Hi Chris -

Firstly, you can turn the frame rate warning off in Preferences (I have), It's the first checkbox under Confirmation. Secondly, sometimes PD can throw up a "false" warning. I wouldn't be too bothered by that. Just import and add it to your project.

Route Generator will create an AVI file at the same resolution as your imported image/map. Yes - if it's being displayed at full screen, it's best to start with a map at the same resolution & aspect ratio as your final video.

You can import the AVI file from Route Generator. No problem. Another possibility is to:
1. Import all the .bmp files that RG makes (each frame of the video)
2. Drop them in the timeline in order - map00000.bmp, map00001.bmp, map00002.bmp etc
3. Select all and change the duration to 00:00:00:01 (1 frame) - or 2 frames for a slower trip
4. Produce the animation sequence in the same video format as your intended target format.

Another thing worth considering is not using the included vehicles, but importing your own. The images in RG are very low-res, low quality and look shoddy on screen. Example attached.

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Ynotfish

Thanks for the help.

I have got a picture a motorcycle i would like to use in RouteGenerator....how do I go about using the motorcycle but with no backround in the image?

Chris...

Hi Chris -

That could be a very simple process - or more complex.

Simple if it's a clip art style image - just apply transparency to the background using graphics software. This screenshot is in Paint.NET (free)



Slightly more complex if it's a photo, but these tutorials will help:
http://youtu.be/6OLKfRILqBM
http://youtu.be/prM840dAbXM

To illustrate what I meant about the poor quality images in RG, there's a blown up screenshot attached. Artefacts all over the place!

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Tony,

Those tutorials really helped, I have managed to get a picture of my own motorcycle into RouteGenerator..

thank you
Chris.....

Excellent Chris!

Glad the tutorials helped.

For others using Route Generator (or similar), I've thrown some images into a folder you can use to substitute (import) to give a nice crisp look. Not trying to insult your intelligence - just save some leg work.

Look forward to the video of your trip Chris.

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Am I doing something wrong here??

When I create the avi file from RouteGenerator, a 4 second clip is 747mb, isnt this a bit large?

I can put it in the PowerDirector timeline and everything seems ok, but if I were to include the clip in amongst a production would the format I render to dictate the size the the RouteGenerator file in the final production.

not sure if Im making sense here!!

Hi Chris -

The size of the AVI file very much depends on the preferences you've set in Route Generator.



If you've left the codec as the default, it will be "Uncompressed". A 10 second AVI will have a VBR of ~600+MBps with a resultant file size of ~675MB.

If you use (say) a 1280x720 map, each of the .bmp files will be about 2.5MB

Selecting, for example, the TechSmith Screen Capture codec will yield a much lower BR & file size - 7MBps / 7MB

It's nothing to be concerned about and nothing you've done wrong.


Cheers - Tony


Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Nice one Tony

Isnt this a brilliant forum.....saved me hours of frustration!!!!

Another option have tried, appears to give some different results to what is possible with RG (picture overlays at various points of the route being one)

http://www.primap.com/wsen/Products/mapcreator.html

I have tried the free version using map overlays from Google Maps; would appreciate any tips anyone has about setting the image size to suit 16 : 9 projects; when using screen grabs from Google Maps the image sizes can be odd shapes (to incorporate the required area), re-sizing them (in paint.net) can result in them getting squashed. Be nice to be able to import them into PD in the correct shape.

If anyone has any experience in calculating image sizes (programme allows setting of pixels) would be helpful

The site includes easy to follow tutorials for the general technique,

Thanks
Director Suite 365
AMD FX-8320 3.50 GHz Eight-Core
Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250gb (OS)
Seagate 2TB SATA-III Hybrid 7200RPM Hard Drive (Data)
Toshiba 4TB SATA-III Hard drive (Archive)
24GB Memory
Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 2gb
Microsoft® Windows 10 (64-bit)

Hi Ed71 -

I haven't tried MapCreator, but you can always overlay images when you're editing in PD.

About aspect ratio, the easiest thing to do in Paint.NET (or whichever software you use) is to crop the map to 16:9 to match your project. If you resize, make sure you have "Keep Aspect Ratio" checked.



Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Great, thanks Tony,never realised paint.net had that facility, makes it a lot easier Director Suite 365
AMD FX-8320 3.50 GHz Eight-Core
Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250gb (OS)
Seagate 2TB SATA-III Hybrid 7200RPM Hard Drive (Data)
Toshiba 4TB SATA-III Hard drive (Archive)
24GB Memory
Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 2gb
Microsoft® Windows 10 (64-bit)