The making of "Kaleidoscope" - some lessons learned

[fh1805]

Hi all,

I feel that some of the lessons that I've learned whilst making the sequence "Kaleidoscope" are worth documenting for the benefit of all. A link to the current version of the sequence can be found in this post: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....ost&p=55906

So, what have I learned?

1. You don't need photographs to build a sequence using PTE. The seven images used in Kaleidoscope were all created using Photoshop's Gradient tool, Paint Bucket tool and the Texturizer filter. All you need is the idea. In my case it was the music that gave me the idea.

2. The more you think through your idea before starting the build, the more likely you are to get the desired result at the first attempt.

3. Doing "trial and error" during the build can end up leaving inconsistencies in the techniques used.

4. Copying and pasting objects from one image to another can propagate unwanted keyframes. These can then have unwanted results.

5. After copying and pasting an object, check for and remove unwanted keyframes before adding any new keyframes. In particular check for end-point keyframes from the previous use that are now beyond the duration of the current slide.

6. If you want to have an object rotating and panning or zooming at the same time use a structure of frames. The "wheels" in the Kaleidoscope sequence were made up of four rings, each ring having twelve objects. For each "wheel", the frame structure that I ended up with was:

Zoom-Control-Frame

Rotate-Control-Frame

Ring1 Frame

Ring2 Frame

Ring3 Frame

Ring4 Frame

This allowed me to program the Zoom activity without having to worry about where the rotation had got to.

7. If you are building up complex objects, such as the "wheels" forget about doing any fading in/out of these objects. At present an object cannot inherit Opacity values from its parent. I firmly believe that this is a major shortfall in the product. Let's consider just one scenario. On the slide in Kaleidoscope where I have twelve mini-wheels circulating around a central wheel, I would have liked to have faded in and faded out the mini wheels one at a time. Each mini-wheel is made up of 52 objects (four ring frames and 12 items per ring). So, the circle of mini-wheels has 624 separate objects. I would have had to program two keyframes onto every one of these objects to program a fade in or fade out of each wheel. All I should have needed to do was program two points for each fade on each wheel.

8. Previewing your sequence in the mini-player is not giving you the same result as previewing it in fullscreen preview. At one point I had some very complex animation that was previewing perfectly in the mini-player. When I came to do the full-screen preview of this same animation it was jerky and erratic (clearly I had stressed the graphics card beyond its capabilities).

9. Build the complex nested objects "backwards". By this I mean, build the full circle wheel first. Then, if you want the sequence to build it up one piece at a time, clone it twelve times and remove one item at a time off the cloned copies. This guarantees that all the individual objects retain precisely the same position throughout the extended animated sequence.

10. Panning an object along a diagonal track that is itself aligned on a point in another object is not an easy task. The animation where the four corner wheels move inward towards the centre wheel was the most difficult piece of programming to get right.

I also learned that, because I made some of the mistakes I'm warning you about above, I became frustrated and angry. And I took my anger out on Lin Evans when he tried to help me. I've apologised to him in the relevant thread but I do it again here publicly. I'm not proud of my behaviour that night. My frustration and anger was neither a valid reason nor a valid excuse for what amounted to shouting at Lin in my replies to his posts.

Finally, don't be put off by what might seem like a complex project. Kaleidoscope uses just a few basic "building blocks" repeated over and over again:

- a ring of twelve objects

- four such rings nested together to form a wheel

- rotation of a wheel

- zoom of a wheel

The apparent complexity comes from changing the colours of the twelve objects in each ring but this is very straightforward to do. It's just time-consuming.

regards,

Peter

P.S. Final apology to Xaver (xahu34) and all other members for whom English is not their first language. This post has had to be lengthy in order to explain everything.

[taler]

Peter,

as a new user of P2E it will take me a lot time to understand all details of your explanation. Further on, my English is not the best one!

But let me tell you, that I was really astonished, seeing the differenz between the two versions, concerning the impression on the screen. Could you be so kind, to tell me, what are the colors of the two backgrounds in RGB.

[fh1805]

Peter,

Thank you for your comments. Your English is very much better than my German!

I, too, was astonished at the difference the grey background made to the overall effect. The two background images were prepared in Photoshop Elements as follows:

The cream one from the first version of Kaleidoscope:

Set the foreground colour to - R:250, G:247, B:230, H:52, S:8, B:98 (I actually picked out the colour using the palette but these are the values)

Select Paint Bucket tool and fill the canvas with this colour

Filter...Texture...Texturizer and select Sandstone as the texture

The grey one from the second version:

Set the foreground colour to - R:203, G:194, B:187, H:26, S:8, B:80 (I actually picked out the colour using the palette but these are the values)

Set the background colour to - R:136, G:129, B:124, H:24, S:9, B:53 (I actually picked out the colour using the palette but these are the values)

Select Gradient tool and with that select the Linear Gradient

Click at top and drag to bottom to get a graduated colour slide

Filter...Texture...Texturizer and select Sandstone as the texture

Those are the two techniques that I use to create all my background images. The more you are prepared to experiment, the more pleasing results you will find.

regards,

Peter

[xahu34]

...Final apology to Xaver (xahu34) and all other members for whom English is not their first language. This post has had to be lengthy ....

Peter,

You shouldn't take my recent comment too serious. If something has to be explained which cannot be done in a few lines, everything is ok. On the other hand it often happens that forum members describe their problems or solutions giving lengthy examples instead of presenting them in general terms, in a short, perhaps somewhat more abstract way.

Best regards,

Xaver

Munich

[Lin Evans]

Hi Peter,

No need to apologize at all. It's often difficult to convey a message in writing especially when the recipient is on a different wavelength - LOL. Having two issues compounds the communication. Once the problem with improper PTE refresh is solved it will make such communications much easier.

Best regards.

Lin