Moho Forum

Let me preface this by saying that I'm more of a "producer" than I am an "animator" or "artist." The only reason I do any animation work myself is because I don't have the budget to hire a real animator/artist to provide his/her skill. So, please cut me some slack if what I'm about to ask is really easy for most of you.

I'm animating a video using ASP 5.5 (I know...I need to upgrade to a newer version). This video will play back through a multi-screen system using two Mac Mini's that will sample 6 different sections of the video and send those samples to individual, vertically mounted plasma screens. I need to create a grid overlay that I can use as the top layer in ASP to help me keep characters within exact coordinate boundaries so they play back on the appropriate final plasma screen. I know the coordinates I need, but I don't know how to create an overlay to match those coordinates. ASP doesn't seem to have any way to view exact X and Y coordinates within the video frame. And, I don't know how to accomplish this in Photoshop. Can anyone help? Either explain to me how to create it in Photoshop (step by step)....or maybe someone would be so kind as to create an overlay for me?

Here's a link to a document outlining the exact coordinates I need:

http://db.tt/nYbv64Lt

In other words, You need a grid that You could lay on top of your scene so You can animate parts of the animation so it fits the needed coordinates?

Several ways to do this, You could create a vector layer and draw the lines that defines the grid, put the layer at the top of the layer window so it is on top of everything all the time, then, in the layer property tell it not to render.

You could also draw the grid in Photoshop at the right resoultion then export as a 24 bits PNG with transparency that You could then import as an image in AS and again tell it not to render.

I don't have 5.6 installed, so I cannot make You a file, but I made one in Photoshop based on your PDF.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3vz88m1t6emtng7

Hey, what happened to sbtamu post, his solution looked better then mine!

I made a math error, I am uploading the correct one now

Using 1920x1600 and a grid of 20 you can use these numbers to get what you want.

Thank you GCharb and sbtamu. You both offered very helpful solutions.

GCharb, while your PNG shows up after I import it, for some reason only some of the lines show up on the screen until I zoom way in where the rest of them show up. It's like the lines just need to be a few pixels thicker to show up. I'd love to learn how to do this in Photoshop if you could explain it to me. I know how to create the correct image size, and I am able to create a rectangle with the correct dimensions (W X D). But, I could not figure out how to place the rectangles in the exact coordinates where they need to be located. Can you explain to me how that is done?

sbtamu, your coordinates worked perfectly. Your math seems correct. Because of your screengrab I was able to reproduce this easily in ASP. I'm excited to see how the coordinates will match up on the plasma screens.

I'll keep you both updated. Thank you both again for your kind help.

Problem with 1 px thick lines in a bitmap is that no program can show all of them in full view, only in 1:1 view. This is quite simple to understand: if your screen is 2000 px wide, but your bitmap is 3000 or 4000 px wide, you just don't have enough screen pixels to show each line.

You can work with this anyway, by first placing your rectangles approximately in full view, then zoom in and adjust each corner individually.

But sbtamu's solution is good enough, a pixel more or less in on of the individual panels will not hurt in the end. Also if you create this grid in AS the vector lines will be visible, regardless of zoom level.

I used two pixels lines, hoping that would be enough, evidently it was not.

As far as doint it in Photoshop, easy enough, just turn on the ruler, drag in markers, then, using the pen tool set to more the 2 pixels , just drag along a marker while holding the shift key.

sbtamu, it's late and I can't wrap my brain around your math. Can you give me new coordinates? (Maybe you can explain the math, too?) I need to move the outer two screens up 63 pixels from my original coordinate document as follows. Thank you very much for your help.

LEFT SIDE OF VIDEO (Mac Mini 1 Output)
Screen 1 Width = 480
Height = 800
X = 0
Y = 261

RIGHT SIDE OF VIDEO (Mac Mini 2 Output)
Screen 1 Width = 480
Height = 800
X = 1440
Y = 261

It seems my math was off just a tad. Just use %s when calculating the (x,y.)

261/1600= 0.163125 this mean you need to go up 16.3125% from the bottom left corner in AS. But, AS goes from -1 to 0 to 1 so you need to use some logic and ask, how can I get 16.3125% from a grid like this.

The answer is to double the % because 16% of a whole is the same as 32% of its half.

-1 + 0.32625 = -0.67375 which is your bottom ys for 261 pixels. It is not exact but It is close.

Thank you again, sbtamu. Your math makes perfect sense. Since we're working in an X, Y coordinate setup, it makes sense to do things with percentages. It may not be exact, but carrying out to the 4th decimal (one ten thousandth), makes it close enough for me. I'm glad I asked you, because I would never have figured it out on my own. You must have some sort of math background. Thanks for sharing your skills here. Now that I understand the process I can make adjustments myself if I need to move things around.

I'll test this one out and let you know how it goes.

kenmead wrote:Thank you again, sbtamu. Your math makes perfect sense. Since we're working in an X, Y coordinate setup, it makes sense to do things with percentages. It may not be exact, but carrying out to the 4th decimal (one ten thousandth), makes it close enough for me. I'm glad I asked you, because I would never have figured it out on my own. You must have some sort of math background. Thanks for sharing your skills here. Now that I understand the process I can make adjustments myself if I need to move things around.

I'll test this one out and let you know how it goes.

Yes I have ''some sort of math background.'' I have a MS in Industrial Engineering(have worked on getting a Ph.D. but never finished.) Now, If only all this edumacation could somehow help me make a good animation one of these days...