crawler ticker tape

[mreinhart Profile Private message]

In PSG I am trying have a "crawler" or ticker tape constantaly running thru portions of the slide show. I have been able to add a caption to each slide with a portion of the total crawler, but it does not continut thru the transitions, or if I change the time from one slide to the next, the caption also changes speed.

Does anyone have a suggustion.

Thanks

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hmmmm... that's an interesting one... Right away I can't think of any obvious way to that effect to run smoothly across slides and multiple captions. I'll have ponder that one and try an experiment or two. With luck someone else will beat me to figuring it out, though!

In the meantime, you can fix part of the issue with the captions by using an option on the captions screen. Beside each caption you'll see 3 icons. The "T" on the right with the slash through it controls whether that caption is effected (below) the transition or unaffected (above) the transition.

I don't think that will get you to where you want but it's a start because it sounds like you have it in the default "below" state.

Dick

[heckydog Profile Private message]

Would this be similar to what you're trying to achieve?

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 3676&alb=0

I used 10 slides with times varying from .5 seconds to 3.25 seconds. No two slides are the same length. The total length of the show is 15.37 seconds.

It's a little tricky to accomplish but I've worked out the hard parts already so it shouldn't be too hard to duplicate

If it's what you need, I can give detailed instructions.

Joe

[mreinhart Profile Private message]

Yes, that is similar to the effect that I want. How did you accomplish it?

[heckydog Profile Private message]

I will be posting the info on how to do this in the next day or so, maybe sooner. I just need to gather my thoughts and put pen to paper. Or should that be keyboard to monitor

I will also post a link to the spreadsheet that I made up to simplify the process. I actually worked this all out last year for another slide show project. It was easy to re-do it for the sample I showed you so I don't think it will be difficult to understand.

So I will post here again ASAP with the info you will need.

Joe

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

Joe -- good job. I'm anxious to see what you did, too. I think I figured it out but I did it with slides that all have the same transition and hold times.
Dick

[heckydog Profile Private message]

Things it helps to know before we begin:

1. All transitions on the timeline must be Cuts set to 0.0 seconds
2. The Acceleration style for Pan must be set to Linear for all slides
3. I used a very long TIF file for the ticker tape message. I suppose this method would also work with captions but I haven't tested it.
4. Since the ticker tape is moving from right to left we will only be calculating the X dimension of the Pan parameter but this will also work for the Y or up and down motion.

The Logic behind how I came up with this solution:

Any given slide is a set % of time relative to the total time of the show. Any object moving across the screen from point A to B will move the same % of distance within each slide as the % of time that the slide occupies in the show.

You need to know the following information to plug in to the spreadsheet:

1. The Start point or the Pan X dimension. In the video it is 100 which puts it off the screen to start.
2. The total distance travelled. In the video it goes to -100 before the end of the text disappears so the total distance is 200. (100 - (-100) = 200)
3. The total length, in seconds, of the slide show or portion of the slide show where the effect will appear. In the sample video it goes from start to finish and it's 15.37 seconds long.
4. And of course you need to know the length of each slide and in the order they appear. In the sample they are: 1.5, 1.0, .5, 2.0, .75, 1.75, 2.5, .875, 1.25, and 3.25 seconds long.

The Formula:

S= Slide time. 1.5 2.0, .375, etc
T= Total Slide Show Time. (15.37 seconds)
D= Distance travelled. 200
Y= Pan Pos. X at the start of the individual slide. This gets calculated except for the first one which is, in this case, 100.
Z= the distance travelled for that slide. This is subtracted from Y to become the end Pan position for that slide and the start Pan position for the next slide. Okay, I know this one is going to be confusing but looking at the spreadsheet should help.

Z= (Y-((S/T)*D)) this is the formula, short and sweet.

Let's break it down step by step using the first slide time of 1.5 seconds.

S/T = 1.5/15.375 = .09756 = % of time for that slide of the total show length

.09756 * 200 = 19.512 = the distance travelled for that slide

100 (Y) - 19.512 = 80.488 or rounded to 80.49 = the end position for that slide. So Z=19.512

The spreadsheet then takes the 80.49 (the new Y) as the new start point for the next slide and calculates the end point for that slide.

And it continues on to give you the end Pan X co-ordinates for each slide. So everything gets calculated for you and all that is required is to plug in the numbers from your slide show.

You can do this manually of course, and that's why I took the time to explain the method behind it all. But the spreadsheet will do all work. The sample provided goes to 32 calculations because the original show I did this for had 32 slides running for 3-4 minutes so they are there for you to use and add to if needed.

Hope you find this useful.

Joe

Link to MS Works spreadsheet

Link to MS Excel spreadsheet

And the video link: http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 3676&alb=0

The spreadsheet is posted to an ftp site. If there's a more permanent place to put it here on the forum that would be great.

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Joe, I followed your thread, as well as the one one Barbara is posting.
This is very good stuff !
The file that you uploaded doesn't open in anything else but Microsoft Worksheet.
Do you think you can convert it to Excel maybe?

[heckydog Profile Private message]

Joe, I followed your thread, as well as the one one Barbara is posting.
This is very good stuff !
The file that you uploaded doesn't open in anything else but Microsoft Worksheet.
Do you think you can convert it to Excel maybe?

I was afraid of that Let me check and see if I have Excel. I have more stuff than I know what to do with on my pc. If I don't have it, I have a friend in Denver that I'm sure does have it and can work it up for me.

The whole concept revolves around letting the spreadsheet do the grunt work so if nobody can use mine it defeats the purpose doesn't it, hehehe.

I'll be back in a little while.

[heckydog Profile Private message]

Joe, I followed your thread, as well as the one one Barbara is posting.
This is very good stuff !
The file that you uploaded doesn't open in anything else but Microsoft Worksheet.
Do you think you can convert it to Excel maybe?

I have added another link to the thread for Excel. Here it is again.

Link to MS Excel spreadsheet

It's from an older Excel version which, believe it or not, I had but never used. It's from 2002, version 10.something so let me know that it works okay.

Thanks

Joe

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Perfect Joe !!
I opened it in Excel of Office 2003 and got this message:

"Microsoft Office Excel recalculates formulas when opening files last saved by an earlier version of Excel."

So, it works !!

Thank you very much for this!!

[mreinhart Profile Private message]

Thanks for all of you work on this Joe. Unfortunately, the person I am doing the show for wants to have various transitions between slides rather than cuts. But, I will try what you have shown me.

Mark

[heckydog Profile Private message]

You can add transitions for the other layer(s) on their respective keyframe timelines and it won't affect the crawling text.

In the sample video I didn't add transitions because some of the slide times were so short it would have just flashed by.

It may involve a bit more work if you have several layers on each slide but it can be done.

[DickK Profile Private messageWebsite]

You can add transitions for the other layer(s) on their respective keyframe timelines and it won't affect the crawling text...

Did I miss something? The OP is, I thought, using PS Gold--no "keyframe timelines." All layers are affected by a transition equally and I know of no way to fix/disguise that with a layer that isn't constant.

Frankly, after playing with this a bit, even with your input, this effect is more challenging than I'd ever want to do with more than a couple images. I don't think you can get 100% of what the client had in mind so there's going to be a compromise somewhere. It isn't what the client asked for exactly but I'd change it back to a series of captions that were aligned and bring them individually, ticker-like. At least that way I can control whether the transition effects it.

Dick

[heckydog Profile Private message]

You can add transitions for the other layer(s) on their respective keyframe timelines and it won't affect the crawling text...

Did I miss something? The OP is, I thought, using PS Gold--no "keyframe timelines." All layers are affected by a transition equally and I know of no way to fix/disguise that with a layer that isn't constant.

Frankly, after playing with this a bit, even with your input, this effect is more challenging than I'd ever want to do with more than a couple images. . . . . .
Dick

I didn't know that Gold did not have that capability so I stand corrected on that point.

I'm not sure why you think the effect is too challenging. I went into some detail on the how-to's and the what-for's but that was because there are always people who want to know the nitty-gritty. The spreadsheet does all the work of figuring out the co-ordinates and all that's required of the user is to know a few numbers.

In Mark's case I'll agree with you that this may not be what the client wants, but otoh, some of us do these shows for our own use and not for clients so we're free to be as creative as we like. Either way, it's out there for anyone to use or not use.