KFs - How I did the Bear Creek Tour show...

[Tarafrost Profile Private messageWebsite]

Figured I would cross-post this here, since it's a bit buried in the PSP Sample Shows forum. Hope this sheds a bit more like on the mystery that is KFs. And if not, try dancing naked around a midnight bonfire while whirling a dead chicken overhead.

Keyframes aren't all that hard, though it can be finicky getting them to do what you want.

KFs in PSP (at least from a UI perspective) aren't really the same as video keyframes (though they may be under the covers). Video keyframes are full frames with all the info in 'em....with frames between the keyframes only having the differences posted. This saves a lot of space when encoding video, since typically not a lot of pixels change between each frame.

That's not what KF's in the PSP UI really are (though again, they may translate to video keyframes under the covers when you render a show).

I think of them more as Key.....Frames. Key spots on the slide's timeline where you want something significant to happen. That is, start/stop an effect. They are like bookends that bracket the effect you are working on.

So say you are working on a slide with two layers. And you want the 2nd layer to start fading in at the 3 second mark, show for 1 second, and then move/grow that layer for 2 seconds. There are 4 Keyframes required for layer 2, when things start/stop:

1: KF @ 3 seconds, to start fading in layer 2
2: KF @ 4 seconds, fade is complete
3: KF @ 5 seconds, show the layer without changes till this point, then start the move/grow
4: KF @ 7 seconds, move/grow is complete here.

So you add (or maybe move the existing first one) these for KF's and you might have a 5th ending one at the end of the slide).

Then you click between each pair of KF's to select that time range of the slide, and then adjust the starting and ending effects you want. For example:

KF 1 - Opacity is set to 0%
KF 2 - Opacity is set to 100%
KF 3 - Opacity still 100%, layer size/location stays the same
KF 4 - Set size/location of layer image to final values.

Similar to Vidqueen, I find I set all settings to manual (red) rather than the default (auto) for all motion and effect values for each KF. Otherwise, PSP seems to interpolate stuff, and doesn't always give you the result you think you want. Manual control works for me, and is what I used exclusively on my Bear Creek slide show.

Then you repeat all this for the other layers! Tthe same comcept applies to Caption Motion, which is almost like a virtual layer for each caption you are adjusting.

The key thing to do (if you'll pardon the pun), is to figure out what you want each layer to do, and when each action starts and stops. Sometimes drawing a sketch on a piece of paper, with 1 second intervals, can be very helpful for complex slide animations. I also find it makes life a lot simpler if you set keyframes to be on nice, even, easy to remember values, like full seconds (1, 2, 3 ,4 ), or sometimes half seconds. That makes it a lot easier to co-ordinate what is happening between the layers that all interact. In the above example, Layer 1 might have the following KF's, which would be in sync with layer two:

1 - @ 0 seconds (start of slide), since we want Layer 1 visible from the beginning.
2 - @ 4 seconds. Start of fade out of layer one, to coincide with start of fade in of layer two, opacity set to 100% here.
3 - @ 5 seconds, end of fade of Layer 1, opacity set to 0% here.
4 - @ show end. Opacity still set to 9%

So you can see how as Layer two is fading in...layer one is set to fade out, both of these things happening between second 4 and second 5 on the timeline.

This is the technique I used for many of the effects in the Bear Creek Sanctuary tour show I posted earlier in the Shows forum.

[briancbb Profile Private message]

Thanks Andrzej

It's really hard to put something into writting. You did well there.

Oh YES, Oh YES, Oh YES . Glad to say at long last I've mastered it. I'll post the opening to the show shortly. Nine layers with up to 5 KF's. Please don't ask me to put it into words

Brian

[Tarafrost Profile Private messageWebsite]

Brian:

Please put it into words.