Hi Rick -

... only me again, but I'm interested in your problem.

Could you perhaps post some screenshots showing your screen layout & how the photos zoom? Maybe even attach a cut down packed project with only one photo's motion/zoom?

That would give us something concrete to work with. I believe there probably is some workaround to (at least) soften the abruptness & silence the critics.

Cheers - Tony
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Hey Tony - nice to hear back from you.

I pulled one of the 4 photos in question and made a 5 second project with the pan & zoom. I packed the project material (I'm in uncharted waters here) and have attached the 2 files that were written to the folder.

FYI - I used the Magic Motion Designer rather than the PiP Designer to do the zoom. I found that the keyframe locations generated in the Magic Motion Designer are relative to the length of the segment - that is, the locations scale proportionally to the length of the segment. So when I am making final tweeks to segment lengths to be in sync with a voice over or music the keyframe locations change proportionally. The keyframes generated using PiP Designer are absolute and do not change location when the segment length is changed. I found that I was constantly having to go back into the PiP Designer to change the location of the keyframes once I had tweeked the length of the photo segment so I quickly abandoned the PiP Designer for pan and zooms (but I'll try anything to get the eased in zoom).

Thanks again - Rick

Hi Rick -

Thanks for uploading the project. If you use File > Pack Project Materials, you'll get a neat little folder containing all you need to share the project. No problem - you included all that was needed.

What you've found with PiP Designer is correct. If you reset the duration after applying motion/fades etc. it'll mess the whole thing up. You need to decide & set the duration first! It's also true, as you said, that Magic Motion is a bit more forgiving.

There's a (modified) Test Retirement project attached, showing exactly the same motion applied in PiP Designer - then with ease in/out added. If the 4 photos have the same duration & they're the same aspect ratio you can simply copy & paste the keyframe attributes to each one.

Rick - I did come up with other hare-brained schemes to get non-abrupt motion, but they're no better (& more fiddling) than using ease in/out in PiP Designer.

You'll also notice in the project that I've extended the zoom duration from 00:00:00:21 to 00:00:01:15 - that takes out a bit of abruptness too.

Cheers - Tony
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Tony - Thanks for the reply

I see that you selected the ease-in check box for the position setting. You indicated before that the ease-in feature for position does not apply to scale (zoom) so I would not expect having the ease-in checked helps the zoom (and looking at the result it does not appear to help). For this particular photo the center of the picture does not change position during the zoom therefore the ease-in appears not to have any effect on any motion. Yes, extending the length of the zoom does help with the abruptness but I really would rather not do that.

Another tangential tidbit of info - In my quest to figure out how to do smooth p&z's with ease in & out I discovered if I used the PiP Designer to pan AND zoom AND had the ease in/out checkboxes selected, the motion of the picture at the keyframes that had the ease in/out cheched was very wonky (the motion of the picture bounced around slightly in an upredictable fashion). Seems like the same ease in/out parameters would need to be applied to the zoom to keep both in sync and result in smooth and predictable overall motion. Just my thoughts and observations.

Rick

No problem Rick -

The thing is, it's just simple Maths.

2 objects travel a certain distance in a set amount of time. Each object departs & arrives at the same time. Object 1 travels at a consistent speed from start to finish. Object 2 has a slower start & finish, so it has to travel faster in between.

The speed of the zoom is affected by ease in/out because of the slower take-off & landing speed.

What you've observed is true. Sometimes, the more you mess around with keyframes the less smooth the motion becomes. The simplest rule is to set the first keyframe, then the final one... then whatever needs to occur in between.

I'm sure your retirement presentation will go down well with everyone & that, after it's done, you'll attack your next one armed with greater experience & "know how".

Cheers - Tony
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Tony, I'm back ...

After some more experimentation I think I disagree with your statement "The speed of the zoom is affected by ease in/out because of the slower take-off & landing speed." Yes, the zoom (scale) and the pan both start and stop at the same time (assuming keyrames at the same times) but the "speed" of the zoom and the "speed" of the pan can be totally independent of each other. In fact, I'm convinced that they are independent in PowerDirector. With ease in/out the speed of the pan starts and ends very slow and travels much faster in between (as you stated in your last post). The zoom on the other hand remains a constant speed - starts suddenly and ends suddenly.

As I said I did some additional experimenting. I used PowerDirector to generate a P&Z (with ease in&out checked) on a single photo. I started off with the photo shrunk to 1/4 of the screen with the top left corner "snapped" to the top left corner of the screen. I then P&Z'd finishing with the photo centered on the screen all the way zoomed out such that all 4 corners of the photo were snapped to the 4 corners of the screen. I then dusted off an old computer that had Pinnacle Studio 10 on it and used its P&Z with ease in&out to conduct the exact same P&Z (Studio 10 did not have keyframes so only the P&Z start and finish points can be defined) .

I have attached the resulting movie.

Since the P&Z starts and ends with the top left corner snapped to the top left corner of the screen, the top and left edges of the photo should stay on the top and left edges of the screen during the P&Z. As you can see in the movie this holds true for the Pinnacle Studio segment. What happens in the PowerDirector segment is that at the beginning of the P&Z that the top and left edges of the photo grow beyond the edges of the screen (watch the helmet). This to me is clear evidence that the "speed" of zoom and the speed of the pan are independent with the linear speed of the zoom "out racing" the eased in speed of the pan at the beginning. The same thing occures at the end of the P&Z resulting in an undesirable "wobble." It appears that the ease in/out feature in Pinnacle is applied to the speed of both the zoom AND the pan such that they are in sync resulting in consistent and gentle P&Z start and stops.

I'm starting to think I can't get the P&Z results I'm looking for with version 14. Unfortunately almost all my projects include P&Z's. For now I think I just need to minimize any P&Z movements such that the zoom start and stops, as well as any wobbles, are less noticable. Sounds like a nice feature to add in version 15 ...

Tony - thanks again for all your help.

Rick

Rick3516 - That is interesting. I am well familiar with Pinnacle Studio. See the attached done with PD14 and compare it to what you did.

Tony,

It looks like your P&Z video is done with the ease in/out not checked. Correct?

Rick

Oh well.. one of the many embarassing and rather pathetic things about PD. Hopefully, this gets resolved in PD 15.

Rick -

I've been away for a few days & have checked in today to catch up.

I must apologise to you for my statement about zoom & ease in/out. I used to word wrongly, because I was referring more generally to motion.

After reading your post about distorted motion paths when using ease in/out, I put it to the test. You are absolutely right! Whenever scale or freefrom keyframes are used with ease in/out, the original path becomes distorted (shown in your example "Pan & Zoom wobble").

I tested the ease in/out fairly extensively during pre-release & early release versions of PDR14 & this was not an issue. If it had been, it would have been raised at the time. So, as far as I can see, this problem has been introduced with a patch release... can't tell which one because one can't have one's eyes on everything at once.

Here's my version of your wobble video...



For anyone interested, the project (minus titles) is attached.

Cheers - Tony
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Hey Tony - welcome back.

Its comforting to see that someone else is getting the same result as myself (although thats not necessarily a good thing in this case). After going through all the trials and tribulations of trying to figure this out, what I would really like to see included in PowerDirector 15 is an ease in/out option within the Magic Motion Designer that provides a "sync'd" ease in/out for zoom and position at each keyframe. Like I said before, I like to do the P&Z using Magic Motion because the timing of the keyframes scales to any later adjustments to the photo segment length. I think this additional feature within Magic Motion would make Ken Burns proud.

That said, in addition to the current ease in/out checkboxes for position in the PiP Designer, seems like additional ease in/out checkboxes should be made available for scale (zoom), freeform, as well as rotation that all worked together to avoid the dreaded "wobble." It would also allow for smoother starts and stops for scale, freeform, and rotation even if there is no change in the photos position.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Rick

Hi Rick, Tony,

I have the exact same problem as you Rick, and although it seems like it would have been a 'must have' addition to PD15, I can't for the life of me find it?

Am I missing it or was it not included!?

Cheers,
Pete PowerDirector Deluxe 13 OS: Windows 8.1 64 Bit
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Hey Pete,

I have PD 14 and have not upgraded due to the fact that PD has not included the ease-in/ease-out feature for Magic Motion (most recent version is PD16). One thing that I have noticed when watching YouTube videos of versions 15 and 16 is that in the PiP editor an ease-in/ease-out option has been included for Scale in addition to the ease in/out option for Position that was present in version 14 (see attached file). I suspect that the inclusion of the Scale ease in/out will eliminate the odd "wobble" that I make reference to in my previous posts.

So, I think (but don't know for sure) that a smooth Pan and Zoom using ease in/out can be accomplished using the PiP that will not result in a wobble.

That said, PD really needs to include the ease in/out feature in the Magic Motion P&Z. I've submitted this request for versions 15 and 16 but so far it hasn't happened. I'm no longer hopeful that it will be included in any future versions.

Rick