Rehan Pan Zoom Effects is a custom
effects package for Movie Maker 2. It allows you to apply Ken Burns style Pan
and Zoom effects to your still photos and movie clips.
Most people use these to create stunning slideshows of the still
photos.
Major Highlights of the package:
Flexible xml interface: Fully customizable to specify any start and end
pan-zoom rectangles.
Upholding the Movie Maker's working model, this package allows full control
over modifying different parameters via the xml file. You can make any number of
effects, specifying start and end positions of the panning and zooming actions.
A Pan Zoom action is defined by
specifying two rectangles within the frame area. A rectangle is completely
specified with three parameters X, Y and Size where (X,Y)
is the top-left position of the rectangle relative to top left corner of the
current image frame, and Size is the width or height as a percentage of frame's
width or height.
where each of the parameter can take following range of values:
Param
Range
Default
Meaning
X1
0.0 to 1.0
0.0
left position of rectangle1 (start)
Y1
0.0 to 1.0
0.0
top position of rectangle1 (start)
Size1
0.0 to 1.0-max(x1,y1)
1.0
hor & vertical size of start rectangle
X2
0.0 to 1.0
0.0
end x position
Y2
0.0 to 1.0
0.0
end y position
Size2
0.0 to 1.0-max(x2,y2)
1.0
hor & vertical size of end rectangle
The values are relative to the frame size, so X1 = 0.5, specifies the middle of the frame in horizontal direction and Size1 = 1.0 means the full width or height. Size specifies both horizontal and vertical sizes as the aspect ratio is preserved.
Note: X, Y and Size values should be chosen so that they do not define a rectangle that goes outside the image dimensions, since it would result in wrap around effect.
Pan Portrait Down is a special pan action made specifically for those odd
photos which one happens to take in portrait layout. Since the normal frame size
to work in Movie maker is 4:3 landscape, these images would always show black
borders on the sides. This action zooms exactly to fit the image width and then
pans down, thus utilizing maximum usable portion of the image.
Alphabet grid icon :
Due to the customizable nature of this package, it can be used to produce any
number of arbitrary pans and zooms, thus requiring infinite number of
corresponding icons. To simplify this, this package features a single icon with
an alphabet grid, so that one can easily specify start and end regions using the
alphabets.
This working practice works out really well once got used to.
Obviously one can still make more traditional icons for specific actions.
This can be done using the standard method as specified by Microsoft. For
example the default package contains a different icon for a special pan action
Pan Portrait Down.
Bilinear Filtering:
As soon one zooms into a picture, it starts to show pixilation. The output
quality of zoomed pans reduces as the jaggies present their unsightly dance over
the edges. This problem is made worse by the limitation of the interface
provided by Movie Maker: it resizes each frame before sending it for processing
to the internal engine or a plug-in. If the frame needs to be resized further
for an effect, it looses quality twice.
This package overcomes the limitation significantly by using a modified form
of bilinear filtering optimized for use with Movie Maker framework. This results
in smooth zooms and pans and provides a pleasing viewing experience.
