A Feature Which Could be Truly Useful

[Lin Evans]

In trying to create some effects which require turning on and off a PNG file extremely quickly, it became apparent that one feature which might be added in future PTE versions would be the ability to choose a timing for the addition of new keypoints.

Right now when you set a custom time for a slide then click on the first keypoint and then click the + key the program inserts keypoints at approximately every half second (actually just a tiny bit slower than an half second). So, if you have a time for a slide set to 1000 (one second) the pte inserts a single keypoint at 550.

This is a great feature, but not flexible enough for some effects which would be possible to create.

Let me explain. I looked at theDom's excellent rain demo and the first thing which struck me was that with a wet pavement, there should be multiple tiny "splashes" as the rain drops impact the pavement to make the scene realistic. This can be done by creating a combination of black and white "noise" and using a PNG mask to confine the area of the effect to the wet pavement. But to make it realistic, the "splashes" must be random and turned on an off in extremely quick sequences. PTE can do this, but it's exceedingly difficult to physically move a keypoint 1/10th second from the preceeding one. Of course one can do it by typing in the numbers to turn on and off opacity but this gets extremely tedious.

The one half second period is far too long for a realistic effect so I began thinking that the ability for the user to type in a time period for the timing between keypoints and have the + sign automatically select this typed time for the interval would be a very powerful feature.This would allow the user to create effects such as Jean-Pierre used for turning on and off the Christmas Tree blinking lights but would make it much easier to achieve a "random" effect and greatly speed up the creation of a slideshow using these specialized effects.

So my request for a future version would be for the user to be able to type in a time value which would be implemented when clicking on the + to add keypoints.

Best regards,

Lin

[LumenLux]

Another good idea. See what happens when a blizzard gives you time to think.

I expect Igor could do it and could even offer a selectable random mode on the "+" button you suggest.

[alrobin]

Lin,

This sounds like a useful feature - how far apart do you anticipate adding keypoints?

If 0.55 sec is an even multiple of the increment desired, you can speed things up a bit by highlighting a keypoint, hitting "+" several times, then going back and adding another keypoint the distance away from the first equal to the increment, hitting "+" several times, again, and repeating this until the spaces between keypoints are filled in.

You would only have to carefully place keypoints within the initial 0.55 sec.

Of course, if the increment is too small, this procedure becomes tedious, and your idea would be of considerable help.

[Lin Evans]

Hi Al,

That was essentially what I was doing but I discovered that about 1/10th second is the ideal "pulse" time depending on the intensity of rain, etc. So I spaced the keypoints every quarter second then changed the time incremented by 100 to get the 1/10th second.. I have to set opacity to zero on every other frame so changing the keypoint timing was just another step but it would be so much quicker if I could have simply typed in 100 for an incremental value, loaded the timeline with the keypoints the just clilcked the > and placed zero at every other keypoint.

I think having an option of setting the keypoint timings for the + key might be quite useful for doing these animations. Of course the majority of people who use the program probably have little interest in its animation ability - sort of a niche interest area - but it's such a powerful environment it's fun to play.

Best regards,

Lin

Lin,

This sounds like a useful feature - how far apart do you anticipate adding keypoints?

If 0.55 sec is an even multiple of the increment desired, you can speed things up a bit by highlighting a keypoint, hitting "+" several times, then going back and adding another keypoint the distance away from the first equal to the increment, hitting "+" several times, again, and repeating this until the spaces between keypoints are filled in.

You would only have to carefully place keypoints within the initial 0.55 sec.

Of course, if the increment is too small, this procedure becomes tedious, and your idea would be of considerable help.

Another good idea. See what happens when a blizzard gives you time to think.

I expect Igor could do it and could even offer a selectable random mode on the "+" button you suggest.

LOL - I've already managed to do some major damage to my pickup truck by accidentally sliding into one of my brick columns holding the chain link fence in front of my house. I figure about $2500 between the truck, masonery work and such so I'm just going to quit trying until this thing completely blows over. It took Sherry and me 4 hours to dig the truck out so we could get it back on the driveway and it's a 3/4 ton 4x4 with lots of ground clearance and a big V10 and locking differential so it doesn't get stuck easily.

It's going to be fun seeing how this program evolves - it's just so much better than the competition and much easier to work with for finely tuned animations.

Best regards,

Lin

[thedom]

I looked at theDom's excellent rain demo and the first thing which struck me was that with a wet pavement, there should be multiple tiny "splashes" as the rain drops impact the pavement to make the scene realistic. This can be done by creating a combination of black and white "noise" and using a PNG mask to confine the area of the effect to the wet pavement. But to make it realistic, the "splashes" must be random and turned on an off in extremely quick sequences. PTE can do this, but it's exceedingly difficult to physically move a keypoint 1/10th second from the preceeding one.

Lin, it seems you send me a trojan because it is exactly what I started to do yesterday with the technique you describe!

Seriously, yes, this feature would be very useful.

But what I was thinking of to make the job quicker was the ability to copy several keypoints of an object at the same time and to paste them on the timeline wherever we want.

May be in a future version for both options...