Kaleidoscope

[fh1805]

Hi folks,

The link below takes you to a piece of "work in progress". It's the first rough build of a sequence that has no photographs in it, no voice-over, no sound effects. Just an idea that has been prompted by the music and then realized using Pictures-to-EXE.

It has taken about 12 hours of fairly intensive effort to get to this stage. Along the way I had four "Out of memory" conditions when I asked PTE to make too many edits, too quickly and it ran out of space to hold the "Undo" data. Thankfully I was saving fairly frequently so never had to step too far back: although on one of the occasions it did delete the .pte file as I tried to close everything down.

I also had to change design at one point because I exceeded the ability of my nVidia GeForce 8400 graphics card to handle the animation I was asking for. Interestingly, the animation I wanted played through fine in the O&A window and in the mini-player - but not in full Preview or as an exe.

I'm aware that the sequence needs some "polishing": tightening up the animation to the music at some points, for example. However, I'd welcome all feedback - good and bad.

Kaleidoscope.zip: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7836f6f...8365492a3e39a71

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

Peter -- goes to black screen at approx 1min 18 secs -- music continues when screen comes on the wheel has changed color to green spokes - was repeatable

very hard on eyes

but slick nevertheless

ati all in wonder 256/ xp home sp3 2.8 ghz 1 gb ram

ken

[fh1805]

Ken,

I think, perhaps, your PC is unable to cope with the graphic demand. This is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to find out. I've run the exe on three systems so far: my desktop and two Acer laptops - all with no hiccups.

I've another problem with the sequence which I'm going to raise in the PTE main forum: I cannot find a way of injecting keyframes in a long rotation so that they pick up the state of rotation as at the time offset value that I key into the Keyframe Time field. I cannot position the keyframes visually as I'm needing them only 25ms apart in some cases.

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

Lets hope you get more feedback so we can look at different systems -after the original pan and zoom tests by Igor - my system has never let me down yet with all the demos that have been posted.

blackout occured at same place each time with music playing merrily along in back ground

ken

[fh1805]

Ken,

I'm a little bit baffled by what you're encountering. At that point the animation hasn't got anywhere near its most complex. That comes when we get to the wheel rotating in the centre and the twelve little wheels around it.

I wonder if there's something amiss with the copy of the exe on MediaFire. Leave it with me a while and I'll download the file back to my system and see what I get.

Be back soon!

Peter

[baldsparky]

Hello Peter,

just tried your Kaleidoscope sequence and it runs fine on my pc.

xp sp3, Amd athlon 64 3700+, 2gb ram, nvidia gforce 7600GS.

Kind regards

Paul

[fh1805]

Ken,

I've just downloaded from MediaFire and it ran OK on the same PC I used to build it. So the MediaFire file copy isn't corrupted. Can only suggest you try another download - if you really want to go through the hassle again (I'll understand if you decline to take it any further). I mis-led you in my previous post. The heaviest animation has been and gone before the one minute 18 second mark - so I'm even more puzzled.

Peter

[chrisw]

Hello Peter,

tried your Kaleidoscope and its perfect

xp sp2, intel pen 4 - 2gb ram,

nvidia gforce fx 5200 - 256 mb.

chrisw

[quietstorm]

Peter...

No problem on my end!!

Windows Vista Home Premium

Intel P4 (2.8 GHz)

6 Gig Ram

Gforce video card 1 Gig

[fh1805]

Hi everyone,

It's nice to have this "technical" feedback (it was an important part of what I was after) but I'd like some thoughts on the actual content too!

Peter

[Ken Cox]

Peter

redownloaded

to a non usb drive

same problem - same point it the show

guess you have the ideal test show --- separates the Harleys from the Vespas

ken

[taler]

Peter,

I am rather new with P2E, but I think I can imagine the lot of work You have done.

You made a very good work in synchronising the music. The movements and the appearing and disappearing of the wheels are perfect for me. Through the visualisation, I got at once contact to the music, which I'm not used to hear.

I enjoyed the show, by the way, already my old computer for office works showed it without problems.

[stonemason]

Hi Peter just watched Kaleidoscope, stunning. I envy you PTE expertise and your creative skills.

Regards

Geoff

[Ken Cox]

Peter

used some snake oil

Home of FreeRAM XP Pro

http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/

and it ran complete -- my eyes are spinning

ken

[fh1805]

Ken,

Now you'd better book an appointment with your optometrist or whatever you call them in Canada!

Glad you're now seeing it as I intended - subject to the debate I'm having with Lin in my other hot thread!

Peter

[Ken Cox]

as a matter of fact Peter, the appointment is for sept to have a preliminary inspection for lens replacement in left side

ken

[fh1805]

I've just completed a re-work of "Kaleidoscope" to get the animations just as I wanted them. I've also changed the background image - and this one action has totally transformed the sequence. The new version is available here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7836f6f...2db6fb9a8902bda

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

PETER

same problem for me -black screen at 1:28 +- tho did not last as long -- snake oil did not help

ken

[fh1805]

Ken,

The 1.28 now vs 1.18 previous is explained by the additional 10 seconds at the start for the "health warning".

I still don't understand why that particular point in the sequence gives a problem. The programming there is identical to the first twelve images that spell out "kaleidoscope" at the beginning. It isn't failing at the point of most complex animation. The most complex animation in the sequence (in terms of number of components on the move at the same time) is from 1.08 to 1.26.

It's almost as though your PC needs to take a big breath after getting through that part successfully!

Sorry, but I cannot offer any suggestions (different snake, perhasp?)

regards,

[fh1805]

Ken,

A further thought occurs...

If you want to continue to investigate this problem, the images that build up the ring of blue objects are nos.55-66. I recall seeing a post earlier this year that explaained how to launch a sequence starting at a specific image. If you know the technique (or can find the post in your archives) you could try launching from each of these in turn to see if you can narrow it down any further.

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

guess i will pass -- you have made a great test show -- stalled me:)

ken

[bjc]

Peter,,,

‘Kaleidoscope’ ~ great fun !! Well done !!

I really enjoyed watching it, and can imagine the fun you must have had putting it all together. The music is just perfect to demonstrate P2E’s ability to affect precision timing.

I had a ‘play’ with some animated PNG graphics a while back, attempting to create some unusual visual effects, although I didn’t go so far as to add music.

On the off chance that you might be interested in seeing what I came up with, I have uploaded a short demo (zipped) PTE file.

LINK TO PTE FILE (file size = 2.77MB)

Once again, well done on creating an entertaining ‘graphics only’ PTE presentation.

Regards,

bjc

[TonyFalla]

Peter

No problems running on my PC I thought the show was brilliant apart from the fact that I am now a little bit cross-eyed. What made you think of the idea in the first place? Did you start with the music or the Kaleidoscope?

I love the way that images and the music are so well synchronised, did you find it difficult? One of my criticisms of PTE5 always has been that in the O&A window you cannot show the timeline and thus align keypoints accurately.

Tony

[fh1805]

Tony,

The music came first with this one. Although done in a sort of "new age" style, it reminded me of Scottish Country dancing and, at times, that is what I have tried to animate into the sequence.

I agree with your point about the difficulty of precise animation when you cannot see the waveform in the timeline of the O&A window. All the hard snaps are done at a slide change to make life easier. The "pulse" zooms are more difficult but by watching in the mini-player with the waveform on display there I was able to get a feel for how much offset to allow.

As with all things, the more you practice the better you get. I found I could usually get the "pulse" points to within 100ms at the first attempt. After that it's judgement based on experience.

Basically I build the sequence by trying to stay mostly within my "technical" comfort zone; only taking an occasional excursion into the unknown. For this sequence it was the combination of rotation happening across the "pulses" that caused me most anguish.

I've documented the lessons I learned in a separate thread in the Pictures-to-Exe forum.

regards,

Peter

[susiesdad]

Great show. Well done.

Ran without a problem on my PC

XP Media Centre v.2002 SP3v.3311

Dell Dimension DXP051

Pentium D CPU 2.87GHz - 1GB Ram

Radeon X600 256MB Hyper Memory

You should get together with BJC and do the light show for the London Olympics 2012

Regards

Alan