Flash10 - Cubeface dancing on Mac solved.

[HansNyberg]

Hello all.
Denis has posted a new update which has finally solved the cube face dancing on Mac.
I have been testing it for a week now at panoramas.dk
Our English friend Gary "Stretch" Turner is now just doing his famous tricks without any extra face jiggling.
Before:
http://www.panoramas.dk/flash10/dancing-cubefaces.mov

Updated:
http://www.panoramas.dk/photokina/index.html

You find the update in the files section of the Google Group. version 2.3.1
http://groups.google.com/group/flashpanoramas

Hans

[Jochum]

Is it just me but I think my panoramas is panning more jerky - not as fluid - as before? Seems like the processor gets more to do. It hacks and stutter... maybe just mine? In fullframe it is almost unbearable to look.

Oops, sorry, forget what I just wrote, now my other panos do the same, apparantly it is something at my computer, maybe I have to restart it or something. Nothing to do with the update, sorry forget all.

[HansNyberg]

Is it just me but I think my panoramas is panning more jerky - not as fluid - as before? Seems like the processor gets more to do. It hacks and stutter... maybe just mine? In fullframe it is almost unbearable to look.

Oops, sorry, forget what I just wrote, now my other panos do the same, apparantly it is something at my computer, maybe I have to restart it or something. Nothing to do with the update, sorry forget all.

Hi Jochum

Safari is really bad at picking up memory when seeing many panoramas.
I restart it as soon as it starts getting jerky.

Also be aware that Flash 10 uses a motion setting of medium as default. If you want the same as the old 2.2 flash 9 version you have to introduce a new parameter qualityMotion2=low

Hans

[Jochum]

Hi Hans!
Firefox but I guess it is the same, already done the parameter, but "2" in it is a typo or is it something I missed?

Cheers!

(BTW I restarted everything even the computer and cleared cache and both my older version and the newest are still strutty, the newer is worser, but I guess this is something that happened with my computer since no one else have the same experience.)

(Now I did the Terminal sudo periodic thing that often makes everything fine again but still stuttering, but I guess I remember wrong that the older versions were more fluid on my computer, maybe they always were little stuttering but I dont remember it since I have looked at the dancing cubefaces so long. I only have a mac mini so maybe it is too much for it with fullframe. Clearly it is something with my setup so don't take up your time with my trouble)

[HansNyberg]

Hi Hans!
Firefox but I guess it is the same, already done the parameter, but "2" in it is a typo or is it something I missed?

Cheers!

(BTW I restarted everything even the computer and cleared cache and both my older version and the newest are still strutty, the newer is worser, but I guess this is something that happened with my computer since no one else have the same experience.)

No it is not a typo.
The 2,3 flash 10 pano.swf has got an additional parameter.
qualityMotion2 and qualityStatic2 which only works if you are using flash 10 to view the pano.
While the default (using no parameter) is low for the flash 9 qualityMotion setting it is medium for qualityMotion2.

The default medium setting will of course be nice for newer conmputers as you do not get as much of the "flimmering" effect in sharp details but it will also be a little jerky on older computers like my G5.

You can read about it in the release notes in the blog
http://flashpanoramas.com/blog/

Hans

[Jochum]

Oki thanks!!
I shall investigate "2" further to see if that solve my problem, thanks again!

[Jochum]

I'm not sure about anything more but I think it got better, do you mind take a look at my example and tell if it looks okej for you?
http://illustrata.com/pages/sodermanland/pages/kyrkor/lid/lid_a/lid_a.html

I use now:
segments=30

qualityStatic2=high
qualityMotion2=low


The segments because otherwise the benches get ugly.

[pmtv2000]

Works OK for me Firefox/Windows

[Jochum]

Great, good to know its okey on PC too, thanx!

[HansNyberg]

I'm not sure about anything more but I think it got better, do you mind take a look at my example and tell if it looks okej for you?
http://illustrata.com/pages/sodermanland/pages/kyrkor/lid/lid_a/lid_a.html
I use now:
segments=30
qualityStatic2=high
qualityMotion2=low
The segments because otherwise the benches get ugly.

Works fine Tested on G5 PPC 2.0 Flash 10

One thing. Segments setting is not relevant any more for flash 10 viewers.
You can change it to 5 and you will not see any difference.
But that would of course look quite weird for the viewers with Flash 9.

This is an important thing to know for new FPP users as most of them will have flash 10 and they will not be able to see what this important setting can do for the wavy lines in flash 9.
The default is 20 and that looks really bad. I use 27 but you can go much higher as long as you keep the qualityMotion to low.

For windows users it is easy. You have different plugins for Firefox and Explorer so you can just have flash 9 in the one you usually do not use for testing it.
On Mac you need to get the Flash 9 standalone viewer to see the effect.
There is no problem having both Flash 10 and 9 standalone installed.

There will be a lot of Flash 9 viewers for a long time yet. Currently it is fifty-fifty.

Hans

[Jochum]

Great, thanx again for everything!

[terrycm]

This is absolutely huge for us Mac users. Thank you again Denis and Hans for keeping FPP the Crème de la Crème.

-Terry

[Cameleer]

I just installed the new version 2.3.1 and I’m running Flash 10 on a fast newer computer. Now I’m seeing bad shimmering in the trees and other sharp places on my panos, just like before with the old version 2.2 and Flash 9.
I only have the 2.3.1 version on this Alwar tour that I’m working on, here’s the link:
http://indiavrtours.com/alwar/sagar_lake4.html

Roger Berry

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

As always; a pleasure to view your panos.

The shimmering: If you "sharpen" your images in PS or other photo editor, it will get much much worse than what it would otherwise be. So sharpening should be kept to a minimum in panos where the lighting conditions/scene might be a breeding ground for shimmer.

You mention the trees... it's the few pixels of sunlight on the leaves that are so much brighter than the surrounding pixels, and if sharpened, these will be isolated even more from the surrounding pixels... and therefore increase this effect.

Hope this "explanation" makes some sense.

[Cameleer]

Hi Tuddi,
This is very true, but with FFP version 2.3 and Flash 10 this problem went away and I started using sharp images again. Now with this new version I’m seeing the problem again.

Btw did you see my new friend? This was a very large wild Sambar buck deer, with very large antlers. I had to work my way past him when looking for a passage up to the top of an old fort wall.
http://www.indiavrtours.com/alwar/sambar_deer4.html

Roger Berry

[Trausti Hraunfjord]

Yes, I met him... and my hunter instincts were there instantly. I'm glad it was you, and not me doing the photoshoot :) What an amazing luck you had there.

Back to shimmering.

Is it only my imagination, or .... is it so that when the next pano is loading, the shimmering effect goes away, or is heavily reduced on the pano that is going to be replaced with the next one? It looks that way to me. If that is the case, then this effect should be possible to cure within pano.swf. Maybe it's just me getting tired eyes...

[aiwetir]

i too have noticed some of that shimmer coming back again, it's in the anti-aliasing. any comments denis ?

[HansNyberg]

I just installed the new version 2.3.1 and I’m running Flash 10 on a fast newer computer. Now I’m seeing bad shimmering in the trees and other sharp places on my panos, just like before with the old version 2.2 and Flash 9.
I only have the 2.3.1 version on this Alwar tour that I’m working on, here’s the link:
http://indiavrtours.com/alwar/sagar_lake4.html

Roger Berry

Sorry but this is old Flash 9 version 2,2
You can see it by taking file info. The 2.2 is just 16kb the newer Flash 10 are 20 kb.

Hans

[HansNyberg]

i too have noticed some of that shimmer coming back again, it's in the anti-aliasing. any comments denis ?

I can not see any difference with anti-aliasing.

Here is a link to a pano which has a lot of shimmering in Browser display.
Same pano 2 links. 1 with 2.3 and one with 2.3.1
http://www.panoramas.dk/US/grand-canyon-grandeur.html
http://www.panoramas.dk/US/grand-canyon-grandeur2.html

The only way you can see which is the 2.3.1 is if you look for the cubeface dancing.

They both use autorotating with quality=low and the default Flash 10 qualityMotion2=medium.
I did not include that setting as I wanted to see if Denis might have changed default back to low as in flash 9.
You can see that the framrate drops 20% when you pan with your mouse or the arrow keys. Thats because the qualityMotion changes to medium.

Hans

[Cameleer]

Sorry but this is old Flash 9 version 2,2
You can see it by taking file info. The 2.2 is just 16kb the newer Flash 10 are 20 kb.

Hans

Hi Hans,
Your right, my mistake. I was switching between the two versions 2.3 and 2.3.1 checking out the difference and somehow got the old version 2.2 in there. I had even checked the file size 17.6 kb and sure thought I had the right one in there.

I reinstalled the new one and all looks fine now.

Thanks,
Roger Berry


Thanks,
Roger Berry