Timeline Options
The Timeline Options window can be found by selecting Options from the Timeline menu or by pressing Ctrl+O. The options here control your entire photo mix across the entire timeline. More options, which can vary from photo mix to photo mix, can be found in the Morph Options window.
Size
The size of the timeline is the size (in pixels) that your final photo mix will be once you render it to a file. By default, the size is automatically set based on the size of the pictures that you load. The Timeline menu contains a submenu called Size where you can either select automatic sizing or set your timeline to some common sizes.
File
Normally when you render the timeline to a file, you are prompted for a file name and which file type to create. Here you can set a specific file format to be used every time by selecting it from the dropdown.
If a specific file format is selected, you can additionally choose to always render to the same file name by checking the "Always render to the same file" box, then by clicking Browse and entering a file name.
When "Generate companion html file" is selected, it will create an additional file when you render the timeline with the same name as the main file, but with an html extension. The html companion file will contain a sample web page which loads the correct plugin needed to display the photo mix.
If "Open morph file after rendering" is checked, then the newly created file will open as if you clicked on it automatically every time you render the timeline.
Transparency
The "Morph the alpha channel" option will cause Morpheus Photo Mixer to calculate a full 32bit image for each frame rendered instead of the normal 24bit image. This allows transparency information to be preserved in the photo mix or at least to control when pixels show through to the background color, depending on if the file format rendered to supports any type of transparency.
The Transparent threshold value controls the minimum value the alpha channel for a pixel can be without making that pixel entirely transparent and become the background color. For example, a value of 0 will preserve a perfect 32bit image with all calculated translucency, suitable for PNG files. A value of 128 will make all rendered pixels with an alpha value from 0 to 127 become entirely transparent, and alpha values 128 to 255 will be normal.
Not all file formats support transparency.
- PNG, TIFF, and Targa files fully support 32bit images with alpha channels.
- Bitmap files support 32bit images, but not many viewers recognize them as being transparent.
- JPEG and XPM files do not support any transparency at all.
Quality
The Quality option controls the compression of JPEG files. The JPEG file format is lossy, which means that it does not store a perfect representation of the picture being saved. There is a tradeoff between file size and image quality. The lower you set the Quality, the smaller the file size, but the worse the image will look. The higher you set the quality, the better the image will look, but it may take longer to download or email because of the larger file size.
The Render speed should normally be left at 1, but if you have a very large photo mix and need to render it to a file quickly, you can set the speed higher. Each higher render speed setting will calculate fewer and fewer pixels, resulting in a blocky picture, but noticeably speeding up the time it takes to render the timeline.
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