Animation?

[wedford]

I've been using PTE for awhile and am continually astonished both at the programs abilities and the ungoing improvements as well as the knowledge, experience and helpfulness of the PTE "community". / I have a question that perhaps has a simple solution but I haven't thought of a solution yet - that is it possible to set a certain number of slides in a "loop"? So that if played continually, fast enough, would give the appearance of animation? A "Gif" animation is nothing but a series of slides in such a "loop". Think of an old "flip" card book as an example. / I tried making a simple one, just making it start over and over again and was succesful. I could "attach" it as a completly seperate slideshow to be played within another. / But the reason I ask is if trying to simulate a more complex animation it requires adding allot more slides for each "sequence" and can make a presentation pretty big. And if I do just "attach" it to another show then I have to include both shows when "distributing" it as well as possibly running into other problems? / If you could make a single show, it'd be nice to specify which slides to "loop" - which to play "regularly" - how long to "loop" - give the user an option to stop the "loop" and procede with the show. Again, it's possible with my workaround but a hassle. And possible there's an easier way. (Sorry to run off at the mout....fingertips.)

[JRR]

Wedford:

I did a show a number of years ago that ran 275 images through in 60 seconds.

I used jpg files. 800x600 about 50kb each

It runs OK on most computers, but some older computers have difficulty keeping up and it loops on them.

It was on BEECHBROOK for a while and got some good reviews.

If you want a copy of the .exe file I can send it via DROPLOAD. It is a 9mb file.

[cici]

Hi Wedford,

I've two shows with animations on my web page: AMUSEMENTS and COLOURS;

If you want, you can give a look to them. here

[bharkins]

Cici, your shows are fabulous. Colors is beautiful and not only the animation aspect, but the precise synch of music to each slide of different flowers is amazing. However, I have to admit that I don't understand the ending!

Bill

[cici]

Hi Bill,

Thank You very much for your compliments.

“COLOURS” is almost an idea than a show: it’s a general idea against war.

The end of the show is war.

The colours of flowers represent the Creation.

“Admire the Creation to love it, to protect it”…and war doesn’t protect at all. War (black) is the end of colours.

“to protect”…: that’s why “Colours” is in the vase.

The whole show is based on contrasts: contrast between colours and black, contrast between tuneful music and the horrible noise of war, contrast between the word “to protect” and its transformation: a graphic representing guns; contrast between protection and destruction.

Hope this helps to understand the end of the show.

[Lloegyr]

Also I did a show which was on Beechbrook long, long ago called Carousel, which was in 2 versions English and French and was a show of a carousel, actually in Berlin to the music of Jacques Brel and did indeed fully emulate the circular quick movement of a carousel via animation.

Mike

Mersea Island England

[Lloegyr]

To Jim

Was that the show with the bee polinating flowers, if so its an excellent intro to animation.

Mike

Mersea Island England

[JRR]

Mike:

Yes that was the show.

It was actually an introduction to a 14 minute PTE show on beekeeping.

[Guest guru]

Wedford, you can also see here, on the "dilemmania" site, where you can find two of the first experiments of animation, as "Animation Mickey" (258 KB) and "Flying Boeing" (472 KB).

[Barry Beckham]

Wedford

Forgive me but

is it possible to set a certain number of slides in a "loop"? So that if played continually, fast enough, would give the appearance of animation

Yes, its called video or DVD

Barry

[alrobin]

is it possible to set a certain number of slides in a "loop"? So that if played continually, fast enough, would give the appearance of animation?  .......snip........But the reason I ask is if trying to simulate a more complex animation it requires adding allot more slides for each "sequence" and  can make a presentation  pretty big.

Wedford,

This is something that was possible in the days of analogue multi-projector systems (in fact I once designed a micro-processor-controlled system for 4 analogue projectors that would allow you to specify how many times to "flash" each one and for how long, etc.) So, it is logical to ask for something equivalent to that with digital.

However, synching in PTE and other modern digital systems involves locating all the images and sound on a linear timeline, so it would be more difficult to achieve something like you are describing without considerably adding to the functionality of the present system. The present approach is to repeat slides that are "looped", and this is very easily accomplished by creating a loop and then copying it as many times as are required to achieve the effect. In the long run, this is probably a lot easier than setting up all the calculations required for effecting and displaying a loop, and then merging it with the music on the timeline.

Even in MIDI systems this looping feature is no longer used - it used to be available in the old "Dr. T" MIDI program for the Commodore "Amiga" and Atari computers, but has been abandoned in modern systems such as "Cubase" in favour of completely linear timeline-based programs.

Sometimes after taking two steps forward it seems we have to take one step backward!

Just one more point about PTE - don't worry about the "extra" slides taking up space in the presentation - whenever you use a slide or slides several times over again, no additional space is required in the ".exe" file. You can use these "looped" slides several times over without adding to the "physical" size of the show.

[wedford]

Thanks for the replies - I see that I was right in that others were trying it also. / I guess there's NOT a way to control a series of slides so that they act like a "loop" - simulating animation. By control I mean, which slides to use, how long, fast etc. AND DO IT IN ONE SLIDESHOW. WITH ONLY PART OF THE SLIDESHOW ACTING AS AN ANIMATION.

Again, you can make a seperate slideshow and have it "loop" (start over and over) and then put a button on a slide in the "primary" slideshow and set it's action to "run application or open file..." - (play the "looped" slideshow") Is there a way to open it "off center" OR ALSO a way to set it to run/open automatically when coming to a certain slide in the primary show or CLOSE? I tried making a transparent "gif" to use as a "sizeholder" then putting the part I wanted animated in just a corner but since you can't use "transparent gif's" as a slide it didn't work. Maybe in future PTE revisions "transparent gifs", "loop" controls" etc., you'll be able.

Thanks for info Al and the tip about the added slides used in making a 'slideshow animation' not adding to the "size".

I know this sounds kind of trivial concidering ALL the "tricks" PTE can do and the NEW additions but I had to know.

THANK AGAIN!!!

[boxig]

There are two small utilities to run gif animation over the show:

GifExe

GifExeOnShow

Find both under "Utilities for "PicturesToExe" and other slideshows programs users" HERE.

Those are old utilities but should work.

Granot

[Maureen]

Hi Wedford

You may live abroad?

But if you live in England, and can get to our Digital AV workshop next Sunday, one of our speakers, Mel Gigg has produced a very exciting PTE AV sequence which does use some animation / movement within it.

I know Igor enjoyed seeing it.

Well worth seeing if you can make it.

He's on first on Sunday morning.

See http://www.maureenalbright.com/www-dave/index.htm on the Aldbourne page.

BW Maureen

[Ken Cox]

Years ago this was one of the first animation shows that was posted -- web page is still alive and download still available

web page was always hard for me to read so i copied to a text file

ken

http://www.gv.net/~whitetool/swirler_files...s/slide0009.htm

12520 Loma Rica Dr. #9 Grass Valley, CA 95945 (530) 273-9679 FAX 273-8728 whitetool@gv.net Excellence and Innovation in Wax Pattern Tooling

The file you are about to download is a presentation of an automatic wax pattern die that produces the GE Engine Swirler in the picture.

It is about 4.5 megabits.

This file will take about 30 minutes to download if you are using a modem.

Contact White Tool if you would like a CD instead.

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