PSP v4 Demo (Basic)

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

I tried a few things here: copying keyframe info to other keyframes (to keep the typing down as well as moving all over the place), modifiers (to basically "do it once" and then let the program do most of the work), and rotation centers.

Copying keyframe information between layers is nice ... you just need the keyframes already there (even if they aren't in the right locations) since PSP won't create keyframes for you.

Modifiers can be pretty darned powerful. However, the only way to copy a slide that has layers with modifiers is through a style. Copying the slide to another show results in the modifiers going away. Copying the slide to the same show results in changes made in one showing up in the other. It's not really an option then (to copy and mod it to make a different slide).

Rotation centers can be very useful. However, they can also be very frustrating and difficult to use well. As the x and y zoom values are changed, the layers' rotation center also moves. It can be difficult to find. There is no easy way to point to where you want the rotation to be. There is no fine tuning the location you've chosen except by typing in values and observing the results. Eventually you might find the spot you want or intended to use. Also, rotation centers DO NOT react well to transition regions of a layer. If you activate a transition region and use the rotation center through it, the rotation center reverts to the PSP default of 0,0 (or it seems to) --- your entered values are ignored. Also, the visual indicator of the rotation center has a tendency to disappear ... and does not return!

AND so the bug reporting goes on...

This is NOT a polished show ... basically just a quick demo.

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... alb=135843

Dale

[This show was revised to fix the font readability and to add a demo of modifiers applied to keyframes ... and extinguishing their behavior in keyframes as well. Total time is less than 1 minute!]

[debngar Profile Private message]

Very nice demo.

I've also been very curious to play with rotation and the unlocking X & Y. Not had enough time to do anything much with it yet but maybe will in my next show.

Your descriptions are a bit confusing to me but I suppose once I get into the meat of those features, hopefully it will be a bit clearer.

Thanks for the very cool ideas. I liked the dangling animals! LOL

[seektheburd Profile Private message]

Very interesting demo there Dale. Gave me a creativity boost! It seems the door is wide open for endless possibilities using the Rotation Center option. Too bad the user's desired effect is not easily accomplished without some trial and error at this time.
Looking forward to joining the rest of the gang in discovering the added creativity version 4 offers soon. Thanks for inspiring!

Hugs,
Stephanie

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Really nice demo Dale.
I envy your eyes, if you were able to do these Rotation Center tricks on that little screen.
The minute I saw that it cannot be done on the Precision View (large view), I panicked.

I guess I need to get used to it somehow, until Photodex make the necessary changes in ver. 4 (if and when they do).

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Dale, I played a bit with the rotation center and ended up achieving nothing. Now I can see where I went completely wrong. Thank you so much for that.

Suggestion: Put the text in a more easily read font and give it a lot more contrast. I wasn't able to read most of it. Granted, my eyes are older than those of others here, but it would make it easier on even younger eyes.

Barbara

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Thanx Debbie, Stephanie, Mona, and Barbara!

I found out why the font was so washed out. Apparently the opacity was set to 50%! So, the black text became a kind of gray ... and I didn't notice it (must've been tired when I did it last night... I don't ever remember changing the opacity on any of one the captions! So I never paid too close attention!)

That precision preview window is somewhat useless (to me). I haven't figured out why I'd want to use it ... except that I do get a larger preview window (not enough for me tho!). To get information on a different keyframe I have to click on it ... potentially moving it. It'd be nice if I could click a button (which used to be there) for next or prev kf. I was surprised that rotation center wasn't available there. It's a motion effect! But no ... missing. Besides, the location of the user selected rotation center is misrepresented when visible ... or at least not as accurate as it could be (well, it doesn't look like it). A larger view doesn't help in that case!

I was surprised that I couldn't specify a rotation center and keep it during a layer rotation. Let me explain ... I thought, at first, that I could specify a corner of a layer and the rotation would stay there (on that corner) as the zoom changed. Dummy me. Turns out that'd by a dynamic rotation change... we have to figure it out manually as we go at this point. Add in the complications of the type of motion style and it makes things even more interesting! So, complicated motions are possible but it's a lot of work to do them right. I think a lot of compromises are in order initially!

Thanx

[Cliff.Thomas Profile Private message]

Thanks for the info.

Some of the new features do seem to open up a lot of creative posibilities. Thanks to you and others on this site for helping me explore and use some of them.

Cliff

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Posted a fix to the readability. Also, found out how to apply the modifiers in such a way as to extinguish their behavior (the ones using sinewave, etc) at the keyframe level. Found that modifiers applied to keyframes can be used to remove the modifiers' behavior ... the darned Use for all Keyframes button doesn't seem to have any effect whatsoever. So, I added a little clip showing that ability.

Dale

[Valboo Profile Private message]

Dale,

Thanks for the demo. . .you've done a great job on this new feature!

Val

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Thanx Val!

All:
This is an updated version of the demo. It's twice as long as the previous show (and contains some the material from the previous version) and contains practical applications of the modifiers and rotation center changes. The demo is about 2m34s long (but it'll seem short!). Also, the previous version was in 4:3 format. This version is the widescreen version!

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... alb=148411

I hope this will spark some ideas on how to apply these new features!

Hope you enjoy!

Dale

[debngar Profile Private message]

This is an updated version of the demo.

I felt most of the effects were too much and made me go cross-eyed.

But there were a few that had some appeal in that they were more subtle and less distracting to viewing the images.

1. The image that slid off the top of the other picture it was sitting on - nice.

2. The later display of four (4) 2x2 images on screen and how they rotated and flipped around the center point of the screen - also very nice!

Looks like you have a grasp over the modifier concept Dale, better than some of us that's for sure. Can you translate it to the user with less verbiage and less motion displayed all at the same time? I just couldn't keep up.

[maxste Profile Private message]

Terrific work Dale. Would have liked a longer display of the verbiage in order to absorb the meaning a little more. Age is a factor! Well Done.
Steve

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

a) A couple of the slides were not exactly practical in a sense ... just that there could be a practical use using the idea ... like the picture that has the circles rotating around it as it increases in size (and the circles spiraling out to keep pace).
b) The solid color circle that comes in and hits the other, gradient, circle was inspired by something Barbara wanted to do.
c) The one with the 3 images to the right that, one by one, came circling out to a larger size, were experiments in controlling the modifiers in a somewhat practical application.
d) The 4 images in 2-by-2 were a practical example where I was trying to use the changed rotation center as the images had one axis changed to 0 (because of the way Photodex handles the apparent center of rotation as that happens, this experiment had to be modified so that a change from one image to the other had to occur at 90 deg of rotation vs 45 (where I wanted to do it). One experiment inspired the other, similar version (which did two rotations at once).
e) The intro slide is NOT one I'd want to use in any future show ... but was a playing around with a few things while controlling how it occurred.
f) The two slides where the images took a snaking path to the screen center were effectively the same ... up to the point of display ... but using portrait vs landscape images. I like, somewhat, the portrait version but not so much the landscape version. Turns out there's a problem with motion styles and modifiers ... seems that only the linear motion style has less of a problem then the others with similar motion amongst layers.
g) The last slide was more complicated wrt timing. Still, it was about controlling the modifiers in the context of tightly timed set of layers... and making a complicated seeming movement appear simple.

I'll work some text up on a couple of these.

Dale

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Create a blank slide. Transition times on either side: 1s. Slide time: 7s. Slide ratio: 16:9.
Add two layers: L1) gradient, L2) solid. Each layer is 960x960.
Layer 1 and 2 are sized to “Fit to Safe Zone.”
Layer 1 is zoomed to 40%. Layer 2 is zoomed to 20%

Make each layer a circle by vignette.
L1. Ellipse, type: transparent. Vignette size: 19; border size: 0, Corner size: 100.
L2. Ellipse, type: transparent. Vignette size: 10; border size: 0, Corner size: 0.

Position Layer 1 at 0,0. Position Layer 2 at -60,-60. Zoom is 20% throughout.
On Layer 2 add two kf’s: 1.97s (kf2) and about 3.7s or so (This is kf3 and is used to stop motion on this layer.) Leave kf4 firewalled at the far right (at 9s).
KF1. On pan-x, right click and select “Add modifier.” Hit the plus key once to add a modifier. In the Constant value, put a 1. Change the type of modifier to “multiply modifier.” Click on the top modifier (it reads “<New Action>”). Put a 1 after the last 0 ... it should have a value of 0.001 now. Uncheck the “Use for all keyframes.” Click done. Do exactly the same thing for the pan-y. This holds action of the modifier in keyframe 2 at bay for the start of this keyframe. Not including these actions for this demo will affect the location of the apex of this layer’s movement.
KF2.
• Right click on pan-x, add Modifier:
+sine wave(0.08, 40,025), +50. Then click ok.
• Right click on pan-y, add Modifier:
+sine wave(0.30,70,0.0),*sine wave(0.30,2.0,0.25), *-1,-13.50. Then click ok. These two create a curved motion in the layer. All we care about right now is what appears in the window. The corkscrew-like motion of the layer will create a motion that we can use on screen. It will come in and quickly curve around and go back on an elliptical path. Where it curves back is our apex. The multiply by -1 turns a cw motion into a ccw motion. The numbers at the end of the modifier are distance adjustments. In the case of the pan-x, the motion is moved to the right. In the case of the pan-y, the apex location is adjusted up the screen.
KF3.Create the modifiers: +0.001 and *1.00 for both pan-x and pan-y. These modifiers stop the sine wave action. For the pan-x, also include a -25 constant. For the pan-y, include a =65 constant. These two constants will insure the layer doesn’t come back into view.

For kf2 and kf3, leave “Use for all keyframes” checked. If you don’t, we’ll see the little solid ball show up again toward the end of the slide!

On Layer 1 You’ll create at least 1 keyframe. Move this keyframe to where layer 2 appears to brush against it (which should be at about 1.20s). Copy the settings from kf1 to kf2 (to keep the layer motionless until layer 2 “hits” it.). Now, you’ll enter keyframes to define where the layer will appear to “bounce” to. In my case I have keyframes at: 0, 1.2, 1.5, 1.83, 3.00, 4.1, 5.78, and 9s.

The timing of the apex of layer 2's motion is where kf3 is moved to. Kf2 has another use that I’ll describe in a bit. The locations of the bounces were: 7.24,34.2 (kf4); 26,-32.3 (kf5); 40.22, -6 (kf6); 7.4, 34.6 (kf7); and -50,-50 (kf8)

I added a border around layer 1. Then, I added a rotation modifier to kf’s 2 and 3. The first modifier was to keep the layer still until layer movement began. So, I added +0.001 and *1 constants to kf2 (for rotations, in this case, kf1 was too far away to have an effect. So, kf2 had to be added just so I could add a controller modifier to moderate the actions of the rotation that’ll begin at kf3).

On kf3, I added a modifier to the rotation: +sine wave(15.0,5.0,0), *sine wave(0.20,50,0).
This creates a spinning motion that’s not constant but varies. ... it should simulate sunrays to a certain extent.

I left “Use for all Keyframes” checked.
Now, as soon as the motion begins, (it will appear as if the little ball hit the big one) the spinning begins.

This may not be a directly practical exercise ... but it is practical from the sense that it teaches control of the modifiers and makes it seem as if one layer affects another. From that perspective, it could have usefulness in other areas.

Enjoy!

Dale

PS Let me know if any of this doesn't make sense ... after you've tried to enter the info! Thanx!

[debngar Profile Private message]

Dale,

I am fiddling with the modifiers to make my own display of four (4) images 2x2 - not exactly like yours but it's based on the images rotating on their common corner center point.

But there seems to be a glitch in the modifier. After the 2 top layers rotate from a horizontal position, (laid lengthwise) to a portrait position 90 degrees (together), I have the slide action stop (display static) for a second by the addition of another slide with cut transition. I know that's a "Gold" approach but the best I could do for now.

The problem is that at the time of the cut to the static slide, 2 of the 4 slides go back to their original position for a blink of a moment, then finally wind up where they're supposed to be.

This looks to me like a bug but can't be sure of course.

Also don't know how one can best keep track of what is modified and what isn't exactly when in the edit motions preview window because the modified layers look like they aren't modified at all until the user grabs the scrubber bar and slides it back and forth to see the slide motion. This is sort of what it looks like as I described the instant it transitions to the static slide.

If we can't avoid this blip, then I'm not sure why go to all the trouble of using modifiers for the static slide and I'll have to set them all by hand anyways - a double brain exercise. Grrrr.

Hope I described this so it makes sense.