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I'd like to add some ink sketches to my next slideshow. They are black and white line sketches, and wonder if there is some trick to make them appear like if an invisible inking pen draws them at high speed. Greetings! Umberto

Thank you for your fast patch, Igor!

Ciao Ettore, Innanzitutto benvenuto nel forum di Pictures to Exe, c'è un sacco di gente disponibile per scambiare opinioni e risolvere problemi. Dato che sei nuovo, permettimi di darti alcuni suggerimenti: innanzitutto questo è un forum in inglese e il moderatore preferisce messaggi in inglese. Se hai difficoltà a scrivere in inglese puoi sempre scrivere il tuo messaggio in italiano e poi aggiungere una traduzione effettuata con un traduttore automatico. Il moderatore Ken Cox suggerisce di utilizzare babelfish, che trovi all'indirizzo http://ca.babelfish.yahoo.com/. In questo modo chiunque nel forum può leggere il tuo messaggio e risponderti. Come ultima cosa, ho notato che nel precedente messaggio hai "quotato" (citato) la mia risposta. Tutto bene, solo che tu hai risposto dentro la quotatura, con il risultato che la tua risposta sembra parte della citazione (appare tutto nel riquadro verde se noti). La prossima volta per rendere più comprensibile il colloquio ti suggerisco di scrivere dopo il blocco di quota. Per via del problema col tuo PC, non conosco molto Panda, quindi potrebbe darsi che tu abbia delle cartelle bloccate dall'antivirus, oppure puo' darsi che ti manchi qualche codec per la codifica del file AVI. Per il resto... benvenuto ancora! Ettore wrote: Hi umberto, good morning from ete (Ettore). The PTE version is 6.0 deluxe, registered few days ago. PTKey is correctly installed since it gives my licence extremes. I tried to install PTE on my laptop and on that machine it works (always XP-Pro). I repeatedly used Undelete then always reinstalled but on the first PC it doesn't work. I save my work on a HD folder. I use Panda for protection on XP-Pro. Thanks again. I am retired (77 years old). Umberto wrote: First of all welcome on PTE forum, there is plenty of helpful people here. Since you are new to the forum, let me tell you some hints: first of all, this is a english forum and the moderator prefers english messages. If you have difficulties writing in english you can write in italian then append an automatic english translation. The moderator Ken Cox suggested the use of babelfish. This way everyone can read your message and answer to you. Secondly, you have quoted my previous message then replied in the quote block. This can cause confusion in the reader, hence next time please reply out of the quote block thank you. For your problem with PC, i don't know Panda, maybe you have troubles of folder protection due to the antivirus, or maybe you are missing the right codec to create AVI file. And finally... welcome again!

Hello Igor... That issue looks like it's not deterministic... I tried many times and now i'm no more able to reproduce it. If i manage to find a deterministic procedure, i'll write it down here. About the second question... please forget it. I was looking at the track/music concept from the wrong eye point. Now i fully understand it... wonder about a graphical interactive representation on the waveform panel (with the volume envelope functionality that will be really useful to lower music volume when the vocal comment comes in)... Anyway... I noticed that if you have a project open with a visible waveform and you choose File/New, then the waveform is still visible. It looks like simply a graphical glitch because closing and opening the waveform panel brings to a correct visualization. Greetings! Umberto

Sorry Ken, edited previous entry with both translations.

Ciao ete, Potresti fornire un po' più informazioni? Ad esempio la versione di Picture to Exe che stai utilizzando, se stai utilizzando la versione deluxe oppure quella standard, se e' una versione dimostrativa o meno (non ricordo se la dimostrativa è in grado di creare i files avi, dovrei controllare), se magari stai tentando di scrivere il file avi su un dispositivo in sola lettura ecc... eta wrote: when i press the create avi button, just after the file requester dialog, i receive a "CantCreateFiles". What's the meaning and where is my mistake. thank you. umberto wrote: Can you give more infos please? For example: PTE version you are using, if you are using deluxe or standard version, if you are using evaluation version (i don't remember if evaluation lets you write avi files, must check), if maybe you are trying to write on a read only device and so on... Ciao! Umberto

Thank you for you offer, Ray. Anyway, i finally get used to center the pivot in nearly no time comparing to the slicing time, so this is no more an issue for me. I still think that minimizing layer sizes is still good for me. I added (only) 14 parallax pictures to my slideshow and i reached 200 mb exe size. Considering that this is equivalent to about 90 seconds of slideshow and i need to reach 20 mins... Greetings! Umberto

Hi all! I'm trying beta4 and the new "multiple track" functionality in detail. I see that adding more than one track prevents the waveform to be displayed... is it wanted? Another question: i see that the timing and crossfading is set at audio file level, not at track level. The only track parameter i see is the name. So... what's the purpose of subdividing files between tracks? Thanks... Umberto

@Xaver: Wow so much effort ... I only asked if it was possible to snap pivot to the grid Finding the center of the screen is not an issue, i only tought that it was more fast to have a snapping support. Anyway, i managed to align 6 pictures this evening... now i'm used to it and i feel possible to get the result i have in my mind @BBDigital: It's a challenge @Peter: this is good news, anyway i prefer to keep on the different layers size. I need full video card power (read ac-plugged laptop) to get a smooth fading between two rotating parallax pictures... better to stay to cheese side Anyway, now that finally could begin to assembly all my slicing work into PTE, at first glance looks good... when i have something pretty decent i'll post a video to the forum Greetings! Umberto

Or... maybe i missed that... Is PTE capable of analyze PNG files content and automatically exclude big tranparent areas at runtime while keeping the whole image area when working in O&A editor? If so, i'd have lots less problems.

@Trailertrash: zoom 100% on photoshop, then CTRL + click on layer to select it and visually find the topmost and rightmost point of the selection with the mouse. Then i write down the px coordinates shown in info panel. Not straightforward but i didnt' find a better solution. @TheDom: i exclude the transpatent pixels to get the smallest possible images, because some slides work with lots of high-res images (10-12) and this way lets me optimize the video memory occupation. But that's cumbersome to handle... Greetings! Umberto

Hello. I have the following issue (using v6): i have a sliced picture that i want to "rebuild" into a slide. The picture is made of several layers (separate images), but not all layers are the same size because they cover different parts of the same picture. But, when correctly assemblied, the whole picture is shown. I position each layer by looking at each layer coordinates in photoshop, then copy layer coordinates into pte and that's ok. Now, my need is that each layer to have the same pivot point (screen center) because i need this to obtain my animation effect. I turned on the grid but when i try to move the pivot point of each layer (with SHIFT + drag) it doesn't seem that the pivot snaps to grid points. Then it's difficult to correctly align each one to screen center. How is possible to obtain such grid snapping? Thanks... Umberto

To be more clear, here you are a little schema explaining the problem. How to compute correct zoom factors? Obviously computed zoom factors are related to the distance of z=0 plane from the eye. But when you have set the distance from the eye, you should be able to compute the zoom factor for each layer to make them visually re-align with the z=0 plane. When you have "reassembled" the picture, then you can start move/rotate the entire group and get the parallax effect. Obviously, you cannot move/rotate too much. If you exaggerate then the viewer will notice the artifact. Greetings! Umberto

No, i was referring to the need to zoom each layer with different zoom values to constraint them to their "apparent original size". Layers need to be on different Z distances fron observator eye to obtain the parallax effect. You can try this with boxes. Create three identical boxes. Place the first at Z = 0, the second at Z = -100 and the third at Z = +100. Obviously now you'll notice the perspective effect. The nearest one looks bigger and the fartest one looks smaller. By applying this procedure to a sliced photograph you get an odd result. You must "realign" all layers by zooming them. you must zoom out the nearest one to make it smaller (and fit the Z = 0 box size), then you must zoom in the fartest to make it bigger (for the same reason). After this operation the original photo is restored (but with each layer at different Z coordinates!). If you see it without perspective, you should see a "frustum". Then you can pan/rotate and get a nice parallax effect. The issue is that it's difficult to compute the right zoom factor to be applied to each layer to get the original "apparent size". P.S. And, yes, all this mess in under a parent transparent frame that I use to rotate everything. Greetings! Umberto

Hi Peter... Please check this out Cave test.zip. I already post this little single slide animation months ago, but just to refresh. As you can see, the scene is built by slicing a single photo into layers and filling the holes caused by slicing operation. Each layer is on a different Z plane. When i place each layer on Z axis, I must correct layer zoom level to restore the original picture (if i look at the scene from the front, i want to see the original picture). If i don't do that, the assembly doesn't work because nearer layers appear to be bigger because of perspective. Then I must work on zoom, hence my initial request Thank you! Umberto

Again with an old proposal... I spent a lot of time cutting my photos into layers (it took ages!). The purpose is to obtain a 3D effect by placing each layer in different Z axis position. The difficult part now is that if i move a layer on Z axis, then its apparent size changes due to perspective. This is bad in my case because layers are already "perspective corrected" by themselves because i extracted them by a real photo. Hence, I must correct the apparent size by acting on the zoom factor of each layer. This is not a precise operation, because i don't know the formula that gives me the zoom factor based on z panning distance. Would it be possible to introduce some (maybe well hidden) parameter that lets me counter balance the Z panning parameter by acting on the zoom level? At least... some kind of formula that given the Z axis pan value returns the zoom level that I should set to get the original apparent size back again? Thanks... Umberto

Hi all... from time to time I come back with this improvement suggestion... I love to work with pictures at higher resolution possible. That gives me the opportunity to output my work on projectors, computer monitors, HDMI monitors and so on. But... the problem is that I shoot photos at 4000x3000 px. Even the most modern hardware is not capable of displaying at such resolution (at least, the one i can afford, eheh). Where is the point? PTE is capable of realtime scaling to the right output resolution you say... The point is that a 4000x3000 pictures take ages to load and they are heavy in video memory, especially if you deal with really complex slides. This sometimes leads to less smoothness and longer loading times, even on my respectable (i suppose) ATI 4570 with 512 mb video ram. Currently I must rescale each picture to the resolution i suppose it will be used for the projection. Moreover, I must take into account also scaling factors used during animations to ensure that each picture will not blur because of a lower resolution. Wouldn't be wonderful if PTE had an (optional) parameter that force it to rescale each picture taking into account scaling factors when compiling the executable? This would let me work with higher pictures without trouble (okok, in preview mode it will be slow but i accept that) and be sure i'll get the most performance when in exe mode! Thanks! Umberto

Wowowow! A dream coming true! Thank you Igor!

Igor, you are risking that I travel to your home for shaking your hands! Igor, with: "We'll mix music files in realtime without re-encoding. Probably we will add "Export tracks to MP3" option to mix all tracks into one audio file. You will able choose both ways." you mean that I can choose to automatically export multiple tracks to a single pre-mixed audio track in the final exe? What would be gorgeous!

One more time, I'd like to write my opinion on this argument. I personally feel the need of multiple tracks with the ability to set the volume level and fade in/out (that can be seen as setting the volume level). Also the ability to set the start/end time point of a sound file into PTE would be great. One could take an entire soundtrack and virtually extract the interesting piece without really producing a standalone cutted file. This will lead to simpler handling when different pieces of the same track are needed in different orders. The interface should behave as shown in previous posts, with many tracks stacked on each other. A splitter would permit to choose how many screen estate give to video or to audio panels. When too many tracks are on screen, a vertical scrollbar will let to scroll without moving the splitter to make room. When producing the final exe, a mixdown to a single track will be performed to avoid performance issues. I don't think that dolby 5.1 or stereo is the real issue. I like how PTE now behaves with audio tracks (does it manage only stereo, i don't know). Even more, given that there is plenty of people that don't like this new audio feature, I think that is still possible not to use it, keeping on the old "good" work with Audacity. Just use a single track, I don't think this will bring chaos on their lifes Still hoping for this long awaited addition.... Umberto

Welcome back, Igor

Maybe it's not the case but... I would try converting all pictures in JPeg format if transparency is not needed. JPegs are lighter than TIFFs and maybe in a fast switching sequence PTE has not the time to fetch the picture from file, hence the slide doesn't appear. Greetings! Umberto

The video clip insertion and sound track fading are being discussed for a long time, but you did a good thing bringing back those topics. Since the "3D" introduction is almost complete with PTE 6.0, now Igor and team should face them to provide a killer app. In my opinion, the introduction of multiple audio tracks with cut, crop and fade options is more important than the introduction of video clips. Don't misunderstand me, I would like to use an "all round" product that will permit me everything I wish with audio and video but, given also the product name (Pictures To Exe), I feel that the audio part should be considered first. I don't know if implementing audio mixing is more difficult to implement video clip insertion, but I feel that the first should be easier, hence should be considered first. As you may notice, I really wish to have audio mixing capabilities Greetings! Umberto

Well done job Igor and team! And now.... sit down and relax

I don't want to be annoying, just want to understand better PTE behavior. So, is time range equivalent to set picture opacity? Is it, say, redundant? Thanks... Umberto