Friday 6 May 2011

Using ShaderTFX on Windows 7

Many people have been disappointed on the deprication of Windows Movie Maker v6.x on Windows 7. Microsoft seems to have taken a back step with Windows Live Movie Maker.

However the good news is that the Vista version of Windows Movie Maker v6.x would work fine on Windows 7 if ported correctly froma vista machine. Please use the instrcutions put together by Blaine here:
http://movies.blainesville.com/2010/05/installing-windows-movie-maker-60-on.html

If you have installed WMM from any other site I would suggest uninstall and re-install from the above link. This is especially important if you are using 64 bit flavour of Windows 7.

Afterwards reinstall ShaderTFX.

Tuesday 9 October 2007

Add drama to Pan Zoom with Rotation

For making a slideshow of still pictures there is nothing like Pan and Zoom effects. Since I made the Pan Zoom effects for Movie Maker (for XP) in 2004, it has remainied a popular download. Even now I get many people preferring my set of pan and zoom rather than using Photostory since perhaps editing in Movie Maker is much easier and more natural than a wizard driven interface of PhotoStory even though there is more easier control over source and destination rectangles.

Vista comes with a few of panning and zooming effects built in. However the feedback I have been receiving from users was they would prefer to use my effects in Vista. For that reason I have made available an equivalent set of pan zoom effects for Vista.

I recently saw a video where the photos were being given a slight rotation in addition to simple pan and zoom. This came across as adding an element of drama to the whole show. The effect is really effective if combined with the right sound tracks. Furthermore having a bit of rotation means your slideshow would look more different from all the pan zoom slideshows which are now everywhere.


The following download contains a set of six rotation effects that can be combined with the Pan Zoom effects to make your slideshows more dramatic and unique.


DOWNLOAD: RehanFX Rotate Effects (Freeware).

Sunday 9 September 2007

Split Transitions for Movie Maker v6

These transitions are free addon if you have ShaderTFX.

One of the most popular transitions I hacked for XP were the Split Video Transitions. It is a pity that despite its advanced and powerful architecture Vista does not provide a simple mechanism to make these transitions. Well! actually there is a general inability to customize transitions in Vista Movie Maker.

However with ShaderTFX all those old tricks become possible again in Vista... And much more!!!

Below I have provided a set of split transitions made using the external texture capabilities of ShaderTFX. Basically you draw a black and white mask image for splitting image A (black area) and image B (white area). The shape can be arbitrary. Once the image is ready you need to specify it in the XML file like this:

...
<Transition name="RehanFX Split Center AB" iconid="0" guid="RehanFX Split cAB" ShaderModel="2">
<Param name="ShaderFilename" value="rehanfx_split.fx"/>
<Param name="Technique" value="SplitSimpleTransition"/>
<Param name="TextureFile" value="%ProgramFiles%\Movie Maker\Shared\AddOnTFX\Split\cab.png" />
</Transition>
...



Download this free addon for SahderTFX: rehanfx_split.exe
Also see this post on WMM Forums:
http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=137900