Is PIP in PD15 any different than it was in PD14?

This link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kak0ZmxfjEQ is about PD14. GO TO THE 4:17 mark (about) and it starts talking about the PIP feature.

Is this what you are asking for?

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I think you are referring to the "in-house" animated PIP objects that come with PowerDirector content packs. There are several people here who understand XML files and the animated PIP structure, they can be changed but I believe the process to be a little laborious. What exactly is it that you would like to accomplish? HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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Here's another possible option, but it's quite labor intensive. There is probably a better way, though this does work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoxs-elMuJ4





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Quote I think you are referring to the "in-house" animated PIP objects that come with PowerDirector content packs. There are several people here who understand XML files and the animated PIP structure, they can be changed but I believe the process to be a little laborious. What exactly is it that you would like to accomplish?

Thanks CS2014 and Cranston for the replies, I already tried to create a video out of the transparent pngs and tried the chroma option, but chroma is a bit difficult to use properly, as traces of the background color cand be difficult to remove from the semitransparent borders.



Hi BarryTheCrab, what I have is a bunch of character animations made in other software like toon boom. I want to take advantage of the semitransparent nature of the pngs to interact with the background and other objects. As I just mentioned, using chroma is not an options since it's very difficult to use without affecting the image borders, and it's not a static mask as a world spinning; instead it can be a character running, so a mask won't do it.

The process looks laborious but I'd like some indication of how to do it, I can understand XML and basic coding already, and started to analyze the cpts that came with the examples from the content packs, but additional help would be very much appreciated.

Hi Scardario -

I can't help you out with editing XML files to get what you want, but the method Cranston posted (which he generated, tested and made the tutorial) will work for you.

You already have your set of PNG files, so you're a good part of the way there.

If you drop all your files (in sequence) in the timeline & set the duration of each image to 1 frame - 00:00:00:01 - you'll see what the sequence looks like. You've probably already done that.

The next step is turning them into a PiP Object template.

First question - how many images are in your sequence? The answer to that affects the subsquent steps.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote Hi Scardario -

I can't help you out with editing XML files to get what you want, but the method Cranston posted (which he generated, tested and made the tutorial) will work for you.

Thank you for the help!

I already figured out the XML thing thanks to one of the PIPs in the packs. I had already tried the method Cranston posted with some degree of success, but I was having problems dealing with the semitransparency.



For those who are looking for the XML method, is not really difficult:

1. You have have to create a PIP out of the first png on the sequence. Just press the "Create a new PIP object from an image" button on the PIP Object Room


2. Look for it on the hard drive and copy the rest of the sequence pngs (mine was under Documents/Cyberlink/15.0/MyPinPs)


3. Open the .cpt file, in my case, it was "PinPTemplate.cpt", I recommend a text editor such as sublime to do this


4. Under the "Metasource" tag, modify or add the variables "AnimationImgCount" to add the total of pngs and "AnimationImgList" to add the file list separated by a comma and a space. Look for the attachment, the space after every comma is important. If you have to modify "AnimationDuration" you can do it too


5. And that's it. It should work now

Tips:

• Sublime column selection tools and TextPastry plugin help a LOT at the moment of creating the file list inside the .cpt


• Sometimes It's good to compare the variables and tags from the XML to those in other XMLs, just look for another .cpt in some of the installed packs or download one to compare.


• Some PIPs from the packs have their PNGs packed in a zip, I haven't tried with these, I know they use the word "Pre-comp" before every file inside the .cpt. I would recommend skip these and look for a PIP with all PNGs in the same folder as the .cpt file.

I think that's all, it's not really that difficult, it's a shame there's no documentation or tool for this kind of things since it's extremely useful. I'd like to have a reference for every variable and valor inside the .cpt and other similar files.