Pingpong Neu

[Lihuel Harding]

Iwould like to control ping pong expression with slider controler. So I cound stop and restart it again more easily whenever I want. How can I set up my slider controller to do so? Is there any other effective way to control ping pong expression?

What are you trying to do? loopOut("pingpong") can create a pendulum or metronome animation or make a ball bounce up and down forever. Do you want the animation to accelerate, decelerate and repeat? Starting and stopping the animation is easiest to accomplish by just splitting the layer and turning off the expression (Shift + Ctrl/Cmnd + d). There is a great temptation to overcomplicate things by doing everything on one layer.

Controlling the speed and even the direction of an animation with an expression and a slider is explained very well by Dan Ebberts on his Expression Speed and Frequency Control - MotionScript.com website.

If you explain your design goal, we can point you to the most efficient workflow. Directly controlling loopOut("ping-pong") with a slider will be a very complex expression. Pre-composing and time remapping is going to be an efficient way to slow down, stop, then speed up or even time-reverse any animation.

I have a character waving a hand. I created the waving by creating 2 keyframes in the rotaion and added a loop expression. In some point I want to stop the movment of the hand but after a minute start again.

Low-frequency noise is ubiquitous in cities, near roads, and by airports. Though potentially heard as background in the acoustic landscape, it can trigger earaches, respiratory impairment, irritability, and other long-term adverse effects. Because it is produced by a range of sources and is less affected by structures than higher-frequency sound, low-frequency noise can be challenging to avoid.

In Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Lille and the National Technical University of Athens describe an acoustic metasurface that uses pingpong balls as Helmholtz resonators to create inexpensive but effective low-frequency sound insulation.

More resonant frequencies meant the device was able to absorb more sound. At the success of two coupled resonators, the researchers added more, until their device resembled a square sheet of punctured pingpong balls, multiplying the number of resonant frequencies that could be absorbed.

The short film "The Tables" documents how a pair of pingpong tables in the middle of New York City, tucked away in the corner of Bryant Park, created a community comprised of people from a wide range of ethnic, economic and social backgrounds. The movie will be shown at the Inspire Film Festival, which runs from Feb. 15-19.

Wally Green, a former gang member and professional pingpong player, co-founded the SPiN New York nightclub that provides a fun social atmosphere for people to eat and play pingpong together. Green, along with SPiN New York, placed the two tables in Bryant Park as a marketing tool for the club when it opened, not realizing the larger impact it would have.

"I was immediately drawn to all the interesting characters that were playing there. It was so much diversity," Bunning said in a 2017 interview for the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival. "At first we just hung out to play, but that's when I discovered that there's a whole group of regulars that show up at night, and they're there all the time. They're this community and I knew there was something special about this place and decided to embark on creating a film about it."

In a director's statement online at thetablesfilm.com, Bunning says, "One of the first things that struck me about the tables in Bryant Park was that a homeless person and a Wall Street banker could play as equals. People from all over the world had been brought together by these tables. Social status, nationality, religion, age, sex-it didn't matter. And the more I got to know these people, the more I discovered just how much these tables meant to them. For some, it helped them to find work and a place to live, for others it helped them get off drugs, and for many it gave them a sense of community and belonging that helped them overcome hardships."

"It's pretty amazing to me. The sport of pingpong is my life. When I see these amazing different cultures of people, different backgrounds, different economic places and they all come together - it makes me really happy," Green said. "Everyone's just equal to each other."

Green, one of the subjects in "The Tables," grew up in the projects with domestic violence. At the age of 13 he was part of a gang and already owned six guns. He said the pingpong literally saved his life.

A benefactor saw that Green was heading in a bad direction, so the gentleman paid for him to go to Germany to play pingpong. Green has represented the US in over 35 international pro tour competitions and has won numerous national titles at different levels.

"If it wasn't for the sport of pingpong, I would be dead or in jail," Green said, just like most of his old friends from when he was younger. "All my friends now are all new friends through the sport of pingpong."

"One thing that's important to know about pingpong is that pingpong is definitely one of the few sports where all cultures come together. I've traveled all over the world through pingpong ... including North Korea where only 10 percent of world has been. You can be poor, you can be rich, you can be a billionaire, but on the pingpong table everyone is equal."

"It's great. I've been going to practically all the film festivals (where "The Tables" is screened). I go there, get to meet new people, get to talk about my passion for pingpong and how it saved my life," he explained. "I'm very excited. I love to talk about the sport. I love to talk about the film. It's something that's personal to me, so I'm ready."

The film represents reality and shows how people can connect through the a common passion, Green said, albeit with a warning that viewers may want to grab a box of Kleenex because the story really pulls at one's heart strings.

"(Viewers) should definitely get ready for something that's real. One thing about this film that makes it different is that it's 100 percent real. Everything in this film is real. Real stories, real life. Nothing's fake. It's very touching and it might make you cry," he said.

The Inspire Film Festival is in the planning process of offering up two pingpong tables in Central Park at Market Street for the community to play together during the festival. It will offer just a small taste of the camaraderie shown in the film.

"The Tables" will play free and open to the public shortly after sundown during the Shorts Film Night at Waterway Square on Feb. 15. Viewers are encouraged to bring a chair or blanket to sit on. Visit www.inspirefilmfest.com for exact start time and details as the festival draws closer.

Chinese and U.S. table tennis players train together in April 1971 in Beijing. April 10 marks the 50th anniversary of what became known as pingpong diplomacy between the two nations. AFP via Getty Images hide caption

She was 15 and the youngest member of the U.S. pingpong team, which had been in Nagoya, Japan, competing in the World Championships. Two days before the tournament ended, Team China surprised the Americans with an invitation to come to their country and play some games.

It was the height of the Cold War, the U.S. did not recognize the People's Republic of China and had no relations with it, and Americans weren't allowed to travel there. But the team got speedy permission from the State Department. They flew to Hong Kong, and the next day they took a train to the border.

"That actually was a big moment for me, walking across the bridge," Hoarfrost recalled. "There was this music playing, and it was very, you know ... It was just very rousing. It was like being in a movie, really. It was just very dramatic."

April 10 marks the 50th anniversary of that unlikely trip, an episode that's come to be known as pingpong diplomacy. Analysts say those pingpong games in China put the first crack in the ice between the two countries.

Within three months, President Richard Nixon would announce that he had been invited to visit China. By the start of 1972, Beijing would be admitted into the United Nations and installed on the Security Council. And by the end of the decade, the United States and China would establish formal diplomatic relations, paving the way for America's support of China's spectacular economic rise.

Historians say Chinese leader Mao Zedong, and Premier Zhou Enlai, who drove rapprochement from the Chinese side, were acutely aware of the Soviet security threat. The two countries had experienced border clashes in 1969. Mao and Zhou reckoned that isolation and perpetual estrangement from the United States were ultimately bad for China.

National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger (right) plays pingpong with aide Winston Lord during an advance trip to the People's Republic of China in 1971. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum hide caption

"When Mao wanted to improve relations with the United States he needed to prepare the Chinese public psychologically and politically," said Yafeng Xia, a senior professor of history at Long Island University and an expert on Cold War relations between China and the United States.

"You could say that 1971 was the Book of Genesis for the chapter which we've now conclusively come to an end in, namely that somehow we would find a way to get along and work things out," said Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society.

Bipartisan support in the United States for a tougher posture toward China has grown as Beijing's economic and military power have expanded. Trump administration officials jettisoned the long-standing policy of engagement, labeling it a failure, and set out to decouple the world's two biggest economies.

For China's part, the differences between 1971 and today are stark. China's GDP per capita has risen more than 80-fold. It's military has modernized rapidly, and can project power in ways that were unthinkable 50 years ago.

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