Jigsaw Effect Style

[mulawa1 Profile Private messageWebsite]

I've been working on this effect for quite a while and I think I've gone as far as I can. I nearly wasn't going to publish it but maybe someone will be able to advance it to the stage I was hoping for.

Here's what I was trying for BUT NOTE this is NOT what the style will give you.

http://www.photodex.com/share/mulawa1/cx6m8mg4

Before I give you the style, let me say how it falls short.

1. It's very uneven in playback - it requires a lot of resources. I guess it will be ok on faster machines and also if you use it in a video rather than a Presenter file.

2. It does not rotate the pieces as they move into position - I tried very hard to get this to work but the arithmetic defeated me - it may not even be possible.

3. The pieces do not have the 3D look.

So how come the demo looks so good? The difference is that it doesn't create the pieces on the fly - the pieces are already made.

Anyway here are the styles - one for the effect and one for the result:

http://mulawa.net/special/ProShow/Jigsaw_15x9.pxs

http://mulawa.net/special/ProShow/Jigsaw_15x9_Still.pxs

All you have to supply is one 15:9 picture.

Peter

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Peter,
Since you built these styles from two slides, (one for motion and one for static), you have actually created styles for Gold.
Press on "Make compatible with ProShow Gold" so that Gold users may open them too, and you can post this in the Gold section too.

[mulawa1 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Mona,

It was my understanding that masking wasn't available in PSG.

Peter

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Mona,

It was my understanding that masking wasn't available in PSG.

Peter

Yes, you are absolutely right!
I always forget this.

It's just that seeing those separate slides, I thought of Gold.
Sorry about that.

[anitaemile Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Peter

Looks good. I got some jig saw styles on my site http://outsidethebox.name/pagina2.html that work for producer and will work for any picture. Does the rotation too and has the 3 d look. I was able to create the 3 d working with shadow overlays mimicking the mask layers. And the image movements mimic the mask movements as well. It wasn't that hard, but needed some graphic work to keep the 3D look.


Anita

[rlsu Profile Private message]

Thanks Peter! I am going to give it a try.
Michelle

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Peter,

I'm not so sure a photo of a particular ratio is required. Proshow handles images the same. So, if the image is set to fit to screen, a 300x200 image will fit the screen the same way that a 1500x1000 image will.

If you set the foto to "Fit to Frame" or "Stretch to Frame" all the user should have to do is put "a" foto onto the slide.

I found the same thing with a couple of my puzzle styles (those using puzzle pieces vs rectangular pieces) that had in excess of 50 pieces). They can really bog a system down unless it has sufficient resources (tho the DVD creation would be fine). And is one of the reasons I didn't release them.

Neat to work with tho!

Here's a hint that might work for you and your images relative to your masks. If you mask is set up to be located at -25,30, then the image being masked should have an offset of 25,-30 relative to the mask. To make it simpler for you, setup up the masked layer to pan follow the mask and have the modifier apply to all keyframes (that way you only need two keyframes in the masked layer).

I assume that all of your masks are the same size with the opaque region being in a different location in each piece. If you observe the little center of rotation mark on the mask as you change the center of rotation, try to get approximately the same rotation center in the masked layer. All you need to do is to effectively match them. Because the image sizes are going to be larger on either the top/bottom or on the sides, the matching of rotation center via modifier is not going to work directly. One of the problems is that the effective rotation center for the image will be offset from the rotation center of the mask by roughly half the amount of image overhang (the amount extending beyond the edges). So, while you can (if you want) use a modifier to give the image the same rotation as the mask, you'll probably want to manually change the rotation centers. Note that the rotation center indicator disappears if you use a modifier to follow the rotation center of another layer. That makes it difficult to use an offset accurately (you can't see if you're going in the right direction or not!). It's a guessing game then. But, if you do it manually, you can go back and forth between the mask and masked layers to ensure that the rotation centers are in roughly the same locations.

It's a lot of work but all that work pays off later on by making certain other tasks easier (the work/trials & errors is educational...). Well, hope that helps you.

Keep up the good work!

Dale

[anitaemile Profile Private messageWebsite]

I was 'puzzled' by Dale's response. For the jig saw masks, all of them being created on the same original layer, so all of them having the same rotation center,( I used a black puzzle piece and used it as an alpha layer) why change the rotation center moving them ? I managed by doing something pretty straight forward . Had all the puzzle pieces at 0x0 at the end, so for the first keyframe I pulled them out of the screen, zoomed them, rotated them and copied them twice. One copy I replaced with the image, one with the 3 D overlay. applied the mask on the image, and placed the overlay on top of each piece. . It worked fine, Everything turning on the same 0x0 center . With each piece having 3 layers I did not work with 25 pieces of course

Anita

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

If you want your puzzle pieces to rotate the same as your image with the least effort, keeping the default center of rotation for both the puzzle layer and the image layer will work. If you want the puzzle piece to rotate around its center, you need to do some work first.

Some, I'm sure, are aware that the rotation center of a full screen image is the center weight of the image, even if there is overhang beyond the frame. But, for images that have a region that extends beyond the frame, the corner specifications no longer align to that frame (so -50,-50 of the image is no longer the -50,-50 of the screen).

So, if one layer exactly fits the frame but the other doesn't (it extends beyond the top and bottom) and the center of rotation for each is changed to 50,50 (for instance), the rotation center of one is offset from the rotation center of the other. That's because the two layers are NOT the same size (and they no longer both fit inside the confines of the frame).

If you want a puzzle piece to rotate on its effective center, you need to change the layer's center of rotation to that of the opaque region's center point (that is, the center of "VISIBLE" region of that layer).

If you keep the rotation center on the full sized image and rotate the puzzle piece layer, the puzzle piece layer will have a rotation that's effectively like identifying a rotation point on an image that is somewhere beyond the outer confines of that image. Think of holding a picture in your hand at arms length and swinging your arm. You've just specified the rotation of the pic as an arc and the arc's center point is your shoulder. Now, take that same picture in your same hand at arms length and spin that picture (keeping the arm stationary). You've just specified the center of rotation as the center of that picture, not your shoulder. The location of the picture didn't change but the location of the specified rotation point did. (think of the picture as being the opaque region of the puzzle piece and your shoulder as being the default center of rotation of your layer).

Now, as you can tell, there are a number of ways to specify a rotation depending upon the type of arc you want to give that picture (including a pan while rotate), what you're trying to accomplish, and how much time and effort you're willing to invest.

So, I hope your "puzzle" has been alleviated.

Dale

[anitaemile Profile Private messageWebsite]

Puzzled :
Dale I can see your point, but I don't see the purpose of changing the rotation point to the center of the puzzle piece. It will become very complicated to find the same rotation point for the image as the rotation point of the mask when these two are of different size. Perhaps resize the image in an outside editor to have the same dimensions as the mask would do it (?), but by keeping the center at 0x0 at both, and just by dragging , zooming and rotating image and mask in the same fashion you can achieve a nice puzzle effect where pieces turn and fly in too, so I would not bother and make it more complicated .

Anita

[mulawa1 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Anita,

Thanks for the link to your style (very impressive btw) - I was able to achieve that rotation effect too but I want the same effect as in my demo - ie the pieces pan in in a straight line while rotating. Also I wanted the 3D effect as per the demo.

Dale,

I'll study your posts in the hope that I may glean a solution - thanks for your trouble.

Peter

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Anita,

In case you missed it, please refer to the last full paragraph in my previous post where I refer to different ways to accomplish the same thing.

Sometimes, simple isn't best (it'll get you by). Just because an approach is more complicated doesn't mean it doesn't have merit. Sometimes the resulting attention to "detail" pays off in ways we little expect. Knowing how to do the "complicated" approach will often pay dividends in unexpected ways.

The more you stretch yourself on some approaches to things, the more you learn and understand. If you choose to invest the time and effort, dividends often follow. It's your decision ... I offer an approach, an option, nothing more.

Cheers!

Dale

[anitaemile Profile Private messageWebsite]

Peter

To achieve the effect you want you indeed have to change the rotation center of both mask and image. If you size your image the same as your mask ( or the other way around) in an outside editor you can still use the same settings for masks as for image. But you will have to look for the center of rotation of the mask piece for kf 1 first, like what Dale mentioned. I would drag the mask to where you would want it to start moving from for kf 1 and in the precision view window determine where the rotation center would be for the mask. ( Making the mask into a regular layer will make it visible and easier to view ). You can then copy the mask and replace it by the image and put it underneath the mask .

Dale: I wanted to offer a simple solution and didn't understand why you started with a more complicated approach . Your approach of course has merit, but it is the complicated approach versus a simple solution for puzzle pieces coming together, while rotation , zooming and panning.

[mulawa1 Profile Private messageWebsite]

I've retried my previous efforts using just one mask piece - in case I was missing something. I set the centres of rotation to the centres of the actual piece in both KF1 and KF2 after dragging the piece to its starting position. I still found that the trajectory that resulted was a curve rather than a straight line meaning that the piece was out of sight some of the time.

As I can get the result I want easily by making the individual pieces I probably won't go any further with this - I just thought it would be neat to have it as a style so other folk could use it too. As I said ... maybe someone else will be keen enough to develop my work further.

Peter

[mulawa1 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hmmm ... maybe I spoke too soon ... just had an idea while sipping my morning coffee out in the sun ... haven't got time to try it till later today.

How about a dot that pans along the path I want and using modifiers to make the centre of rotation follow this dot? Maybe I get to work with modifiers at last

Peter