Animating the Background

[johnpe]

I have used Animoto to generate slideshows and have liked the fact that the image is often animated with another animated image in the background. Can this be achieved in Pictures To Exe?

[Lin Evans]

Of course - it's possible to animate any number of layers with PicturesToExe (PTE). You have multiple choices. It's possible to run a video or animated gif in the background with other animation running in the foreground. If you wish, you can have a video running continually, that is it never quits in the background while stll images and/or videos are sequenced in the foreground. There are multiple ways to do this with PTE. You can prepare PNG files with transparency in other software such as Photoshop or various freeware and animate any number of them.

Here is a sample for you to see of some of the amount of animation possible with PTE. In this sample I have a zooming, rotating 3D icosahedron (20 sided geometrical construct) with three thousand six hundred twenty individual video displays in simultaneous operation with the moon and a rotating starfield is in the background and the rotating Earth moving behind the moon while a flaming asteroid flies across the screen between the icosahedron and moon. You can download and view this here:

http://www.slideshowclub.com/files/file/22-icosahedron-animation-example/

Try creating this with Animoto or any other presentation slideshow product.....

Or here one of my Youtube videos made entirely with PTE - a 3D room with 646 simultaneous video displays while a rotating zooming cube changes from solid still images to different videos on all six sides.....

Best regards,

Lin

[johnpe]

Wow, Lin! I'm amazed by anybody who can even create the concept, let alone create the show!

My requirement is trivial by comparison. I just want my "main" pictures to be shown in front of another picture (which will change, but will be one of the photographs in the "front" slideshow). Both layers to be animated. The rear layer will be monochrome and deliberately dimmed.

I guess from what you say that I will have to create the entire background layer and convert it to video and separately create the foreground layer, making sure I keep them in sync?

John

[Barry Beckham]

John

You don't need to convert anything to video. With what you describe, my "main" pictures to be shown in front of another picture You can do this with two still images

Take a look at the PTE promo slide show and see if anything there looks like what you want to do. You will find that top left HERE

[davegee]

John,

Here's a STYLE that demonstrates something along the lines that you describe.

ZoomBG.ptestyle

The Main Image is used as a Background image and is Blurred and converted to B+W.

Add as many images to the slide list as required - highlight them all and apply the Style.

All parameters are fully adjustable in Objects and Animation. You can make changes to the slide in Objects and Animation and resave as a different style.

There is some further info on Styles here:

http://docs.picturestoexe.com/en/slide-styles/main

Warning: Using something like this on ALL slides in a presentation is not advisable.

DG

[jt49]

... You don't need to convert anything to video. With what you describe, my "main" pictures to be shown in front of another picture You can do this with two still images ...

Sorry, but I cannot agree on all points. Sometimes I like to have an animated still image in the background that runs across several slides. A video can be liked across slides. With an animated still image I have to use an unpleasant workaround (I learned it from Jean-Cyprien). This is why I continue to ask for the feature of linking images across slides

Regards,

jt

[Barry Beckham]

JT

Don't make things more complex than they need to be. The question asked was my "main" pictures to be shown in front of another picture.

Are we looking to point John in the right direction or show off our knowledge ?

KISS

[Lin Evans]

Hi John,

Perhaps the best way to help answer your question would be to actually see a sample of what you would like to achieve. If you could link us to one of your Animoto shows which demonstrates what you wish to achieve, then maybe we could all be on the same page.

The bottom line is that the possibilities are pretty much limitless with PTE but the "methods" and approach might be different than with other products. The old adage "more than one way to skin a cat" comes to mind as well as "a picture is worth a thousand words."

The two samples I demonstrated were just designed to show the some of the extremes possible and are not in any way representative of what constitutes a good slideshow. The PTE Demo sample project Barry created and linked is probably much more meaingful when it comes to ordinary use of PTE. Words sometimes fail when we try to explain what we are trying to achieve.

If you could show us a quick sample - one or more here on the forum will be happy to help suss out how it can be done with PTE.

Best regards,

Lin

[johnpe]

The first 10 images of this Animoto will give you a good idea of the sort of thing I'm after. Incidentally, I ditched Animoto because there is too little control available and it's too ready to crop my images. I use the slideshow as an interesting way to display the photographs, not as an art form in its own right, so my needs are fairly simple compared with Lin's.

[Lin Evans]

Hi John,

Thanks! That makes it so much easier to answer your questions. Yes, you can create these effects with PicturesToExe but the difference is that with PTE it's a nuts and bolts approach where you have total control over the each element while with Animoto you have very few choices. It is, on the other hand, MUCH easier to create this type show with Animoto because Animoto has a multitude of pre-programmed effects which are automatically applied.

With PTE there are numerous transitions and styles which you can use but the true power is that you can create your own styles and transitions then pick and choose from among them and you have total creative control.

If you are a working photographer who is producing shows for many clients, your time is extremely valuable and you most likely make your income from your photography and supplement it a bit with slideshow presentations. To that end where you can simply drop in a few images and very quickly pop out a professional looking presentation with automatic matching of music beat to slide, Animoto is superb. PTE really doesn't work that way. PTE takes more time to use to create the specialized effects which once created can be saved as styles or transitions and used over and again in any order or way you desire. The up side with PTE is creativity and control. The up side with Animoto is speed of production. Conversely, the down side of PTE is time of creation and the down side of Animoto is nearly a total loss of creative control.

The answer to your original question based on the brief show you linked is yes, you can do this with PTE. The question you must ask youself is whether you are willing to spend the time necessary to create some styles which work the way you want to get the desired results. PTE can do amazing things with your images. You can take a color slide, change it to monochrome, sepia or anything in between in real time and at the speed and intensity you choose. You can take an image, blur it completely, use it as a backdrop for the same image and animate each independently. You can take a still image and save that still image as a video (all without leaving PTE) then use that video as an animated backdrop by fading, changing it's color, rotate it, zoom it, size it, position it and have it persist between slide transitions. In short there is, in a practical sense, no real limits on creativity with PTE. The trade-off is time. The result is total creative control and quality of the end product.

If you give me a bit of time - perhaps a day or so, I will take some of the images demonstrated in the Animoto presentation and create a little sample for you to give you some ideas....

Best regards,

Lin

[davegee]

You two are going to get on like a house on fire!!

DG

[Lin Evans]

LOL Dave,

John,

Here is a quick sample - obviously not even pretending to be good - just a very quick sample to give you an idea of some possibilities... No pretense at anything you would want to use for a serious presentation but using some of my suggestions.... This done with some simple use of blur, keyframing, a couple sample styles, etc. coupled with some quick screen snaps of your images in Animoto and the same sound track. I didn't size the images for the carousel so the colors you see wouldn't normally be there - just images. Just a quick jumble of possibilities. I manipulated a single still image for the backdrop then quickly converted it to a video all in PTE then used it as the master track with linked tracks. Buy using masks many more great effects could be made but I wanted to keep it quick and simple....

http://www.lin-evans.org/demo/haleyzip.zip (zipped windows exe sample)

Best regards,

Lin

[johnpe]

Thank you so very much, Lin. Although I've used PTE quite a lot I obviously have much to learn! What you have created proves to me that PTE will do exactly what I need. It's very kind of you to give me so much of your time.

Your long message was very interesting too. The Animoto I posted was made quickly from the results of a demonstration I gave at a local camera club. My portrait/wedding business model is based on small numbers of high value commissions, not quantity, so I think PTE can still work for me. As I said, Animoto looks good until you realise that it's very limiting. If there's one bit of a show you don't like you have to resubmit the files and take pot luck on what effects will be added this time. And I've had the tops of people's heads cropped off!

I agree that PTE can involve a lot of effort, but now to a thought I've had ... How about if I were to invest some time in creating a show based on a set of files called, say, S1, S2, etc in a folder called BuildShow. I could then simply replace the contents of those files with the results of my latest photoshoot. I'd obviously need to do this for both foreground and background (or I could create a generic animated background). All my client shows would in one sense be identical, but because the foreground content (and maybe the background too) would be different they would appear totally different to the viewer. I love creating and using templates, and this is really just one more example.

John

[Lin Evans]

Hi John,

Yes, that approach would work fine as long as the image sizes and orientation were the same. Of course you could make several such templates and you would have then a number of possibilities.

Best regards,

Lin

[Lin Evans]

Did a tiny bit of perhaps "improvement" by using a slightly different carousel so no color splash... link below:

http://www.lin-evans.org/demo/haley2.zip (Zipped Windows Exe)

Lin

[johnpe]

That's great, Lin. Thank you so much Now I know the direction I want to head!

John