duct tape a tripod to a beagle and teach him to walk in circles. instant 360 degree pan shots. and for tai fighter scenes teach him to roll over...
If this project doesn't get more attention, it's cancelled!
I'm kidding, I'm kidding!
hmm sounds like a cheap shot at somebody.... who could that be? i wonder..
really would anyone go this far? i suppose if someone really had this big of an obsession with star wars recreating spaceship scenes would be fairly easy. we are talking about 1970's style film making here. as far as getting the homies to dress up in storm trooper suits idk. but building camera tracks to film model ships you could do that with some construx dude. and surly there are software filters to make digital video appear as 16mm. to say it would be easy may be far fetched but possible yes indeed probable no......... oh wait someone already did this!!! or does robot chicken count? and you dont need to build good models just go to skywalker ranch break in and steal the originals..... oh wait that was fanboys... my bad.
i have figured out how to use the motion menu now. i had been originally mislead by several tutorials. most tutorials on google seem to suggest you must use the psd directly in encore for your menu. the truth is instead of using the psd in encore and laying the motion menu over it. you use a blank template in encore.and make your composition in after effects using the psd then the motion menu you made in after effects gets placed over the blank template in encore then you must set the loop point for the menu to loop after the animation takes place which also delays the button highlights until the loop point. so the 2 major problems are solved. and i have also learned that i should make my own button highlights in photoshop to avoid the ugly built in ones in encore. it is coming together it was just hard to find a good explanation of the steps to using a motion menu in encore. i am sure you have been busy chainsawash and i appreciate the attempts you made to help however i seem to have come into my own. i think i just expected encore to be simple to use like dvda when in fact it is much harder to use but can also lead to more professional dvd authoring. i think this thread is a wrap if i need any more advice for encore i will try to catch ash in off topic.
well i have been messing with encore and discovered a few other issues. i created a test dvd iso today just to see how things would end up after i figure out all the motion menu and transition tricks. #1 the text button highlights are red so far and they have little spots where the black text shows through the highlight color. it does not look very clean at all. #2 i have used 1920x1080 psd images for the static menus however when encore encodes them down to 720x480 it adds a small amount of black to the sides of the menus. not a big deal really it just means when i make menu transitions and animations i have to have encore encode then rather the cce so that it adds the same black edges to all the transitions and menu animations. is there any way to avoid encore adding these black edges and the sloppy looking text button highlights? i am sure that the built in mpg2 encoder in encore is crap compared to cce. it kinda sucks that i would have to use it to encode my motion menus.
here the video is seen wiping out to the left before all the graphics animate onto the menu.
here is the main menu. this is the static 1. the three text graphics have been converted to buttons. in the motion menu the basic background fades in over 2 seconds and a brief video of the bride ripping out the eye of a crazy 88 plays filling in the area where the buttons are at. the video wipes in and out and then all the graphics seen here are animated. most of them fade in but the cool 1 is the eyeball it comes flying in from the upper right corner and bounces as if thrown there by the bride. and the blood appears under it. it is quite a cool effect and the most successful thing i have done in after effects. as of now the motion menu is not connected because i need to learn the best way to have this transition into the static menu. and i would like an audio track to start with the motion menu and bleed onto the static menu seemlessly. it would be nice to have an animation playing in the static menu but is not a requirement. :note that the text buttons in the way i have the current animation fade in. 
encore cs5 on a windows 7 pc. i know your on mac but the program is identical as far as i can see. and wow encore seems to be a little buggy as compared to other adobe products. for the most part i like it aside from the weird processes you have to go through for what seems should be normal dvd author features. it does have a lot of little percs too though. i just got spoiled with vegas because its so intuitive. i have researched other authors and did not really see anything that made 1 stand above encore. just vegas. but i did manage to get vegas working again only to hit another problem with it. strange but i have 3 total video menus and the main menu will play through then hold static and all the buttons work fine. but the other 2 menus which were created the exact same way to the same spec will play through and then the screen goes black and no function works. lol god is it just me? so i am saying i am going to try to stick with encore. and just muscle through the hurdles. and menu transitions is a feature vegas does not have. so let me see where i am at on my encore project and maybe post up some details and screens so you can get a better understanding of what i have going on. you da man ash! thankyou.
well i had first made a motion menu for dvd architect that lasted the full 1:37 sec of the audio track i chose. but it became clear that encore did not work the same way as dvd architect. so i remade a new motion menu it lasts 15 seconds at which time it should go to the static menu. it starts out by fading in. then several elements including the 3 text buttons animate in or fade in. i researched it quite a bit last night. and there are a few workarounds but none that made me happy. lol. so i found that the solution is to have the motion menu as a timeline and then have the end action link to the static menu. but there will be a 2 second black screen in between. not gonna cut it for me. and then there were other solutions which i cant recall just now but i did not like the sound of those either. encore would be great if not for this 1 flaw that seems like it should be standard in any authoring tool.video menus should be standard is all i am saying man. i dont know ash if you know how to get from here to there let me know because i really hate to reboot my machine right now. but dvda is looking like my best bet for achieving a descent animated menu. thanks for the response.
i have these goals in mind and they are easy to do in dvda. unfourtunately to use dvda i would have to reboot due to obvious registry errors. i just do not want to reboot right now because of the mass amount of stuff i would have to move and reinstall. so i am stuck authoring the dvd in encore. i am liking encore because it integrates with after effects and is pretty easy to use. i am just hung on this 1 thing i am not quite getting. the goal is this i have a 15 second animation menu created from the same psd that makes up the static menu.i just want the animation to play first along with the menu music which is 1 min 37 sec long. and the buttons should all be functional and visible after the 2 second fade in of the menu. the buttons should always be functional.the menu music should play out and at the end the menu is just static with working buttons. the major flaw i have found with encore is you absolutely have to have a psd for the menus. this kinda defeats everything that after effects allows you to do. like use a fade in for the menu. in order to not see the buttons and other elements during fade in you have to make them invisible by turning off the eye icon in the layers tab of the menu. which would be fine because the buttons are in the animation already but the button highlights are a problem because they show during the 2 second fade in.so this means buttons and other elements have to be invisible on the static menu to be able to use a fade in.unless i am missing something crucial which seems likely.there has to be a way to have the fade in and then have the static menu become visible after the motion menu completes. i just dont see it. it makes no since to me that in order to have a motion menu you cant have a fade in. i am either missing the big picture or adobe has missed 1 very important feature in dvd authoring. if anybody knows the trick to overcome this simple problem i would be ever so thankful. otherwise encore has just fallen short of greatness and i am back to rebooting involving 2 days work just to be able to use dvda again to finish this edit. sorry for the long rant guys just trying to give you a clear image of the goal and the problem. here is images of the buttons showing during the fade in. if i turn off the eye icons you dont see the buttons but you see the default red highlight. if i turn off the highlights you dont see them at all during fade in but no button highlights at all of course which is pointless. help me please before i have a mental collapse.
well i did figure out that if i select the text button in the menu layers and untick "create text subpicture" the red highlight goes away. of course this means no highlight at all for the main movie button. i know there is a better way.
cool thanks ash. after some research it seems i may have to bring premier into the picture. not sure. but if i could just solve the button highlight issue i think what i have will work.
ash that sounds great i actually did hit a snag in encore. what i am trying to accomplish is a motion menu. in dvda you can use any video menu created in after effects as the menu. but in encore you have to overlay the motion menu over the static menu and turn off the eye icons in the layers tab of the static menu. is this correct? i just dont get why i cant just use the video as the menu. here is the problem i have. i created the motion menu in after effects using the psd i made in p.s. it has a fade in from black at the start. and then all the elements animate in including the 3 buttons which are just text. so i rendered it and imported into encore and set it as a motion menu. i also turned off the eye icons in the layers tab of the static menu. great! in the preview the motion menu plays but with 1 problem. the red button highlight for the default selected button shows during the black fade in of the motion menu. i do not know how to fix that. i am a little confused about the static menu. i see no reason for it to be there at all. is it possible to just use the video menu and no static menu? for example when i was using dvda i made a motion menu in after effects and set it as the menu. it would play through which is 1:37 sec long and at the end it would just go static with all the buttons still functioning. it was ideal. but in encore the motion menu plays through and at the end it goes static and the buttons dont work. so in order to solve this i had to select end action= play main title. it works but still it would be better if it just paused and had working buttons. i dont want it to loop at all a find looping menus annoying. mainly i guess i just need to solve the button highlight showing during the fade in problem.
well i jinxed myself by thinking i would be able to release kill bill today. i dont know what happened but dvd architect just went haywire. i had completed the project yesterday and after making the dvd for some reason 2 of the menu links switched places. i went into my chapters menu and it went to the music menu instead and vice versa. so i went back to architect and tried to fix it and then all the button options became inoperable. i tried uninstalling reinstalling cleaning the registry yada yada. and upon registry cleaning there were several errors for dvda. 1 said dvda shell32. i am guessing that is not good. i thought i might try to author it in dvd lab and that was just not fun at all. that is the most confusing software i have ever touched. its supposed to be really good but i cant seem to understand it at all. and all the video motion menus i made in after effects were useless in dvd lab. so now i have to try encore. if i cant get it working like that i am in for a major reboot. and copying tons of stuff. if anyone has had a dvd architect problem like this let me know what you guys did to fix it. the release is delayed until i can once again author the damn thing. sigh.......
finishing up the last few details on kill bill. extended the audio fade out from vol 1 to vol 2 sso that the music plays up to the point beatrix starts to talk. the transition is very clean. someone i showed the edit to did not know where the cut took place. last detail to fix is the menu highlights in the main menu are just a hair off the text. overall its perfect imho. thanks for all the help from everyone. release tomorrow! for real this time.lol
superb! no matter how many times this movie is recut it never loses any of its luster. i have only seen the theatrical and directors cut. but for this edit i will check out. more is never less with a classic like bladerunner.
edit: i had a question about button fades. but just found a tutorial on how to do it so disregard.
natural born killers directed by Q. tarantino.... like it should have been. not that i dont like stones nbk. but just imagine if Q.T. had done it.
very good then sir i appreciate the knowledge. i honestly thought the item safe lines were useless. now i see the pain turning them off has caused me. but its an easy fix at this point and with these menus i can pretty much just move a few things around no problem thanks again.
oh i see. it was quite a bit of overscan on the sides. the top and bottom not very much. i worked out a solution by shrinking the menu and filling out the edges with a matching color. and got it just right. but now i am confused because i would like for it to look right on other peoples 1080p tvs as well. so now that i have compensated for the overscan is it going to not show right on other hdtv's? guess i cant win on that either way. i will just have to make sure the edges look good for others. thankyou adywan. i will end up with a much cleaner menu thanks to your tips. the new one i am building has the text made in photoshop as you described. i made a couple test coasters getting the overscan right so now i can set my safe zone in dvda.
well the dvd player setting mostly fixed the problem. the movie displays right and the menus no longer have black bars however they are still overscanning a little bit im missing about 3/4" off all sides. i cant imagine why it does this now. i started with a 1280x720 image in photoshop added my graphics and exported as 1280x720.png. i then used the image in aftereffects on a 1280x720 template. i added my videos there and exported as 1280x720 lossless .avi i added it as is to dvda and let dvda recompress it. but its not just the main menu overscanning either its all of them. all are 1280x720 images. will resizing the images help? perhaps the images need to be 720x480 so that dvda stretches them to fill the 16:9 template. thanks again adywan. thats a nice trick on the text highlight you mentioned. but is that not the same as choosing "text highlight" in the highlight style menu? or do you just mean it looks better then the text highlight in dvda? i chose text highlight for the main movie button because the underline would not fit under it. and underline for the other 2 menu buttons. personally i do not like the way the built in text highlight looks in dvda so an alternative is welcome. but at this point the overscan problem is paramount. since i wont release it with a glitch like this. if i cant solve it in dvda i would rather author it in another app.
lol.. "most excellent station" i am a wild stallion.
let me guess my character is the illiterate guy who almost gets banned every day.
TV's Frink said:
I'd like to see an ot.com movie.
elaborate. like a documentary?
actually i may have just figured it out. i never thought to check the display mode on the dvd player which was recently unplugged. it was set to 4:3 letterbox. i changed it to 16:9 and this made the movie look right. however the menu still was overscanning a little bit. but i think i know why. when i last made the dvd in dvda i chose the stretch type "zoom to fit" thinking this would fix the problem. so now i am remaking it with the "stretch to fit" setting. 1 more burn and i hope it will be fixed. i will post update as soon i play it. thanks adywan for your effort. and btw i loved your starwars edit.
well sorry but the only cam i have is my phone and you cant tell much in the pics. but i clearly see that i have a problem here. in screen mode wide the menu shows with black bars. and the movie is not as tall as it should be. the bars are too thick. i didnt notice it before because i watched the movie in cinema mode which stretches the menu to much and overscans and the movie looked like it should. wow this really sucks because now i fear i will be redoing something major. heres the 2 pics but you cant tell much in them. the menu buttons stay where they should.
