Wipe Visual Effect Speed
I have been attempting to get consistent speed with the visual WIPE effect
across different computers and platforms. For some reason, whenever I increase
the width of the Revolution window, the execution time of the effect speeds up
and varies dramatically.
I began by testing effects in a newly created stack. The window width was set
to the Revolution default width of 256 (with two cards and a token graphic box
on one of the cards). At a window width of 256, the wipe effect was very
consistent across computers and platforms. However, when I increased the
window width to 640, the effect completed in 1/2 to 1/8 the expected time.
For example, on a 256-width window, a wipe left card transition set to 1000
milliseconds executes in about 1020 milliseconds across different computers
and platforms--consistent and artistically acceptable. But when the window is
expanded to 640, the completion time speeds up to between 440 milliseconds and
129 milliseconds.
At these speeds, the effect is very abrupt, and at 129 milliseconds, it's
barely distinguishable as a wipe effect.
Here's a specific example: On a 366 MHz Windows computer with a 256-width
Revolution window, the completion time for a wipe left set to an effectRate of
1000 milliseconds is 1023 milliseconds. On the same computer, when the window
width is increased to 640, the effect completion time is 129 milliseconds.
I tested a total of ten Revolution visual effects on computers of different
speeds, and all effects had consistent completion times when comparing the 256
and 640 window widths--with the exception of the wipe effect.
If one gradually increases the width of a window from 256, a wipe effect set
to 1000 continues to complete in about 1 second--until the window width
reaches 390, and then the completion time starts increasing rapidly.
As I said, I found cross-platform consistency when timing all the other
effects. But the wipe effect is the most elegant and unobtrusive for
next/previous cards that contain a common background (the other effects aren't
practical for this; it's quite unsettling to see the main background and
navigation bar pushed off the screen or shrunk on every card transition). It
seems to me that for multimedia users, a 640-width window with 1-second wipes
would be common, and the desire for consistency would be great here.
Here's the recipe:
Create a new stack with two cards. On one card place a token graphic box that
spans the width of the card so that the visual effects are observable. In the
first test, set the window width to 256; in the second test, to 640. (Using
the wipe effect either for card transitions or for show/hide effects within
the visible card yields the same result.)
on mouseUp
get the milliseconds
set the effectRate to 1000
lock screen
go next card
unlock screen with visual effect wipe left very slow
put "Time required:" && the milliseconds-it && "milliseconds"
end mouseUp
Ted
