How To Use New Animation Feature Tutorial

[Lin Evans]

A brief new tutorial on how to place objects in a single PDF file for animation with the new beta 6.5 feature added to the PTE Made Easy series here:

http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7901

Look for #24

[Lin Evans]

Hi Tom,

Thanks!!

It's hard to say what Igor has in store but I've heard that it's working really well in alpha testing...

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin,

Great tutorial as usual. I wonder if this method of animation is in preparation for video sequences? Instead of codec type video compression it would use very fast XY panning of one very large image. A 2K x 2K image would only hold 4 1K frames so maybe not. The quality would certainly be great. It would require a graphics card with a large amount of memory.

Tom

[rogern]

Lin

Thanks for the tutorial. However, two small points for other novices, the PNG background has to be the same size as the total pictures (or maybe the pictures need to be central) and the time for the slide needs to be set separately for at least the length required by the Count x Repeats x the Interval(ms)+ the Offset(ms).

Roger

[Lin Evans]

Hi Roger,

Actually, the images just need to be aligned each to the identical pixel distance from the top or side or adjacent image. It's not necessary for the PNG transparency to be identical in height or width as long as the placement of each image is consistent. In Igor's sample he uses only one column and multiple rows. I believe it will also work with one row and multiple columns so if you are using something like Image Ready to prepare the animation the dimensions of each small gif or png will be identical and facilitate placement. If you create the PNG transparency with the identical pixel dimensions of variously either the width (for rows) or height (for columns) then placement is much easier unless you might be placing hundreds of images inside to simulate something like a rotating earth with ultra smooth movement.

In some of my earlier animations with a rotating Earth, I used 640 separate file on the object list each with a slightly different rotation to get really smooth motion. Doing it this way "may" be superior in terms of memory use but I haven't yet tried such a grandiose project.

Yes, you're right that the slide display time should be long enough for the full length of the individual displays as set by the combination you reference, but often PTE users will copy and paste the original slide multiple times to get longer displays and conserve memory.

Best regards,

Lin

Lin

Thanks for the tutorial. However, two small points for other novices, the PNG background has to be the same size as the total pictures (or maybe the pictures need to be central) and the time for the slide needs to be set separately for at least the length required by the Count x Repeats x the Interval(ms)+ the Offset(ms).

Roger

[crossfade]

can someone explain this feature to me?

why would I wnt to take a bunch of images and line them up in Photoshop when I can use them individually?

[rogern]

Hi Roger,

Actually, the images just need to be aligned each to the identical pixel distance from the top or side or adjacent image. It's not necessary for the PNG transparency to be identical in height or width as long as the placement of each image is consistent. In Igor's sample he uses only one column and multiple rows. I believe it will also work with one row and multiple columns so if you are using something like Image Ready to prepare the animation the dimensions of each small gif or png will be identical and facilitate placement. If you create the PNG transparency with the identical pixel dimensions of variously either the width (for rows) or height (for columns) then placement is much easier unless you might be placing hundreds of images inside to simulate something like a rotating earth with ultra smooth movement.

Best regards,

Lin

Lin

Thanks. However, in my first attempt, the PNG transparency was larger than the combined width of the pictures and they were off to one side. This resulted in PTE producing a result that used one picture plus half of the next one. Does the side gap have to be the same as the bottom one? I found it worked if I cropped the PNG so that it was the same size as the images.

Thanks for all your hard work producing the tutorials. They have been invaluable.

Regards

Roger

[Lin Evans]

Hi Roger,

You're quite welcome!

Yes, the gap must be equal between all images in order to keep them proper aligned. That's why for smaller animations just a single column or row makes it much easier.

Best regards,

LIn

[Lin Evans]

Hi,

Primarily because of memory requirements. If you use them individually one per slide, there is no big hit on resources, but then you can't really program "other" animation simultaneously. If you put them in as "objects" you have the ability to program (keyframe) other objects, etc., but you exact a toll on resources. It's just one more "tool" in your PTE Toolbox.

Best regards,

Lin

can someone explain this feature to me?

why would I wnt to take a bunch of images and line them up in Photoshop when I can use them individually?