Simple DVD Question

[REHov520]

Hi,

Can't find any threads on what should be an easy question to answer. I'm doing a DVD project and I want the buttons to fade in about 10 seconds into the menu, so that they appear when the video is done. How do I do this? I've been working at it the last few hours and can't get it to work.

Also, how do you make it so that the song you select can play over all the menus? (In this case, so the same song will play over both the main menu and the scene select menu without stopping / starting over).

Thanks!

-Arie

 

[master151]

I'm no expert, so I may be incorrect. But I'm about 80% sure on this.

1. To animate the buttons as you described, you would need to create a video transition starting with no buttons, and ending with the buttons fully opaque, which would then jump tracks to the actual menu. There will probably be a little delay or pixel shift when the track change occurs.

2. I don't think you can loop music over two tracks without starting the loop over. Each screen on a DVD menu exists as an individual track, each with it's own audio.

 

[reflex]

assuming youre using Encore...and assuming you have access to AE or some way to import and animate Photoshop layers

1.
> you just make your menu, buttons, everything in Photoshop
> animate the layers and buttons as you wish in After Effects ( or the program of your choice)
> render out your animation as an .avi ( uncompressed )
> import your .avi into Encore as an asset
> import your Photoshop menu as a menu
> click the eyeball of every layer in the menu to hide visibilty of your photoshop layers
>replace your menus static background layer with the .avi
> render all motion menus and preview

Bascially what your doing is still making a static menu in photoshop, then animating it so that you can make your buttons fade video play, whatever, then importing your static menu into Encore but then replacing the background with your video and hiding all the visibilty of all the other layers so that the only thing that will show is the video and your button highlights. Encore, even though your photoshop imported menu is hidden it stillknows where things are and that should still line up with the video perfectly. I hope that is easy enough to understand.

again, its making a static menu, animating it, then replacing that static menu wiht the motion one. but the button highlights you created in photoshop will still show up on preview and should line up perfectly with your background video.


2. master151 is correct. if you change menus or have a transition, you have to restart the audio track. it wont play through the transition into the next menu. they all have seperate audio tracks.

 

[Rick Meyer]

Reflex-

Thats a very helpful post youve just listed there. I was wondering, I am about to edit a 10 second short to use for my menu. I have only used ENCORE twice. Once was about 1 hour ago...a quick and dirty avi-mpeg conversion. Another time was in May when I needed a static image with a single play button. I figured it out after reading the HELP menu for a while.

But, I was wondering if you might have workflow advice for what I would like to do. I have finished a wedding video. I plan to edit a brief 10-15 second clip, at the end of which, animated buttons (each "button" will be text...chapter 1 Wine Tour, chapter 2 Reception, etc.). So, I think I can work this in AE to what I want which will give me a final image at rest with the buttons in place.

I guess what I am asking is if I have the workflow correctly...I do ALL of the fancy stuff in AE. I import as menu and do I place it on the timeline in front of the actual movie? Not really sure how to tack the movie onto the menu like that. Yes, plan to read. But, any quick and dirty advice you can give me before I chomp on tomorrows project would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!
Rick

 

[reflex]

I guess what I am asking is if I have the workflow correctly...I do ALL of the fancy stuff in AE. I import as menu and do I place it on the timeline in front of the actual movie? Not really sure how to tack the movie onto the menu like that. Yes, plan to read. But, any quick and dirty advice you can give me before I chomp on tomorrows project would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!
Rick

Well honestly I never actually pay attention to the timelines haha. I mean you can't link a button to a video without it being on a timeline first. Encore uses timelines to play back assets and stuff. But I never even mess with working with or putting stuff on timelines. The only time I ever do anything with timelines is to create new ones for the videos. (e.g. I would import a .avi let say, and then i would right click on it and select , New > Timeline, so that I can link a button to it, meaning the timeline )


Heres the simplest way i can explain it. make the menu how you need it as a static menu ( buttons animations everything at rest ) then make the DVD like that. Now when you created your static menu, there should be a folder, also called a layer set, containing all your background stuff. Or you may just have one background image, so then you'd just have a background layer. In anycase either is fine. Then you will have layer sets with identifiers like this (+) containing the buttons. Inside that layer set, you will have probably a text layer, a button highlight (=), maybe an image etc...

So you've got your menu in encore like that and you preview'd it and its working. Then take that same photoshop project ( i'm saying photoshop since thats what i use ) and import that into After Effects as a composition so all the layers stay intact and you can manipulate them as you please. You wont need the button highlight layers so you can either delete them or just turn off the eye to make them invisible.

Then once you finish making your animated menu I like to export as Microsoft AVI, compressed ( no compression ) 720 x 480 obviously. You can export as a mpeg, or m2v if you'd like , but i seem to always have problems with doing that and they never seem to be as clear. ( probably just something with my settings though )

Now back to Encore.
Import that exported movie ( avi or whatever ) into encore as an asset. Then alt-drag the video file from the Project panel to the menu in the menu viewer window. The video now will replace that static background. (if you have a background folder, your video background replacing the static one should be represented by a Background layer right below the background folder) - thats what it does on mine anyway.


Then go to the Layers palette with the menu viewer window active and click the eye of the background layer [set] to hide visibility of that. now the only thing that will be visible will be the video background during preview. The menu itself is only a placeholder. The button subpictures (in the button layer sets) align with the button images in the video.
But when you 'preview from here' you wont see the movement. you have to go to File> Render > Motion Menus. then once you preview you will see your finished menus with motion and all.

You will now probably see that your button highlights are on all the time now. You're gonna want them to only to become visible when the animation of the menu is complete. To do that, make sure the menu view window is active, then in the Properties palette under Motion, set the loop point at the time when the menu comes to rest. So lets say your mens starts 00;00;00;00..... then your thing moves around weee... and then lets say at 00;00;09;15 your menu is at the end of the animation. Set your loop point to 00;00;09;15. Then set your menu to loop forever.. ( unless you need it to only loop for a certain # of times... ) So when someone puts in the dvd, the menu will come on , do its thing, come to rest or an end of the animation then the button highlights will appear so the viewer can select something.

and thats it. if you want animations from every menu as transitions, then thats more work and more time, and a new video for every animation haha

hope that helps, if you need more , replay and ill help as i can. You can IM me on AIM of you want, just click my little yellow running guy under my avatar, i'm usually on.

 

[Rick Meyer]

Heres the simplest way i can explain it. make the menu how you need it as a static menu ( buttons animations everything at rest ) then make the DVD like that.

Hey, thanks so much for taking the time to post this. This is very helpful information. I am carefully going through what you've written right now as I am about to cut outta here (work) and get to this. Why do I get the feeling I will be pulling an all nighter!? I guess needing to do a tricky manuever in a program I've never used before will do that...

I was curious...I quoted you above because I have a question about this point. Currently, I have my entire project finished in PREMIERE. Its all ready to render out as an AVI file. In fact, I'm rendering it out right now (without a preceding animating menu OR static menu). Are you saying that I need to determine what my menu will look like after its 10-15 second animation comes to a stop and reveals the chapter buttons, then take THAT image, tack it onto the VERY beginning of my clips in the timeline in PREMIERE and render that out? I was a little confused by this point. If that is what you are saying, how long should I hold that static image for?

Thanks again!
Rick

 

[reflex]

Let me do this differently. First of all the static image I"m talking about is just the menu with no animation. with layers, buttons, etc.... just like you would see a DVD menu that just comes up and you can select something.

You want animation. That means you dont want the button highlight to show up until the animation is complete and everything is showing.

That static menu you make in photoshop will just be a placeholder for the button highlights so they line up with the video. ( the images of the buttons in the video )

so...

1. you create your menu in photoshop ( background layer(s) buttons, highlights everything )

2. import that project into AE as a composition.

3. animate as you please. Look at this menu I made.

F*** for some reason TODAY they are migrating my website to new servers.. so I can't upload a video there right now.. so i'm using Putfile.com
Should still work though


Click here to watch Menu-Sample



You can just click that link its only 2 - 3 mb's so it should only take a minute to load.

That is a smaller, compressed version of one dvd I made. The video fades in blah blah blah, buttons come into play, projector is playing some video on the wall. Then at about 7 seconds in the buttons are inplace... THATS when you need to have your button highlights appear.

The photoshop menu you created will have all those things and images and layers, just no animation. For instance, my orginal photoshop thing was a room with that gy and girl in it and the buttons w/ highlights. Thats all you need for the static menu. You just need to have a background image and where the buttons are gonna be once people can click on stuff.

Then when I was gonna animate it in AE I added a projector screen, that projector ( dirtied it up a bit ) made the projector shadow, the flicker, the music/sound, the buttons animate and all that.

the menu should be as long as you want that menu to play before it starts to loop back to the beginning. Like if you want the menu and sound to play to a minute then loop.... make the animated menu in AE 1:00. Then make the animation like 7 seconds or 13 seconds whatever you want. Then from that point where it stops and continues to play is where people select there option.

So again look at my video link. The animation happens till about 7 seconds ( aprox ) then the buttons are there and it plays out tll about a minutes then you can set it to loop from that point ( 7 seconds ) to a minute over and over so that you wont have to watch that beginning animation.



4. after you animate, go back into encore and import the photoshop menu as a menu.

5. import the video of the animated menu as an asset.

6. Alt- drag the video over the menu viewer window and it will replace your photoshop background image ( which was just a place holder so that the button highlights will line up with the video )

7. Set your loop point of the menu to Forever so now when it gets to the end of the menu playing, it will go back. Then set your loop POINT to whenever your buttons have all appeared or stopped moving. Now your button highlights will show at that point in the video and the video will only loop from your loop point till the end.


8. render motion menus under File > render > motion menus

Thats it. I hope thats a little clearer.

 

[Rick Meyer]

Reflex-

Thanks again for your time and trouble. Its offical. I am BEGINNING TO HAAAAATE ENCORE. If its not one thing, its another. Now my audio is popping. What the F? I have my transcode settings in ENCORE defaulted to 48khz. So, I went back into AE and re-rendered out the clip and changed the audio to match...from 44.1 to 48.

But when I preview my menu...there is a very definite and clear occasional popping noise. Kill me.

Anybody? I think I just might have to repost this in Premiere...I just GOTTA get this fixed so I can get on with my freaking life.

 

[reflex]

Haha oh man, man we've all been there....go back to permiere. Is the audio popping during playback? Look at the waveform. Are there any abnormalities to it?

Don't worry about switching sample rates...encore will do that for you anyway....