INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 12 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: Doof on November 04, 2007, 09:41:02 pm
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Was playing around with iPhoto on the Mac and noticed that it's slideshow has an option for Ken Burns Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Burns_Effect), which can be pretty cool. Any chance of seeing MC do this as well?
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Yes, PLEASE!!! That would be absolutely fantastic...
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They stole it from us. Try Starting a slide show, and then right clicking and choosing Auto-Pan. Shortcut is P.
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Thanks, BTW, for calling it Auto-Pan instead of Ken Burns effect. I'm not so sure you can claim they stole it from you, since iMovie has offered that option for photos (and called it Ken Burns) since v1.0, but still... ;)
Imagine being Ken Burns, and spending your life crafting some of the most beautiful and stunning documentaries ever, and probably being remembered more in the long-term for a cheesy video effect, than for the work of your life.
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Well, it's cool that it's in there, but I can't seem to get it to work. Is there some trick to it?
Nevermind, I got it.
But, wouldn't it be easier if it was an option in the Image Playback options? To have this on or off by default?
I think the algorithm it uses could use some tweaking. If the image is scaled down to fit the display, funky changes of direction happen as it zooms in. It'll be moving in a direction, then once the image takes up the entire display, it stops panning and just zooms for a bit, then it'll start panning again once the zoom is complete. It looks a bit odd when it happens.
Also, I think it would look better if the autopan started sooner. For instance, on a Fade In transition it would be nice if it was already panning as soon as it started fading in. Just my opinion. :P
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Did you start a slideshow?
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I edited my post above...
But...
Yeah, I did. I can't seem to get it working by choosing the menu item. Hitting P seems to do it, though. Bug?
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I have to say, after trying it, it doesn't seem anywhere near as slick as the iPhoto version. First of all, the auto-pan effect "pauses" at the beginning and end of the playback of each picture, during the transition to the next picture. It should really Auto-Pan right through the transitions, as iPhoto/iMovie's does.
The performance of it isn't spectacular either. I don't know if it is trying to render the effect at too high of quality or what, but on my office machine, it sometimes stutters a little bit (and I have a pretty powerful machine all things considered). It doesn't ALWAYS stutter, but it certainly does occasionally. The stuttering is mild (not in-your-face) but it looks like a video with a low frame rate. Not buttery smooth. Maybe it just needs a healthy dosing of motion blur...
Also, I too had issues getting it to work.
When I first enabled it, it didn't do anything really. I always have my settings set to Scale large images to display. When I first enabled Auto-Pan, it didn't do anything at all until I manually zoomed in. Then, when it switched to the next picture, it seemed to turn off (or so I thought). I disabled the Scale large images option, and then it seemed to work, but weirdly. It seemed like my playlist would "stop" whenever I turned it on, and refuse to go to the next picture.
After I stopped and started the playlist again, with Auto-Pan already enabled, it then worked properly (and regardless of the Scale images setting). It now seems to be working properly, so I don't know what the story was with all that weirdness, but the very first time I tried it, I was all confused and discombobulated. As I said... it is working now, but the "first glance" was a bit rough.
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The next public build tuned the appearance and performance of auto-pan slideshows.
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Now, what would be REALLY impressive is if Pix01 could do the same ;)