stardealer

Please klick on Keyframe2 - Is Image1 in the desired position where it should stay for 3 seconds? Please klick on Keyframe3 - Is Image1 in the same position as before? The next to check is: Animation tab: Is animation set to "linear" on all three animation forms? If it is not "linear" you need to separate the animation for keypoints. Open the animation Dropdown-Box, choose "setting up" and klick on "separate here" for every single keypoint. You need to repeat this for every animation form "pan, zoom and rotation" For better explanation see Linearity in UserGuide

In the lifecycle of every software product there comes the time when you need to sacrify backward compatibility. Otherwise you get to the stage of unmanagable code and following this to longer development times for new features, unstability, long beta-cycles and so on. I welcome every effort which will keep PTE in the good shape we had in all of the last versions or speeds up functional development in the main focus of PTE, even if some users need to rebuild some existing menu applications and even if it requires restricted animation-functionality in this area. Just my 2ct, Frank

All friends of mine like viewing slideshows on TV more than viewing them on their PC. I'm assuming that in some time (6 to 12 months) nearly all of them will have a BluRay-Player to view films of the major studios. Then with these modern BluRay-Players all of them have the equipment to show single MP4-files on their TV. Then it is only about media and comfort. DVD has 4,7 GB capacity BluRay has 25GB (or 50GB)- I think it is enough for my normal slideshows of half an hour, if it's a 2 hour slideshow, well then I will reduce outputresolution to 1280x720. Actual DVD prices are about 0,25 - 0,40€, BluRay 25GB about 2 - 4 € In terms of media DVD is sufficient and cheap. Now to the question "comfort of use". Do I need a menu or not? Personally I think - No. And I don't want to pay higher prices for P2E-Deluxe only for BluRay-Authoring functionality. Regards, Frank

I would also like to see "When you apply a non linear speed option to an object, this speed option is applied BY DEFAULT to all sections individually without having to seperate all the sections. " with the addition When you insert keypoints after applying the non linear speed option it should be inserted as a seperated section also. If you want to change the behaviour afterwards, then you can use the additional detail-screen. For newcomers it would be helpful if after changing Pan from linear to non-linear a window is displayed which recommends and allows to copy these settings to Zoom and Rotate (and vice versa). In my experience this is the standard case how to use non-linear. Regards, Frank

Totally agree to pwear's opinion and Igor has promised something for next version, doesn't he? So maybe it's time to move on from the audio point to other features which can help to acquire new (and not only enthusiast)users like video integration, template wizard for ease of use, some small image manipulations, text animation functions and so on. Regards, Frank

Liked it, especially the music, but didn't find the words nor the sentence. For my personal preference there are to many themes mixed into one sequence, but some pictures are really outstanding. So overall it was a pleasure to watch. Regards Frank

Hi Xaver: I can't see any misuse from Dom or other members who offer additional services or products, but there may be good reasons to open a forum section dedicated to commercial templates or promoting additional/complementing software to PTE. To Ken: In my understanding whiteangle has posted a observation of behavioural change in PTE between version 5.6 and 5.7 and nothing else. Whether it was observed with one of Dom's templates or with a slideshow designed by his own doesn't mean anything to the fact that it seems to be a beta bug. I totally agree that generel questions regarding the use, functions or misfunctions of commercial templates should be addressed directly to the supplier and not in this forum. I waited for something like the border-functionality since my first slideshow-design in PTE, because it is so much easier to use then the ways you could do it before, so many thanks to WnSoft for that. Regards, Frank

I support this suggestion, made a similar suggestion a few weeks ago, see. Regards, Frank

This is a basic question, so I assume you are not so familiar with PTE and I will write very detailed how to do it. Highlight your image by clicking on it once. Go to the O&A screen (click on the button below the miniplayer.) Check that nothing in the right section (objects) is marked, if it is then click in this section to get it unmarked. Then right mouseclick -> New -> Text. Change the text as desired in the property tab. Now you've got a new object at the first position in the objects section with a starting keyframe in the timeline. The next steps are: - Move the keypoint to the 25 sec position with your mouse or change time in the properties tab to 25000 - Change opacity to 0 - move the blue triangle (below the keypoint) to approximately 27 sec - Hit Insert (or right mouseclick -> Insert keypoint; or click on the plus sign below the timeline) to create a new keypoint - Change opacity to 100 The text will now fade in in two seconds starting 25 seconds after image start. To develop more skills have a look at the user guide and also a look at the sample presentation which comes with 5.6 or other sample .pte files. Regards, Frank EDIT: Got a call while writing, so didn't saw that Lin's answer was already there ;-)

Hi JPD, it's absolutely stunning what you have created with our preferred tool! I can't imagine how you managed to design such complex animation. Congratulation, Frank P.S.: I have tried your Excel for redimensioning. Thanks for that tool, it solves my problem with TV safezone.

Tried it and it works as intended. You need some attempts with preview when moving the image out of the frame to speed motion but keep the direction intact (grid is helpful in this situation). Much better than my suggestion and not too complicated Frank

Hi Peter, to apply different modes of movements between keypoints you should follow the tutorial of Lin in the PTE made easy section named "Basic Non-Linear". But keeping in mind that you are a very experienced user, I assume you already knew that. The problem in your specific goal is that acceleration everytime starts with zero movement. So the best that could be achieved with non-linear implementation is: Between A and C it is linear then stops and accelerates to B. I don't know a way to avoid that and it can be distracting. But looking at your description you can achieve the imagination of speeding up by just inserting keyframe C approximately 3000 ms before keyframe B and then without changing pan and zoom value slide it 1500ms to the right. Combine this with "Correct perspective for zoom" ticked or unticked to your liking. It is not high quality, but maybe suits your needs. Regards, Frank

Paused the video until it preloaded enough, then played. Some minor stuttering at the beginning (moving text) and drastic stutter with every panned picture (2 or 3 I think). Specs are 1.8 Ghz AMD 64, new Geforce 9600GT, 2GB RAM. Regards, Frank

Hi John, maybe the missing space is occupied by the recycle bin. Have you configured your system that you can see also hidden and system folders? (RECYCLER is a hidden folder) If you like you can enable this in explorer/extras/folder options/view (translated from my german version of windows xp, it may differ on your system. But the first thing would be: Open the recycle bin and have a look and if you decide you don't need the files -> clear it. Then check space again. Regards, Frank

Hi Peter, I typically don't use this way of modeling, but genrally speaking: If the user-interface allows to do it, it should work (and it does, but only in O&A window). Igor and his team must decide whether to fix it, or to deactivate the function that one can shift the start/end of a object in a slide. When they decide to remove the function they have to deal in a intelligent way with older project files containing such keypoint design when these are opened in a version which doesn't allow to change this. So maybe it is easier to fix it than to remove it. regards, Frank

It seems that PTE needs a change in any of the objects to recognize that recalculation must be done. The easiest workaround in my opinion is - Clone a (the last) keypoint of the main (or any) picture and move it to the end of slide-timeline and set opacity to a subtle change e.g. from 100 to 99,9 PTE then recognizes that something has to be calculated and your sequence works as intended. So only one additional keypoint necessary to make it work for all objects in the slide. regards, Frank

Hi John, excellent composition of images, you showed us the difference between documentary and art. Very pleasing use of colorkey, grain and blur. The music is ok, but I must agree to other comments that some transitions are lasting to long. Maybe you can vary transition time according to the pace of music and by that get a tighter relation of music and show. Thanks for such a fine peace of artwork. regards, Frank

Let me describe what I see when opening your pte-file. At first sight in the O&A window I was wondering what you were claiming. My standard magnification is set to 25%. When I set this to 50% or 100% and then shift the bottom/horizontal slider a little to the left -> there it is! The picture is moving from the right side into the transparent section where it shouldn't be. That's my 2cents for anybody who is, like me, not recognizing the problem at first sight. When adding a picture to the mask container the problem vanishes, even if the picture is zoomed in a way that it is much smaller than the mask. So it leeds to the assumption that mask containers without pictures "move" with the horizontal slider. Not the same with the vertical slider. It's a minor bug because I think masks without pictures are useless. regards, Frank

I have PS Elements 6 and the same problem, but found that using (German) Datei/Neu/Bild aus Zwischenablage (in english version it may be) File/New/Image from Clipboard works exactly the way it is expected. Tried 4 pages in O&A with PrintScreen-> 4 times the correct image in PSE. regards, Frank

Don't take it personal, but running out of screen space you can avoid by 1st not using it and choose a view without additional soundtrack windows (surely Igor would implement it as this) or 2nd use a screen with higher resulotion. In many discussions about new functionality it comes to the point whether one likes to follow "best of breed" or "all in one package". Both ways have their advantages and shortcomings. But I think our hobby is described as AudioVisual, so I can't see anything against implementing basic functions to deliver a complete solution for this purpose. And what is requested in this thread is nothing more than basic functions. regards, Frank

Showing the filenames of used images in bold and others in normal has one big shortcoming. Only images that have "main-image" checked are marked bold. Additional images that are used in O&A are not marked. Whatever will be implemented to seperate used from unused images should recognize all used images, not only "main images". Speaking for myself, bold/normal would do the job for me if the shortcoming that I described is eliminated. regards, Frank

Since my first slideshow I like the effects you can get with fading between two, three or more versions of one image. But it's not so easy to play around with these things because you always have to prepare it in your image editor, put it into PTE, preview it and decide whether it looks good or not, supports the feelings you want to express or not, adjust in image editor again, preview and so on. Another commonly situation is when using O&A with animation of multiple images that some of these doesn't fit exactly to the mood expressed by the majority of the others and need some colour corrections to get a pleasing result. This leads me to the request of some image manipulation functionality in PTE. Only meant for those who can live with non-perfect results at the benefit of easy realization. Today we only have opacity, good enough to darken a image or give a image a small tint by overlaying it with a rectangle with the desired colour impression. Like opacity the following base functions should be coupled to keypoints, so that one can vary the effect strength over time. (Sort order represents the number of times I personally use these effects) 1. Blur 2. Brightness (or alternatively white/black point or gamma adjustment) 3. Colourize 4. Saturation If DirectX supports some of these functions, then implementing it shouldn't have a big impact to performance. regards, Frank

@fh1805 I also would like to have better control of audio in PTE and I agree that all the points you've mentioned are necessary to really get a step forward in terms of audio management in PTE. @yachtsman1 Wings Platinum can be used on every standard PC and has not very different hardware requirements than PTE . Video integration and combining it with high resolution images is the major reason you would need such a hardware monster as "Digital Signage Media Server". It seems to be a offer aimed at professionals to give them a preconfigured and quality tested system designed specially for the requirements of high throughput of streamed data. So it comes down one basic point no matter which program you use: You need as much hardware resources as you put pressure on it by extending the resolution and complexity of your slideshows, may it be with Wings or PTE or anything else. regards, Frank

Hi Peter and HAG, I suggested something similar under "Reuse of complex animations" but it got not much attention from the forum members. Using much and sometimes complex animations seems not so popular for serious av-workers using their shows in photoclubs and competitions as some comments in topics and also most of the published shows in this forums indicate. I for myself use animation in nearly every slide in my private holiday shows. Using much animation then needs good balancing to don't distract the viewer. Hopefully WnSoft recognizes that these finetuning work is the key for animations that hightens the viewers pleasure and that getting it right today is a really painful and timeconsuming task and then they hopefully decide to enhance functions for this task. Regards Frank P.S.: fh1805 - I think copy and paste objects between slides is possible today so please can you elaborate your request a little bit more that I can understand it.

Hi, did just a short rework of your delivered files. Not spectacular, but some improvement I think. Play with opacity of the mask to get the desired effectstrength. I think the rough edges of the original flame are the irritating part. You need to work on the original flame very carefully to get a smooth but good looking flame without the destracting black parts and then animate them. To smoothen the effect you can create a second flame with a little more eliminated edges and use this as the masked animated picture as it can be seen in the reworked example. Regards, Frank FlameTest_rev1.zip