Graphics

Hello, let me start off saying I am very new to Xpressions... The problem we are having is our .mov files play before they are taken on air. I added a pause to the timeline, and when in sequencer it shows "paused" but it clearly has played before being taken via the switcher. I should also state we do not advance/take CGs via the Carbonite but manually advance them in Xpressions. Is that our issue? Do we need blanks in between each item in sequence? I've also noticed that when I scrub the timeline the .mov doesn't playout (but I think that's how it supposed to be??).

The first thing you really should do is run the MOV file through the XPression Video Coder to convert them to an XPression Codec AVI file. These will play much better in XPression than an MOV file.

In order to achieve the behavior you want; you need to drag the Video Material onto a track on the scene director.

In the video material, do NOT enable the Autostart or Freerunning checkboxes (leave them unchecked). By dragging the video material onto the scene director, the video will now pause when the scene director pauses, and it will also move as you scrub the scene director.

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I was able to try this, but still have no success in pausing the playout of motion before taking a cg live. We cannot even see the animation when in scene director. I will have a go again tomorrow, but am frustrated that we cannot do such a simple thing.

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Take a look at this example:

http://ross.brickftp.com/f/94be66ace

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Sorry Brian, I don't have any software/application to open the .xpp file. I am very thankful for all the assistance you are giving me. I know I should not be so frustrated at this.

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.XPP is a project package that can be loaded by XPression.

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We seem to be having a lot of difficulties with this still. Do you think you could give us a step by step of how to get that file to work please?

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To open the xpp, just go to File->Open in xpression and find the xpp I sent. Then it will prompt you for where you want to extract it to. It will unpack it to a project containing a video clip and a .xpf project file.

Or, instead, just try watching this video I made to demonstrate the solution to your question.

http://ross.brickftp.com/f/e14bb6c72

Ross has some excellent trainers as well; you might want to consider some formal training to help you get the most out of XPression.

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thankyou, that video answers a question I had. And I already did 2 days of training! There are potentially a lot of fiddly steps when using the animation timeline. (certainly not in that example)

Mind you I was stuck on the idea that a moving background had to go on a background object, it wouldn't have occurred to me to put it on a quad.

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The big difference between a background and a quad object is a background will always be rendered in the back regardless of it's Z position. A quad object will move infront/behind other objects based on it's Z transform value. If using a Quad for a fullscreen background, it may be wise to move it to Z=-1 or make sure all other objects are at Z > 0 to ensure the rendering order will always be what you expect.

If you wanted the video to be invisible on the first frame, you could always add a keyframe to it with Alpha=0 on the first keyframe and then fade the alpha up when the pause is resumed..

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So I could still put it on the background, that doesn't affect how it works otherwise?

Okay that was going to be another thing I was going to need to know, how to make it invisible on the first frame. Thanks!

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