All Windows/Other/Colours and Skins/Skin Animations (Ctrl 241)
From Bounce Metronome
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Controls Common to Many Windows
Screen Shot (More)
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This is what you get in the More version of this window (you use the More button to show it).
Skin Animations
Here you can configure how the animated skins work
Convert animation folders to AVI
This is for skins that show all the images in a folder - converts the images to an AVI file inside the folder (and with same name as folder, extension .avi) - you can then drag and drop the AVI file into Bounce Metronome to make a new skin...
The Images in a folder option uses the images in their original location
You can use all the images in a folder as a skin for either a slide show or animation - just drag and drop the folder into Skins (Ctrl + 162)
This uses the images in their original location. That seems the best way to do it for slide shows especially - so that the slide show will automatically include any new images you add to the folder. Also means there's no need to duplicate large folders with lots of images in them.
What this option does
This option converts all those images into a .avi file which you can then use as a new skin. This may be particularly useful if you have an animation consisting of single frames, e.g. the output from CausticsGenerator - and want to convert it into a .avi file for a new skin.
After you convert the folder to a .avi file, you can then drag and drop the new .avi file into Bounce Metronome to make a new skin in the usual way.
Start animated
When this is switched on, the skin animations start immediately when Bounce Metronome starts up...
ANIMATIONS USE A LOT OF COMPUTING TIME - and the animated skins also use a bit more CPU time (Computing time) than most animations - so if you want to use as little computer processing time as possible, switch it off.
The animated skin will probably slow down the bouncing balls.
However, so long as you have "Pause animated skins during bounce animations" switched on, this should cause no problems..
PAUSE animated skins now
Pauses the skin animation - keyboard shortcut CTRL + PERIOD (FULL STOP) and CTRL + COMMA to resume from the pause....
When paused it should use no more computer time than the other skins - so won't slow down the bouncing balls animations
Frames per second
Maximum number of frames per second for the animation - or for a folder of images - how quickly to show the images in the folder...
With a .avi animation, this has no effect on the speed of the animation and it will just skip frames if you set this low.
With the folder of images option however, there is no preset speed, so then this sets how fast to play the animation
Slide Show
This is especially useful for slide shows, but can also be useful for animations with less than 1 fps. TO MAKE A SLIDE SHOW SKIN - switch this option on and set the time you want each slide to show for. Then drag and DROP the folder of images into Skins (Ctrl + 162)...
This uses the images in their original location
When you drag and drop a folder into Skins (Ctrl + 162), this uses the images in their original location.
That seems the best way to do it for slide shows especially - so that the slide show will automatically include any new images you add to the folder. Also means there's no need to duplicate large folders with lots of images in them.
If you want to convert your slide show or animation into a .avi file, then go to More twice, and you'll find an option to convert the current skin animations into an avi file.
Move by fractional pixels
Smoother effect for skin moving slowly at a few pixels per second. You may want to SWITCH THIS OFF to reduce CPU...
When this is switched off, a slowly moving skin can only move one pixel at a time, even if it is moving at a very slow rate.
So for instance if it moves at one pixel per second it will remain in one position for an entire second then move by one pixel to its next position in a single jump.
Even with faster movement, you may notice this effect too. For instance, if it is moving nearly horizontally or nearly vertically, it may jump sometimes horizontally and sometimes vertically, instead of continuously in one direction. That's because it can only move a whole number of pixels at a time.
When this option is switched on, then Bounce Metronome interpolatese between the pixels to show movements by a fraction of a pixel. So for instance for a half pixel movement, each pixel is shown as the average of its own colour and the colour of the next pixel in the image in that direction.
The motion looks more continuous and smooth - but on the other hand this pixel interpolation takes more CPU so unless your computer is fast enough, you may get a lower frame rate or only some text fields and buttons drawn in each frame, as it doesn't have enough time to draw each frame in the time available.
If you want to see what is happening in detail, start up the Windows magnifier and look closely at the skin at a high magnification while the skin is moving. With this option switched off, then the texture doesn't change and moves in discrete jumps. With it switched on, the texture itself morphs gradually from one pixel position to the next.
Move by fractional pixels - DROP LIST
Choose degrees per second to move the skin left and then right in wave patterns, or Pixels to move it at a steady rate to the right...
To move the skin at a steady rate, in any direction, choose Pixels for the horizontal and vertical motion and set how many pixels you want to move it in each direction every second.
To move the skin to and fro in wave patterns, then choose degrees per second. This moves the skin following a sin wave.
So for instance if set to 10 degrees per second, then the skin will move to the right for 9 seconds, then back to the left, finally returning to its original position after 36 seconds.
You can also move the skin in Lissajous patterns. To do that set it to move vertically with one number of degrees per second and horizontally with another, e.g. 6 degrees per second horizontally and 7 degrees per second vertically.
The Lissajous patterns make for interesting movements of the skin, since the skin moves sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, and in different directions much like the movements you get in nature.
amplitude
How much to move the skin to right or to left...
This is the maximum distance it moves. Formula used is
position = amplitude * sin (angle)
where the angle is the angle reached - changing dependent on the degrees per second parameter.
Move skin vertically - DROP LIST
Choose degrees per second to move the skin up and down in wave patterns, or Pixels to move it at a steady rate upwards
amplitude
How much to move the skin up or down...
This is the maximum distance it moves. Formula used is
position = amplitude * sin (angle)
where the angle is the angle reached - changing dependent on the degrees per second parameter.
ANIMATION SPEED
How fast to play the animated skin
Play from
Set a start time for the skin animations - this can be useful as a way to skip title credits or black screens at start of animation, or to pick out a particular part of the animtion
To
Switch this on to set a stop time before the end of the skin animation if you want to leave out the end of it e.g. closing credits or to pick out a particular section of the animation
To
When to stop the animation loop - it will then loop around back to the Play from time
Fast Text Drawing for skin
Usually best left switched on - this speeds up text drawing by making the text into images which are then copied onto the texture again and again for each new frame...
Only reason probably for switching it off is to reduce the memory need. But modern computers have so much memory that the few MB needed for text images here will be insignificant. If your computer is new enough for Win 2K or XP then it should have plenty of memory.
Why does it make a difference?
Text drawing is very fast, but it's not quite as fast as copying a bitmap, in fact copying a bitmap to the screen may be 30 times faster than drawing text to the screen for the same area of screen.
When there's lots of text on the windows and many windows, then text drawing can slow down the animation.
So this option speeds up text drawing - at expense of a few extra MB of memory to store all the extra images for all the text areas.
TECHY details
This option converts all the text into images which are kept in memory - and then every time the texture changes, all those text images are then copied back onto the new texture.
This uses two extra image "blt"s to the screen from memory (one for the coloured text itself, and one for a text cut-out type "mask" to make sure the texture is kept unchanged). However, it is still faster than drawing the text to the screen, by quite a bit.
Use DIBS
This may speed up the animated skin and the bouncing balls animations by a few percent...
Uses Device Independent Bitmaps - advantages of these is that you can access the bits directly in memory easily - so speeds up the operations such as fade, and fractional pixel movement.
When switched off, uses DDB (device dependent bitmaps) and every time you fade it etc, then the bits have to be copied from the hbitmap into another area of memory to make it accessible, then you do the calculation, then copy it back again. This copy to and from different areas of memory slightly slows down the calculation. On the other hand the DDBs may be copied to the screen a bit faster.
But on the balance I found that using a DIB seems to speed it up just slightly, by a few percent per frame, according to results of profiling. Anyway you can try it yourself with this switched on or off and see which works best for you.
EXPERIMENTAL Fast Timer
This may give SMOOTHER ANIMATED SKINS especially when you RUN THIS SOFTWARE ON A FAST MACHINE - but for SLOWER COMPUTERS leave it SWITCHED OFF
When the frame rates are high, CPU usage may be high especially on slower machines. This can also happen for slower frame rates too.
You may find that some of the text in the windows for Bounce Metronome vanishes during skin animations if your computer isn't fast enough - or worst case, Bounce Metronome may stop responding.
Another thing that can happen - the flashing "caret" that shows your current editing position in a text field may slow down or stop flashing - and if it stops in it's "off" position it may seem to vanish. You can still type text into the field but with no visual indication of the editing position.
EMERGENCY STOP SHORTCUT
You can PAUSE the skin animation at any time by holding down CTRL + PERIOD (FULL STOP) simultaneously. You can resume it with CTRL + COMMA
This will work even if Bounce Metronome seems to stop responding, and you can do it even if you are working with another program at the time.
Make sure you know the Emergency Stop for the animated skins before you try this out in case Bounce Metronome stops responding.
Override check box painting
If unsure leave switched ON. This prevents flickering check box text for the new animated skins feature - or when adjusting the fade to background and other parameters
Override static text painting
If unsure leave switched ON. This prevents flickering statics text for the new animated skins feature - or when adjusting the fade to background and other parameters - static text is any text in the window used for labels etc - apart from buttons check boxes, radios and buttons
