Guest Yachtsman1 Posted March 18, 2012 Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 In my series of conversions from 5-4 to 16-9 I am converting my "Out of Season" show. One of the animated slides is the picture of a seagull flying over the sea with a single flap (down plus up) of it's wings. The only teacher I've had on animation didn't manage to drum in the basics, (bit like algebra when I went to school, I was off sick when they taught the priciples). I have produced a sea picture minus the gull, & 3 PNG's, body, left wing & right wing, can I get them to perform in sequence, can I heck. A step by step instruction would be greatly appreciated, using terms I would understand. The gull is supposed to fly from bottom left, & disappear at a reduced in size top right with 1 complete up/down flap of it's wings. It doesn't have to be perfect, Im no trying for my RPA or whatever.Yachtsman1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted March 18, 2012 Report Share Posted March 18, 2012 Hi Eric,If you could send me the original gull picture before the wings and body were separated, I think I can make you a quick example to work from. The problem with what you have is that it's not going to look very good because the "cut-out's" are too crude and there is too much residual around the components. Essentially the way I would approach this is to create a parent "frame" which will control the direction and speed of the assembled "bird." Next the bird's body as a "child of this frame and the two wings as same level "children" of the frame. The "children will inherit the motion of the parent (gull's body) via the controlling frame and the gull's body will inherit the motion from the controlling frame. The two wings will be synchronized via exact placement of keframes for each and their motion between these keyframes.It "sounds" much more complicated than it is, but to make it look right I would like to make the cut-outs from the original. The "wings" are probably all right but the body isn't. If you could post a full resolution image of the gull, I'll separate it into the components with the essential clean transparency needed. The best way would be to just post the jpg on one of the file sharing services like MediaFire.Best regards,Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 Hi Eric,If you could send me the original gull picture before the wings and body were separated, I think I can make you a quick example to work from. The problem with what you have is that it's not going to look very good because the "cut-out's" are too crude and there is too much residual around the components. Essentially the way I would approach this is to create a parent "frame" which will control the direction and speed of the assembled "bird." Next the bird's body as a "child of this frame and the two wings as same level "children" of the frame. The "children will inherit the motion of the parent (gull's body) via the controlling frame and the gull's body will inherit the motion from the controlling frame. The two wings will be synchronized via exact placement of keframes for each and their motion between these keyframes. It "sounds" much more complicated than it is, but to make it look right I would like to make the cut-outs from the original. The "wings" are probably all right but the body isn't. If you could post a full resolution image of the gull, I'll separate it into the components with the essential clean transparency needed. The best way would be to just post the jpg on one of the file sharing services like MediaFire.Best regards,Lin[Hi LinMuch as I appreciate your offer to construct an example from the original complete picture, in my mind it would not be my own work. I know the PNG shots are a bit rough & ready, but I only discovered how to make those a couple of months ago. It's the terminology of parent frame & children that I can't get my head around. When it was mentioned at an animation teaching session where I didn't understand, I asked for further clarification but was brushed aside. I feel that once I can understand the terminology and methodology I can move forward. I've just had a look at my original version to try to fathom how I did it, but couldn't determine how. The main difference with the new version is the distance across the screen the bird moves & the amount of wing travel. Original sequence pics attached showing settings on each tab & the movement.Regards Eric Yachtsman1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 I've just spent a couple of hours trawling through the English version of the manual to try to make some sense of the problem, to say the subject matter is brief would be an understatement. The English manual is 89 pages, and as has been mentioned before the French version 178 pages. I have looked through the French version & from what I can make out, the subject covers around 8 pages, with the UK version 2 pages, come on Igor, if you want to boost sales, let the English speakers know what the programme can do. Saying one should experiment is of no use whatsoever if you can't sort out the ingredients in the first place.Yachtsman1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 Hi Eric,Quit Kibitzing, you're frustrated because of the time you've spent without results, but you really need to examine each feature thoroughly until you understand it.The manuals are designed to tell you what the features do, not to teach you how to do each step of a particular project. To do that the manual would be thousands of pages and no one would read it. You already know that what you want to do can be done, you just don't know how to go about it and that takes a little time and experimentation to get straight in your head.Here's your pte file so you can see how to accomplish this:http://www.lin-evans...ric/birdfly.pteEssentially it works like this. The first thing which you need, if you want it to really look realistic, is a "good" set of components. The "cut out's" must be precise with no extraneous fragments left over. The png files must have transparency right up to the elements and cutting them out is best done with the eraser, not with the lasso which it appears you used.The right wing of your gull, for whatever reason is backward. That is the leading edge and trailing edge of the wing were reversed. To correct it required a horizontal flip and 180 degree rotation. That's why I asked for the original jpg of the gull. Essentially, you have three components - the gull's body, and the left and right wings as separate png files with transparency surrounding the feathers. Step 1: open PTE and put the png of the gull's body in as a starting place.Step 2: go to Objects and Animations and add a frameStep 3: select the gull's body, right click and choose "cut"Step 4. paste the "cut" (body of the gull) as a child of the frame you addedStep 5. add the left wing as a child of the frame and size it appropriatelyStep 6. add the right wing as a child of the frame and size it appropriately - a little larger than the left wing because it's closer to the camera viewStep 7. move the child components (body and wings) so that the gull's body is in the center and the right wing is on the top of the "stack" with the left wing on the bottomStep 8. click on each wing and move them into their rough starting positions.Step 9. click on the small dot in the center (the center) of the bounding rectangle, of one of the wings. Hold down the shift key and drag this dot to the center of the gull's body adjacent to the base of the wing where it attaches to the body of the gullStep10 repeat above for the other wingWhat you are doing here is setting the center of rotation for the wings. step 11 play with the rotate for each wing to see what happens when you drag the rotatestep 12 set the initial wing positions as desired for the beginning of your picturestep 13 import your "sea" background and size it appropriately as desired. Do not make it a child of the framestep 14 move the sea background to the very bottom of the stackstep 15 set the time for this slide via customize slide - choose sufficient time for your animationstep 16 click on either of the wings then at some interval on the timeline set a keyframestep 17 with this keyframe highlighted, click on the other wing and set an identical keyframe so it's on the timeline at the identical time of the keyframe for the other wingstep 18 click on one of the second keyframes - see which wing is active and rotate the wing as desiredstep 19 click on the other second keyframe and rotate the other wing correspondinglystep 20. repeat the above with another "set" of corresponding keyframes further along the timelinestep 21 with one of the wing keyframes selected, change the rotation of the corresponding wing to the opposite positionstep 22 with the other wing keyframe selected, change the rotation of the other wing to correspond to the oppositestep 23 click on the controlling framestep 24 click on the timeline and set a keyframe where you want the action to endstep 24 drag and/or size the controlling frame to move the ensemble to the ending positionstep 25 Run the preview and do any necessary fine tuningstep 26 save your work.Best regards,Lin I've just spent a couple of hours trawling through the English version of the manual to try to make some sense of the problem, to say the subject matter is brief would be an understatement. The English manual is 89 pages, and as has been mentioned before the French version 178 pages. I have looked through the French version & from what I can make out, the subject covers around 8 pages, with the UK version 2 pages, come on Igor, if you want to boost sales, let the English speakers know what the programme can do. Saying one should experiment is of no use whatsoever if you can't sort out the ingredients in the first place.Yachtsman1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 Hi Lin never played chess in my life. Thank you for the detailed explanation, it will take some time to sink in. Two points, 1. the right wing wasn't flipped as far as I know, it's just the position it was in when photographed. 2.Your explanation didn't take thousands of pages!!!Regards EricYachtsman1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 In case anyone else is interested I have attached the original gull pic re-sized for here.Yachtsman1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 Hi Eric,Probably, for the purposes of what you are doing this is irrelevant, but here is one of the problems with this type of animation. The left wing view is consistent whether the gull's wings are up or down because you see the "top" view of the wing at all times. However, for the right wing, with the position of the gull when photographed, you see the underside of the wing when it is in the upward position, and would expect to see the top side when the wing is down.Because of this, a whole new can of worms is opened if you want somewhat "realistic" animation. A "far" better way to achieve realistic animation with this type of scenario would be to capture the gull with the movie mode. Then take the video into a video editing program and choose enough frames to get one full wing "flap" so you go from full downward to full upward (or vice versa). Crop the frames so that you have only those frames between these extremes. Generally that will be around 10 frames. Then take this small video clip into software which will output the individual frames as jpgs. Next make transparent PNG's from each jpg by copying and pasting the jpg on a transparent background and use the eraser tool to remove all except the bird and wings. Next take these png file into any "animated gif" sortware (there are numerous free ones available) and create an animated gif.When you have done this, you can insert the animated gif under a controlling frame and you essentially have a "real" animation complete with all the nuances of flight. You simply use the controlling frame to adjust size, position of the bird and speed of traverse across your frame. You may have seen my "flying eagle" in some of my animations. That's how it was done.Best regards,LinIn case anyone else is interested I have attached the original gull pic re-sized for here.Yachtsman1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted March 19, 2012 Report Share Posted March 19, 2012 Hi LinI tried to follow your instructions, but started to lose it at item 3. Step 1: open PTE and put the png of the gull's body in as a starting place.Step 2: go to Objects and Animations and add a frameStep 3: select the gull's body, right click and choose "cut" Where do I select the gulls body from the body itself, or the added items box, tried both ways & settled on the body. Select the body from the stack in the Objects ListStep 4. paste the "cut" (body of the gull) as a child of the frame you addedStep 5. add the left wing as a child of the frame and size it appropriatelyStep 6. add the right wing as a child of the frame and size it appropriately - a little larger than the left wing because it's closer to the camera viewStep 7. move the child components (body and wings) so that the gull's body is in the center and the right wing is on the top of the "stack" with the left wing on the bottomThen at step 7, how do I move the components in the stack,Click on the object to select it, then Ctrl Page UP, Ctrl Page Dn to move it up or down incidentally I think both wings should be on top with the body below.Don't "think" so much - it will get you in trouble until you know what you're doing.... Do it like I said...Step 8. click on each wing and move them into their rough starting positions.Step 9. click on the small dot in the center (the center) of the bounding rectangle, of one of the wings. Hold down the shift key and drag this dot to the center of the gull's body adjacent to the base of the wing where it attaches to the body of the gullStep10 repeat above for the other wingThis again went wrong, when I clicked & dragged the dot, the opposite wing started to move, so I gave up then.Did you hold down the shift key? If not, it won't work... Incidentally, when I said I had acheived this action in my first version, I did not use the method you describe, I just dragged the various components from left to right & twisted the wings as I went and clicked various actions until I got an acceptable (to me) action. I have added screen shots of what I did following your method.Eric, I have no idea what you may have done in the past. Apparently neither do you or you wouldn't need help. I don't know how it would be possible to get what you are asking for any other way than the way I've described for you. The problem seems to be that you simply have very limited experience with working with objects and perhaps a bit of a problem with listening carefully before creating an argument in your mind about how to proceed. As the manual says, you need to "practice." One of the elementary things is to learn how to move objects in the objects list and how to move the "center" of an object. The PTE file I sent you has a working animation of your gull flapping it's wings. It works correctly. If you would like, I will make you an AVI tutorial and show you how to do it step by step. You would probably learn a good deal if you just availed yourself of all the tutorials I and others have provided in the tutorials section. They cover all the basics and a host of other things which you probably will find useful. It takes some time and practice to get your head wrapped around the basics and you need to walk before you run.There is no reason why you can't learn to do the basic animations if you want to include them in your shows. There are "easy" ways and "hard" ways to do things. Experience will teach you the easy ways, but listening to people who have been doing it for a long time can save you lots of headaches along the way. My advice would be to forget about how you might have done this in the past and learn to do it the easy way. Open the pte file I gave you and run the preview. Look at the Objects List and see where things are. Examine the keyframes and their times and which objects go with which keyframes. Let me know if you want an AVI turorial and I'll make one for you to get you started.Best regards,LinRegards EricYachtsman1.PS forgot pic 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Eric,I sent you the pte file, open it and run it.Look at how it's built.I made you an AVI tutorial - download it here - extract the archived AVI from the zip file and run it.:http://www.lin-evans.org/eric/eric.zipLin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Hi LinI watched the clip while having breakfast, I see where I was going wrong not linking the PNG's to the frame in the correct manner, however, I will run it through a couple of times to clarify what you are describng to what I am seeing. Shopping day today so I will get to it this afternoon. Thanks for your efforts.Regards EricYachtsman1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Hi LinAfter a weightwatchers lunch, no sourdough, I settled down & re-played your video, & replayed your video. After a few false start part way through where adding key points went too fast for my brain to take in, I managed an acceptable flight across the page. I have kept the instruction for future reference, thank you for your perseverence.Regards EricYachtsman1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Hi Eric,Dang, those weightwatchers lunches without the bread and butter can be so boring! But Igor can have all the bread he wants (he could stand to gain a few pounds!) while the rest of us drool and wish!!Congrats!! Keep at it and when you get the chance, try to capture some closeups of a gull in flight with the video on your camera and try creating an animated gif as I described. It will be a project which will teach you lots of patience and be ultimately rewarding because of the results!Best regards,Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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