Jumping Problem

[Fernlea]

Hi. The problem that I have is that the image jumps after its been running for about 2 seconds in PZR. Jumps only once. If I watch other people's shows which I have downloaded from the Forum, it dose not happen! I have a HP Pavilion with Pentium ®4CPU 3.40GHz & 3GB of Ram,a Nvida GeForce 6200 Turbo chache graphy card. I have the image on screen tor 4 seconds. I would be grateful if some could give me an idea asto what I'm doing wrong.

Kind Regards

David Evans

[davegee]

More details:

Size of image in pixels?

Monitor Res?

Full screen or Windowed Mode?

DaveG

[Fernlea]

More details:

Size of image in pixels? Full sceen to1050x750 px

Monitor Res? 1680x1050 px

Full screen or Windowed Mode? Both

DaveG

[davegee]

With or without music.

MP3?

DaveG

[cjdnzl]

Hi. The problem that I have is that the image jumps after its been running for about 2 seconds in PZR. Jumps only once. If I watch other people's shows which I have downloaded from the Forum, it dose not happen! I have a HP Pavilion with Pentium ®4CPU 3.40GHz & 3GB of Ram,a Nvida GeForce 6200 Turbo chache graphy card. I have the image on screen tor 4 seconds. I would be grateful if some could give me an idea asto what I'm doing wrong.

Kind Regards

David Evans

Have a look at the keyframe timings for the jumping image in O&A. You can click 'Play' in the O&A screen, and watch the blue triangle progress marker as it moves along the line. See if the jump coincides with a keyframe marker. I think you have an inadvertent image shift at some point along the line which will coincide with a keyframe.

Colin.

[Fernlea]

Hi I get the problem with or out music I use wave.

kind regards D.Evans

[Fernlea]

Have a look at the keyframe timings for the jumping image in O&A. You can click 'Play' in the O&A screen, and watch the blue triangle progress marker as it moves along the line. See if the jump coincides with a keyframe marker. I think you have an inadvertent image shift at some point along the line which will coincide with a keyframe.

Colin.

Hi Colin The blue triangle seams to move quite smooth, but I will check it to make sure.

kind regards

David Evans

[cjdnzl]

Hi Colin The blue triangle seams to move quite smooth, but I will check it to make sure.

kind regards

David Evans

Hi Dave,

The blue triangle will always move smoothly, that's not what I meant. As it moves, it passes the keyframe timers set in the O&A timeline. My suggestion was to watch for the image jump as the triangle progresses, to see if the jump coincides with a keyframe time. If so, I am suggesting that the jump is because of an inadvertent image shift at that keyframe point.

Aslo, you can grab the triangle with the mouse, and drag it left or right to watch what happens to the image.

Bets regards,

Colin

[Fernlea]

Hi Colin The blue triangle seams to move quite smooth, but I will check it to make sure.

kind regards

David Evans

Hi Colin.I have done as you sugested in O&A. The jump is happening at the end of the gray bar just after the strart . Is ther anything that I can do about it?

Kind Regards

David

[fh1805]

Hi David,

I hope Colin doesn't mind my "butting in" on this thread. It sounds rather as though, when you set up the pans and zooms, you inadvertently altered some values that you didn't mean to.

In the O&A window, that grey bar at the start is showing you the period of time when this image is transitioning into view and the previous image is transitioning out of view. Similarly, the grey bar at the end of the O&A timeline for this image shows the period of time when this image is transitioning out of view and the next image is transitioning into view.

With the O&A window on display, and the Animation tab selected, step through each of your images and do the following checks:

- select each of the red dots (keyframes) by using the left and right arrow buttons just above the Play button

- take careful note of the values in the two Pan fields, the two Zoom fields and the Rotate field

Unless you wanted to have the image moved away from its default position, all these should be zero.

I suspect you will find that some of them are non-zero. Just overkey the field value with zero to correct any errors that you find.

If you are trying to program Pans and Zooms remember the following:

- Every image must have a keyframe at its origin time (offset 0 millisecs into its life)

- Every Pan, Zoom, Rotate or Change of Opacity, must have two keyframes: one that defines the starting state of the image and one that defines the ending state of the image. The animation takes place between the two keyframes.

For example:

You want to bring an image into view via a one second fade in and after two seconds from the end of the fade in have it zoom in a little closer over the next four seconds and then hold that for a further three seconds.

You program the image to have an overall duration of 10 seconds via Customize Slide...Main tab. You program the one second fade in via Customize Slide...Effect tab. You then go into O&A and program the following keyframes:

- at offset 3000 you define a keyframe with all values at default

- at offset 7000 you define a keyframe with both Zoom values set at, let's say, 120

And that's it!

Hope this helps you to understand what is needed to achieve pans or zooms and also hope that my hunch was right and that you've found the incorrect values that are causing your jumps.

[cjdnzl]

Peter,

Of course I don't mind, in fact All are welcome on this forum.Actually, it's David's thread, and I guess he is keen to get all the help he can.

David,

Ok, you say the jump is occurring just at the end of the transition phase; is there a keyframe there, a small blue flag with numbers in it? If so, delete it - right click on it and select delete. In fact it might pay to delete all keyframes for that image, and start again with the animations you want. If you do not want any animation for that image, then deleting all keyframes should fix your problem.

If there are no keyframes and the image still jumps, then there is a deeper problem, in which case can you do a project zip (File/Create backup in zip) and post the zip file so we can have a look at the problem first-hand.

Colin.

[Fernlea]

Peter,

Of course I don't mind, in fact All are welcome on this forum.Actually, it's David's thread, and I guess he is keen to get all the help he can.

David,

Ok, you say the jump is occurring just at the end of the transition phase; is there a keyframe there, a small blue flag with numbers in it? If so, delete it - right click on it and select delete. In fact it might pay to delete all keyframes for that image, and start again with the animations you want. If you do not want any animation for that image, then deleting all keyframes should fix your problem.

If there are no keyframes and the image still jumps, then there is a deeper problem, in which case can you do a project zip (File/Create backup in zip) and post the zip file so we can have a look at the problem first-hand.

Colin.

Good Morning. I would like to thank both Colin & Peter for there help and time. Colin is quite rigth I do need all the help I can get.I have put some image in the zip file, and posted them.The first ones have animations,the other have not. There is no problem with the non animations as you will see.

kind regardsDavid

[Ken Cox]

WHERE DID YOU PUT TE ZIP'S?

KEN

[cjdnzl]

Yes, like Ken, where did you put the zip file?

If it is under 2 megabytes you can attach it to a message like this, otherwise you can upload it to www.mediafire.com from where we can get it.

Colin

[Fernlea]

Yes, like Ken, where did you put the zip file?

If it is under 2 megabytes you can attach it to a message like this, otherwise you can upload it to www.mediafire.com from where we can get it.

Colin

Hi Colin The zip file is only 5,351KB as I only put about 6 images on it to keep the size down.I up loaded it on to to message. I have up loadedit again.

David

[fh1805]

David,

Files uploaded and attached to a post on this forum have to be under 2MB in size. So your 5.3MB file is too big to attach directly to a post on the forum. You will need to upload it to a file hosting service such as www.mediafire.com (a free service), note the URL that they assign to it, and then cut and paste that URL into a reply to the forum so that we can then download the file.

[Fernlea]

David,

Files uploaded and attached to a post on this forum have to be under 2MB in size. So your 5.3MB file is too big to attach directly to a post on the forum. You will need to upload it to a file hosting service such as www.mediafire.com (a free service), note the URL that they assign to it, and then cut and paste that URL into a reply to the forum so that we can then download the file.

Hi Peter,

File uploaded to Mediafire. Follow the link below. Sorry for the delay.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mn4vgx42fjj

David

[fh1805]

Hi David,

I've downloaded your sequence and when I run the exe file I, too, see some "jumps" in the animated images. From what I'm seeing, I'm fairly certain that you have some unwanted keyframes in the animated slides. However, to be sure of this I need to see your actual pte file. So, could you please do the following:

Launch PTE

File...Open...short_rosemoor.pte

Do a File...Create backup in Zip...

Upload that zip file to MediaFire

Let us have the link to the MediaFire file

I'll then be able to download the zip file, exxtract the pte file and the image files and load your project file into PTE just as if it was you doing it. Then I'll be able to check for unwanted settings and unwanted keyframes.

Take heart! I'm sure we are nearly at the major breakthrough stage.

[cjdnzl]

Hmmmm. Well, Dave, I downloaded your sequence, and it ran perfectly smoothly on my computer.

I have changed my thinking on your problem, and my conclusion is that your pans are simply too fast for your graphics card to handle. I don't think it has anything to do with keyframes or keypoints.

'

My computer uses an nVidia 8600M-GT card, one of the faster cards available for laptops, and it handles your sequence ok.

Looking back at your original post, I see you have an nVidia 6200 card, and I think that's your problem. Unfortunately, that card is classed 'low-end', which, however, isn't as bad as it sounds. It just means that it cannot handle very demanding graphics applications well, and pans moving as fast as yours are beyond its capability.

Whay can you do about it? Well, if your computer is a desktop machine, you can buy a faster video card; if it is a laptop then I don't think you could upgrade significantly if at all.

What you can do right now is to slow down your pans, to prove the point. Increase the time the image takes to pan across, moving the last keypoint accordingly and see if that cures the jump. Judging by your sample, the pan time could be doubled and still move reasonably fast.

PTE, like many modern graphics-intensive applications, uses hardware rendering in the graphics chip rather than the CPU, so graphics chip performance is critical when using pans and zooms, specially with large images.

Let's know what happens when you slow it down,

Colin

[Limey]

I get same results as Colin.

No jumps or hesitation with the dowloaded sequence on nVidia 7300 LE video card.

Regards,

Limey.

[fh1805]

And yet I do see "jumps" on my nVidia GeForce 8400 (which runs every other show perfectly, including some of Lin's very demanding animations). The "jumps" that I see are only little "discontinuities" in the smoothness of the zoom but they are characteristic of having the zoom coded across multiple keyframes with slightly different rates of zoom between each pair of points.

Let's get this aspect laid to rest before we point David towards an expensive upgrade/replacement program. Let's see the actual .pte file so that the coding of the zooms can be checked out.

[Fernlea]

I get same results as Colin.

No jumps or hesitation with the dowloaded sequence on nVidia 7300 LE video card.

Regards,

Limey.

good morning.

Peter. The link is below for the project.

Colin I have double the times on the images ,the jumping is still there, but reduced.If I need a new graphic card would the following do"Nvidia GeForce 8600GT 1GB super HDMI PC-e DirectX10"?

David

http://www.mediafire.com/?cljlymzs1dm

[fh1805]

Hi David,

Thanks for the new link. I've downloaded it and tried it in PTE and am getting some "interesting" initial results. I need a little time to dig a bit deeper. Will come back to you later today.

[cjdnzl]

good morning.

Peter. The link is below for the project.

Colin I have double the times on the images ,the jumping is still there, but reduced.If I need a new graphic card would the following do"Nvidia GeForce 8600GT 1GB super HDMI PC-e DirectX10"?

David

http://www.mediafire.com/?cljlymzs1dm

Hi David,

Yes the 8600 series of GPUs is very suitable. My laptop has the mobile version 8600M-GT - the M signifies mobile, i.e. for laptops. The PCi-E version for desktops is even better, since power usage is not such a problem.

Be aware the 8600 card has a 4-pin Molex connector on the rear to accept a power cable from the computer supply, the same plug as fitted to hard drives for power, and you will need at least a 300 or 350 watt power supply. Most power supplies have a spare power cable which can be used. If your computer doesn't have a spare you can get a siamesed cable to accept one power plug and output to two plugs.

Can you borrow a card for trial, just make sure that the card is the problem? though I'm pretty certain it is.

An additional point I forgot to make about the pans in your test is that for such a long pan sequence, the image is clearly a longish panorama, and the GPU has to continuously handle the entire image as it pans. To optimize that image, the vertical size should be 768 pixels high (for a 1024*768 screen), or whatever the height of your screen is, and no more. If the image is bigger that that, the GPU has to resize it as well as panning, and the load on the GPU is even worse. Perhaps you could check that, and if it is a bigger image than necessary, resize it. That could possibly cure your problem.

Colin

[fh1805]

Hi David,

Having now had a chance to study your sequence and your images in more detail I can make the following observations:

When I use the Preview button to preview the sequence at full-screen on my 1280x1024 monitor I see the jumps (most noticeably on the zoom in on the Red-hot Pokers (Kniphofias) and on the deep purple flower; but also visible on the other zooms)

When I use the mini-player to preview within the main PTE window I cannot detect any jumps.

When I use the Play button in the O&A window on each image I cannot see any jumps.

I'm not sure where that leaves me in terms of understanding the root cause of the problem. However, after previewing the sequence several times I feel that the jumps are occuring at the point when the next image is just beginning to appear. This would explain why I don't see them when using the Play button in O&A.

As all your images are 3008x2000 pixels, it could well be that Colin came up with the correct explanation when he pointed the finger at your graphics card as being the bottleneck. At the start of each of your images, you have two 6Megapixel images active, both of them in an active zoom. I feel that this is asking a lot of a graphics card.

Since you are zooming in to greater than 200% on these zooms, you do need all those pixels in order to retain reasonable image quality. Indeed, when I study your first image that is used for the long pan, I note that you have zoomed this to over 230% - and the image has softened significantly as a result.

I also noted that you have built the sequence to an aspect ratio of 16:10 (presumably to match your computer's monitor); but have used 3:2 aspect ratio images - all of them at full 6Mpx resolution. I don't understand your reasons for doing this: I cannot help but feel that you are adding complexity by mixing such different aspect ratios.

All my own work is done to a 4:3 aspect ratio (1024x768) because the final destination is my digital projector (whose native resolution is 1024x768). The 3:2 images are either placed on a background or placed behind a "windowed mount" mask.

Any questions you have about 16:10 aspect ratio and image sizes will have to be picked up by some other member of the forum. I'm afraid I have no relevant experience to bring to bear.

To calculate the deepest zoom you can achieve without image degradation: take the height of your monitor (in pixels) and divide it into 2000 (the height of your images in pixels) and take the width of your monitor (in pixels) and divide it into 3008 (the width of your images in pixels). Which ever is the smaller, multiply that by 100 and there's your maximum zoom without picture degradation.