PhotoDirector Photo animation effect Dispersion effect

Brian108

Member Joined: Sep 30, 2018 04:41 Messages: 50 Offline

Solved by

Mar 27, 2020 05:34

I use PowerDirector 365 and all its pieces. Just yesterday I installed the latest updates including 'Photo Animation' and 'Dispersion effect'. I wanted to try out these new effects this morning but discovered that half of it seems to be missing (animation) and the other half doesn't work at all (dispersion). My installed version does not look like the tutorial video. What has gone wrong? Can you help me?

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Mar 27, 2020 13:40

I've just tried this out and I can get all the effects to work as expected. All the controls work, and if I "play" the animation/dispersion, I can make adjustments on the fly.

Here's a quick, non-tutorial video showing me doing those things:

I have no idea what's happening when you try, and it would really help if you could make a similar screen recording so that other people can see exactly what you're doing and how PhD is responding.

You can upload the recording to Youtube and then paste the link in your reply, or use the Video icon above the forum text box to embed it like my above sample.

PIX

Senior Contributor Joined: Sep 21, 2011 00:02 Messages: 2910 Offline

Mar 27, 2020 14:33

I see I should have checked here before posting this!

optodata, you're more advanced than I (or is it me?) with the new animation effects. I've only just installed the update. Thank you for posting your screen capture

These tutorials may assist:

Photo Animation

Dispersion Effect

PIX PIX YouTube channel

PIX

Senior Contributor Joined: Sep 21, 2011 00:02 Messages: 2910 Offline

Mar 27, 2020 15:05

Brian has posted in the "other" thread:

Version is 11.3.2719.0

The only thing listed below Animation Effects is Dispersion Effects which opens to further choices but when I tried to use it it
didn't work, never offering me a save option.

Only the Dispersion is available, which works up to choosing a dispersion box or star or well there are about 8 choices. Cant go any further. I've watched the tutorial and the options that open up are not the same as mine.

So, apparently, the update has failed to install correctly. It ought to look like this:

PIX

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 27. 2020 15:06

PIX YouTube channel

Brian108

Member Joined: Sep 30, 2018 04:41 Messages: 50 Offline

Mar 28, 2020 05:00

Here is the video I made as requested. Thank you for all your help.

PIX

Senior Contributor Joined: Sep 21, 2011 00:02 Messages: 2910 Offline

Mar 28, 2020 11:52

Hello Brian,

Thank you for taking the time to prepare the screen capture. It clarifies the problem greatly.

1. When you use PhotoDirector as a standalone (i.e. not round tripping via PowerDirector), you'll find that the other animation options are available (as shown in my post above).

2. Your're right. When round tripping and you click Back, the animation is lost, because it's saved as a photo file (not GIF or video).

Based on that, your issue would be overcome by using PhD as a standalone and saving your animated photo as a GIF or video file, which can be imported into PDR.

Here's a GIF made using the same Balloon sample image.

Oh, & you're also correct about the list format for shapes shown in the tutorial. Perhaps it was made using a pre-release version of the patch.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Mar 28, 2020 16:25

I'm glad we at least understand the round-trip limitations. I played around with the Animation some more and made this GIF of my avatar galaxy

I used just two rotational arrows and the static mask tool (red areas) to hold the foreground stars in place:

Brian108

Member Joined: Sep 30, 2018 04:41 Messages: 50 Offline

Mar 29, 2020 17:03

Thank you Pix and Optodata for your help. I have tried the animation effect in the standalone PowerDirector and it works well.

Only thing is, why is it partly integrated into PowerDirector? None of it works so what was the point? It's not as if this was a plugin from another company like Titler Pro. It was a download offered through the Cyberlink 365 Application Manager. As I said I used it in the standalone, but, it's an extra step that really is an unnecessary waste of time. Why not fully integrate it into PowerDirector (since it's already half done)? Rant over.

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Mar 29, 2020 19:06

Quote Only thing is, why is it partly integrated into PowerDirector? None of it works so what was the point?

I don't have any inside knowledge, but that fact that the Animation Effect is missing and the Dispersion Effect is limited tells me there are technical issues when transferring the resulting media back to PD when PhD is invoked from the PD timeline.

As PIX wrote, the issue seems to be that if PD sends a photo to PhD, it can't receive back a GIF or WMV. Even if you use the Dispersion Effect tool after coming straight from PD, you only can create a static image from the tool, which is nothing like what the tutorial shows.

I agree that there should be some disclosure that neither of those new tools is available when accessing PhD as a plug-in. However, the options in that situation were already somewhat limited, and it looks like they didn't think to revisit the issue after adding these specific tools.

Here's what I'm talking about. Note that the Create menu is simply the interface for the Animate GIF tool:

So it certainly is an extra step to launch PhD when using either of these new tools, but maybe if you think of it as creating entirely new content, it's less burdensome. In fact, you can have PhD and PD running side-by-side this way, which isn't possible in the round trip method.