"tweaking" page turning effect

[Kerrie]

Hi, I guess my questions is directed to Chris B or anyone that has had success with the "page turning" effect.

I followed the instructions that Chris shared. I actually used the same book as Chris. I have managed to make it look like the page is turning. Where I am having trouble is having my images that I put on the page "turn with the page". I put a picture on the right side and applied the basic 3D effect with the swivel set like like the page, it starts out looking like it is turning on the page, but then it kind of takes off on it's own.

On the left side of the page, I have text, I used the crop effect to have it slowly disappear as the "page turns onto it". I am wondering if that is what Chris and others have done. I probably just have to tweak it a little, it isn't the smoothiest.

So, I was just wondering how everyone set up the images on their pages to have them "turn with the page" and "disappear when covered by the page"

Hope this makes sense! And as always, thanks for the help!!!! Kerrie

[momoffduty]

Not sure if this will help....when I did my postcard on the German video I did not want to have to 3D effect all of the items. So I took a freeze frame of the postcard and turned that frame. May or may not work with the page turn.

[Chris B]

Hmm. You know I wrote those instructions as a "quickie" late one night. It might be good to revisit them sometime when I've got a spare moment (ha!)

Couple of things that might be problematic.

The Basic3D effect seems very susceptible to the order in which the effects are applies. Having it in the "wrong" order leads to items jumping about. Try changing the order.

It's not clear from the post what you've done - but I created the pages that I wanted separately and exported them before re-importing them to a new project. If you're trying to layer an image onto a page in one go then it might not work as well.

Hope this helps,

Chris.

[Kerrie]

Thanks Cheryl and Chris, I appreciate the help.

Cheryl, I tried the freeze frame action........it almost got me there! I watched your video again with the postcard, It wasn't quite what I needed for the book page, but I know it will be helpful in future productions.

Chris, I just had to keep reading through the lines and playing with it..........I finally figured out that I just need to make short d-avis and then bring them back in with the background and book and apply effects. I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out, but I learned a few other things along the way....so it is never wasted time (though my kids may disagree!)

Thanks again! Kerrie

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

I got around the problem of 'synching' turning pictures and pages by combining the page and the picture into a single image Photoshop. Then there is only one motion taking place (the page turn) rather than two (the page turn and the separate picture). Once I got the first one working correctly I just copied the keyframes to each subsequent page/picture combination.

Hope this makes sense.

[Bob]

I got around the problem of 'synching' turning pictures and pages by combining the page and the picture into a single image Photoshop.

That's probably the easiest way to do it. The problem is that the Basic 3D effect doesn't allow you to specify the axis of rotation. It always uses the center of the clip as the axis. When you add the clip to be superimposed on the page, even though you scale it and reposition it, the rotation will still be about the center of that clip and it won't rotate in sync with the page. That's what's causing the unruly behavior you are seeing.

Another way to get things in sync would be to take the clip to be superimposed and create a new clip in which the old clip is scaled to the needed size and positioned such that the desired center of rotation is at the center of the new clip. Now you can place the new clip over the page clip and the 3D transforms of each will match.

[Chuck Engels]

Another way to get things in sync would be to take the clip to be superimposed and create a new clip in which the old clip is scaled to the needed size and positioned such that the desired center of rotation is at the center of the new clip. Now you can place the new clip over the page clip and the 3D transforms of each will match.

Now I'm confused

[Bob]

Now I'm confused

Think of it this way. Suppose you want to place a photo in a scrapbook. One way to do it would be to glue the photo directly to a page and then insert the page into the scrapbook binder. That's the combining method. Another way would be to attach the photo to a clear transparent overlay sheet and insert that into the scrapbook binder along with a blank page. As long as you turn the overlay and the page together, it will look the same. That's the second method.

Of course, in the real world, you would see the overlay sheet. But, in the digital world, the overlay sheet has an alpha channel and you won't see it when you composite it with the page. One way to make the "overlay sheet" is to create a project containing the page and the clip to be overlaid on the page. You would size and position the clip so it sets properly over the page. Then you would disable or remove the page track and export the project (or, do the equivalent with Photoshop if you are working with still images). Now when you bring in the overlay clip, it will have the same center of rotation as the page clip and will sync up.

I'm not advocating that you do it this way, it's much more complex given the extra tracks that will be needed to be transformed and the accuracy that you will need to size and position the photo/video clips. I'm just pointing out, there is more than one way to do it. For most uses, the combining method will probably be the easiest to do and to understand. Now if the 3D transform had a way to specify the axis of rotation, you wouldn't need to create a separate overlay clip and the second method might have some advantages in some cases.

[Chuck Engels]

Thanks for the detailed explanation Bob, that helps a lot

[momoffduty]

When making the 'overlay' sheet, would you have to choose millions+ of colors to keep the transparency when you export to a DV=AVI? Or..is the overlay sheet the full screen size like the page and they are both then scaled the same when put together? Then their dimensions and axis of rotation would be equal? (Overlay is video on page and those dimensions equal the original page size?)

Seems that using photoshop for stills on the page would be easier, but if you are placing video on the page you would have to create the DV-AVI.

[Bob]

Thanks Cheryl, I forgot to mention that. You are correct, to preserve the alpha channel for the overlay sheet you need to choose millions+ of colors -- the "+" denotes the alpha channel. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure dv-avi will let you select that. You'll need to use an avi format and codec that does. I'd make the overlay sheet the exact size as the page image. That way you know the dimensions of the frame and axis of rotation are equal. It also makes it easier to place the video and scale it to size. And, you are correct, working with stills, the overlay sheet can be made entirely in Photoshop. You only need the video overlay sheet if you are placing video on the page. In Photoshop, you need to have only layers, not a background, and save in a format that supports transparency -- I use PSD. Transparent areas will be treated as alphas when you bring them into Premiere Elements.

I should probably put a link to Chris B's description of his combined technique: http://www.chuckengels.com/articles/pageturn.html. Chris used dv-avi and used a color matte that matched the background.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Using Chris' guidance notes and one or two freebies from muvipix, here is a sample of my page turn using the technique of merging the page and picture so that there is only one page turn movement.

[wmvvideo]http://muvipix.com/cpg/albums/userpics/10012/Page_Turn_Sample.wmv[/wmvvideo]

[Kerrie]

Hey John, that was great! Yours page turns so nice and smooth. I am using this effect in my Christmas video. Can I ask you a question..... My page seems to turn slower, did you change anything to "speed up" the page turn? I put "my pages" together in PrE3 exported as a D-AVi and then brought the D-AVI into my project and applied the crop effect and 3D effect. Thanks for sharing! Kerrie

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Hello Kerrie. To change the page turn speed just vary the time interval between the swivel keyframes. HTH.

[Chuck Engels]

Very nice John, I am sure you have made Chris proud