Rotation, panning and zoom interpolation

[uuderzo]

Hello!

I'm new in this forum. Just purchased PTE after trying many and many other applications that in a way or the other fail. I found myself being able to build a long slideshow in no time (respect other apps) and with a really good final quality. The best thing is that PTE is able to keep synchronization with music without losing a beat! Maybe it would be great in future to have the possibility to mix background music with a multitrack interface but also using Audacity is ok for me now.

And now my question: I need to perform a "complex" movement on a photo, moving it from portrait zoomed to landscape unzoomed. During the rotation the outer borders of the image come into the screen, so I must correct the defect trough panning. But once I introduce several panning points, the movement is no more fluid.

It is true that I can set fade in and out of speed, but it's not my need. I need to keep a constant "linear" speed of panning but with an interpolation of the movement. So with few points I can get a curve and no more jerky panning.

I think this should be easy to implement, adding a slider that permits to set an "interpolation weight" on each node for zooming, panning and rotation. So... 0 keeps linearity of the panning, zooming ecc... and 100%causes to interpolate on a full smooth curve through spline algoritm or similar.

Do you think this can be introduced in new version? This would save my picture

Thanks all for the attention... Umberto

[fh1805]

Hi Umberto and welcome to the Forum!

When you want to combine both linear events such as pan and zoom with rotation events it is best to make use of "Frames".

You can add a frame to your main image by going into the Objects & Animation view and clicking on the left-most icon on the tool bar to "Add Frame".

You will need two such frames plus the image that you want to pan, zoom and rotate. You need to add the frames and the image so that they have specific "parent-child" relationships as follows:

- Frame1

----Frame2

------Image

(I've had to use the minus sign to indicate the indentation that you will see via the parent-child relationships in the Objects list in the O&A window)

Now programme all your rotate activity on Frame2 and all your Pan and Zoom activity on Frame1 (or the other way round, it isn't important - just keep all rotate on one frame and all linear on the other).

This should keep a smooth rotation speed during all the panning and zooming.

Hope this gives you the effect you are trying for.

regards,

Peter

[uuderzo]

Thanks for your reply Peter!

This is really a great tip! With only one frame I managed to achieve the smootheness I wish!

I used the outer frame for panning corrections with smooth acceleration and deceleration, and the image into the frame with a single smoother rotation and zooming.

Great result.

Since it was relatively simple to achieve this result I suppose that my "spline" suggestion is weaker now... mayke think about it, eheh!

Now I like PTE more and more.

I hope that my presentation goes flawless... I have few than 2 weeks to assemble it and a tehatre full of people that will watch at it... say me gook luck...

Thank you again! Umberto

[goddi]

When you want to combine both linear events such as pan and zoom with rotation events it is best to make use of "Frames".

You can add a frame to your main image by going into the Objects & Animation view and clicking on the left-most icon on the tool bar to "Add Frame".

You will need two such frames plus the image that you want to pan, zoom and rotate. You need to add the frames and the image so that they have specific "parent-child" relationships as follows:

- Frame1

----Frame2

------Image

Now programme all your rotate activity on Frame2 and all your Pan and Zoom activity on Frame1 (or the other way round, it isn't important - just keep all rotate on one frame and all linear on the other).

This should keep a smooth rotation speed during all the panning and zooming.

Hope this gives you the effect you are trying for.

regards,

Peter

=============

Peter,

I could never figure out what 'Frames' were supposed to do. Now you have shed some light. Thanks. I think I understand a little more. I have looked through the Help/Tutorials but I am still not clear on how/why to use them. I think I see that it is useful to separate the animation that one might put on 2 or more images(?) in one slide. But I am not clear on the sequence to do this, or maybe even why I am using Frames.

Do you first import the image; then add the frame; then do the animation? I have played around with this and when I add two images with frames, I can not seem to be able to select the keyframe to add animation to it. And, once I add a frame, many time I can then no select it. But then sometimes I can get it to animate...I am confused....nothing new. Maybe it is because I just don't understand the sequence for the image/frame/animation...???

Can you give us a Frames 101 with a little more detail?

Thanks... Gary

[Lin Evans]

Hi Gary,

Think of a frame as a rectangle with no opacity. A frame is simply a "convenience" to allow you to have a parent object which can be used to manipulate child objects in unison.

You could use any object in place of a frame but then to hide the object you would have to set the opacity to zero. So the primary purpose of a frame is to allow you to control multiple object movement simultaneously without having to set and synchronize the pan, zoom or rotate independently for each one.

It's quite probable that you "are" selecting the rectangle but simply not aware of it because you can't see the border. This is often the case when you are looking at the screen with the view set to 100% and the rectangle is larger than the visible screen. Sometimes it helps to set the view to 25% or even smaller to see the green bounding rectangle outlining the invisible frame. You might try substituting a rectangle for a frame to give it visibility. You can always just make the opacity for the rectangle zero after you are finished with the animation, etc.

The proper order is to add the frame before adding child objects but in the event that you add the objects first and then wish to add a parent frame you can select and copy the objects, then delete them as a group, add the frame, select the frame and paste the copied objects with the frame selected. This will then place the objects as children of the frame.

Remember, no object will be selected unless a keyframe is highlighted first. So when you want to select a frame or any object for that matter, you must first click on a keyframe to highlight it, then click on the frame in the objects list or inside the green bounding rectangle.

Sometimes I personally use rectangles rather than frames because I find it easier to keep track of them visually while I'm setting up animations where they are useful. After everything is sorted out and working properly I then select each rectangle and set the opacity to zero. It's just easier for me to do it that way, but using a frame rather than a rectangle saves the step of changing opacity. The disadvantage of using the rectangle is that you must change the opacity at each keyframe to zero to hide them. By using the frame these multiple steps are avoided.

Best regards,

Lin

[fh1805]

Gary (and others),

Approach things this way. Set up a simple three slide project: Black Slide, Black Slide, Black Slide. Have available another image (it doesn't matter what this image is for this little exercise). Now, select the middle black slide and go into the Objects and Animation option.

Click on the "Add Frame" icon - this puts a Frame object in the object list

Click on the "Add Frame" icon again - this puts a second Frame object in the list but as a child of the first Frame object

Click on the "Add Image" icon and select an image (anything except the Black Slide will do) - this puts the image as a child of the second Frame

Next select the newly added image and set its zoom parameters to 50% on both axes (this is just to make what happens next a little clearer to observe)

Study the keyframes that currently exist. The Black Slide main image has just an origin keyframe. Each of the Frames and the added image also have just an origin keyframe.

Next step is to give ourselves some time to play with: so use Customize Slide to set the duration of this slide to 12 seconds.

Now select the first Frame by clicking on its name in the objects list. Insert a keyframe and set the "Keyframe Time" to 2000. Insert a second keyframe and set this one's "Keyframe Time" to 10000. Change the Rotate value on this second keyframe to be 720.

Play this animation. Your image should make two complete revolutions clockwise.

Next select the second Frame. Insert keyframes at 4000 and 8000. On the second of these keyframes make the zoom value 20%.

Play the animation again. Now, as the image rotates it should shrink in size.

You are using the outer Frame to control the rotational animation and the inner Frame to control the linear events such as Zoom, opacity and pan (we've done it with Zoom but we could have done it with either of the others). We could have programmed this animation the other way round, with rotate on the inner frame and the linear events on the outer one. The important thing is to keep the rotate and the linear on separate frames. My use of the word "linear" in this context has got nothing to do with linear and non-linear effects of Pan, zoom and rotate. I am using it simply to differentiate from the rotate action.

Hope this makes sense.

regards,

Peter

[uuderzo]

In my case I had different keyframes for both pan, rotation and zoom.

Considering pan, and rotation as a two axis reference system (like a plotter) and using a frame for first axis and a nested frame for the second axis this gives you the chance to work separately on them.

Putting the image into the second nested frame and using the zoom axis on it made my day

Frame 1 - Pan axis

--Frame 2 - Rotation axis

----Frame 3 - Zoom axis

Using a different order leads to differente behaviours.

It's a nice tip.

Bye!

[goddi]

Peter & Lin...

Thanks for your replies. I have read them a couple times but it has not sunk in yet. I will print out your steps and give them an actual try once I get some time this week.

I appreciate your responses. Gary