Question Before I Finish the Snow/Rain styles...

[Lin Evans]

One of the issues with creating "styles" is that the creator must decide about the time of display. Years ago when I first began creating snow and rain animations, I always displayed the slide for a minimum of 30 seconds. In the case of Snow Globes in cooperation with Panos (of PanosFX) I created 60 second snow animations for the globes.

With a snow animation, by the very nature of the components used, if the timing of the display is changed from the default, the snowfall will either be faster or slower. That is if the default timing is increased, the snow will appear to fall slower and if the default timing for the slide display is decreased, the snow will appear to fall faster. The reason for this is that the animation uses keyframed timed moving PNG files.

What I would like to know from interested forum members is how long would you like to see your slide with one of these rain or snow animations? I originally decided on 12 seconds, but I believe that may be too fast for the viewer to really appreciate the scene. Now I'm thinking perhaps 20 seconds or even 30 seconds. Please let me know what you think so I can properly time the snowfall and set the style output time accordingly.

Thanks,

Lin

[Guest Yachtsman1]

Lin

If you make it at 30 seconds, would it not be possible for the user to reduce the time to that which they want, or would that speed up the action? I put this in the suggestion section last year but didn't get any response, although I haven't tried styles yet, I'll maybe have a go now, particularly the rain which is seasonal here, snow in the future. One of my other suggestions last year was fog, I have a Redpaw media plug in for Elements for fog but it isn't animated & isn't available as a freebie any more. I used it a long time ago in my "Fog on the Tyne" show, a swirling fog style would be useful. If you cast your mind back you created a steam gif for my "Hunton Steam Fair" some time ago (4+ years).

Regs Eric

Yachtsman1

[Lin Evans]

Hi Eric,

Changing the timing for snow animations to less time definitely speeds up the snowfall - the png files are traveling the same distance in less time. For rain it doesn't make any difference because I build animated gifs which repeat automatically and their speed is constant...

Yes I remember the steam gif. The issue problem with steam in terms of a style is that it would have to be created in such a way as to be amenable to being moved, placed into a mask, etc. Probably just easier to create a few as avi video with alpha channel and let people use them as they see fit, but not really amenable as a style.

Best regards,

Lin

[JEB]

Hi Lin,

To answer your question I would go for 20 seconds.

Would it not be possible to run two slides with the same image one after the other to create 40 seconds (less transition)?

If that is in any way practical then perhaps 15 seconds would be a better compromise?

Cheers

John

[Lin Evans]

Hi John,

I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work - it's only for the snow styles - the rain styles can be adjusted to any length of run without affecting the appearance.

I actually tried this, but it's not very satisfactory because there is a perceptual change when the second (and third) slide appears since the png file is "random" in terms of where snowflakes are at any given moment. I think I'll have to pick a time and stick with it for the style..

Best regards,

Lin

[Igor]

Lin,

I think that new version 9.0 will help to solve this dilemma. New animation tools will allow to set fixed speed of the looped animation not depending on the duration of a slide.

[Lin Evans]

Thanks Igor,

That will be fun to work with !!

Best regards,

Lin