Lin Evans

Hi Ken, The latest should be dated 12-28 and should be back to about 30 meg or so in size. I'm not hearing any problems but that doesn't mean other won't. There may be some sound compatibility issues with the bitrate I used with your sound system. I upped the bitrate between the first show with the clicking sounds which Igor found and these latest ones. That may account for the sound issue on your system and not on Ron's or mine, etc. - who really knows?? LOL Best regards, Lin

Hi Ron, Thanks much for the feedback! A very happy New Year to you and your family too, and best wishes for the coming year!! Lin & Sherry

Hi Ken, I reduced the size of one of the huge images in the show and recompiled and created yet another executable. This one brought the overall size back to about 32 meg. I can't hear any sound issues with this one, but am not sure if that's because it's not there or my hearing/sound system - LOL. thanks, Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, This morning I re-encoded the MP3 with a higher bitrate and created the executable again. Hopefully now the clicking sound is gone! The new zip is a few megabytes larger. Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Thanks and happy holidays from Colorado. This gives me something to do between shoveling snow - HA! Lin Hi Igor, Thank you and Happy Holidays to all from Colorado. I will check the original MP3 and see, perhaps in the conversion it caused the "clicks" - I will try and convert it again. The slides can be much smaller than the originals I used so I'm going to resample and recreate the show. I think maybe I can get it down to about 10 megabytes so people witth less video card power can enjoy it as well. Best regards, Lin

Hi Folks For those of you who emailed me and expressed an interest in how to make and use snow-fall effects for P2E, I have completed a PDF Tutorial. It deals with using Photoshop to create the PNG file, how to get the best effects, how to use this file several ways in P2E, etc. Download Link Below: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/snowforp2e.pdf Links to a couple demos of these effects below: http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/storm.zip http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/Christmas.zip Lin

Merry Christmas all from Colorado... There have been a few questions lately about (imagine that) creating S N O W for the season. This is just a quick Christmas demo to show, among other things, how a single PNG file can be used in various ways to create totally different snow effects with PicturesToExe. In the linked executable, a single PNG file was used in various ways to simulate snow. We had a huge blizzard in the two days just before Christmas which gave me some images from my windows to use for the demo. I apologize for the size of this zipped executable (32 meg), it can and will be made much smaller when I have time to resize the original images but since it's Christmas and I've been busy shoveling snow - I didn't have time to refine this. There are two techniques in this show. First the creation of the snow itself and then the use of PNG overlay files and layers to allow the snow effect through windows, etc. I plan to make an AV tutorial later this week to explain all in detail, but for right now just a quick demo. In the couple days before Christmas we had true blizzard conditions with blowing snow, high winds, huge drifts and all around bad weather, but Christmas morning dawned beautiful, crystal clear with blue skies and a warming trend.... the demo reflects this change. I hope all have a great holiday and look forward to many more wonderful days on the forum in the year to come. Best regards, Lin http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/Christmas.zip

Beautiful Jean-Pierre, thanks so much for the Christmas greeting and for your many contributions to this forum and to the advancement of PicturesToExe. May you and your family have a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year full of prosperity and joy. Best wishes, Lin & Sherry

It's a known problem with AVG - it happened last year and it's know as a "false positive".... AVG will have to fix it once again. Lin

Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi, Gwlad birdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri, Ei gwol ryflewyr, gwlatgarwyr tra mad, Tros ryddid collasant eu gwaed. Gwlad! Gwlad! Tra Mor Yn fur i'r bur hoff bau, O bydded i'r hen iaith barhau. Nadolig Llawen!! To you and your family as well, David Best regards, Lin & Sherry

Hi John, There is really no need to "log out" of these forums. There is no "penalty" in terms of overhead or otherwise for staying logged in permanently. All that happens is that a "cookie" on your computer informs the software when you again link to the site and you don't have to re-enter your password and user ID. One of the choices is to simply stay logged in. Your presence is not "detected" by others unless you are actually viewing the forum so when you have left the site and exited via your browser, for all practical purposes you are gone. When you return the cookie on your sisytem is detected by the Invision software and you are once again "present" and accounted for. Best regards, Lin

Hi Al, Merry Christmas to you and your family too! It's been really strange weather. We usually don't get these blizzards at our altitude (5400 feet) and it's been really dry with little snow for the past dozen years or so. I just talked to friends in PA, NJ, and VT and they all tell me that it's 50 degrees and sunny. The Pacific NW, which rarely gets heavy snow especially on the coastal side has been hammered this year (Seattle, etc.) and I guess it was the same storm which dumped on us. We were praying for a White Christmas this year - be careful what you pray for - LOL... Best regards, Lin & Sherry

Some real snow for Maureen and Peter, from Colorado... Good Morning from Colorado - I will try to make an AV tutorial later and post a link, meanwhile wishing all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and fantastic New Year. I'm still digging out from the Blizzard of 06 with six foot drifts in my yard - LOL. Three days house bound before we could free up our driveway gate and get out to a plowed road. We had only 34 inches on the level, but the winds were fierce and the drifts were huge. 2700 people were stranded at Denver International Airport for two days and more before they could clear some runways and become operational again. Here's are links to some pictures: The first is looking SE from our living room window. The window sill is 52 inches from the ground and the drifts are two to three feet higher than the window sill. The second is looking south with one of our cars buried in front and my tractor in about 30 inches. The last is our old horse Nicky and his pigeon friend, both waiting for me to find my snowshoes so I can feed them - LOL.... Lin http://www.lin-evans.net/photos/drift21024.jpg http://www.lin-evans.net/photos/drift11024.jpg http://www.lin-evans.net/photos/nickandfriend.jpg

Igor, Aleksey, Pavel, Sergei (and any other team members I may have overlooked - Sorry) and all forum members too - Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a great New Year! Lin & Sherry

Hi Peter, The snow effect is done by creating a couple PNG files in Photoshop. Start with a transparency then paint it white leaving a white cover over a transparent background. Next choose a texture which approximates the consistency of snow you want to achieve - it's best to experiment with various noise and texture combinations. Next use the "select a color range" to select the darker or shadow areas and use the eraser tool to erase the shadows leaving only the white. You may want to repeat this until you have the consistency desired for the individual scene, i.e., heavy snow or fine snow, etc. Use two or more of these PNG files with one moving vertically or in a somewhat erratic vertical pattern (as snow falling down) and the second moving at an angle and with a different speed. You "could" use the identical file twice or three times to get a simulation of normal snow fall where some flakes fall faster than others. For blowing snow such as in the simulation when the wind blows, use much finer grain and move the file horizontally. By varying the opacity of these files along with the opacity of the moving clouds you can change the appearance from that of a gentle snow fall to a hard storm as in the demo sample. Once you have prepared your PNG files, save them for future use in a library so you can always select one or more to simulate the exact or near exact snowfall for your individual purpose. Best regards, Lin

There have been some internet problems in the last few days which have had some French sites down to many of us. Probably theDom's site will be back up soon. You have two ways to change the time for each photo. By clicking on "Project Options" then click on "Main" tab you can set or change the default time for all slides. If you want to change the time for display of only one slide then click on "Customize Slide" - then from the "Main" tab check the box which says "Use Customized settings for this Slide" then change the time in the "Display Slide For (sec)" area. Best regards, Lin

Hi Isabel, PicturesToExe has two ways to create an AVI. The way where you keep PTE open then burn a DVD, etc., is that PTE doesn't actually create the AVI file but rather provides the images and a "template" for the transitions, timings, etc., to the compatible programs which use this information to create their DVD, etc. To create a stand-alone AVI file with PTE, you need to put a check (dot) inside "Create Custom AVI file" then choose an audio and video codec. Once you have done this, a real stand-alone AVI file will be created which you can then inport into any program to modify or use however you choose. But you must click on the "Create Custom AVI File" to do this otherwise you will be creating a "template" to inform compatible software "how" to create the slideshow in AVI or MPEG format which they (the compatible software) then use to burn a DVD. Best regards, Lin

Boogie, The credit for using a pair of rectangle to describe an ellipse goes to Jean-Pierre who gave an excellent example with a demo of atomic structure. Be sure and read his explanation here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....738&hl=Atom Jean-Pierre has given the forum some of the most wonderful ideas and examples of how to use PicturesToExe version 5's which I've seen. Also search for his examples of the rotating cube! It's outstanding. Best regards, Lin

Looks great - what a cool effect! Best regards, Lin

Actually Al's method is much easier and will result in a perfect circle. If you want the ability to adjust the arc of the circle then do it with two rectangles or other objects as I explained in the sample. With this method you can have an elipse of nearly any shape. The first way I explained is very crude for a circle but you can adjust from a circle to any geometric shape with that method. Best regards, Lin

There are a couple possibilities. It will be somewhat difficult to get a perfectly smooth circle in one way because you need to keep the center at center. If you move the center by holding down the shift key and dragging the green square in the center your rotation will be perfectly aligned to the center of the PNG, but the object itself will not remain in a fixed orientation vis a vis the head, foot, etc., You "could" simply arrange the object along a circular route by placing evenly spaced keypoints in time and simply positioning the object along a circular route and dividing the amount of movement evenly throughout perhaps 30 separate evenly space keypoints. You could do this by drawing a perfect circle with grease pencil on your monitor then simply moving the object at intervals for each keypoint until you inscribe a circle. This won't be perfectly smooth however. The second way is superior, but this will take a bit of explanation. You need to create an anchor point by using a couple rectangles or other objects which you will eventually set to zero opacity. You set your object in a child relationship to the second rectangle, the first rectangle as the parent and the second in a child relationship with the first and the object to be rotated in a child relationship with the second rectangle. The center rectangle is set to rotate 360 degrees, the child rectangle to -720 degrees and then you need to set keypoints at 360/0 (start) 90 degrees 180 degrees and 270 degrees and rotate the image to upright at these points. This will keep your object upright. Rather than try to explain it further, let me just do it and you can get the idea that way... Open the zipped link and look at the construction. Remember that the rectangles would be set to zero opacity at the beginning and the end keypoints. The distance between the rectangles affects the arc of the circle. Just experiment. http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/rotateelk.zip Best regards, Lin.

Thanks Pavel, That is "VERY" helpful! A suggestion would be to place this post up above with the P2E so it doesn't get lost over time and get moved down in the threads? Best regards, Lin

Hi Joseph, I'm glad it's resolved for you. It's sometimes difficult to be sure from the error codes, but music can sometimes be the culprit as in your case. If you email me at: [email protected] I can perhaps suggest something which will allow you to use the music which didn't work. Best regards, Lin

Hi Heather, It sounds as if this may possibly be related to the music. Ask your customer to temporarily remove the music and re-create the executable and see if it works correctly. If the music isn't MP3 I would suggest converting it. In either event, it would be a good idea to have them come to the forum and possibly read the threads with similar issues (not too many) and maybe zip up the executable and send it to Igor if it doesn't turn out to be a music issue. Either way please let us know... Best regards, Lin

Excellent use of the myriad effects possible with P2E and a great statement! Best regards, Lin