Quote Good Morning! Once again I am asking for some advice from seasoned users of PD14. Quite simply I want to show some snaking arrows across a map. Think of the title sequence to "Dads' Army". I have tried using the paint feature in PD14 but that was not really sucessful. Any ideas will be much appreciated.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Nigel

I'll bet you two things: 1, It's freezing where you are, and 2, Not many people on this forum have heard of Dad's Army.

Anyway I think your best bet is to use a font and keyframes to control the arrow's path. On my machine there's an unnamed font just above one called Yu Gothic. The "A" in that font would make quite a good arrow.

So load it into the text designer and put your map of Europe as an added background. Make the arrow as big as needed then control it's path and angles etc. with keyframes. Then if you want another arrow, click on +T in the designer and repeat. I just tried it and it works for me.

I hope it works for you

Robert Panny TM10, GH2, GH4,

Thanks Robert. Yes it is pretty cold here with snow showers and a bit of a gale blowing.

I see what you mean with regard to your suggestion. However I really wanted the arrow to have a tail that trailed behind iit getting longer the further north the arrow went. (It is meant to represent Emperor Septimus Severus's campaign into Scotland in AD 20. I have used photoshop to create a series of still images of arrows moving north and cross faded them on the time line. This works but is a bit clunky and crucially does not give me a longer and longer tail to my arrow head. I suppose if I was better at using Photoshop this could be done, but even just using the multiple arrow method it is a really time consuming way to get a few seconds of video.

Paint in PD14 would be just the thing if it was made to be a little bit more sophisticated. I feel PD are missing something here - it could be a really powerful tool for animation with some more development. A feature worth upgrading for.

Thanks again.



Nigel

Quote Thanks Robert. Yes it is pretty cold here with snow showers and a bit of a gale blowing.

I see what you mean with regard to your suggestion. However I really wanted the arrow to have a tail that trailed behind iit getting longer the further north the arrow went. (It is meant to represent Emperor Septimus Severus's campaign into Scotland in AD 20. I have used photoshop to create a series of still images of arrows moving north and cross faded them on the time line. This works but is a bit clunky and crucially does not give me a longer and longer tail to my arrow head. I suppose if I was better at using Photoshop this could be done, but even just using the multiple arrow method it is a really time consuming way to get a few seconds of video.

Paint in PD14 would be just the thing if it was made to be a little bit more sophisticated. I feel PD are missing something here - it could be a really powerful tool for animation with some more development. A feature worth upgrading for.

Thanks again.



Nigel

Hi Nigel

I don't know if you have PowerPoint. If you do, you may get an idea from here. http://www.msofficeforums.com/powerpoint/6842-extending-arrow.html

Regards

Robert Panny TM10, GH2, GH4,

Hi Nigel -

I'm old enough to remember the "snaking arrows" in the Dad's Army intro, and young enough to remember a little Roman History.

Severus, as you know, pretty much traced Agricola's previous route up the M1.

You can get a Dad's Army style snaking arrow by starting with a paint animation. To make it look acceptable, that rough line needs to be masked... and the arrow head needs to be inserted separately.

About a month or so back, I started making a tutorial on "drawing lines" in PDR... but then a few other things got in the way.

This is not a tutorial... just shows the steps I followed to get the final result, such as it is.

1. Raw paint animation


2. Mask applied to animation


3. Arrow head added (that's Septimus Severus' bust in the arrowhead)

You've motivated me to get back to that toot!

Cheers - Tony
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Tony

Thank you for pointing me in the correct direction. That is exactly what I wanted but now I have to work out how you did it! Nice touch - Severus on the Arrow head!

I look forward to your tutorial.

Regards

Nigel

Hi Nigel -

Given my recent slow rate of tutorial production, I've put together a little "how-to" document which shows the whole process step-by-step. It should help you get started.

There's also a zipped packed project attached (made in PDR14) which also includes the paint animations (.dzp). Install the dzp files then open the project to see the setup... if you want.

Cheers - Tony
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Hi Tony

Thanks for that. It is VERY helpful. It solved my confusion over the masking stage.

Regards

Nigel

I've had a few requests for the Columbus 1492 project file for earlier versions of PDR. Exactly the same process applies. Install or import the 2 .dzp files in the packed project folder.

Cheers - Tony
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