Animation

[mightec]

If you are going to use the pan and zoom features in PTE, is it always better to use the smooth setting rather than linear? If this is the case what is the optimum setting for the various keyframes, is it the default 20/80 or something different. If different, how does one fix the settings, is it all by trial and error or is the more calculated method.

[xahu34]

If you are going to use the pan and zoom features in PTE, is it always better to use the smooth setting rather than linear? If this is the case what is the optimum setting for the various keyframes, is it the default 20/80 or something different. If different, how does one fix the settings, is it all by trial and error or is the more calculated method.

Mike,

I think that it is a matter of taste, and it will depend on the situation. You cannot avoid trials. I normally avoid any linear settings for pans, zooms, or rotations, as I do not like abrupt starts and stops. Even for an accelerated animation I choose parameters like 90/90 or 90/95. For pans which run during the fade in/out with adjacent slides, I like settings like 40/60 or 50/50.

Good luck,

Xaver

[mightec]

Xaver

That is most interesting, thanks for your advise.

[thedom]

Hi Mike,

I'm afraid there is no "correct" answer to your question. It depends on what you want to achieve.

Most of the time, the default Smooth speed option will be ok.

Sometimes, I use Accelerate and Slow Down speed options too.

For some project, I had to set Custom speed option : I already used 50-50 and 50-90.

But if you don't feel you need your own custom speed option, do not bother with this custom settings and use the default ones.

For your Carousel demo by example, use Smooth and I'm sure you will see a big difference.

[mightec]

Hi Dom

I am sure that you are right, it all depends on the situation, and like with Xaver, your advise is most appreciated.

[JEB]

Hi,

Thanks for bringing to my attention the fact that we have the ability to specify the rate of PZR. I have regularly opted for "smooth" but never before noticed the option to vary the rate. Has this always been available or has it just crept in recently?

Regards

John

[davegee]

Hi John,

It has always been available and going into "Setting Up" allows you to add a template of you own custom design and save it for future use.

DaveG

[Barry Beckham]

Mike

I think that if you are creating a zoom on a full screen image, the zoom, or in fact any animation, looks far better and is much more acceptable to the eye (in a pictorial slide show) if the animation starts with the image appearing on screen and is still moving when the next image removes it. In other words the start and end flags for the animation are at the extreme right and left hand end of the time line when viewed in the objects and animation screen.

I feel the use of the different speed modes only come into play for me when I am using animation with picture in picture, objects or text, where you sometimes need the animation to come to a rest, before the next image appears. Then the accelerate or slow down seem more relevant to me.

However, for full screen images, I feel the animation is far better when you don't see anything start or stop. Assuming you are working on a pictorial slide show and by that I mean one where you are trying to capture a mood and a flow to your images, then having an image appear fully and then start to zoom looks a little amateurish.

In my view of course

[xahu34]

Hi Mike,

Here is another recommendation regarding speed profiles of animations which might be useful in some cases. Sometimes you will have more than one animation of an object at the same time, e.g. the object is panned and zoomed concurrently. It is my experience that the overall animation often looks better if you use in corresponding time intervals identical speed settings for pan and zoom. Similar ideas can be used in cases where the object's animation is a superposition of its own animation and of the animation inherited from a parent.

Regards,

Xaver

[thedom]

I think that if you are creating a zoom on a full screen image, the zoom, or in fact any animation, looks far better and is much more acceptable to the eye (in a pictorial slide show) if the animation starts with the image appearing on screen and is still moving when the next image removes it. In other words the start and end flags for the animation are at the extreme right and left hand end of the time line when viewed in the objects and animation screen.

Barry, I totally agree with you. And in this case, in my opinion, most of the time, the linear speed option will be the more appropriate.

But we have to keep in mind that doing an animation during slide transition might be jerky on "old" computers.

[mightec]

Hello Barry/Xaver

Thanks for your response, I will certainly take your comments on board.

Would someone please help me with another related problem. I have setup a number of keyframes, and elected to use the smooth setting, between the fourth and fifth keyframe I want the image to move to the right and at the same time reduce in size from a zoom setting of 45%/45% to 25%/25%. What seems to happen is that immediately after the fourth keyframe the image moves slightly to the left before then moving to the right. Hopefully the attached thumbnails below will illustrate the problem.

[xahu34]

... What seems to happen is that immediately after the fourth keyframe the image moves slightly to the left before then moving to the right...

Maybe there is an inconsistency with the speed settings of simultaneous animations; see my post above!

Regards,

Xaver

[thedom]

Mike,

Are you sure you separated each section for Pan AND Zoom ?

[Barry Beckham]

Dom

Barry, I totally agree with you. And in this case, in my opinion, most of the time, the linear speed option will be the more appropriate.

But we have to keep in mind that doing an animation during slide transition might be jerky on "old" computers.

Well, that may be the case, but how on earth is the author supposed to know that unless he has another old computer or two to try his slide show on. This reminds me of the "fixed size of slide box" Unless you have other computers to test your show on, you won't know about potential problems.

In my experience with the slide shows I have made, which I accept is quite different to what you like to do, tells me that most animation that is applied to slide shows is way over the top. If you ask your computer to apply too much animation or expect it to run too quickly it will be jerky. (even a modern one) My experience and personal opinion is that animation needs to be measured and delicate. The impact on the slide show is generally better, the computers it will be played on can cope better and it's easier on the eye and the slide show benefits.

Reading further posts from Mike, it seems to indicate that I was off beam anyway and my comments may not be relavent to what he is trying to do.

Animation is great and I have used it a few times, but authors may like to ask themselves two questions before they get involved in complex animations in their slide show.

1. What is this animation going to add to the appeal of my show?

2. Is the image(s) I am about to animate strong enough to be on screen for the length of time I need?

Generally in my view, the answer to No1 is probably very little or nothing and the answer to No 2 is probably not. Of course there are always exceptions, but from where I sit getting these two questions right is like finding Hen's teeth. Movement is no substitute for interest and appeal.

[mightec]

Dom

Yes, I have check it out on all images.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Mike,

I just sent you an email with modifications to your PTE file.

The problem, as I see it, was that you had a non-linear motion set for one slide and linear for others.

Visualize what is happening with linear and non-linear motion with this scenario:

Imagine a "race" to a start and finish line between two images with different motions. The first image has linear motion, meaning that it jumps out of the start blocks with a given speed, maintains that speed until near the finish line then jars to a stop.

Imagine that the second image starts much more slowly and accelerates to a given speed, maintains that speed for a given time then smoothly slows to a stop.

The "rules" for the race are that both contestants must start and finish at precisely the same times. This then means that during the "race" the smooth images must catch and "pass" the linear image in position somewhere along the race course because the linear image will be gaining on the smooth image while the smooth image is slowing to a stop.

As this relates to your issue, if one image is "smooth" while the other images are "linear" then there must be positional compensation somewhere in order for them to finish together. That compensation is near the "end" of the race when the smooth image arrives "early" because of its greater speed in motion along the course, then must "wait" for the linear images to catch up. This accounts for the hesitation near the end and the "sliding" into position.

Hopefully, this makes sense.

Best regards,

Lin

Dom

Yes, I have check it out on all images.

[mightec]

Hi Mike,

I just sent you an email with modifications to your PTE file.

The problem, as I see it, was that you had a non-linear motion set for one slide and linear for others.

Visualize what is happening with linear and non-linear motion with this scenario:

Imagine a "race" to a start and finish line between two images with different motions. The first image has linear motion, meaning that it jumps out of the start blocks with a given speed, maintains that speed until near the finish line then jars to a stop.

Imagine that the second image starts much more slowly and accelerates to a given speed, maintains that speed for a given time then smoothly slows to a stop.

The "rules" for the race are that both contestants must start and finish at precisely the same times. This then means that during the "race" the smooth images must catch and "pass" the linear image in position somewhere along the race course because the linear image will be gaining on the smooth image while the smooth image is slowing to a stop.

As this relates to your issue, if one image is "smooth" while the other images are "linear" then there must be positional compensation somewhere in order for them to finish together. That compensation is near the "end" of the race when the smooth image arrives "early" because of its greater speed in motion along the course, then must "wait" for the linear images to catch up. This accounts for the hesitation near the end and the "sliding" into position.

Hopefully, this makes sense.

Best regards,

Lin

Lin

Yes, I received your email, although it was related to a different situation, on this posting both, in fact all animations are smooth. I accept in the other situation I had mixed linear and smooth animations.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Mike,

You mentioned that you had set smooth "between the fourth and fifth keyframes" - that's why I discussed linear versus non-linear motion. You will get strange issues unless you use smooth with separation between all keyframes on the same animation. Normally, when you "separate" at any keyframe, the separation will apply to all keyframes. In order to set a different action at a single keyframe it's necessary to not click on "separate here" but rarely would you want to do that because you will get strange results.

Also, the reason it's suggested that you set any non-linear motion for not only pan and zoom, but also for rotate as well, is to assure that in the event you "may" have inadvertently slightly rotated an image by positioning manually (it's "very" easy to do this by mistake) you will not get strange results.

Without seeing the actual PTE file, it's very difficult to guess at what may be causing the issue, but it's almost certain that it has to do with a single "separate here" not being clicked. Sometimes it's easy to miss one, especially if there are many keyframes and the one missed may not be visible except by using the scroll bar when performing the clicks on "separate here".

Best regards,

Lin

Lin

Yes, I received your email, although it was related to a different situation, on this posting both, in fact all animations are smooth. I accept in the other situation I had mixed linear and smooth animations.

[mightec]

Lin

As always, thank you for your very detailed response, you certainly know your PTE. We are very fortunate to have you as part of the forum.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Mike,

Having looked at the PTE file now, I think your best bet is to leave everything at linear for this animation. Though there were a couple places where you had mixed linear and non-linear, I was not able to make it work properly by setting everything to smooth and separating all keyframes.

One particular place was on, I believe, the first Yourpic02, where you had separated keyframes for pan and zoom but not for rotate. This is evident when you see "custom" in either p, z, or r, and "smooth" on one of the others. Even though this was corrected, there were still issues. One of the problems with animations which use separation of the X and Y values such as in this one, is that timings can get very tedious. Whenever you see late "adjustments" in position of images which are returning from some pan/zoom or rotate to a predetermined position it's almost always the result of non-linear clashing with either a linear function or the position of keyframes not quite matching at some point along the timeline. In your case I couldn't find the error, but it's a complex animation and easy to overlook a single keyframe mismatch in precise time.

You might want to ask Dom if he could look at it because he does many more of these type animations than I do and is undoubtedly more qualified to comment on this one than I am.

Best regards,

Lin

Lin

As always, thank you for your very detailed response, you certainly know your PTE. We are very fortunate to have you as part of the forum.

[thedom]

Thank you for the compliment Lin.

Mike, if you wish, I can have a look and try to see if I can make something (thefreedom69 @ free.fr)

[thedom]

Mike, I received your pte project and found the problem.

Actually, for your main image ("Yourpic01" in the center), you have 5 keypoints.

For the fifth keypoint, you set the center parameter to 100 - 0 (instead of 0 - 0 for the 4 other ones).

As we can not choose a speed option for the center parameter, this is the linear speed option which applies between keypoint #4 and keypoint #5.

That's why the image moves slightly to the left before then moving to the right...

If you set center to 0 - 0 for this fifth keypoint, the problem is solved.

Be careful, same problem with "Yourpic02" at the top of the objects list.

[mightec]

Hi Dom

Thanks for looking at the problem, but I don't seem to understand the instructions. Would it be possible to send the file back to me with the revised setting, I think that you have my email address.

[thedom]

Mike, the instructions are : for Yourpic01 object, set the center to 0 - 0 for the fifth keypoint.

But Ok, I will send you the project modified tonight.

[mightec]

Dom, Sorry to be a pain, but I still don,t understand. Well I am a Pensioner.