Kim Miller Posted March 20, 2011 Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 I am trying to set up a collage slideshow where the screen fills up with 'randomly' placed smaller photos that overlap each other. This means having a new photo every two seconds, but a display time of about twenty seconds as the screen fills up and they obscure each other. My trouble is that I can only find a control for setting duration of each photo whereby the next photo starts as the previous one finishes. I've seen some PTE demos with overlapping photos, but I can't work out how to do it.Where are the independent start / finish / duration controls?Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted March 20, 2011 Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 Hi Kim,What you're trying to do must be done with one "master" slide in the slide list, then all other slides are added on layers in Objects and Animations. You must keyframe each slide and position it via keyframes to get the effect you are wanting. The start and finish times and positions must be set via keyframe for each photo in Objects and Animations. Probably it would be a good idea to download and watch some of the tutorials to get a handle on how this is accomplished. Here's a link to the articles and tutorials section where you will find lots of demos and techniques:http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showforum=8Best regards,LinI am trying to set up a collage slideshow where the screen fills up with 'randomly' placed smaller photos that overlap each other. This means having a new photo every two seconds, but a display time of about twenty seconds as the screen fills up and they obscure each other. My trouble is that I can only find a control for setting duration of each photo whereby the next photo starts as the previous one finishes. I've seen some PTE demos with overlapping photos, but I can't work out how to do it.Where are the independent start / finish / duration controls?Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Miller Posted March 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 Hi Kim,What you're trying to do must be done with one "master" slide in the slide list, then all other slides are added on layers in Objects and Animations. You must keyframe each slide and position it via keyframes to get the effect you are wanting. The start and finish times and positions must be set via keyframe for each photo in Objects and Animations. Probably it would be a good idea to download and watch some of the tutorials to get a handle on how this is accomplished. Here's a link to the articles and tutorials section where you will find lots of demos and techniques:http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showforum=8Best regards,LinHi Lin,Thanks for the reply. Ironically I have a tutorial from your website on my screen at the moment.I've also chased up some of the tutorials on the forum but not found what I need but I will keep on searching there. What you describe in your first sentence is far from intuitive, so I appreciate the advice. I've got the pdf manual, but the section on timing seems to be missing some important info.CheersKim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Miller Posted March 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 What you're trying to do must be done with one "master" slide in the slide list, then all other slides are added on layers in Objects and Animations. OK, I've found the box for 'main image' in the O&A properties, which is what i imagine you mean by 'master' slide. However, I've gone right through the user manual and the word 'layers' does not appear. Nor can I find it in any menu. Can you (or somebody) point me to the right place?ThanksKim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted March 20, 2011 Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 OK, I've found the box for 'main image' in the O&A properties, which is what i imagine you mean by 'master' slide. However, I've gone right through the user manual and the word 'layers' does not appear. Nor can I find it in any menu. Can you (or somebody) point me to the right place?ThanksKimKimplease read the instructions again. You are obviously at a very early stage in learning PTE. However, to help you through this problem. Using the horizontal view, click the slide you want as your base in the thumbnails along the bottom of your screen, this will now appear in the main window. Now click the OBJECT & ANIMATION button above the bottom row of thumbnails. You should now be in the O&A section with your base picture in the main image screen. Go up to the top line of icons at the top of your screen & hover your mouse over each one, when you come to ADD IMAGE click it and your list of slides appears in a separate box, click the one you want next & it will overlay the first image surrounded with a gold BOUNDUNG BOX, by adjusting the box you can re-size the second image. On the R/H side of the O&A screen there are 3 tabs, click the animation tab to perform the various functions of animation, PAN ZOOM & ROTATE.See picture.Yachtsman1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Miller Posted March 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 Hi Yachtsman,Thanks for the clarification. I'm not clear on what you mean by 'read the instructions', whether in the manual or in what Lin Evans has suggested. Either way, I would not have found out how to set one image on top of another without your help. It looks like what Lin Evans called layers are referred to in the manual as parent/children. Perhaps they changed the name with a version update.Now I've got a background image and some pics thrown across it. All that remains is to figure out how to set up the timing for them. CheersKim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted March 20, 2011 Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 Hi Kim,Layers and Parent/Child are not the same concept at all.When you go to the Objects and Animations screen, the slide which appears in the Main slide list is on layer one. Any photos you add from Objects and Animations go in separate layers. It is possible to insert these additional photos as "children" of the original slide or as independent slides without interdependent relationships depending on whether the original slide was selected at the time of insertion. They can also be children of each other, or you could add additional objects such as frames or rectangles which could be variously parents or children of other objects. You can move these "objects" from layer to layer in Objects and Animations by selecting then using various keystrokes. The transparency of each is 100 percent adjustable.The concept of parent/child relationship is more complex and it is going to take you some time to learn how it all works. Again, I would suggest you download "all" the tutorials and start with the first and go through them methodically until you understand them or you will probably get totally confused. If you go to number 26 on my series of tutorials you can download an entire set of tutorials which will explain most of these terms in some detail. What you are looking for in terms of "start, finish, duration" are called "keyframes" or sometimes called "keypoints" depending on which version of PTE historically. Keyframes are points on the timeline represented by small blue rectangles. Each slide or "object" (the term for additional slides or PNG objects placed on separate layers via Objects and Animations) automatically has the first keyframe inserted as the "start" position on the timelline. You can then add unlimited new keyframes for each object or slide and control the position of the slide or object between any two keyframes visually by dragging the image to the new position while the relevant keyframe is highlighted. The movement can be linear or it is possible to program it on a curve via techniques explained in my tutorials. This motion can consist of variously pan, zoom, or rotate or any combination of the three. Also transparency may be changed between keyframes. I believe you will greatly benefit from taking it one step at a time because there are some very complex relationships which "can" be programmed, but you must understand the interdependency and parent/child relationships first in order to not have unexpected results. Also there are programmable "types" of movement including linear, smooth, etc., which also require a bit of study to get a good handle on. Two things I would suggest. First, go through the series of tutorials. Next, also download and read the "unofficial" user guide I co-authored with Jeff Evans. This user guide was written several generations of PTE ago, but it is still very relevant for background information about particulars which have "not" changed between PTE versions. Your progress and understanding of how to use this program will be greatly accelerated once you understand these basic concepts. Unfortunately, not all the terms we commonly use to describe various features are found in the official manual. Partly this is due to differences in languages. PTE is definitely an "international" tool and we sometimes have to refine the terms we use to describe various features and approaches to program use. I use the term "layer" because it is more widely understood due to the common understanding of Photoshop and other relevant tools. When you place objects in the Objects and Animation screen, they actually go into separate "layers." Each object occupies its own layer. Best regards,LinHi Yachtsman,Thanks for the clarification. I'm not clear on what you mean by 'read the instructions', whether in the manual or in what Lin Evans has suggested. Either way, I would not have found out how to set one image on top of another without your help. It looks like what Lin Evans called layers are referred to in the manual as parent/children. Perhaps they changed the name with a version update.Now I've got a background image and some pics thrown across it. All that remains is to figure out how to set up the timing for them. CheersKim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xahu34 Posted March 20, 2011 Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 Kim,For the parent/child business, you may look at the following posts:http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10607&view=findpost&p=70183http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10640&view=findpost&p=69070Regards,Xaver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barry Beckham Posted March 21, 2011 Report Share Posted March 21, 2011 KimIf your more familiar with an image editor, there is another way to do this. You can create each image added to the pile as a separate picture. I wouldn't like to say which way is the easiest to understandhttp://www.beckhamdigital.co.uk/downloads/pte6/birthday/birthday.htmIf the demo on this page meets your needs, let me know and I will provide you a link to the video Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Miller Posted March 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2011 Thanks, everyone, for your replies. I appreciate the help.Having read the rather skeletal manual I can see why there are so many tutorials by users. That was something I didn't know about when I decided to give PTE a trial. I have a long computing history (starting with programming in Fortran for engineering back in the 1960's up to teaching programing and coding in Modula2 in the 80's to these days as a more general user) and generally pick up new things quickly. For this project I was asked last Friday to set up the slideshow for a project vaguely related to my work. It is due Tuesday, tomorrow. I went looking for slideshow software on the weekend rather than do it in After Effects, which I have on my work computer and used for a short movie project a couple of years ago. I figured slideshow software would have templates for the format I was looking for, as well as automatically generate photo frames etc. PTE is the most sophisticated of the apps that I trialled (the others were 'pretty' rather than functional), but it is let down by the manual. The skimpy manual also camouflages the functionality of the program. Perhaps they should add in links to your unofficial manual and tutorials. After Effects has layers as well as parent/child linkings, and I'm familiar with the different between them in that application. But that doesn't mean that the same difference appears elsewhere, hence my need for clarification. AE is also keyframe controlled so I'm familiar with their use, although the implimentation in PTE is somewhat different.Thanks, Lin, for the recent post. I can see it's back to school as I work through the tutorials.And to bbdigital, that demo is the kind of project we are setting up, but without music or text.The deadline for the project got moved today to a rehearsal on Saturday, final event on Sunday. It's all up and running.Kim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Cox Posted March 21, 2011 Report Share Posted March 21, 2011 Kimwith your background you should realize the operating manual cannot keep up with the ongoing changes that Igor makes to the main program -- sad but true.I would suggest you make you show as basic as possible to get your point across, then as you get a handle on the software you can advance. Read all the threads daily as well because there are tips being added daily from various members that will aid you in your journey ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted March 21, 2011 Report Share Posted March 21, 2011 Hi Kim,There are some very powerful new features just now being added to PTE. Some of these will shortly be available to all users via beta 1 of version 7.0 which may be available this week. One of the beautiful things about this product and this company is that all registered users have the option of working with the nearly fully functional beta versions. There are major changes being made presently which not only consist of additional and very useful functionality, but also cosmetic and interface changes. The problems associated with documentation and support of a rapidly changing product are many and varied. Jeff and I chose a point in time when PTE had made a major change to try to offer supplemental support via the "unofficial user guide." We were planning an upgrade to cover new features and changing menus, but the changes kept coming at a rate faster than we felt we could keep up with. I haven't spoken with Jeff for some time now, but I've thought that perhaps a complete re-write of the unofficial guide may be in order after version 7.0 is released. Of course one of the issues we face is that Jeff and I are English speakers and our user base is world wide. So what we do needs to be translated into multiple languages for optimal benefit. One of the issues facing the developers (Wnsoft) is that they are a relatively small company with limited resources. They actually have made great strides in the past few years just in being able to produce a user guide, which is, as you note, still rather skeletal in nature. We hope, as do the developers, that this deficiency may be rectified in the near future. There is a need to rethink the "method" of producing a guide or manual, and perhaps a change to a "modular" approach rather than a unified document as we did in the past. It's perhaps easier to keep up with incremental changes and updates this way. I've discussed this with the developers and they are planning to try very hard to keep up with documentation and support for the new features. Of course, the features must be implemented and in their final or near final format before it makes sense to do this. This is why Ken mentioned that for optimal success with this program, it's a good strategy to check the forum regularly, because this tool is much larger than any of us, so we cooperate very closely with one another to try to help new users with understanding the myriad features and power of this amazing tool.One of the very useful tools which is available is the "Frequently Asked Questions and How To" section which Peter Appleton has championed - link here:http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index.php?showforum=18This section is kept current and there are many helpful hints there. I glossed over a great deal in my previous answer to you, but there is "so much" that this program can do, it's very difficult to try to explain some of the functionality in a brief answer. In addition to pan, zoom, rotate, opacity, etc., which can be programmed with or without parent/child relationships, there is also the entire area of 3D transform with X, Y and Z axis features which also have the same functionality. Then there are features unique to quasi-video modes such as animated GIF and with the advent of version 7, now video clip inclusion. All which can be programmed with the aforementioned functionality. It's really an amazing product which, as a programmer, you will come to appreciate even more as you work with it. PTE is more akin to a low level language which one can use to build magnificent structures with. As you noticed, many competing products are "pretty," but functionally bereft. PTE is that tool which one can use in innumerable creative ways to build amazing shows. Rather than have lots of "canned" themes and templates, it lets one build their own on a "nuts and bolts" level. Perhaps in the future, Wnsoft will offer templates of their own, but right now you may want to look at those offered for a very reasonable fee by some of our members such as theDom here:http://www.thedom.fr/You can always find some useful links on one of my sites here:http://www.learntomakeslideshows.netGo to the "links" page....Hopefully, you will find the answers you need for your project and quickly learn the intricacies of PTE. If you have questions, just post them here on the forum and someone will quickly try to help you solve any problems you may encounter.Best regards,Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xahu34 Posted March 21, 2011 Report Share Posted March 21, 2011 ... One of the beautiful things about this product and this company is that all registered users have the option of working with the nearly fully functional beta versions ...Hi Lin,Dozens of PTE users support WnSoft doing beta testing (which is ok in my opinion), and you call it a "beautiful thing about the product", funny, isn't it Best regards,Xaver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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