Explain why some lines do not draw, but just appear.

In general terms, I'm having a hard time understanding how Videoscribe interprets images for drawing.  I'm working my way through a number of posts and tutorials that explain it, but I'm still not quite getting it. 

Here is a specific example of something that just does not seem to work as expected.  This is with an image that is included with Videoscribe. It can be found in the base library under 'Business Icons'.  I've attached a rendered test video.

I set this for a very long 30 second draw in order to see how its drawn. I also exported the file to SVG and opened it in Illustrator so I could see how each part is ordered in the file and how it gets drawn.

The first thing I don't understand is why the outer perimeter of the page itself and the little dogear in the corner are not drawn, but simply appear along with two of the lines -- all just appear between frames 1 and 2. All the layers that make up the black line portions are on two different layers in the SVG  (see attached screenshot).  In the bottom layer the path of the page perimeter is a stroked path with no fill.  In the top layer it is a compound path with no stroke, filled with black.

This structure demonstrated in tutorials on this site, and I kind of  get it.  However, why is Videoscribe not drawing the perimeter of the page in this image?

My second question is why does the black portion of the image draw superfast, in a couple of seconds and then the fill takes nearly the entire 30s?  Is there no way to control that and make the page and lines take longer to draw and the scribble for the fill take shorter?

Thanks

The straight lines making up the outline probably have nodes only at the corners, and no control handles, so they will draw very fast.

the inner lines probably have more nodes and probably have control handles on each node which make them draw slower.

the color strokes or 0% opacity strokes probably contain many more nodes than the straight lines and probably have control handles on every node so they draw very slowly.

-Mike (videoscribe user)

 

Thanks, Mike.

The page outline lines are not actually straight.  The corners do have handles, but you're right in that there are only 5 points (because of the dogear). It makes sense that the fill would draw more slowly due to more points.

All of the horizontal lines on the page consist of 2 points, and because those lines are not truly straight, they also have handles.

I still don't see why the outer perimeter of the page simply appears between frames 1 and 2.  The 2 point lines can be seen to draw on over the course of several frames each, but the 4 point outer line just pops on instantly.

Again, this is one of the included graphic files that ships with Videoscribe, so I would think it would be properly set up for being drawn, which is why I'm trying to figure out why a significant part of it isn't being drawn. 

Thanks

An addendum to my last reply...

The two short lines near the top of the page also pop on simultaneously with the outer page line.  Those two lines actually have 3 points each, so we have the first three layers, consisting of 11 points, all with handles, popping on instantly between frames 1 and 2.  

Then the first long line takes 4 frames to draw.

Later, at frame 33 the hand moves back to the top of the page and draws the topmost short line (for some reason, it was layered that way in the file).  Note that in that instance the 3 point line takes 9 frames to draw.

I just did another experiment...I increased the length of the draw time from 30 seconds to 120 seconds, thinking that drawing action was being truncated due to lack of time.  What I found makes even less sense.  The black lines all drew exactly the same speed as they drew in the 30 second version.  Only the background fill took longer to draw.  And, as before the outer page line and the first two short lines popped into existence between frames 1 and 2.

There must be some kind of logic that dictates how Videoscribe draws elements, but I'm just not getting what it is.

Thanks again.

 

Hi,

Your latest testing has jogged my memory! I believe I have read another thread mentioning a BUG that causes the FIRST PART of some SVGs to be drawn too quickly (or instantly), and that might be what you are seeing. According to the following thread, the bug first appeared in version 2.1 and might have been fixed (or maybe not) in version 2.1.1: http://help.videoscribe.co/support/discussions/topics/1000051580

I still use version 1.3.26 primarily, so I have not experienced the bug first hand.

So if you are using 2.1, then upgrading to 2.1.1 might fix the problem. otherwise you could try installing a previous version, but your scribes made in newer versions (probably) will not open in older versions.

Here is a link to the download page for all currently available versions: https://my.sparkol.com/versions

-Mike (videoscribe user)

Well, when I just launched Videoscribe to check what version I had, I got the notification of the availability of 2.1.1.  So I'm installing it now and will report if that solved the problem.  

Thanks for the heads up.

Update to 2.1.1 was indeed the solution.

Thanks again.

Great! Thanks for sharing your results.

-Mike (videoscribe user)

 

Do we know why some lines just appear while others get drawn??

Hi,

Some reasons have already been mentioned in this thread.

also, if a line was drawn with the paintbrush tool, instead of the pen or pencil too using a basic stroke, videoscribe will consider it to be a filled area instead of a stroked path so it will appear instantly instead of being drawn (unless you use some tricks)

Attach the SVG if you want specific explanations.

-Mike (videoscribe user)