"Pie piece" image reveal?

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"Pie piece" image reveal?

Postby 95delta98 » Wed Nov 07, 2007 8:48 am

This one may be very simple, but I'm at work right now and have PSG installed on my home computer.

I'm working on a show and I'd like to do a transition where I start with one image, then one by one, triangular pieces "slide" off to reveal another image underneath. Imagine a standard rectangular image split four ways by an imaginary "X" through the image. The top piece would slide straight up, the right piece slide off to the right, etc. Nothing more fancy than that (although I'd welcome nice "bang for the buck" enhancement suggestions).

How would I do that? Again, this might be simple if I were playing around with PSG, but I'm not in a situation where I can do that right now.

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Postby DickK » Wed Nov 07, 2007 7:40 pm

If I get what you're saying then the way I'd go about this is like this -- haven't actually done it but I think it would work. Basically we're going to need to make some images in an editor and then use them as a masking layer on top of the image you want to reveal.

For part one we need an image is just the black rectangle that will entirely block the background or layer behind it.
Part 2 is a pair of images, one is the rectangle with a piece missing and the other is the cut out piece.
Part 3 is a pair of images, one is the rectangle with two parts missing and that triangular cut out from before.

(EDIT: hmmm... just thought of this, you could do the whole thing with copies of the triangle put together to form a whole rectangle and the successive stages of reveal. Not sure which is better or easier.)

Now we just assemble a series of slides with cut/0sec transitions between them. Each slide is one stage in the progression.

    Slide one is the whole black rectangle.
    Slide two starts with the 3/4 rectangle + the 1/4 rectangle (triangle) in place to make it look whole; the slide ends with the triangle missing -- the motion on the slide moves the triangle off the slide however you want it to move.
    The next slides are simply the logical progression of #2, start the slide with how the previous one ended and end with another part gone.
    The last slide is the fully revealed image with a hold time of something to let the viewer see it before transitioning to the next one.


I'm not awake enough to try it tonight but I'm intrigued by the idea and I think I'll try it later. I'm also thinking that something interesting might happen if the transitions weren't set to cut/0sec but my brain's too tired to imagine just what :?

In any case, I think I've described the general idea--hope that will at least get you started in the right direction.

Dick
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle ((PSG, PSE & Fuji HS20 user)) Presentation Impact Blog

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Postby 95delta98 » Fri Nov 09, 2007 11:36 am

DickK wrote:If I get what you're saying then the way I'd go about this is like this -- haven't actually done it but I think it would work. Basically we're going to need to make some images in an editor and then use them as a masking layer on top of the image you want to reveal.

For part one we need an image is just the black rectangle that will entirely block the background or layer behind it.
Part 2 is a pair of images, one is the rectangle with a piece missing and the other is the cut out piece.
Part 3 is a pair of images, one is the rectangle with two parts missing and that triangular cut out from before.

(EDIT: hmmm... just thought of this, you could do the whole thing with copies of the triangle put together to form a whole rectangle and the successive stages of reveal. Not sure which is better or easier.)

Now we just assemble a series of slides with cut/0sec transitions between them. Each slide is one stage in the progression.

    Slide one is the whole black rectangle.
    Slide two starts with the 3/4 rectangle + the 1/4 rectangle (triangle) in place to make it look whole; the slide ends with the triangle missing -- the motion on the slide moves the triangle off the slide however you want it to move.
    The next slides are simply the logical progression of #2, start the slide with how the previous one ended and end with another part gone.
    The last slide is the fully revealed image with a hold time of something to let the viewer see it before transitioning to the next one.

I'm not awake enough to try it tonight but I'm intrigued by the idea and I think I'll try it later. I'm also thinking that something interesting might happen if the transitions weren't set to cut/0sec but my brain's too tired to imagine just what :?

In any case, I think I've described the general idea--hope that will at least get you started in the right direction.

Dick


Let me see what I can do with this during the weekend. For whatever reason, I have never understood masking, in PSG, in image editors, anything. Even though it's a pretty simple concept, I've not been able to get aroudn it enough to implement. Any more tips or additional details to supplement the above, I'd welcome.

Thanks!

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Like this?

Postby dilyla » Sat Nov 10, 2007 2:12 pm

Not sure if this is what you mean, but here's a sample of one I have done:

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 5095&alb=0

- Diana


OOPS - Sorry. I later realized I was reading in the Gold section. My sample is done using keyframing w/Producer.

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Re: Like this?

Postby 95delta98 » Sat Nov 10, 2007 3:58 pm

dilyla wrote:Not sure if this is what you mean, but here's a sample of one I have done:

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 5095&alb=0

- Diana


Only exactly. Thanks for "getting" what I meant.

dilyla wrote:OOPS - Sorry. I later realized I was reading in the Gold section. My sample is done using keyframing w/Producer.


Whatever. I can't imagine ever buying Producer, but it's a neat effect. If someone wants to take a run at doing that with PSG, I'd love to hear how it's done.

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Postby dilyla » Sat Nov 10, 2007 5:28 pm

After I posted this sample link erroneously, I actually downloaded the latest trial version (3.1) of Gold and was able to reproduce it quite easily. I reinstalled my last version of Gold I had (2.5 I think) and it wouldn't work; or, more likely, I couldn't remember how I used to make things in Gold. :-) But if your version of Gold supports layers, it is pretty simple.

I will make up some instructions (without the use of keyframing) & post them so you (or other Gold Gurus) will be able to make it.

I'll try posting something back no later than tomorrow.

- Diana

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Effect tutorial using Gold v3.x

Postby dilyla » Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:26 pm

As promised, here's a tutorial for making the 'quarter reveal' effect using Gold v3.0 or above (must have layer support).

This turned out to have many more steps than I realized, so found it was simpler to create a show instead of typing it all out. That is, simpler until Producer started crashing on me after every change I made. AAARRGH! So, as anal as I am, I would have preferred to tweak & tweak until I got all the fade in/outs identical, but in the end, had to just decide "Enough... upload it!" I tried to make some of the slides with the positions a little longer so you'd have time to write things down, if you wanted to.

I questioned what was available in the latest Gold versus what I have available in Producer. For instance, Producer is able to copy all layers & settings from one slide to another & I didn't know if that was true with Gold. So, instructions for copying settings are done the 'old fashioned way' but if you Gold Gurus notice something that can be done in Gold a simpler way, let me know & I'll make the corrections! Also, if something doesn't make sense, please let me know & I'll see if I can clarify. As I said, I was really battling the program crashes yesterday & today & frustration was getting the better of me!

Anyway, here's the link to the tutorial (810KB, approx 6 minutes):

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 5494&alb=0

Though I would encourage everyone to at least attempt the directions for making the shapes in your existing graphics editor (nothing ventured ... nothing gained) if you do not have a graphics editor program or just simply can't make my instructions work, PM me and I will send a zip of the shapes. If there's enough interest, I could have Mike upload them to the members created folder.

- Diana

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Postby 95delta98 » Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:38 pm

Great straight-forward explanation. Thanks.

Intuitive concept, but very tricky to noodle out and execute. The tutorial handled this beautifully, and once the concept is down, the experiments and variants are a snap.

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Postby DickK » Sun Nov 11, 2007 6:37 pm

Diana -- good job with the tutorial. My example (nothing like a tutorial) didn't work out that well tho' it was mostly a matter of investing a little more time in the editor. Oh, and yes, Gold can do the copy you mentioned, or at least, if I got what you're describing correctly. But there's no harm in leaving the tutorial as-is, the short cut helps but the long way works.

This particular effect is much more about what you can do in an editor than what ProShow can do. When I went off and played with the idea I found it fairly tricky to get the pieces built, while the slide show is pretty easy. The tricky part came when the image you wanted to reveal wasn't a square--which they won't be unless you crop it in the editor. If it's not a square the top vs. side triangles are differently proportioned and I found it took a lot more effort and patience than I'd thought to get the parts to line up seamlessly. As I was working on it I kept thinking that there had to be an easier way but I haven't thought of one (yet!).

But even with my imperfect example I found it interesting to fool with all the ways you can make the pieces do the reveal using motion, zoom, or using one of the built in transitions to bring pieces in or out. Really limited only by imagination.

Dick
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle ((PSG, PSE & Fuji HS20 user)) Presentation Impact Blog

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Hi, Dick..

Postby dilyla » Sun Nov 11, 2007 8:37 pm

I may be misunderstanding your post, but the flower image I used in the tutorial is a typical landscape oriented photo (not square or cropped square).

The angles in the top/bottom shapes vs the right/left shapes are a different proportion .... but because of the original 800x600 image I "sliced" they work out perfectly and align perfectly over the photo. The 800x600 size wasn't used because of the shape of the photo, but rather for the 4x3 display. It did take some experimenting to figure out the coordinates so that I got a perfectly straight diagonal when the top & right shapes were removed. (That's why I provided all the x/y coordinate begin/end positions ... to make it easier to get it going!)

And, the part in the tutorial where the canvas was expanded to the top and side of the two shapes, simply was done to allow a larger area of overlap for using the same shape with different movements. An interesting effect (quite geometric) is to use the shapes with a beginning position of 0x0. AND, even more possibilities arise if the canvas expansion during the shape creation is less or more than the 150 pixels I used in the tutorial.

You're right about this effect weighing heavily on the graphic editing more than ProShow. Now, you've gotten me thinking about 16:9 format... Hmmm, I'll have to play around with that now & see what I come up with. :wink:

- Diana

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