UI: Animated Transitions & Transparencies

[Brent]

Is there any way to do "animated transitions" and/or "animated transparencies" in SageTV kind of similar to the way VistaMC does thier UI?

If not how difficult would it for SageTV to add these as an option to a future version?

[MeInMaui]

Hi Brent,

Could you explain this a little bit more?

Aloha,
Mike

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Brent

Is there any way to do "animated transitions" and/or "animated transparencies" in SageTV kind of similar to the way VistaMC does thier UI?

If not how difficult would it for SageTV to add these as an option to a future version?

Sorry, I did leave that sort of vague didn't I. I was listening to the latest EndadgetHD podcast today by Ben Drawbaugh, (a fairly recent VistaMC user by the way) and he was discussing the importance of UI to the end user of an HTPC, DVR etc. In describing why the Vista UI was better than most (if not all) of the competition he said that "you must have animated transitions and transparencies to have a decent looking UI"

I think by animated transitions (correct me if I'm wrong former/current VMC users) that would be the feedback you get on the UI when you click a menu item (the menu item focuses or enlarges some). I think that's right at least.

For the animated transparencies, I think that would be backgrounds that are slightly animated (move ever so slightly).

I'm just curious as to whether its even possible and if not how difficult would it be for Sage to add?

By the way, EngadgetHD mentioned SageTV, the HD-PVR and even my GeekTonic blog in the podcast. The podcast is always entertaining and has lots of HD-centric stuff with the occasional HTPC/PVR topic thrown in.

[MeInMaui]

Ah, Ok. That's kind of what I thought.

This might be a bit too much detail, but there are basically 2 ways to do animations in SageTV. There are built-in core animations that are predefined. These are relatively easy to implement and are nice and smooth. But since there is a finite set of animations available, there is somewhat limited flexibility in what can be done. The second method is to incrementally make changes to a UI object's display properties (position, size, transparency, etc.) and update the display after each change. This was the way animations were initially done.

Using combinations of these methods, a number of effects can be achieved. As you know from SageMC, menu transition animations can be done, though more complex animations become much more difficult. The background can also be animated. An example of this can be seen in the CES 2006 demo STV that Narflex posted in the downloads section. I haven't played with this at all, but I imagine with some creativity a number of interesting effects could be achieved.

Aloha,
Mike

[Brent]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

The background can also be animated. An example of this can be seen in the CES 2006 demo STV that Narflex posted in the downloads section. I haven't played with this at all, but I imagine with some creativity a number of interesting effects could be achieved.

Hmm, I never saw that one (but I wasn't using SageTV back then either) You mean this STV?

What ever came of it? It must not have been all that popular or caused problems or something I'm guessing?

[MeInMaui]

Yup, that's the one.

I don't really know anything more about it, or why the background animation never went anywhere from there.

Aloha,
Mike

Edit: One thing that might be worth checking is to see if the animated background brings the HD100 to it's knees.

[mayamaniac]

Brent, I asked this same question when Studio debut. And from what I remember, the answer was yes, it is possible to pull off the same effects seen in VMC with SageTV. I thought about learning Studio and trying some effects out, but never had time to explore further.

[Brent]

It seem like it would make sense for SageTV to include a theme with these features as an option in the defualt STV. Try to offer up as much pizazz as possible for those that want it. Nice for the first impressions imho

[Brent]

I've come across some nice animated (slow changing) backgrounds (png format) for use in SageTV. I have it working very nicely with the SageMC on all clients including the HD Extenders.

But, I need help from someone on how to use it with the default STV. I've tried replacing the background.jpg file in the SageTV/SageTV directory and also replacing the background.jpg file in the SageTV/SageTV/STVs/SageTV3/Themes directory and neither of those work with the Standard STV. Any ideas?

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by Brent

I've come across some nice animated (slow changing) backgrounds (png format) for use in SageTV. I have it working very nicely with the SageMC on all clients including the HD Extenders.

But, I need help from someone on how to use it with the default STV. I've tried replacing the background.jpg file in the SageTV/SageTV directory and also replacing the background.jpg file in the SageTV/SageTV/STVs/SageTV3/Themes directory and neither of those work with the Standard STV. Any ideas?

Could you explain this a bit more? How did you get the background to animate in SageMC?

Aloha,
Mike

[Brent]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Could you explain this a bit more? How did you get the background to animate in SageMC?

OK. Download this file (it's simply an animated png image file), then in SageMCOptions>Main>Global UI Options>Display>Background Image>
Browse to that file you just downloaded and select it.

You might have to exit SageTV (or client) and restart SageTV to see the animated background.

I found a treasure trove of these animated backgrounds that would make for some really cool HTPC backgrounds...

[GKusnick]

If the STV is looking for a file named Background.jpg, then it's not going to find one called Background.png, if that's what you're asking. If you actually renamed the .png file to have a .jpg extension, I'm guessing that's not going to work either, since you're now lying about what file format it is.

If you want to use a .png file as the background in the stock STV, you'll most likely have to make an STVI that changes the code to look for a .png file instead of a .jpg file. (Whether that will make the animation work automagically, I have no idea.)

[Brent]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

If the STV is looking for a file named Background.jpg, then it's not going to find one called Background.png, if that's what you're asking. If you actually renamed the .png file to have a .jpg extension, I'm guessing that's not going to work either, since you're now lying about what file format it is.

If you want to use a .png file as the background in the stock STV, you'll most likely have to make an STVI that changes the code to look for a .png file instead of a .jpg file. (Whether that will make the animation work automagically, I have no idea.)

Dang it, it was so simple I totally missed it. I just renamed the .png file to .jpg and it works in the default STV too.

I'll work on a post on how to do this for default & SageMC (even though the answers are here already) and I'll share with everyone some nice animated backgrounds they can use for themselves or to add to their themes they're working on

[Brent]

Be sure and enable 3D for this to work.

By the way, I'm guessing the performance of animated backgrounds on extenders will be a bit dependent on the horsepower of the serverPC. Works just fine on mine, but I'm on a quad-core now so not sure how it will do on a lower-powered one.

[MeInMaui]

So I loaded up the image you linked to, but I am not seeing any animation on my HD100. Any other tricks involved?

[Brent]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

So I loaded up the image you linked to, but I am not seeing any animation on my HD100. Any other tricks involved?

Hmm.

• Be sure you have 3d enabled in settings
• On your HD100, you'll probably have to do the same thing you did on your SageTV server PC:

  SageMCOptions>Main>Global UI Options>Display>Background Image>
  Browse to that file you just downloaded and select it

[mayamaniac]

I opened the file you posted in Firefox, I don't see it animating.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I opened the file you posted in Firefox, I don't see it animating.

Thats strange. I click on that link and even in firefox see it animated.

If you download it and view it in "Windows Picture & Fax Viewer" do you see it animated then?

[Opus4]

Are you sure you aren't seeing an optical illusion that happens when you stare at the image for a while? I don't see anything actually changing when I load that page either, but the lighted lines begin to look like they are slowly changing after a while.

Sort of like this animated image:


In case it isn't clear: that image isn't really moving.

- Andy

[Brent]

Yep, I uploaded a static one - and yes my eyes were playing tricks on me (getting verrrry sleeeepy after looking at andy's image file above for too long . dang it. Just tried with an animated background and could see the obvious animation in the jpg, but not in SageTV.

I do have some animated backgrounds though - including the multiple transitions (looks like it require about 3 layers of images - at least that's how VMC does it) that would be needed to use them with animation in SageTV. But as mentioned above, I'd need someone to build the animation functionality into the STV... To bad it isn't easier than that.