Lin Evans

Hi Frans, Yes please send me a link or the PTE file and I'll have a look. Best regards, Lin

Hi Frans, Thanks! There is no need to add a white rectangle. The mask you create is easiest if it is a PNG file with pure white where you want the image contained within the mask to show and transparency or black where you wish to show the image in the layer above the mask construct. I will create an AVI tutorial and post it here sometime later today. Best regards, Lin

Warning: This demo contains tasteful nudity - do not download if this will offend you... the images I used in this demo are not my photography - they are web images chosen for specific reasons pertaining to their suitability for demonstration and construction purpose. The two images of the girl lying in the branches of a tree were monochrome images which I colored in Photoshop. They were chosen for their complexity to experiment with Photoshop coloring techniques. The "bubbles" were created in Photoshop. The rippling water in the fountain bowl was created as an animated gif with SqirlzReflect, an excellent freeware product available on the web. PTE's built-in masking was used to confine the effect to the desired place. The fountain effect was created with ParticleIllusions as an RGBA alpha channel avi. On the second image, the canal, the rippling effect was also created with the aforementioned program, Photoshop and PTE. Note the rippling water in the reflection of the large rising bubble. This was done via a mask created with Photoshop. The third image was a difficult one to create. The multi-object format presented a "head scratch" to determine a way to achieve the rippling water with all the rocks and shadows and get it correct. I worked out a way to do this using a combination of PTE, SqirlzReflect and a complex mask created in Photoshop. The details of how to do this will be made available via a tutorial if anyone is interested and lets me know. This effect can't be achieved without an image editor such as Photoshop to build the mask or without SqirlzReflect and PTE's ability to mix images via opacity and masking. The "Dreams" text was created with a Photoshop action which I will make available for anyone interested. http://www.lin-evans.org/ken/dreams.zip (about 70 meg zipped Windows exe file) http://www.lin-evans.org/ken/dreamsmac (about 70 meg zipped MacIntosh native exe file) Added one summer sequence to the original on 4/15/14 As promised - here's the explanation - tutorial for the rippling water on a complex image: http://www.lin-evans.org/tutorial/ripplewatercompleximage.zip (about 111 meg zipped avi) Best regards, Lin

Hi Philippe, The template is free and you can download it by going here: http://www.learnpte.com/learn/learn.html Scroll down to number 34 and you can also download tutorials on how to use this. Also keep in mind that with PTE 8.0, you have a cube "style" which you can access by first loading six images or animated gifs or videos or any combination and selecting them by holding down the CTRL key and clicking on any six. Next click the "Slide Style" button then click on "Experimental" tab and choose "Cube." Next simply choose "Apply" and you will instantly have a cube with either six images or any combination of images, videos or animated gifs. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mur, What that refers to is just the features available from the Objects and Animations screen with PTE. The term "editor" refers to the various features of being able to make objects larger, smaller, change opacity, pan, zoom, rotate, apply 3D transforms, change the center, blur, change color, etc. There is no other "tool" available to anyone other than those tools provided via the Objects and Animations screen. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, Cool!! I think if you duplicated the original on subsequent slides and perhaps inverted subsequent slides horizontally and vertically, slightly changing position, size, etc., and interspersed a bit of blue sky in between slides you would have the sensation of flying through clouds... By simply modifying the same slide you would not incur any additional overhead and the file size would not increase substantially. Best regards, Lin

Hi Mur, Could you explain were you heard this term and in reference to what? There is nothing available to anyone outside of the PTE development team which is not available to everyone. Best regards, Lin

Last two posts deleted - off topic guys .... Best regards, Lin

Hi Jim, The very first thing I would suggest is to buy a small quantity of rewritable DVD's so you don't end up making expensive coasters. It's possible that you simply have a defective DVD. I doubt that the issue has anything at all to do with "outdated software." If software once worked to properly burn a DVD, unless there has been file corruption, there is absolutely no reason why it would not always work properly. DVD's themselves have a shelf life and even a more probable issue is the DVD burner itself. They have a definite cycle life. After so many burns, DVD burners expire. In past years I've purchased literally dozens of DVD burners because they would expire after so many uses. Sometimes I would get 500 burns from one, sometimes less. Rarely did I buy any decent DVD burner which gave me more than about 550 cycles before dying. That's something manufacturers don't tell you, but is well known in the industry. DVD "players" don't have this issue, but burners do. There are emissions produced when DVD's are burned and these settle on the optical components and they just become unreliable. So first get a small quantity of rewritable DVD's to experiment with, then try again. If you get a failure you haven't created a coaster just reformat the DVD and go on with experimentation. If you have an additional external DVD burner try it. Unfortunately there is no "easy" answer but substitution of DVD and then substitution of the burner is how I would approach this. Best regards, Lin

Hi Igor, Does your question mean do we use PTE to create AVI video with custom video/audio codecs? I use other software such as ParticleIllusions to create avi video with custom video/audio codecs which is then played with PTE. I just wanted to clarify that these questions refer to using PTE to create these. One thing to keep in mind is that if, in the future, PTE can allow users to create their own AVI videos with RGBA alpha channel, the videos will need to use appropriate third party codecs. Best regards. Lin

Actually, it's really easy to cut and paste. I don't think it's really like moving an audio file up and down in the order - that can already be done in the Objects List with highlight Shift Pg Up, Shift Pg Dn to move to the top or bottom layer and highlight Ctrl Pg Up and Ctrl Pg Dn to move up or down one level. It would be more like moving one of several audio tracks to a different track I think. It might depend on one's workflow, but once the file has been saved to the clipboard with a cut (right click and choose cut) then it can immediately be pasted by simply clicking on the desired place to highlight and right click choose paste; or if one wants to leave it and duplicate elsewhere just copy/paste.... It is something to think about and perhaps implement depending on the degree of difficulty to achieve this from a programming perspective. Best regards, Lin

Hi Dave, I had completely forgotten about this feature. It's an option which does work just fine. I had tried it when it was first introduced, but because I never use large videos in my shows, I have never needed to run internal videos outside. This actually makes much more sense than including an external player such as Irfanview. I've been scratching my head because I could not find the correct syntax to get PTE to run IrfanView and automatically open a video show in the IrfanView player. This is easy to do from the DOS prompt within Windows, and I used to use this method to run videos from within PTE many, many years ago before PTE supported video, but the syntax I used then doesn't work any more with PTE. With this feature enabled, there is no longer any reason to even consider using an external player. Thanks to Tom and you for the reminder! Well, I'll revise my previous conclusion to say that there is still a time when it would be necessary to use an external player. If the author of the show wants the option of running a video by clicking on a hot spot (frame) or other object then the "do not include in exe" feature would not help. It would be useful to be able to add this do not include feature to the choices for running an external file. Best regards, Lin Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, Yes, this particular ASUS has a removable keyboard and can be used either as a small computer or as a tablet. The difference is that the OS is Windows 8 and it comes with Microsoft Office and some other great programs - see it here: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2426771,00.asp Best regards, Lin

Hi Ken, I suspect there is a little misunderstanding here. The tablet Tom is refering to plays executable files and can be used with PTE to actually "create" the slideshows. It runs a real Windows 8 operating system rather than one of the popular tablet operating systems (Android or iOS) or Windows RT which can't run exe files. Best regards, Lin

Hi Tom, I had hoped to get one this month, but instead I ordered a cell phone. I have had a small flip phone for a couple years on a "pay as you go" ten cents per minute plan, but it required putting money in every month or every three months. If you "forget" to add money, the company (AT&T) takes what you have invested. After forgetting to add $25 and losing $140 I decided to go with a different plan. I found a great one which uses the AT&T network but only costs $10 per month for 130 minutes of talk and/or text with complete roll-over forever and no contract. They even gave me a free flip phone and paid the shipping! I found I could use my own unlocked phone by just buying a sim card for $4.95 from them and since I've always wanted a camera phone, I found a new Nokia 808 for $349 and ordered it. That shot my budget for buying the ASUS tablet until I recover from the phone. The phone is in transit so I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but since I have no use for the smart phone features and only will be using it for voice and probably not even text, the imaging and video capabilities will be cool. So I guess the tablet will have to wait for a while until my meager budget catches up! LOL Best regards, Lin

Hi Gary, Yes, I'm being very specific. The exe is not considered a "video." When PTE outputs an MP4 or AVI version of your slideshow, it can be much larger than two gigabytes because the same issues do not constrain video files as executable files with 32 bit operating systems. You can play a BluRay disc video on your 32 bit system which could be as large as 50 gigabytes without issue. On the other hand an exe file of over 2 gigabytes will generally not play properly if it plays at all. Best regards, Lin

Hi Claudio, There is. As Dave suggests, just use a rectangle and choose the color. When you are finished with needing the opacity, set the opacity to zero. Frames are just invisible rectangles. Keep in mind that virtually any object can be used as a mechanism for controlling child objects. For example, by using a PNG object as a child of itself and controlling opacity through time, it's possible to achieve some otherwise difficult or impossible effects. Best regards, Lin

Hi JT, Yes, that won't work. The way to do it via work-around is to call IrfanView or similar program which will run videos with the appropiate syntax: I_view32 myfile.avi (where "myfile.avi" represents the name and proper extension of the video being called) This requires the irfanview exe and the irfanview plugin folder to be resident on the media and folder which is called. This should be called via the "Run Application or Open File" feature. LATER: Interestingly - my syntax doesn't work with the latest PTE. It still works fine from the command line. I can open IrfanView but not open with the video loaded. I'll look into the changes in either PTE or Irfanview and get back..... Best regards, Lin

Hi Paul, I'm assuming that this is the case with your individual show and not something else such as a corrupted image, etc. If you look at the size of the exe file is it larger than two gigabytes? If not, then you may have a corrupted image file which could also cause everything after to not display. There have even been cases of background music causing issues with playback failing at some point. The first thing to do is look at the file size. If it's greater than two gigabytes, then that is most likely the issue. If the file size is less than two gigabytes, try removing all audio, create the exe and see if it plays. If it doesn't play, then it's likely a corrupted jpg, etc., and it's likely the one immediately after where the images ceased to play. If it "does" play, then it's likely a bad audio causing the problem. The solution is usually to run all audio through an audio editor such as Audacity and export which standardizes the format and usually solves the problem. Best regards, Lin

Hi JT, I would assume from Claudio's statement that the production in question made with Wings was a video: "Last week I attended a videoshow presentation by Martin Engelmenn" A video show made with PTE could also be much larger than 2 gigabytes. There seems to be no practical limits on the sizes of video's played with a 32 bit system. BluRay's larger than 25 gigabytes can be played on my little portable BluRay burner on my old XP system without a hiccup.. It's easy enough to do something similar with PTE. For example you could run an external program and return. Many years ago I used to create videos and run them with PTE this way. I would load Irfanview and the video on external media such as DVD or CD and use the run external code command to run irfanview. The simple dos command run i_view32 videofilename plus extension would open and run the video then return seamlessly to the exe file. This then bypasses the 32 bit limitation nicely and is probably essentially what Wings is doing only they own and wrote the code for their video player being called. Best regards, Lin

Claudio, The limitation has nothing to do with Wings Platinum or PTE or other software and it only applies to "executable" files in a 32 bit system, not to videos. A video made with PTE could be much larger in size and still play normally. Executable code is quite different than video. Perhaps if you read this it will help understanding why the 2 gigabyte limit on executable code within a 32 bit system... http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx Best regards, Lin

Hi Paul, The issue isn't with PTE, it's a limitation of 32 bit software in general. Right now, PTE is 32 bit software as are the majority of software programs on the market. As more 64 bit systems become available, software will eventually gravitate toward being rewritten for 64 bit advantages, but this is not on the immediate horizon. As long as there are a large number of 32 bit computers in operation, a show built to exeed 32 bit limits would not play on them. There is zero advantage in using images larger than the screen resolution they will be played on with one exception explained below. Today, the average computer display is HD resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio which works out to 1920x1024 pixels. The upper end resolution displays are generally 2560x1600 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio. There are a few 3840x2160 pixel displays being offered (16:9 aspect ratio). So you need to decide what your viewing audience will be using and build your shows with the appropriate pixel dimensions. The only time you will ever need to use larger images than the display resolution of the intended audience is when you have deep zooms. In the few cases where this is happening, use your full resolution images, but make the rest of nominal display resolution and you should have no problems exceeding the two gigabyte executable limitations for 32 bit software. Best regards, Lin

Hi Claudio, There is no way other than a screen capture to output image data from a PTE project. Your output options are all covered in the "Publish" link. Other than this or screen captures, there are no other alternatives. Best regards, Lin

Hi Lester, It's unlikely you have reached a PTE limit, probably more likely you have reached a hardware limitation. As Peter correctly points out, the video card is extremely important and especially the amount of dedicated video RAM. The number of objects is rarely an issue. I have made successful animations which have literally thousands of objects on a single slide. This sequence played smoothly on one of my systems which had only 500 megabytes of video RAM. There is approximately a two gigabyte limit in terms of executable file size which has to do with the 32 bit operating system which is why it's important to know the pixel dimensions and file sizes of your project. Video, especially, can get very, very large and even though it's possible to "play" a larger than two gigabyte video, trying to create executable code with such a huge file will result in failure. There is a decided difference in the way a computer handles video code and executable code so if you are using extremely large video files or a combination of large video files and large images you may be reaching system limitations. Even though PTE runs fine on a 64 bit system, it is a 32 bit software and can't avail itself of the additional system RAM you have. I have a 64 bit Windows 8.1 system with 32 gigabytes of RAM and a top-end video card with three gigabytes of dedicated video RAM but were I to try to exceed the approximate two gigabyte limatation of executable file size this system would work no better than my Window XP system with 4 gigabytes of RAM and video card with 500 meg of RAM. If, as Peter suggests, you can tell us specifics about your video card and the types of objects and their sizes, perhaps we can help sort this for you. Best regards, Lin

This ASUS Tablet looks like right now - late March, 2014 - like it may be an ideal solution for users wanting to run and even "create" PTE files on a tablet. Link to review below. Everything, including the price seems to be optimal. I'm considering one myself... http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2426771,00.asp Best regards, Lin