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DVD Menus...

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InfoDroid

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So, as the first part of Star Wars: Reborn gets closer to being completed, I'm starting to wonder about how I'm going to create a really cool DVD menu.

I have DVD Architect 3.0, but I haven't taken the time to open it up and play around with it yet...

I'd love to make something similar to Gladiator's menu, but I'm unsure how complicated animated menus would be. Anyone have any advice on where to get started???

--ID
 
Make a 1 minute video in whatever editing program you're using, encode that as an mpeg, and DVD maestro (if it's anything like DVD lab pro) will take it as a motion menu. What I do is try to find a shot I can loop several times by playing at forward speed, then reversing it when it gets to the end and so on until I have 1 minute of continuous footage. An example is when Darth Maul exits his spacecraft when he lands on Tatooine and takes out his binoculars and we get a POV scanning across the landscape. You can just play that over and over forward and backward for 1 minute. Then you fade in some head shots of the characters in the distance somewhere, then export the video as mpeg and toss it into DVD maestro. DVD maestro should have a function that makes title buttons. You make whatever title buttons you want.

Well that's at least for a Star Wars-like DVD menu. For Gladiator you need like a texture banner, but that stuff you could make in photoshop and import it into your video editor as an image, then just have clips running underneath. Well either way, your video editing program is the key. :) Because you already know how to use it sufficiently enough, and your DVD program will take the resulting video clip.
 
just to warn you (since it sounded like you hadn't actually used dvd architect at all yet), dvd architect is a great program... but a little tough to figure out at first. yes you can do animated menus in it, and animations in-between menus and such. as Paulisdead said... just create the animations in vegas and render them out as video files, and then use them as "background media" or "introduction media"... or link from the menu to a video clip... to another menu. let me know if you have questions. i've only got 2.0... but i should be some help.
 
An example is when Darth Maul exits his spacecraft when he lands on Tatooine and takes out his binoculars and we get a POV scanning across the landscape. You can just play that over and over forward and backward for 1 minute.
Click to expand...

After several failed experiments (including an attempt to reloop about two seconds of footage into about twenty seconds with just reversing, ala Tusken Raider staff thing in Star Wars - a very doomed project at that length with so little footage) I finally landed on a view of the camera through a scope that pans back and forth through several spots. I had to run it at half speed though, otherwise the reversing looked unnatural.

At least the audio was an easy, perfect loop just by a straight splice. I was beginning to hate the idea of a motion menu when I got to this step.

Thanks for the tips by the way - you just reminded me what the problem was in my own menu, so now I can fix it and get production back on the road.
 
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