Frames and containers

[Happycat]

Hi everybody

I am new to the forum and totally new to this wonderful software. In the course of the nexr few weeks, I will make the final decision to purchase (currently going through the learning curve with the trial version of v.8.

Whilst most of the tools seem relatively straightforward (at a novice level), I am confused as to how to use Frames and frame containers.

Perhaps some of you with considerably more experience of PicturestoExe could explain their use and hopefully point me in the direction of one or more of the excellent tutorials that accompany this forum.

Thanks in advance.

[Lin Evans]

Hi HC,

Think of a frame as a rectangle object with zero opacity. The most common use of a frame is as a controlling object in a hierarchical parent/child construct. Let me give you an example. Let's say you had multiple objects in an animation such as text, several images, etc., and you wanted all of these objects to zoom larger or smaller and perhaps pan across the screen simultaneously. Of course you "could" set individual keyframes for each object and synchronize their individual keyframe times, but if you had multiple objects this could be a very tedious task. What if you needed ten keyframes to create the particular desired animation and there were fifteen objects which you wanted to control simultaneously? This would then require ten time fifteen or 150 separate keyframes with identical values at keyframe points for each object. Doing this could get really complex. The simple solution would be to add a frame and make each of the objects a child of this frame. Then simply animate the parent frame with the ten keyframes and all of the child objects would respond exactly as if you had programmed them independently. This represents a huge time savings.

Let's say you were setting up an object to move in an elliptical orbit around another object. To do this requires a bit of "mechanical" linkage to simulate what could be achieved with a mechanical construct having different length lever arms, swivels, etc. Having either a rectangle made transparent or a frame makes this a very simple task with PTE because of the hierarchical parent/child relationship. Please watch my tutorial linked below to get a feel for how the frame or invisible rectangle can be used to achieve such an effect....

Link to Tutorials:

Download and watch tutorial and demo #33

The word "Container" generally applies to masking and the container is an overarching construct which holds the mask and the objects to be masked. As you go through tutorials on masking, the concept of container will become clear. The "container" can be manipulated via keyframes and in turn can be made to animate the mask and objects within. Think of the container as a "frame" for masks and masked objects.

Hopefully, this will help you understand the primary use of frames with PTE

Best regards,

Lin

[jkb]

Hi Happy Cat,

Welcome to the Forum & the wonderful world of PTE.

Frames are used when you wish to group several Objects together so you can animate them all at once.

A Frame has zero Opacity so is not visible.

You can have several different objects each performing their own animation, but you may wish to move them all across the screen together. You would add a Frame above the individual Objects & then make them Children of that Frame. (Select all the Objects CTRL+Click, Right Click - Cut. Then select the Frame - Right Click - Paste)

You can then apply animation to the Frame & all the Children Objects will follow.

Hope this helps.

Jill

[davegee]

In addition to all of the above good info:

You don't HAVE TO use the frame that PTE offers you.

You can use any object as a "frame" if you reduce its opacity to zero.

Alternatively make a transparent png file to use as a "frame".

I prefer to use SQUARE png's as frames.

DG

[Happycat]

Thanks for your prompt, helpful and knowledgeable replies.

I can now move forward with a clear understanding of the function of frames and their potential uses.

Regards HC