Lin Evans Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 I've modified my "Effects" demo a bit to include some video text effects both at the start of the slideshow and as "credits" at the end. Doing this increases the overall size of the show - actually more than doubles the size so there are some disadvantages, but there are some amazing effects which can be used which are not feasible to create with PNG and Photoshop. I use a product called Wildform Wild FX Pro which has some amazing abilities to animate text. The output can be ported to Flash SWF, AVI, MOV, MPEG4 and even sequenced still images (which is what I do with it for PTE). PicturesToExe has an amazing ability to sequence still images with quite sufficient frame speed to emulate high quality video. I used a 50ms per frame rate for these which were created with a 15 fps rate in Wild FX Pro. There are well over 400 different text effects with Wild FX Pro and these are great for opening sequences or credits. Obviously, one can't use them easily on background images without a video editor, but this doesn't diminish their value for effects.On tip for the user is that if your output sequence has some dead time, that is you have the same text appear for several seconds, it's beneficial to remove those frames and simply apply a custom time and effect to a single frame. Remember, if you are exporting 30 frames per second and you have a non changing slide which occupies 10 seconds of time - such as a credit which stays to be read for some extended period - you can save many megabytes of space by simply keeping only one frame and tossing the rest. Ten seconds of video equals 300 png or jpg images each with a reasonable file size. So throwing away 300 and substituting a custom time of 10 seconds in PTE for one of these frames means a savings of maybe 20 megabytes or so.Anyway, for those interested here's a sample link to a zipped executable - about 34 meg.....http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/effects2.zipBest regards,Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedom Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 The online demo (http://www.wildform.com/products/wildfx/wildfxdemo/) is very nice!Hope one day those kind of text effects will be included in PTE... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted January 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 The online demo (http://www.wildform.com/products/wildfx/wildfxdemo/) is very nice!Hope one day those kind of text effects will be included in PTE... It would be a great addition, but probably very time consuming to create all the effects possible with dedicated software. It will be nice just to be able to manipulate text and comments created solely in P2E without having to resort to Photoshop, etc. Best regards,Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alrobin Posted January 12, 2007 Report Share Posted January 12, 2007 We can do a lot of this stuff now with the current PZR capabilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted January 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 12, 2007 We can do a lot of this stuff now with the current PZR capabilities. Yes, there is an amazing amount which can be done with the programming capabilities that exist. Of course the external software designed for specific tasks such as animated text creation make it ever so much easier to have really sophisticated and fancy text effects. The two I chose for this demo are very elementary compared to the many hundreds available which are truly amazing. There are nearly an infinite number of effects which can quickly be generated and used in PTE. Each effect can be modified by a number of parameters including the use of any resident fonts on the computer, fill colors, outlines, variable letter and line space and delay, reverse text display, etc.The ability of PTE to display sequential images at high frame rates gives it abilities beyond simply dropping in a low resolution video clip. With its high resolution capabilities, high resolution video output can be simulated which opens a whole new array of opportunity.Best regards,Lin Cool FX Lin.I sometimes use Quicktime Pro to create image sequences and extract audio. Here is a 150 slide/10 second movie of goldfish 320x240x15fps from a Canon A710IS digital camera. I scaled the images to 50% screen size and also add the sound file (not much sound in this movie). 640x480 would look much better.http://www.humboldt.edu/~tem1/goldfish.zip (3MB)I'm still learning how to edit more sophisticated .pte files in php, but I hope to be able to do some neat stuff in the future. The user might upload a .pte file to a web page and php would generate a new .pte file in a few seconds that automates some time consuming task. Right now I'm working on a computer generated random slide show with limts for pan/zoom/rotate/opacity.Tom Hi Tom,There are great opportunities for some very sophisticates shows. This tool (PTE) actually surpasses many of the older animation generation of software I've used over the years and it's not really designed specifically for that purpose.Neat goldfish video!Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azmi Posted January 12, 2007 Report Share Posted January 12, 2007 I've modified my "Effects" demo a bit to include some video text effects both at the start of the slideshow and as "credits" at the end. Doing this increases the overall size of the show - actually more than doubles the size so there are some disadvantages, but there are some amazing effects which can be used which are not feasible to create with PNG and Photoshop. I use a product called Wildform Wild FX Pro which has some amazing abilities to animate text. The output can be ported to Flash SWF, AVI, MOV, MPEG4 and even sequenced still images (which is what I do with it for PTE). PicturesToExe has an amazing ability to sequence still images with quite sufficient frame speed to emulate high quality video. I used a 50ms per frame rate for these which were created with a 15 fps rate in Wild FX Pro. There are well over 400 different text effects with Wild FX Pro and these are great for opening sequences or credits. Obviously, one can't use them easily on background images without a video editor, but this doesn't diminish their value for effects.On tip for the user is that if your output sequence has some dead time, that is you have the same text appear for several seconds, it's beneficial to remove those frames and simply apply a custom time and effect to a single frame. Remember, if you are exporting 30 frames per second and you have a non changing slide which occupies 10 seconds of time - such as a credit which stays to be read for some extended period - you can save many megabytes of space by simply keeping only one frame and tossing the rest. Ten seconds of video equals 300 png or jpg images each with a reasonable file size. So throwing away 300 and substituting a custom time of 10 seconds in PTE for one of these frames means a savings of maybe 20 megabytes or so.Anyway, for those interested here's a sample link to a zipped executable - about 34 meg.....http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/effects2.zipBest regards,LinHi I also use XARA 3D for the titles which can be saved as png, avi, etc. See Xara.com for more info.RegardsAzmi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted January 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 12, 2007 Hi I also use XARA 3D for the titles which can be saved as png, avi, etc. See Xara.com for more info.RegardsAzmi Hi Azmi,Yes, XARA 3D is a very nice program, especially for creating headers and such - it's different in intent and purpose from Wild FX Pro but very useful as well. Thanks for the reminder.Best regards,Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alrobin Posted January 12, 2007 Report Share Posted January 12, 2007 I also use XARA 3D for the titles which can be saved as png, avi, etc. See Xara.com for more info. Azmi,Thanks for the info on XARA - that's the type of program I have been looking for, for fancy 3D text. Looks like a good program - the images seem to be very smooth, and it will also handle simple graphics as well as text. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted January 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2007 Azmi,Thanks for the info on XARA - that's the type of program I have been looking for, for fancy 3D text. Looks like a good program - the images seem to be very smooth, and it will also handle simple graphics as well as text. Hi Al,I think you would like XARA 3D - it's especially useful with XARA Extreme as well - I use both but hadn't considered using it for PTE since the output for PNG is only a single frame rather than animated, but you can output animated GIF and use Image Ready to sequence the slides back to movie format. It's really an easy program to use and more powerful in many ways than some really expensive tools. It's certainly "quicker" to produce quality output because what you see is what you get and it's in real time. The down side is that there is no provision for using your own jpg backgrounds. There are a wide variety of texture and solid colors can be easily created in any color but it would be nice to export a transparent animated GIF on a background of choice. Perhaps later they may do this - the program's in its sixth version now.I updated my effects to add an XARA opening - about 40 meg:http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/effects2.zipBest regards,Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alrobin Posted January 13, 2007 Report Share Posted January 13, 2007 I updated my effects to add an XARA opening - about 40 meg:http://www.lin-evans.net/pte/effects2.zipBest regards,Lin Hi, Lin,Thanks for the example - I can see I'm going to like this program!Did you convert the animated GIF directly to separate images for PTE or did you go the "video" route first, and then pick the images off at 25 fps, or some similar rate?It shouldn't be too difficult to separate the graphic from the background in order to superimpose it onto a different one in PTE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted January 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2007 Hi, Lin,Thanks for the example - I can see I'm going to like this program!Did you convert the animated GIF directly to separate images for PTE or did you go the "video" route first, and then pick the images off at 25 fps, or some similar rate?It shouldn't be too difficult to separate the graphic from the background in order to superimpose it onto a different one in PTE. I output it as an animated GIF to see how it would look, then opend the GIF in ImageReady and exported the individual layers as files set in PTE at 70ms each. I duplicated the first image for image one and for the last and set the display time on that individual image to 4 seconds.Yes, it would be easy enough to do but you can export the animated GIF as "transparent" then do the same with ImageReady or other similar software to have a transparent GIF sequence which could then be overlaid one image at a time on a different background. I suppose it would be easy enough to just "step through" a sequence and export each step as a transparent PNG and do the same thing.Perhaps when Igor gets time he might allow a jpg rather than a "blank" or "gradient" background. This would then make it really easy.Best regards,Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LumenLux Posted January 13, 2007 Report Share Posted January 13, 2007 Perhaps when Igor gets time he might allow a jpg rather than a "blank" or "gradient" background. This would then make it really easy.LinWould this just require Igor to "activate" the .jpg background feature as it was in V4.48 or would it be more difficult with the O&A structure of V5? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lin Evans Posted January 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2007 Would this just require Igor to "activate" the .jpg background feature as it was in V4.48 or would it be more difficult with the O&A structure of V5? I really don't know - it "seems" that it would be as easy as with 4.48 since there is already a background gradient and solid, but without knowing how the code is written it's just a wild guess.Best regards,Lin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LumenLux Posted January 13, 2007 Report Share Posted January 13, 2007 I really don't know - it "seems" that it would be as easy as with 4.48 since there is already a background gradient and solid, but without knowing how the code is written it's just a wild guess.Best regards,LinActually, the .jpg background is already available in V4.48 but it is a project choice not in the object window. I am wondering if that distinction would be relevant. If not, then it would really seem Igor could easily turn it on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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