A Couple Snow and One Rain Style

[Lin Evans]

At a request I've made a couple quick "snow" styles. In the linked zipped archive are two styles - one creates snow in an image of your choice which runs for 12 seconds. The second style creates a 60 second snow effect.

These "should" work fine with 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios but if for any reason you use them with other aspect ratios or if there are areas where there is no snow, just go to Objects and Animations and adjust the Mask Rectangle to properly fill the entire screen. Do this by just holding down the shift key and "dragging" the small "handle" on either side of the mask rectangle to the desired position.

Perhaps when I have time I'll try to make some more sophisticated versions. These require a single image to be selected. Just unzip and extract to a folder of your choice and import into your User Styles in PTE...

http://www.lin-evans.org/styles/linsnowstyles.zip

Here's a 20 second hard rain style for 16:9

http://www.lin-evans.org/rain/sixteentonineraingif.zip

Changing the opacity from 12 to a smaller number in Objects and Animations (animations tab) will lower the apparent intensity of the rain and slightly brighten the associated image. If you use an image which isn't a native 16:9 aspect ratio - adjust size to fill screen with the controlling "frame" in Objects and Animations...

Please see updated information in the post to Judy below:

Best regards,

Lin

[JudyKay]

Thanks, Lin.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Judy,

Looks like on the one minute snow for 16:9 you will need to make a quick adjustment of the mask... When I get a chance I'll try to make some for individual aspect ratios such as 16:9, 5:4, 4:3 and 3:2. I will also make several different styles of snowfall and perhaps rainfall and package them all in a zip file...

Dave brought to my attention that the 12 second style needed some extensive mask manipulation to completely cover the screen with snow on a 16:9 aspect ratio. I've tried it on my own system and only had to adjust the top and bottom (the style was created on a 4:3 image) but there may be some interaction with different original image sizes. For example, if your original image has an aspect ratio of 16:9 and fills the screen, then only the top and bottom of the mask rectangle should need adjusting. On the other hand, if you are using for example a 3:2 image from a dSLR and your image doesn't fill the screen right and left as well as top and bottom, you may need to adjust both the top/bottom and sides of the mask.

The "black" jpg which sets on the top level is designed to completely blank the animation "before" the transition to the next slide regardless of the type transition you have programmed or the duration. So it's best to highlight the black jpg, then drag the last two keyframes so that the last keframe ends just before the transition begins. In this manner, the screen will fade to black before the animation stops regardless of the setting of "keep full slide duration" and the type transition to the next slide.

I will provide a complete AVI tutorial along with the entire set of rain and snow styles as soon as I get them finished. The style set will have separate styles for 2:3, 4:2, 5:4 and 16:9 aspect ratios for all rain and snow simulations as well as different types of snowfall and rainfall. I expect that there will be around sixteen snowfall and sixteen rainfall styles in the set (that's four types of snow times four aspect ratios and four types of rain time four aspect ratios). Also in the zipped archive will be the AVI tutorial and a short exe file demonstrating each. There will also be seven separate png lightning files and a few mp3 files of rainfall and thunder claps. The lightning pngs can be sized and placed inside masks anywhere on your images to simulate lightning strikes and timed properly to mach the sound.

Best regards,

Lin

[Igor]

Thank you, Lin!

[Lin Evans]

Hi Igor,

Thanks for the updates and information on multiple aspect ratios in a single Style. The completed sets of styles and associated files are now posted. Hopefully I'll have the snow Styles completed tonight...

Best regards,

Lin