Lin Evans

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: data2@lpbroadband.net 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

Hi Ken, No explanation that I can think of - both are practically identical in terms of code - just one addiional object in the second one. They both end with ESC on all my systems. Best regards, Lin

Hi Bernard, Beautiful images and a very nice show! I too am working on some 3D projects but with version 5 beta. I'm compositing 2D to 3D and creating 3D objects for animation in version 5. You can see a rudimentary sample on the PicturesToExe thread. Best regards, Lin Your best bet is to order them from the web or try one of your video stores. There has been an animated 3D movie or two lately and the video store usually receives hundreds of 3D glasses with their video - they would probably sell you a pair or possibly even give you a pair. Otherwise these people have a large selection: http://www.3dstereo.com/viewmaster/gla.html Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, Yes, that works nicely - thanks! - I'm trying to decide about the potential for 3D directions and am looking into anaglyphs as well as interleave LC-shutter (L-R-L-R) and 3D LCD (L-R-L-R). I think there may be lots of future potential for 3D animated slideshows, but that's for after you rest up from all the work getting out P2E 5.0 which is coming along beautifully!! Best regards, Lin

O.K., I was waiting to see if anyone picked up on the possible significance of this - but rather than wait I'll just post another link. http://www.lin-evans.org/p2e/anaglyph.zip The essence is folks, we can have "animated" 3d slideshows. Once the anaglyph has been created, it's possible to select, copy and paste the 3D segment in another PNG, erase the background and you have a 3D object which when used properly in an anaglyph can have motion, rotation, variable transparency, etc., The possibilities are quite exciting I think. It may take some work to figure out all the details and depth mapping for use, but I suspect we can have some pretty exciting animation for those willing to wear anaglyph glasses to watch. Best regards, Lin

3D slideshows are nothing new, we've had a great example or so from one of our forum members a while back, but this is a bit different. This image wasn't taken with a pair of cameras or with a single camera moved horizontally, but rather made as a composite from 5 separate images. The background mountain frame was taken near Bear Lake adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park, the Coyote image was taken in Rocky Mountain National Park, the Airplane and Lightning were taken from images in a couple of my earlier slideshows. The background is a jpg, the coyote, lightning, airplane and right side of the mountain were made into PNG files then placed in layers in a Photoshop PSD file the the depth map was composited with ProMagic's 3D Magic Lenticular Designer program. The first and last photos from a twelve frame series were then placed into Anaglyph Maker, a freeware program which creates anaglyphs in multiple ways from a pair of stereoscopic captures. I think there are some possibilities for creating some exciting imagry ever if you don't have the equipment to take stereoscopic photos. I believe it's possible to create a rather interesting 3D slideshow from composited 2D photos and this is simply a trial to see how it might look. To see this in 3D use Anaglyph glasses (the 3D glasses with red & cyan colored lenses. http://www.lin-evans.org/p2e/anaglyph.zip Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, You are right! I now understand why it's not working the same way as in my earlier beta test. In my first beta test of the sequences at 100ms, I used 12 slides reversed in sequence then repeated this procedure multiple times until I had about 120 slides, but then followed the sequence by a single slide with about a 5 second display time. The show was set to repeat until ESC was pressed (the 3D mushroom show). This time I made another but only placed the 12 slides in the sequence plus these same slides reversed in order and set the show to repeat until ESC was pressed thinking that I wouldn't need to actually repeat the sequence in the slide list. When I changed the timing to 200ms the "Repeat until ESC" worked so I continued trying different timings until it failed at about 110ms. The "secret" to getting the display to work as I expected is to repeat the sequence in the slide list as many times as necessary to get the effect to last as long as I want then place a single slide with a transition and a reasonable display time. If I do this the effect is the same as on the Mushroom 3D. Thanks very much, my mistake.... Best regards, Lin

Hi Peter, It's been working fine in earlier betas, but it doesn't work for me with beta 8g either on preview or on the executables created. But I should clarify when it doesn't work. Turn off transitions in Project options, set the timing to zero seconds and 100ms for all slides then try it. It's been working fine for me until 8g. If you turn on transitions then it works but with transitions disabled it stops after one sequence. Best regards, Lin