Lin Evans

Hi Igor, That's great news! Looking forward to the new engine! Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Yes it's indeed possible to use PNG and keyframes to animate butterfly and bird wings, etc., but difficult to overcome the stiffness of motion as well as issues of perspective. Some of the 3D software is excellent for more sophisticated animation but even animating a single butterfly takes many, many hours of work. On the other hand, bluescreen and greenscreen video along with alpha channel offer many great potentials for getting truly lifelike animations and are fun to explore... Best regards, Lin

Hi Chris - sorry, it was my fault that the upload didn't finish. I've changed the link on the original post to the project file for the slightly longer show and I'll repeat it here - this one should work. http://www.lin-evans.org/butterfly/butterfly2pte.zip Best regards, Lin

Took longer to post it than to make it... No need to reinvent the wheel - PTE Chroma Key Green Screen Extraction is great: This is just a quick sample - easy to realtime change background screens and/or add other insects or more butterflies in animation. http://www.lin-evans.org/butterfly/butterfly.zip (about 14 meg Windows exe) here's the project file to the expanded version: http://www.lin-evans.org/butterfly/butterfly2pte.zip here's an expanded version with changing screens, etc.: http://www.lin-evans.org/butterfly/butterfly2.zip (about 40 meg Windows exe) http://www.lin-evans.org/butterfly/butterfly2mac.zip (MacIntosh Version zipped native Mac exe - about 42 meg) http://www.lin-evans.org/butterfly/butterfly2.mp4 (use back button on browser to return here after running video) Added some more critters..... http://www.lin-evans.org/butterfly/butterfly22.mp4 (use back button on browser to return here after running video) Best regards, Lin

Hey Tom, LOL - he has incredible "off-road" capabilities as well. He was in a real hurry because he knew this was going to happen and he absolutely HATES it when Lisah catches him and makes him repeat his journey.... Lisah is hanging on for dear life on those tight turns.... HA! http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/roadtripsample22.mp4 Lin

Thanks Denis, I'll give that a try! Meanwhile here's a variation which might be interesting: http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/roadtripsample3.mp4 Use browser back button click to return here: Best regards, Lin

The Route Generator programs works well on my XP system using a relatively high resolution map and setting the codec to Cinepak by Radius. It takes the BMPtoAVI exe a long time to generate a 20 second route (several minutes) but it eventually does it well. The generated AVI is fairly large so I converted it in PTE to the default then exported the result as an MP4 after adding a PNG overlay to maintain the visibility of road text and highway numbers, etc. Just take the original map into Photoshop, overlay on a transparency then use the eraser to erase the route excepting the necessary signs, overpass, etc. This allows the route vehicle to be seen but appear to pass under rather than obliterate road signs, etc. I couldn't get the ffmpeg feature to work at all no matter how many versions of ffmpeg I tried so stayed with the default avi but not the uncompressed default which creates an absolutely huge (over a gigabyte) file for even a 20 second animation. The result link below: Use the back arrow on your browser to return here.... http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/roadtripsample2.mp4 Best regards, Lin

I suspect that the Route Generator internally works almost exactly as Dave's original example. It most likely draws small lines between points on separate layers then combines them along with a small icon of a car, bicycle, airplane, train, etc., into a little video. It's a very useful utility. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mick, Yes, the difficulty of doing it like Dom and I did was that one needs to adjust the moving color at various points, especially, as you say, if the road is twisty. That method could be combined with a mask to confine the appearance only at the specific point in the route. The mask could be easily made just as the cut-out by painting the route white and making every other thing black. Then by moving the mask as the parent of the color jpg some of the difficulty of unwanted appearance of the colored jpg could be eliminated because the color couldn't show except at the position of the unveiling of the mask. Best regards, Lin

The way Dominique (theDom) and I did the first ones with PTE was a little different. We took a copy jpg of the map into Photoshop and pasted it on a transparency. Then we used a brush the diameter of the line representing the route and erased the highway route leaving transparency in place of the highway and saved as a PNG. Then we took the original jpg map and placed it in PTE with the copy of the cut-out on top. This appeared then exactly as the original jpg but what was actually seen as the highway route was the underlying jpg showing through the cut-out in the PNG layer on top. Next we took a colored jpg (solid color such as red) and sandwiched it between the PNG and the jpg in yet a third layer on PTE and we moved it, thus replacing the original route with the moving red line, etc., to represent the route as traveled in real time. Lin Quick and VERY unsophisticated example: http://www.lin-evans.org/pte8/mapdemo.mp4

I made nine megapixel exe slideshows for clients with PTE many years ago which ran perfectly on nine megapixel IBM and Viewsonic displays. The systems and dual video cards were not suitable for animation at that resolution but simple fades and incredibly detailed images ran perfectly. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Perhaps by the time hardware averages catch up to 4K video things will run smoothly for most. I still can't even run 1080p at 30 fps smoothly over the web because of download speed bottleneck - I think that decent spooling caches (preload) should be developed before the industry gets carried away with super high resolution video.... Best regards, Lin

Hi John, You have plenty of resources to run that - can you link to the actual GIF file and I'll try to sort it for you. The zoom is very easy - just a couple keyframes so I'll make you a sample and you can modify as needed. Best regards, Lin

Hi John, A lot depends on the amount of resources you have in your system and with an animated GIF how large the file is. If you can post the amount of RAM on your video card and the size of the GIF perhaps I can make some suggestions. It may be that you need to export your GIF from Xara in a smaller pixel size. I'm assuming that you are running a Windows operating system. If so, you can get the specifications of your GPU (video card) by "Start" "Run" then type in DXDIAG then press Enter. Then read out the video and system resources and post here. Best regards, Lin

Hi Judy, 1. No - a blur can't be applied to a mask. 2. In Slide Options - Main Tab - Slide Duration - Use "Loop This Slide" Set your slide time to about the same duration as the cube rotation then loop the slide. Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, The proper procedure is stabilize the video as it comes from your camera, etc., in Mercali then convert the stabilized video in PTE. When Mercali stabilized a video the video is re-rendered so it you are adding an unnecessary step by converting before stabilizing. PTE sets a number of parameters which allow the smooth play in even less than optimal systems. Much of what it does is decompression and when you run Mercali it recompresses. It has little to do with bitrate and much to do with compression levels. So if you just do the stabilization then convert you should have optimal performance. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dawn, It's possible to make about any type animation with PicturesToExe that you might want. Sometimes even no animation might be preferable. With a good collection of images from the family - I'm certain that you can make a beautiful and memorable show which can show the life of the deceased in a way fitting for the family and friends. I did this for my own mother's funeral and the show began with her childhood pictures and took the viewer through her entire long, varied and interesting life. When coupled with meaningful text and in some cases perhaps voice - and appropriate soft background music, this type show can be a joy to watch. What you may want to consider is watching various PTE shows to see the different types of motion and perhaps watching some tutorials which can help you learn how to effectively use the timeline with keyframes to perform pans, zooms and rotates as well as blurs, focus changes and such. Also judicious use of borders and multiple simultaneous images both in motion as well as stills all might be useful. There is not a single format which would be always appropriate and the more that you watch and learn, the easier it will be for you to chose the appropriate type to best present the deceased to your audience. Visit our tutorials page here: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17659-alphabetic-index-of-articles-and-tutorials/ and you might find a number of possibilities. Then go here and check both regular shows as well as the demos pages: http://www.slideshowclub.com/files/category/1-slideshows/ http://www.slideshowclub.com/files/category/2-demos/ Best regards, Lin

Talent is 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration - LOL... It will come as you play with the software and try new things. Best regards, Lin

LOL - I just got back from the hospital visiting Lisah - a total "white-out" for 12 miles... forecast is for snow every day for the next seven days and that's as far as the forecast goes. I think I may have to hook up Lisah's four Chihuahuas and old Honey dog to a sled to get back and forth... that could make an interesting slide show... Lin

Yes, I'm assuming you mean the "loop" function in slide styles, but I don' think the "LOOP" function is really a solution. The second way is useful, but wouldn't it be better to just modify the original style so that all six images get to the front at least one time? Playing with this brought up another possibility - wouldn't it be useful to have the option of modifying the background image in project options by addition of the blur feature? So when one chooses their own background image for the slides, they could also blur it as desired.... Just a thought... Best regards, Lin

Works great but how do you make it rotate all images through the front? It seems to stop in the same place regardless of the times set for side duration. When I adjust the "speed" the time changes automatically. When I adjust the time, the speed changes automatically? Best regards, Lin

Hi Geoff, You won't be able to display the system time/date, etc., but it is fairly easy to construct a clock which will keep accurate time and display that. Back in the stone age of PTE I demonstrated a "Road to Cimarron" slideshow which displayed a map and a real-time clock which had second, minute and hour hands. Essentially I took a fairly large image of a clock and saved the components as PNG files. There was a PNG second hand, PNG minute hand, PNG hour hand and then the clock with it's numbers minus the hands. The hands were stacked in three layers and between keyframes the proper increments of rotation were calculated for the desired display time and everything was as accurate as the system clock. You could build this clock, control its appearance with a mask and use the opacity feature to control when it displayed. It's not a real simple construct, but it would work as you have indicated. The only issue would be making certain that it was running in sync with the actual time your menu was displayed in real time. If it was only relative time (time of display) you need it would be easy but if your want accurate time of day you would have to regenerate the exe just before display time and set the clock accordingly. Tom was working on one which had great promise - you might want to read the following: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?/topic/15346-pte-transparent-clock/?hl=%2Bclock+%2Bdisplay#entry101745 Best regards, Lin

Hi Bert, Here are the two captures on my system - virtually identical.... I would look at the GPU software settings as Igor suggested... Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I believe it's entirely possible for settings to change between driver updates. Though it would probably be wise for a manufacturer of software to be consistent in their defaults from iteration to iteration, sometimes they are not and at times questions or check boxes are presented during installation and the final result may depend on the response of the person conducting the installation. I haven't updated my nVidia drivers since I installed my latest GTX 750 Ti card because each driver update in the past year has only been related to features I can't access with my XT OS. On my development system which I maintain as more or less the "least common denominator" I see absolutely zero apparent differences between generated MP4's and executable colors. On my rather powerful display system which runs Win 8.1 with a near top-end nVidia video card and maximum possible resources, the situation is identical except my display itself (a 30" 2560x1600 LCD) oversaturates everything by default. Even with this, there is no perceptible difference between the generated MP4 and generated exe in saturation or hue. These issues, I believe, have nothing to do with PTE's generated code but are entirely the result of differences in the GPU settings applied to video. Only Igor can say but my take is that PTE from iteration to iteration is consistent. There has been some experimentation with possibly initiating colorspace awareness but this has not been realized in the present code AFAIK... Best regards, Lin

Hi Bert, Which exact build of PTE are you using? I'm using 8.0.11 and I see absolutely zero difference in saturation between my exe and mp4 on a single image test as linked below: http://www.lin-evans.org/colortest/colortest.zip (exe) http://www.lin-evans.org/colortest/colortestmp4.zip (mp4) See how your player reacts to this mp4 versus the exe. On all my systems they are identical. Hopefully we can find the cause... Best regards, Lin