Note that you can achieve the exact same result by creating lots of keyframes (animating the SIZE property).

In a sense, this effect is for lazy designers ;^)

michiel, 13 years ago

Ahhh, you have judged your followers well, Master. Keep those lazy man FX's coming!!!!! :>)

jmarkt, 13 years ago

Thank you Michiel. It's a real time saver.

asterix, 13 years ago

Michiel, fantastic effect! thanks a lot.

vincent, 13 years ago

Great service by Outerspace Software !!! Thanks to Michiel.

kayserhans, 13 years ago

Thanks :)

seeing that end I thought ...
would be possible to effect a butterfly flapping its wings?

Carlos Marques, 13 years ago

This version only animates the SIZE. Of course you can apply a heartbeat to any other property. Maybe when applied to the ROTATION property you can make a butterfly flapping its wings!

I'm thinking about making a new version of this effect that also heartbeats the POSITION, ROTATION and maybe some other props.

Or even making it a feature of the executable where you can apply a heartbeat to any property you like!

michiel, 13 years ago

Hello michiel,
I think that making it a feature of the executable where you can apply the "heartbeat" to any property would be great cause for example you could create a "fake" pulsating effect by setting it on the transparency property..

let me know what do you think and if I've got it right ;) thanks.

Virtual DarKness, 13 years ago

Next to the TRANSPARENCY, which other properties would you like to apply a heartbeat effect to?

michiel, 13 years ago

Hello,
I don't know if it would be a problem to have it also on properties that are handled that more sliders like the colour and so on..

but I meant it as the ability to perform a continue (loop) animation from value A to value B and backward..

so for example you could have it also for position, size, rotation, shearing, texture position and bounds (applying it to bounds you can simulate a compression spring)

Well, actually for this purpose it would be nice to have some kind of "sub animation / loop" feature to apply to each property. For example you could enter in "sub-anim" mode and then you have keyframes and animation type (constant speed, no animation, .. ) for that specific parameter and you could for example set the lenght of the "loop" manually or with pre-sets (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 of total animation length)..

but maybe it becomes too complex in this way..

thanks.

Virtual DarKness, 13 years ago

Handling properties with 3 sliders is no problem (it's a vector)

Complexity is not a technical but a GUI issue. We want the executable to stay clean and simple. Effect files (FXs) have turned out to be a wonderful mechanism for adding functionality without "polluting" the executable. For this reason we prefer to implement this heartbeat effect as an effect file.

FXs can add up to 8 new properties (again not a technical limitation, but used to prevent FXs from getting too complex to use) so we have to decide which properties we would like to give a heartbeat.

2 remarks:

As I said in an earlier comment, you can achieve the exact same result by creating lots of keyframes. This effect is for lazy designers.

BluffTitler uses standard DirectX HLSL FX files. All you need to adjust an effect or create a new one from scratch is a text editor.

outerspace-software.com...

michiel, 13 years ago

Hi Michiel!

Possible the reflection heartbeat.fx?

Thank you!

LostBoyz, 12 years ago

About michiel

Michiel den Outer is the founder and lead coder of Outerspace Software. He lives in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

If he isn't busy improving BluffTitler, he is playing the piano or rides the Dutch dikes on his bikes.

808 articles 4.0M views

Contact michiel by using the comment form on this page or at info@outerspace-software.com

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