Improvements in Curtain/Stage Effect

[Lin Evans]

Al had an excellent suggestion to improve the realism of the curtain opening on stage effect. His suggestion was to compress the drapes on the horizontal plane as they open, thus simulating the normal compression of folds in the material as drapes are being opened. I incorporated it and it's now included in the download at:

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/stage.zip

I think it adds a good measure of realism - any comments? Great suggestion, Al.....

Best regards,

Lin

[ronwil]

Thunderous applause. I wonder now Lin if the surround might be improved in Photoshop by getting rid of the converging verticals. Although I do appreciate the main point of your exercise is to demonstrate the curtain effect, which is now perfect. What about the Safety Curtain?

Ron [uK]

[Guest Techman1]

Lin,

That does look much better. I too like the idea of dimming the house lights as the curtain opens.

I wish I would have had this a year ago. I created something similar to this using Adobe Premiere since we really couldn't get PTE to do this prior to this version.

Nice job!

Fred

[Lin Evans]

Cool. Maybe dim the lights just before the curtains open. Applause at the end of the show. Possibilities are endless.

tom

Hi Tom,

Yes, either of these suggestion could be implemented. Dimming the lights may be a bit more difficult than the applause, but could be done. Since the effects are done with PNG files and layers, all layers except the main screen (with the eagle in this instance) would need to have opacity synchronized precisely or additional images would have to be made which gets tedious.

Perhaps other can tinker with these files and come up with some samples..

Best regards,

Lin

[alrobin]

Lin,

You're right, it does make for a neat effect.

One little thing that I noticed in your example, and also in the one that I first tried, is that the curtains seem to rise at the end of their travel, leaving a space between curtains and stage. I found that I had to expand the curtains in the vertical direction slightly to compensate for this.

Just a small picky thing, and don't know if it is a flaw in the horizontal "stretch" and "compress" action, or just due to the initial setup positioning of the curtains.

[Batman]

Al had an excellent suggestion to improve the realism of the curtain opening on stage effect. His suggestion was to compress the drapes on the horizontal plane as they open, thus simulating the normal compression of folds in the material as drapes are being opened. I incorporated it and it's now included in the download at:

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/stage.zip

I think it adds a good measure of realism - any comments? Great suggestion, Al.....

Best regards,

Lin

Lin,

Thats a nice improvement to an already nice effect. It does add a bit of realism to the curtains. Good suggestion Al.

Jason

[Lin Evans]

Thunderous applause. I wonder now Lin if the surround might be improved in Photoshop by getting rid of the converging verticals. Although I do appreciate the main point of your exercise is to demonstrate the curtain effect, which is now perfect. What about the Safety Curtain?

Ron [uK]

Hi Ron,

Yep, let me see if I can correct the perspective. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the original the entire image will be shifted so that the screen is lower than desired - but it's either that or loose the seats entirely - LOL

Best regards,

Lin

Lin,

You're right, it does make for a neat effect.

One little thing that I noticed in your example, and also in the one that I first tried, is that the curtains seem to rise at the end of their travel, leaving a space between curtains and stage. I found that I had to expand the curtains in the vertical direction slightly to compensate for this.

Just a small picky thing, and don't know if it is a flaw in the horizontal "stretch" and "compress" action, or just due to the initial setup positioning of the curtains.

Hi Al,

It's due to the slight perspective distortion being shifted but not too unrealistic since frequently in real life situations there is a slight gap between the floor and curtains, but it's easily "corrected" by gradually shifting the image downward a couple clicks... LOL

Best regards,

Lin

O.K., here's a link to the perspective corrected version. I didn't have time to do the light dim - have to run do some work this afternoon.

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/stageperspective.zip

Best regards,

Lin

[Ronniebootwest]

Fantastic! The perspective correction makes a great deal of difference.

I think that the 'safety curtain' is a little obstrusive though, can it be reduced in size (or even taken out altogether?

Now all that is needed is for someone to come up with a decent shot of an auditorium!!!

Great worl Lin.

Ron West

[ronwil]

Well done Lin. I have a thing about converging verticals, where their correction can be achieved and improve the picture, and sloping horizons. My "What about the Safety Curtain" was meant to be facetious, but admiring the realism of the achievement. I don't know what the laws are in other countries, but here in the UK the Safety Curtain has to be lowered once during any performance and has bold lettering printed on it. It is there in case of fire.

Ron [uK]

[thedom]

It's a very good emulation to share ideas on the same project. I find it very stimulating.

Here is my little contribution of improvement on this "slideshow"...

I added spotlights at the beginning, tom's ideas, some changes with the curtains and a zoom on the screen to continue the show with fullscreen images.

(includes the exe and the full project - 5,12 Mo).

(click on the image to directly access the download page)

[Lin Evans]

It's a very good emulation to share ideas on the same project. I find it very stimulating.

Here is my little contribution of improvement on this "slideshow"...

I added spotlights at the beginning, tom's ideas, some changes with the curtains and a zoom on the screen to continue the show with fullscreen images.

(includes the exe and the full project - 5,12 Mo).

Looks "and sounds" great - you might want to re-do with the perspective corrected one - Link below:

http://www.lin-evans.net/p2e/stageperspective.zip

Best regards,

Lin

[LumenLux]

Lin, Al, thedom, - You are so full of ideas and talent. I had seen Steve Rideout's version (good as was) but you guys have very quickly built on each others improvements so as to have a real fun opening. As, thedom said, it is fun and productive to build on each others ideas. Thank you each for sharing.

Just for the record, Ron,I had no idea what a "safety curtain" was - facetious or not.

[Ronniebootwest]

Here is my little contribution of improvement on this "slideshow"...

I added spotlights at the beginning, tom's ideas, some changes with the curtains and a zoom on the screen to continue the show with fullscreen images.

TheDom

Now this improvement of yours is the best yet, well done! I agree with Lin though, you should redo it with the converging verticals correction.

A question: for those of us who are not yet proficient with the complexities of PTE Version 5, can you expain how we can use this 'opening sequence' by adding one of our own slideshows so that it will play?

Ron West

[ronwil]

When Version 5.00 is fully operational, presumably you will be able to use the "Objects Editor..." to insert buttons, invisible buttons etc and "Run Application ....". In which case you would replace the eagle in the example with your own Intro image. Below is the final Intro Image I used in Version 4.00 for a show last year. Under each of the members portraits is an invisible button which calls up their individual sequence. I have produced a similar Intro in 5.00 beta #3, this time with the portraits panning across the screen then spinning in from all directions to form the final image. So at he moment I am waiting on Beta #x to complete.

Ron [uK]

[ronwil]

Further to my last post, this is how the finished Intro image would look on my PTE 4.0 experimental stage reported earlier.

Ron [uK]

[Lin Evans]

..............

A question: for those of us who are not yet proficient with the complexities of PTE Version 5, can you expain how we can use this 'opening sequence' by adding one of our own slideshows so that it will play?

Ron West

Now this would be an excellent suggestion for Igor to look into. Essentially, this would consist of combining two existing pte files by removing all common content from the second file, changing the "end" parameters, etc. Even when they were combined you would still need to hand tweak the transition where the drapes open to begin your own show.

It's easy enough to do from scratch, but if we want to apply this existing sequence to a number of shows, we need a mechanism for automating the pte script so that those portions which are common to all pte scripts are removed from one of those being combined.

It's not quite as simple as it may at first seem since it would require setting all universals which we may have changed back to some default so they matched for the two shows. For example what if we had changed the default from four seconds to twenty seconds for each slide on one show and to 10 seconds on another? I suppose once the individual slides have had their "customization" beyond the default levels that would remain, but what if we had relied on these pre-set defaults and not set custom numbers for each slide? Then a change in the defaut would surely mess up the timings, etc. Then there is the background music issue. That would need to be ammended to include the new information so this "could" end up being difficult to implement smoothly.

It's probably "possible" do so right now by using a text editor to append the second pte file then manually removing or changing necessary parameters, but perhaps more than daunting for the non-programmer.

Maybe Igor, Aleksey and Pavel can look into the feasibility of doing this for a future release?? Right now I suspect the easiest way is to start with the theater sequence and simply re-do the rest as inconvenient as that may seem.

Best regards,

Lin

[ronwil]

As I intimated in my recent posting I have prepared my next Intro sequence in PTE 5.0 ready for the Object Editor to be activated, as currently available in PTE 4.0. If you open "Objects and Animations" in 5.0 you will see in the Window Controls, above the Object Window, the Add Button which has yet to be activated. This will enable various tasks to be performed in the same way as the buttons function in PTE 4.0.

Just as Igor and his team activated "Close show after last slide" in time for my Chairman's evening last week, I am hoping that the "Add Button" will be activated in time for our annual AV Group Show in October.

Ron [uK]

[thedom]

Just a quick message because i'm not home (long week-end of 4 days in the south of France).

I will redo this intro because i'm not completely satisfied with it yet. But I think I will do it once a better picture is avalaible (and gonna make an outtro too ).

Speaking about it, John has a nice video of an opera and would like to know how to extract a picture of it (here).

Anybody to help him ?

There is an opera in Paris called "Palais Garnier" (virtual visit here)

But honestly, I really don't know when I'm gonna have time to go take a nice shot of this beautiful building (I had the opportunity to saw a spectacle in it and it's really very impressive)

So I can not promiss to do it and when (I'll be in vaccation for 3 weeks at the end of July).

To answer Ron West's question, isn't the answer to give the ability in PTE to open several projects at the same time and to copy/paste some part of a project to an another ?

[Ken Cox]

have a look at these curtains

ken

[Lin Evans]

have a look at these curtains

ken

Hi Ken,

That's a neat effect, but isn't it rather "backwards" in that when unweighted curtains are quickly drawn the compression is first at the top? In other words they would first be in a "V" shape rather than an inverted V??

Of course on large theatrical stages, the stage curtains all have heavy weight in the hems on the bottom to prevent this so that they generally compress more evenly with drawn though they do tend to compress more (pleats are tighter) at the opening edge than at the back, so in that sense your example is visually correct and would work well if we could implement it. It could be done by actually using four curtains rather than two. The back ones would be compressed less and the front ones (the ones creating the opening edge) could be compressed more and shifted from the horizontal slightly. There are lots of interesting possibilities.

Best regards,

Lin

[Ken Cox]

Lin

well seeing as the last movie i attended was clockwork orange it is kind of hard to remember how the curtains opened

but i remembered enough of the movie to not bother going again -- if i am going to watch semi porn i will rent it

the object of posting it was to aid you geniuses in your creativity -- i emailed you quite a collection of different urls including the curtains

ken

[Lin Evans]

Lin

well seeing as the last movie i attended was clockwork orange it is kind of hard to remember how the curtains opened

but i remembered enough of the movie to not bother going again -- if i am going to watch semi porn i will rent it

the object of posting it was to aid you geniuses in your creativity -- i emailed you quite a collection of different urls including the curtains

ken

Hey Ken,

LOL - you're dating yourself dude - wasn't that a 1971 Stanley Kubrick film? Wow 35 years since you went to a movie - you've got to get out more

Yes, I just checked my email - it's been up and down lately - some issues with my server I think, and I found the links - some great stuff there, thanks!!. I'm not sure if it will be possible to emulate some of what was done because of the different technology requiring actual video, but if Igor gets the video drop in working for the release - all this will become rather moot I think because a video sequence can be then inserted with absolute realism.

Best regards,

Lin

[alrobin]

have a look at these curtains

ken

They look great! And they illustrate yet another movement to enhance the effect - a slight rotation.

Now if we can get Igor to include animated GIF's we'll be all set!

[Lmoreels]

An other sugestion:

I moved the first titlekeypoint to the point just as the curtain starts to open. from that moment I lower the opacity of the curtain to 90%. You see vaguely the title throug the curtain. As the curtin opens the title is claer where the curtain is passed.

I have no website so I can't put the exemple on it.

Luc M

[ronwil]

Further to my earlier postings, I have completed successfully the foundations for Sutton Camera Club AV Group Autumn presentation using a combination of Versions 5.0 and 4.0

I first prepared an opening sequence of pans, zooms and rotate in 5.0, finishing on the slide in which I wished to place the invisible buttons in Version 4.0 Object Editor.

In 4.0 (4.47 to be precise) I started with a Blank slide, which I customised as follows:

Main>Advanced Options>Run external application and inserted the name of the *.exe file, which I had prepared in 5.0.

My next and final slide is the same as the last slide in the 5.0 sequence. The Version 4.0 project is set to “keep the last slide on the screen when the show ends” and to “Auto hide mouse …”. Already using Object Editor I have inserted invisible buttons under two of the portraits (below) and called up their individual sequences using “Run application …”.

So, at this point in time, it would be possible to use the curtain sequence in the same way, until such time as the necessary object editor facilities are added in 5.0.