Controling Zoom Speed

[steven62]

Hi Folks,

I published a show over in the Slideshows created in PicturesToExe forum and received a critique that my zooms in a few areas were too fast.

While part of the critique was that my zoom for a particular slide was too close and zoomed way out I guess you could say that is what I wanted exactly but the poster was right on the money in regards to the speed being too fast.

I did use the slow feature in the objects and animation tab but it did not seem to help that much. I even played with adjusting the graph but again there was no appreciable change.

The slide was 13 seconds long.

Is there a way to control the speed of a zoom (or pan) in PTE other then the slow button or slide length?

Thanks,

Steven

[Lin Evans]

Hi Steven,

The distance between the keyframes is the way to control the speed of the zoom. The "smooth, slow, accelerate," etc., are ways of controlling the ratios of change within the parameters of two keyframs, but they do not control the "speed" of the zoom. For example, if you use smooth without changing the distance between keyframes, the zoom will begin very slowly and end very slowly

but will be quicker between the end of the slow start and the beginning of the slow end than a "linear" zoom. If you use "slow" the zoom will begin in linear fashion but slow toward the end while the actual time between keyframes will remain the same as if you had used linear. If you use accelerate, the zoom will start slowly and continue to speed up until the end. The overall time allotted to the zoom will be the same as if it were linear. So to make the zoom slower, you move the start and end keyframes further apart on the timeline.

Best regards,

Lin

[steven62]

Hi Steven,

The distance between the keyframes is the way to control the speed of the zoom. The "smooth, slow, accelerate," etc., are ways of controlling the ratios of change within the parameters of two keyframs, but they do not control the "speed" of the zoom. For example, if you use smooth without changing the distance between keyframes, the zoom will begin very slowly and end very slowly

but will be quicker between the end of the slow start and the beginning of the slow end than a "linear" zoom. If you use "slow" the zoom will begin in linear fashion but slow toward the end while the actual time between keyframes will remain the same as if you had used linear. If you use accelerate, the zoom will start slowly and continue to speed up until the end. The overall time allotted to the zoom will be the same as if it were linear. So to make the zoom slower, you move the start and end keyframes further apart on the timeline.

Best regards,

Lin

Hello Lin,

OK, I had the beginning key frame at the beginning and the ending keyframe was all the way to the end. It sounds like what I should have done was extend the time of the slide from say 13 seconds to around 26 seconds to get the slower zoom.

Correct?

[Lin Evans]

Hi Steven,

Yes, if the zoom is too fast for what you have in slide display time with keyframes at the beginning and end, they the only way to slow it down is to extend the display time of the slide. The zoom can't be any "slower" than the slide time. Deep zooms usually require more display time while small zooms can usually work with 10 seconds or so.

Best regards,

Lin

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Steven

There is always more than one way to skin a cat in PTE. For years I didn't use the timed points method described above & was always happy with my animations being smooth & if too fast, I just increased the slide time length. My way to get more zoom (or any animation) for your slides time length is, down in the bottom R/H corner of the O&A screen (I use 7,07 BTW), just above the play button, there are plus & minus arrows, assuming your picture is set at the position you want the animation to begin, click the R/H + > symbol, carry out your animation, zoom pan or whatever, then click the < symbol. Then click play & see what you have. Depending on how far you have stretched or condensed the picture this will determine the speed in relation to the slide time. If you have a fade transition, the movement will begin & end within that fade period & give a smooth transition to the next slide. You can also cut down the transition time using "customise slide" which will show more of the transition for the same slide time. Hope you can understand my explanation. See the screen shot for the symbols mentioned.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

[steven62]

Lin: I had a feeling that was what you were going to say but I was kind of hoping that there was a gold nugget some where in PTE so I would not have to extend the time of the show.

Eric: I just got home from work and will try your method first thing tomorrow. Thanks for the tip.

Steven

[Lin Evans]

Hi Eric,

The symbol you refer to places the keyframe at the end of the designated slide time. I'm afraid there is no way to make a zoom any slower than the length of the slide. If the slide is 10 seconds, the zoom for that slide must be started and ended somewhere within that 10 second period. If you have begun the zoom at zero time and ended it at 10 seconds - for example - the zoom will take 10 seconds to complete. If you want it to be slower than 10 seconds then you must use a longer display time for the slide.

If you want to continue the zoom beyond the length of the slide, you can "pull" the keyframe beyond the end of the timeframe which infringes on the following slide's time since the "zoom" will continue during the transition, but in such a case you are splitting the zoom between two slides, not extending the zoom for a single slide.

I'm not clear on what is "different" about what you are describing than extending the distance between the keyframes as suggested above??

Best regards,

Lin

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Hi Eric,

The symbol you refer to places the keyframe at the end of the designated slide time. I'm afraid there is no way to make a zoom any slower than the length of the slide. If the slide is 10 seconds, the zoom for that slide must be started and ended somewhere within that 10 second period. If you have begun the zoom at zero time and ended it at 10 seconds - for example - the zoom will take 10 seconds to complete. If you want it to be slower than 10 seconds then you must use a longer display time for the slide.

If you want to continue the zoom beyond the length of the slide, you can "pull" the keyframe beyond the end of the timeframe which infringes on the following slide's time since the "zoom" will continue during the transition, but in such a case you are splitting the zoom between two slides, not extending the zoom for a single slide.

I'm not clear on what is "different" about what you are describing than extending the distance between the keyframes as suggested above??

Best regards,

Lin

Hi Lin

I thought I'd said as much in my explanation. It wasn't until I did my Matchstalk Man Show that I really tried using key frame timed points, up until then I invariabley used the method I described. Can't remember getting any comments about too fast animation in my shows in the past. Like I said there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

[davegee]

Just two ways.

Either extend the time for a given zoom range or decrease the zoom range for a given slide duration.

Continuing the zoom to the end of the next slide transition is a valid way of increasing slide time and works well if the incoming slide is also animated (one of the side effects of KFSD with video).

DG

[David Porter]

Fundemental physical law (Einstein excepted) Speed = distance/time. To decrease speed you must either decrease distance or increase time - no cats involved.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Fundemental physical law (Einstein excepted) Speed = distance/time. To decrease speed you must either decrease distance or increase time - no cats involved.

Maybe you should try my way, you may be surprised :unsure:/>, let's see what steven has to say. ;)/>

Yachtsman1.

[David Porter]

Maybe you should try my way, you may be surprised :unsure:/>/>/>, let's see what steven has to say. ;)/>/>/>

Yachtsman1.

Are you saying that "my way" does not follow the simple law - speed = distance/time. If so you will be rewriting all the mathematical and physical theories since the year dot.

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Are you saying that "my way" does not follow the simple law - speed = distance/time. If so you will be rewriting all the mathematical and physical theories since the year dot.

Mick

You've missed out a symbol % from the equasion.

Yachtsman1

[steven62]

Maybe you should try my way, you may be surprised />, let's see what steven has to say. />

Yachtsman1.

Oh Boy! Nothing like feeling that I am in middle of a couple of football linebackers (U.S. style) huh? I am too old and too new to PTE to be crushed! ( I am just kidding of course).

Eric,

I took your method and cut and pasted it so it was listed in steps so I would not make a mistake.

Then I went to PTE (7.5), did a "save as" of the show in question (Fall in PA), found a slide that was about 6 seconds long, zoomed to 400 so the fast speed would be obvious, viewed it without changing time, deleted the keyframes then tried your method.

I will be honest here. I kept going back and forth about a dozen times trying to see if there was a difference or not and while I thought there was I really don't think so.

Is it possible that the version may have something to do with it? I don't know, however when I extend the slide time to 35 seconds I of course see a marked difference.

At first when I published the show here I immediately said to myself that it was just a difference in artistic license but when 2 very experienced PTE users mentioned that plus my own misgivings before I uploaded it I knew they were correct. I just did not want to extend the time because I had the music laid out the way I wanted it. Next time I will extend timing.

Unfortunately out of 110 views and 41 downloads of the show I have only received 2 comments which tells me that new folks either get the brush off or the show was not good enough to comment on so I shall keep trying to improve.

Steven

[David Porter]

Mick

You've missed out a symbol % from the equasion.

Yachtsman1

What?

Steven,

Sad to say this forum is not as good as it used to be in giving helpful comments about shows and I don't know of any better ones. Keep trying.

[xahu34]

...

Unfortunately out of 110 views and 41 downloads of the show I have only received 2 comments which tells me that new folks either get the brush off or the show was not good enough to comment on so I shall keep trying to improve.

...

Regarding this forum, your expectations should be not too high. Of course, you can ask particular technical questions, and there are some users who will give you very useful hints (but not all users who rush in with their comments may turn out to be really helpful. You must decide for yourself which ones are good and which ones are not )

If you look at the comments on slideshows you will often read something like "Love it", "Nice pictures", etc. Comments of that kind may be well-intentioned, but they are useless, as well. You do not learn anything from that kind of remarks. On the other hand, if you try to be clinical and express what see (provided that you are in the position to see something) people will start to mock on you. So isn't it the best thing to say something nice or nothing at all?

Regards,

Xaver

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Oh Boy! Nothing like feeling that I am in middle of a couple of football linebackers (U.S. style) huh? I am too old and too new to PTE to be crushed! ( I am just kidding of course).

Eric,

I took your method and cut and pasted it so it was listed in steps so I would not make a mistake.

Then I went to PTE (7.5), did a "save as" of the show in question (Fall in PA), found a slide that was about 6 seconds long, zoomed to 400 so the fast speed would be obvious, viewed it without changing time, deleted the keyframes then tried your method.

I will be honest here. I kept going back and forth about a dozen times trying to see if there was a difference or not and while I thought there was I really don't think so.

Is it possible that the version may have something to do with it? I don't know, however when I extend the slide time to 35 seconds I of course see a marked difference.

At first when I published the show here I immediately said to myself that it was just a difference in artistic license but when 2 very experienced PTE users mentioned that plus my own misgivings before I uploaded it I knew they were correct. I just did not want to extend the time because I had the music laid out the way I wanted it. Next time I will extend timing.

Unfortunately out of 110 views and 41 downloads of the show I have only received 2 comments which tells me that new folks either get the brush off or the show was not good enough to comment on so I shall keep trying to improve.

Steven

Hi Steven

First of all I use 7.07, there have been so many changes to 7.5 I am unsure whether the defaults are the same as 7.07, I think not. Re your 6 second animated shot, is that 6 seconds plus transitions & animation? If it is I would only use a setting like that for a trick shot. I try to make my animated shots at least minimum of 12 seconds including transitions. Particularly when mixing video & stills, a two second in and out fade gives a little leeway to enable a smooth transition between the video & still preventing the dreaded freeze of the final video frame, by draggeing the following still into the video fade. Regarding the number of downloads, I think people are still learning 7.5 so would not comment. Also many of the experienced users don't download every show posted. Nowadays I only download those that get plenty of acclaim. Another difference between how I build a show & your method I think is I use Audacity for the ST, which I find easier to fine tune as I never used anyting else. Finally, don't assume your show will be more acceptable because it has lots of animation, most of us made that mistake, it's like riding a bike, once you've learned, you want to go faster & faster. Some of the best shows I've seen on here have had very little animation, but again that's my opinion.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

[Barry Beckham]

Stephen

I think you have touched on one of THE most common faults in slide shows even those made by the experts on this forum with regards to animation. Any animations we create must move at the same speed as the flow of our slide show and the music will determine that. (its why I can never understand those who say. Your images should have been on the screen longer so I can see them) THEY CAN'T BE ON SCREEN LONGER, because their duration is largely determinded by the chosen music. Its why its called AUDIO VISUAL !.

Anyway, you very often see a smooth flowing slide show then a rapid pan appears that looks out of place, then the show returns to the smooth flowing static slide show with the next slide. Lin has already given the solution as have others. To slow down animation, you either need to allow more time for the animation to run its course, or you need less animation. In full screen animations like a zoom/pan sitting between two static slides, all you need is to move the static slide on the right along the timeline. Give the animation more time to run, therefore it will run slower. The alternative is not to animate the image quite so much. IMHO the tendency is to create more movement/animation than is necessary, so there is one place to start when slowing down animation.

In more complex animations using smaller images and text in layers, rather than full screen images or as well as, the distance between Keypoints is what you need to control speed.

To add complexity, we then have the animation speed controls via the Objects and Animation screen > Animation tab. If you set the option to slow down the animation it can also upset the speed balance between your animation and music. By adjusting that speed control, your animation must start off faster, if it is to slow down at the end. I have found many times that this faster take off of my animation is enough to affect the smooth running of the slide show. It just looks and sounds odd when being viewed. The simple answer is to do what has already been suggested. Give a little more time or take away a little of the animation. Move it less.

[steven62]

Eric wrote:

Re your 6 second animated shot, is that 6 seconds plus transitions & animation? If it is I would only use a setting like that for a trick shot. I try to make my animated shots at least minimum of 12 seconds including transitions.

I tried several different ways using the 6 seconds, then 10 seconds, the 15 seconds etc. I did this to see if I could actually see a difference in the speed between the 2 methods. In other words I was in my play field experimenting.

Also many of the experienced users don't download every show posted. Nowadays I only download those that get plenty of acclaim.

I never expected everyone to download the show. What I was commenting on was 41 downloads and only 2 comments. Please see my reply to Xaver for a further explanation. I will reply to him right after I post this reply.

Finally, don't assume your show will be more acceptable because it has lots of animation, most of us made that mistake,.

I do not animate for the sake of animating. I use animation to enhance the photo or what I am trying to convey. Am I successful all of the time? Not by a long shot.

I have been shooting pictures since I was a kid back in the 1950's so does that make me an expert photographer? Nope. Why? Because if I am trying to convey a particular style or story line it is my interpretation and the viewer may not understand what I am trying to convey (although most do with most being the operative word here) and I suspect that using PTE will follow the same line.

It's like riding a bike, once you've learned, you want to go faster & faster

Funny you would use that analogy. You see when I was a kid and I first learned to ride my 2 wheel bike I was riding down the sidewalk one day peddling faster and faster when all of a sudden a woman pushing a wide baby carriage appeared in front of me. I had 3 choices: go into the street and hit a parked car, hit a steel pole imbedded in the concrete sidewalk, or hitting the baby carriage. I chose the pole and as I was explaining to my dad why I chose the pole (I was pretty proud of that) as he was looking at the damage to the bike (I pushed the fork into the frame) he calmly looked at me and said " You had a 4th choice. Why didn't you hit the brakes?"

Barry wrote:

I think you have touched on one of THE most common faults in slide shows even those made by the experts on this forum with regards to animation. Any animations we create must move at the same speed as the flow of our slide show and the music will determine that. (its why I can never understand those who say. Your images should have been on the screen longer so I can see them) THEY CAN'T BE ON SCREEN LONGER, because their duration is largely determinded by the chosen music. Its why its called AUDIO VISUAL !.

Anyway, you very often see a smooth flowing slide show then a rapid pan appears that looks out of place, then the show returns to the smooth flowing static slide show with the next slide. Lin has already given the solution as have others. To slow down animation, you either need to allow more time for the animation to run its course, or you need less animation. In full screen animations like a zoom/pan sitting between two static slides, all you need is to move the static slide on the right along the timeline. Give the animation more time to run, therefore it will run slower. The alternative is not to animate the image quite so much. IMHO the tendency is to create more movement/animation than is necessary, so there is one place to start when slowing down animation.

In more complex animations using smaller images and text in layers, rather than full screen images or as well as, the distance between Keypoints is what you need to control speed.

To add complexity, we then have the animation speed controls via the Objects and Animation screen > Animation tab. If you set the option to slow down the animation it can also upset the speed balance between your animation and music. By adjusting that speed control, your animation must start off faster, if it is to slow down at the end. I have found many times that this faster take off of my animation is enough to affect the smooth running of the slide show. It just looks and sounds odd when being viewed. The simple answer is to do what has already been suggested. Give a little more time or take away a little of the animation. Move it less.

I agree to the point that I have copied this text into my tutorials folder as a reminder of what I need to look for. Thank you.

Steven

[steven62]

I felt my last reply was too long so I opted to send this separately.

Xaver wrote:

Regarding this forum, your expectations should be not too high. Of course, you can ask particular technical questions, and there are some users who will give you very useful hints (but not all users who rush in with their comments may turn out to be really helpful. You must decide for yourself which ones are good and which ones are not )

If you look at the comments on slideshows you will often read something like "Love it", "Nice pictures", etc. Comments of that kind may be well-intentioned, but they are useless, as well. You do not learn anything from that kind of remarks. On the other hand, if you try to be clinical and express what see (provided that you are in the position to see something) people will start to mock on you. So isn't it the best thing to say something nice or nothing at all?

First off let me say that I have never been disappointed when asking technical questions on this forum. The amount of patience is terrific. They seem to want to make sure you understand their answers. If the answer is does not work then I have a starting place to find the correct answer. If the answer works, then life is good and we march on.

Regarding comments on slide shows. I hope I can convey clearly my feelings on this.

I do not comment a lot on slide shows because I am new to this and I may not understand what they were trying to convey if anything. If there are some technical problems with the photos I may bring it up but then again I may not because I am not familiar with their style. Whether we realize or not we all have a style, even if it is copied. My style in slide shows is part copied and part my own and as I gain more experience my style will evolve completely just as my photography has evolved over the years. But I digress. Back to comments.

There is nothing wrong with "Love it" or "Nice pictures" it is a slap on the back, an acknowledgement of your work. Useless? Perhaps, but an acknowledgement never the less.

Now should someone come along and say "I hated your show" without further explanation that would not make sense.

Look, Mary and Mick were nice enough to comment on my show.

The first thing I noticed was that they were sincere and that a couple of the negatives were similar which told me that there could be a problem. One was the fast zooms which prompted this thread and the other that stood out to me was that I had some photos that appeared to be the same with slight variation. OK, I said to myself. This is just a difference of artistic license, I mean I spent over 5 hours on this show, 1 1/2 hours on the music alone not counting the processing time so I knew they were wrong.

However, I went back to the show and replayed it through their eyes and you know what? They were right! Their experience won out over my inexperience.

You said "So isn't it the best thing to say something nice or nothing at all?"

Of course it's the best thing to say something nice. But when asked why not do as Mary and Mick had done? Say something nice and provide a negative without being negative. Especially if asked. If a person does not ask for a critique then I may just give a pat on the back if I am sincere about it. I would not say "great job" if I did not mean it.

Steven

[Guest Yachtsman1]

I have used Google maps a few times in my shows, & I understand what you are trying to acheive. The problem as I see it is centralising the principle area first, ie zoom in to the maximum magnification first then take the screen shot, then gradually reduce the magnification over around 20 separate screen shots, then use this in reverse as a basis for the full zoom process without altering the pan or speed settings. I haven't tried it but believe it could be possible.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

[uuderzo]

I have used Google maps a few times in my shows, & I understand what you are trying to acheive. The problem as I see it is centralising the principle area first, ie zoom in to the maximum magnification first then take the screen shot, then gradually reduce the magnification over around 20 separate screen shots, then use this in reverse as a basis for the full zoom process without altering the pan or speed settings. I haven't tried it but believe it could be possible.

Regards Eric

Yachtsman1.

I took the screenshots as you said but since i want to animate into che map, i find difficult to perfectly synchronize different zooming images, so i built a fixed image hierarchy where each screenshot is a level of the hierarchy with reduced zoom respect to the parent image.

Then by zooming the main picture i achieve a consistent zoom effect without fadings between different singular zooming images. But this approach requires huge zoom values that leads to an extreme behavior the "slow down" algorithm. The final zoom is so huge that "slowing down" is not enough... it should be possible to "sloooooooooow down" :D/>

Here is where a logarithmic algorithm could be useful, so the final part of the zoom will slow down in an exponential way and will let the last picture come in with an acceptable speed.

Cheers! Umberto

P.S. Anyway, i removed the zooming map because i felt it a bit annoying. But the issue remains.