Border placement for videos

[kingb33]

How do you control the placement of a border for a video in a theme? I see the border image file in the video folder....but i cant find where you control the X, Y placement of that border..

i only see this for the video......

<Theme>
<video w="420" h="315" forceaspect="horizontal" below="yes" x="645" y="445" r="0" time="2" bcolor="0x000000" bsize="0" type="fade" start="none" />

[brian_hoffman]

The boarder always follows the video. eg... you dont need to put that in

:)

[BadBoyBill]

Draw a square in photoshop the size of your video then draw a picture around that square, save the file and it will follow the video. If your picture is an unusual shape then the picture must be centered on the canvas you make in photoshop. You can see this in alot of the example images that we provided in the download.

[kingb33]

this is for "system" themes....not game themes. does the same apply?

thc

[BadBoyBill]

yep

[kingb33]

sry Bill..... :(

can u give me an example of that came w/ the HS download that does what you are saying please?

i looked, but i kinda dont get what u mean. if i see an example im sure ill get it.

thx!

[BadBoyBill]

The game boy advance overlay is an example of a non square shaped. You can see that in the png file that the area where the video goes is centered in the whole file.

[kingb33]

The game boy advance overlay is an example of a non square shaped. You can see that in the png file that the area where the video goes is centered in the whole file.

hmm i cannot get this to wrk correctly....i created a simple .png border 320 x 240....
that is in the same folder with my video that is 320 x 240.

but when i load HS the video is off to the right of the .png border i just created....its not sitting right inside it.....am i missing something? I don't have to mess with the x and y coordinates in the .xml theme file to get it to sit right inside the border i just made? and if so, how would i know what those x and y coordinates would even be?


Here are the settings in my .xml file

<Theme>
<video w="320" h="240" forceaspect="horizontal" below="yes" x="245" y="445" r="0" time="2" bcolor="0x000000" bsize="0" type="fade" start="none" />
<artwork1 x="512" y="150" r="0" time="1.5" type="grow" start="none" />
<artwork2 x="300" y="500" r="360" time="1.5" type="none" start="left" />
</Theme>

i have a transparent 320 x 240 png border file in my videos folder and a .flv video file 320 x 240 in my videos folder

So am i totally was off base here? why is the video sitting off to the right of the border i created?

[kingb33]

pls help :)

Is it because I'm adding videos manually to the Dreamcast and Sega Genesis System themes? Those 2 systems didn't include system videos in the HS download XML file....

[billpa]

Its hard to say without some visuals. Can you post a screenshot of the problem and could you upload the png overlay?

[kingb33]

Here is a screenie..u can see how the video is off centered from the overlay....its kinda hard to see behind the Dreamcast logo...all im trying to do is add a video to the Dreamcast system theme.....the HS download didn't have one by default

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17703893@N06/2772858278/

and i attached the video .png file too


thx

[billpa]

Okay...right off the bat I can tell you that it seems that the anchor point is off but I dont know how that is possible. What I mean by that is, all coordinates should be from the center of an object. Looking at the weird problem you have with the overlay, it looks like the overlay is at the right position (coordinates in your xml are the exact center of the overlay) but the video is acting like its coordinates are in relation to the top left hand corner. Unfortunately I cant run HS tonight to check this out. Maybe there is something up with the settings for the video placement. Everything should be from center. This is not the case with your screenshot.

[kingb33]

Okay...right off the bat I can tell you that it seems that the anchor point is off but I dont know how that is possible. What I mean by that is, all coordinates should be from the center of an object. Looking at the weird problem you have with the overlay, it looks like the overlay is at the right position (coordinates in your xml are the exact center of the overlay) but the video is acting like its coordinates are in relation to the top left hand corner. Unfortunately I cant run HS tonight to check this out. Maybe there is something up with the settings for the video placement. Everything should be from center. This is not the case with your screenshot.

Maybe its just because i cut and pasted the video placement settings for an existing video theme that had video placement settings? Maybe? Like i said Dreamcast didn't have one by default in the download so i just used the settings form another theme and just cut and pasted them in the Dreamcast xml file. I'm having the same exact problem with the adding video to the Sega Genesis theme.

[billpa]

try removing forceaspect="horizontal"

[kingb33]

try removing forceaspect="horizontal"

tried it, nothing...still the same :(

[billpa]

I wonder if it has to do with the ini setting for Dreamcast...in particular, the video settings


[video defaults]

width = 400

height = 400

x = 300

y = 400

rotation = 0

animation_time = .5

animation_type = none

animation_start = none

border_color = 0x000000

border_size = 12

forceaspect = horizontal

belowwheel = false

Not sure...I am sure someone will chime in soon. If not, I can try some stuff out tomorrow when I am at work (hehe)

[Ego-X]

What I mean by that is, all coordinates should be from the center of an object.

That seems a very unintuitive way of handling anchors, I mean every other program that deals with layouts that I have used before uses top, left. The reason it's odd is that it requires that you calculate what half the size of the video/image is before placing.

Was this by design or default I wonder?

[BadBoyBill]

The main reason for centered registration points is for working with rotating images. Its easier to rotate an image in relation to its center point rather than its corner point. This is much easier to grasp than trying to move an image to a point and guessing what the rotated result will be.

So say you have a square (assuming that the registration point is the top left). You move it to 100, 100 then rotate it 20 degrees. The result will be a little hard to picture. Now the top left of the picture really isnt the top left any more. Its now actually a point in space that has no part of the visbile picture. Now what if you want to animate that image according to that registration point, then the image would rotate in a huge circle around it.

Now say you have a circle thats a png image where the registration is the top left, well for one the registration point again isnt on the image so your pretty much guessing where its at in relation to what your seeing physcially. You move it to 200, 300, rotate it 20 degrees, your top left registration is going to cause figuring out how to animate that image a nightmare compared to knowing its the center of the image.

Even worse say you want to animate an image on a path and having it spinning at the same time, whats easier to picture... a spinning image with a top left registration or a center registration. Ive been animating with flash for along time and I can tell you that using center registrations is 100 times easier than top left.

[BadBoyBill]

Also here are a couple examples to show the difference.

Example1 (http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/examples/ex1/RegExample.html)

Example2 (http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/examples/ex2/RegExample2.html)

[billpa]

yea I always thought the opposite. Why is every other FE using top left?! I suppose because they are static graphics. When dealing with animation, center anchor point is so much easier. Not sure what you mean by calculating half of the image. Everything is relative to the entire screen.

[Ego-X]

Also here are a couple examples to show the difference.

Example1 (http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/examples/ex1/RegExample.html)

Example2 (http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/examples/ex2/RegExample2.html)

Arhh that makes sense now, having not worked on animation I was thinking in terms of static elements so I just wasn't getting it.