guys, It sounds like it's working correctly and will essentially do the job! Best regards, Lin

Hi Marlene, Does the AVI with JPD's Photo Album play properly for you on Windows Media Player or with IrfanView? If so, there may be some issue with Producer and AVI - it wouldn't be the first time. There are quite a few issues with AVI and Producer. It seems some AVI's will embed and others won't for whatever reason. It may be having to do with codecs, but I'm not certain. Whatever the case, you should not have to reinstall Producer just because you tried to embed an AVI and it failed. That's a major bug in Producer and hopefully they will get that issue worked out soon No program should crash to the point of needing reinstallation because of an incompatible codec . I've found that if you use one of the more popular video codecs like Microsoft Video 4 that the compatibility is greatest. Codecs are a major pain and you may want to download and install the ACE Mega Codec Pack which has most of the popular codecs. You don't have to install all of the codecs, you can pick and choose and the ACE package is free. You can find it on the web by just doing a search for ACE Mega Codec. Best regards, Lin

Hi, No, just used my SiteSpinner software to embed the Flash.SWF in a simple web page. There is no visible "player" so no start, stop, etc. The software just creates the code to embed what they call "foreign objects" which includes Flash. I had never tried to imbed an SWF Flash file before. Usually I use Flash.FLV which my software (On2 Technologies Flix Pro) furnishes. For normal shows I don't use SWF because it's limited to an absolute maximum of 16000 frames and will not reliably sync sound over 2 minutes. At 30 frames per second that's a bit under 9 minutes for a slideshow. Flash FLV has no length limitation and will keep sound sync indefinitely and also has preload (will spool out a percentage of file before play begins) and progressive download which emulates server side streaming. Instead of keeping the files on the server, progressive actually downloads the file to the client (your computer) in a temp file which gets eventually erased. The file is actually streamed from the temp file but FLV gives most of the advantages of server side streaming without all the associated headaches and costs. I'm glad to hear that this does indeed constrain the dimensions and seems to work well. I just changed the file so it will "loop" indefinitely which is what I think Panos wants. This one should work for him. It can reside on the site in real time just like an animated gif and just keep snowing - LOL. Best regards, Lin Thanks Ron - as long as it was a 400x300 pixel dimension, everything is working correctly. So it doesn't try to play at full screen like a simply link to the swf file itself. That's great! Best regards, Lin

I just did a really elementary test to see if I could embed the 400x300 Flash demo of the Panos Snow Cube on my site. It's really elementary so if anyone could test it try the link below. I "think" it will play at the 400x300 resolution as it should assuming you have a Flash 8 or Flash 9 player installed on your system. http://www.lin-evans.net/swftest/index.html Thanks, Lin

Hi Jeff, Try a reboot. I suspect you are pulling this from the cache rather than a fresh read. Also you might dump your cache in Internet Explorer by using the "Tools" "Internet Options" "General Tab" "Delete Temporary Internet Files" Best regards, Lin

Hi Guys, Thanks much for the help with this. The Flash.SWF file was created with Flash 8 so it does take at least a Flash 8 player to make it work. I think Macromedia (Adobe) is up to Flash 9 now. The latest version of IrfanView with the latest Plugins set will play Flash 8. Flash versions as low as Flash 3 can be created but there are so many improvements in compression and image quality in Flash 8 that I think it worth upgrading the player for (this takes on about 4 seconds). The animated GIF doesn't look bad at all, but because of the jerky movement I don't know if it would be better or worse for Panos as an on-screen sample. The 400x300 Flash looks fine if it plays at the native 400x300 pixel size. I'm really at a loss to explain why most browsers and the Flash 9 player try to play it at full screen size with no apparent (at least in my version of Internet Explorer) way to resize it. It would seem logical to be the other way around. That is if I were designing a player the "default" would be to play at the size created rather than blow up a lower pixel count to full screen size and destroy the image quality appearance. Go figure! I don't know enough about details of embedding Flash on a website to know if the display size can be constrained. When I use IrfanView or any of my other Flash players on my own system they play it at 400x300. When I try to play it over the web from a link it plays at a much larger size with no way to adjust. Of course it can be done as a Flash.FLV which would absolutely constrain it to the desired size because the player is configured accordingly, but I don't know how to constrain the file itself so it will always play at 400x300. Tis a mystery.... Here's a link to the zipped executable which should play on most systems smoothly.. http://www.lin-evans.net/panosfx/snowglobesample.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Panos, I think this one will work for embedding. It's 400x300 and small enough that most will be able to play it without lengthy wait. Link to zipped swf: http://www.lin-evans.net/panosfx/snowglobe400.zip Also here is a link to what appears to be a working solution for embedding on the web-site. This one claims to have compatibility with all various browsers: http://steveorr.net/articles/Flasher.aspx Best regards, Lin

Thanks Ray, I got the size down to a bit over 3 meg so it should work. Thanks for the feedback... Best regards, Lin

That's really interesting. Something in the browser perhaps is honking up the swf because Firefox runs it. The thing I haven't yet figured out is how to constrain the viewing to 400 pixels by 300 pixels because as you discovered the quality goes south quickly. I'm re-loading the same file name but with much higher compression. I can't see a great deal of difference in the image quality at 400x300 but the file size is much, much smaller - actually about 1/3 the size. Lin

Hi Guys, If as many of you as possible could try this link and let me know the results it would be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to create a reliable and decent 400 pixel width Flash 8 swf file for Panos to use on his web site. The problem is twofold. When I play my SWF locally using any of my Flash players, it plays at the proper size of 400x300 pixels, but when I try playing it over the web the image is enlarged and it greatly affects the quality. The second issue is trying to get a file small enough to play well on most all systems yet maintain quality. This one is about 10 megabytes in size so may take a few seconds before it begins to play from the link. I can make it much smaller in file size but need to know the apparent quality so the help will be appreciated. http://www.lin-evans.net/panosfx/snowglobe400.swf Thanks, Lin

Hi Panos, I think I can make a Flash show that size - I'll give it a try.... Best regards, Lin

The only thing I can think of is that possibly the IrfanView Plugins might not be current even if the latest IrfanView version is being used? That it plays on some but not all systems with the identical software is rather strange unless there is some possible incompatibility with a codec. I don't know enough about the internals of AVI to SWF conversion to know if the codec is even an issue. The originals are all done with the same software on each end so I suspect the issue might be with a plugin or corrupted file in the plugin which is affecting Flash 8. There are Flash versions from 3 to 9 presently floating around and it might be worth while to visit the Macromedia (Adobe) site and download the latest Flash player. It will take only seconds and it's virtually invisible but may have some component which is missing from this particular PC. If you find a solution I would like to know what caused it... Best regards, Lin

Hi Panos, For some reason my last three email attempts to you have bounced back, perhaps something in my links are causing your email server to reject them so I'll repeat it here: Hi Panos, You just open this zipped file and extract the contents to a folder of your choice. Next you start PTE beta 5 and open the file "panostest.pte". What you will see then is the snow globe with the yellow house. If you click on "preview" the snow will fall inside the snow globe. When a PTE user take their jpg created with your action, renames it to "panostest.jpg" then overwrites the original file also named "panostest.jpg" they will see their own photo inside the globe with snow falling. The PTE user then can elect to use PicturesToExe to save the show as an executable file, a screensaver or to use the internal AVI or DVD features to create either an AVI file or burn a DVD. The way PTE templates work are specific to only a single slideshow so the dimensions of the content of a photo must match the original. Let me explain. Because the moving snow effect is partly made possible by creating a png duplicate of the jpg file containing the framed photo and by making part of that png file transparent, if the size of the framed photo inside the globe were changed it would probably work fine as long as the external size and shap of the snow globe was not altered. But if your action were changed so that the size or shape of the snow globe were different, then it would not work. I use a fairly low volume on my microphone to try to keep distortions to a minimum and it "should" be amenable to volume control so that it can be made loud enough to hear. If you use the latest IrfanView with IrfanView Plugins the tutorial should be loud enough but if you find you are having problems hearing it and the volume control doesn't help, let me know and I will try to raise the sound levels. I have created a Flash SWF which you can post on your web site to demonstrate the result. Broadband users should be able to just click on the file and see it on their monitors. I will try to make a small version suitable for 56K dial up - but here is the link to the one you can place on your site. I've zipped it so you can download it to place on your website. Just place a link to the file: "snowglobebroadband.swf" and it should play. Here is a link to it on my site so you can test it from your computer: http://www.lin-evans.net/panosfx/snowglobebroadband.swf The quality won't be nearly as good as an executable, but should be good enough to give the viewers an idea of what to expect. Here's a link to the zipped swf to download: http://www.lin-evans.net/panosfx/downloadswf.zip P.S, I received your email question about the template file link which you have resolved. Thanks and best regards, Lin

Hi Patrick, Think of PTE version 5 as you would think of Photoshop. It's very, very easy to use Photoshop to make minor changes to a file, to resize, make the image brighter, make different contrast, different hue, different color saturation, etc. It's very easy to use PicturesToExe 5.0 in the same elementary way it has always been used. Nothing has changed there. But after using Photoshop for over 9 years I am still learning new features and new strengths and how to use these advanced features. Perhaps many will never use or need the advanced powers of PTE 5.0, but that in no way detracts from what they can already do with version 4.48 and earlier. This earlier simplicity will not go away because version 5.0 will have more capabilities for those who need or want these capabilities. Version 5.0 can be used exactly as earlier versions, but it offers also great power and features for those who wish to take the time to learn how to use it in other ways. This is truly a win/win situation. Best regards, Lin P.S., the explanation of the rolling ball had very little to do with PicturesToExe, but rather explains the geometry of a rolling globe over a flat surface in terms of distance over time. Since PTE allows the user to choose the degree of rotation as well as the distance traveled in a given time period it was just a reminder of how to make an effect look natural by reviewing some elementary geometry. Not higher math or science at all but rather elementary geometry.

Hi Tom, There is no real way to do this without having the picture portion be separate from the rest of the jpg. As it's converted from the Panos action and used in my simulation the Photoshop file is flattened in Photoshop. Of course a really savy user with Photoshop might extract the photo and place it between snow layers, but there would be no way to automate this without having access to the exact photo being used and that would pretty much invalidate the idea of a template. But anyone going to this degree of effort could just as easily take the component files and do the whole thing in Photoshop and PTE. I'm working on templating and creating both a PDF and Flash SWF tutorial which will be hosted on the Panos FX site. A PTE file will contain the snow.png used three times, the proper placement, timings, sizes, etc., along with a png transparency to overlay one's own flattened image. Let's wait and see how it works out then perhaps it might be possible to do iterative modifications down the road. As is will first appear, one will need only to copy their own file created with the Panos Snow Globe action and named using my file choice of name to make the PTE file function with their image. It may be fiine as is, and if not I will explain how to easily "fix" it. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, I'm waiting to hear from Panos about possibly doing that. Of course his action places any suitable photo within the frame and inside the snow globe and it's easy enough to template the globe itself and the snow at the base because that part never changes. The "trick" is figuring out how to limit the opacity for that portion of the inside occupied by the framed picture. Since the picture will always be changing I can't think of any way to effectively limit the transparency for that area. To make an area semi-transparent you must have something to apply the semi-transparency to. You can make an area completely tranparent and thats very easy to do for this simulation. Also, any parts of the image which doesn't change such as the snow on the "ground" area at the bottom and the ice crystals can easly be made semi-transparent and templated because they never change either. The part which is difficult or perhaps even impossible to template is the area containing the photo itself. If the area with the photo is not made semi-transparent, there will be falling snow of the same volume and appearance over the picture as in the rest of the globe. This might be "O.K." for some images, but I think might well obscure too much of many images to look visually appealing. In my sample I have set the transparency to 20% for this area. If you look carefully you can see snow over the photograph, but it doesn't greatly detract from the image quality. This means a template would either have complete transparency in this area meaning lots of snow or some semi-transparent mask would have to be precisely positioned behind the picture area and in front of the snow. This would then effectively mask the snow but also mask the picture inside the frame thus greatly reducing the image quality. The only other alternative would be a template which would take care of the snow and transparency issues, but would leave the PTE user having to mask off the picture itself and apply a large brush eraser set at about 20% opacity for each situation. If they have and understand Photoshop this would not be difficult, but if they don't or don't have a similar program allowing partial opacity the template wouldn't work very well. I'm pondering this, but haven't a good solution as of yet.... Best regards, Lin

Hey Al, I'm trying to figure out how to keep the picture frame from falling out when I turn it over - HA! Lin

Hi Dom, Thanks for that explanation! I didn't remember all the details and hadn't been following the developments but I really like the latest version you are doing. Both your and JPD's versions are great examples of what can be done with this great tool and some innovative thinking. Best regards, Lin

Thanks LOL - I don't know how much influence this might have on his business, but I've really been impressed with his actions and his attitude. It's fun finding applications where PTE can be used to augument other products and projects. On this particular sample I've changed the original to now more closely simulate the actual effect you get when you flip one of these snow globes. There are larger and more distinct snowflakes in front which better preserve the great lines he has instituted in the action model allowing snow to fall but without obscuring his original intent. This can be seen on the original link. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, It's really an extension of the "snow through the window" effect I described earlier. The original is flattened and saved as a jpg then copied to the clipboard and overlaid on a transparency. The eraser tool is used to erase everything inside the bubble except the snow on the floor and the picture and frame. The picture and frame are selected then the eraser brush is increased in size to cover the entire selection and the eraser tool is set to 20% opacity and clicked once which makes the picture frame and snow beneath less transparent than the bubble itself. This is then saved as a PNG. The jpeg is then loaded into PTE as the back image in the background with the PNG duplicate in front. Because of the transparent areas, the effect is just as if the jpg is loaded by itself complete with all the Panos effects, snow flakes, ice, etc. Next a couple snow PNG's are animated betwen these like the contents of a sandwitch. Then because of the less than full frame horizontal aspect a couple black rectangle are added on either side to obscure the snowflakes which would otherwise appear on each side of the image. This one is really rough and quick, but if I get some time I will work out a more refined version. It might be possible to make a template but the difficulty is the portion made less than 100% transparent. It isn't absolutely necessary to make any of it less than 100% transparent, but it preserves the image in the frame without overwhelming it with snow. I'll have to think about how this might be worked around, but it may be possible to make a template or at least provide the PNG with the portions made transparent. I'll need to talk with Panos first about this - he may want to post the components on his site. He has some incredible Photoshop actions and I would like to see more people purchase his material which is very reasonable. Maybe with some additional exposure he can be rewarded for the great work he does! Best regards, Lin Hey Ronnie, I didn't mean to hijack your thread - definitely some great actions at the Panos FX site for sure! Lin

LOL, you mean like this?? http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/panostest.zip Lin

Hi Patrick, Understood - totally. The jokes have all been in good humor and all have been very friendly - not aggressive or hostile at all. One thing I can say with conviction is that everyone on this forum is very understanding and cooperative. We may disagree, but we do so with all due respect for each other's opinions and views. Best regards, Lin