Alpha does not WORK on buttons

ucanbyteme wrote on 8/13/2004, 12:09 AM
OK, I give up. I am playing with this software at school and trying to decide if I want to purchase but from what I can see in 2.0, and reading some of the posts here, there still is no way to get an ANIMATED button with a TRANSPARENT background to work.

Am I wrong about this, tried looking at all the help but no awnser to my question. Its either a still PNG or an Animation with not transparance. How can this be for software at this price?

I even tried one of the work arounds by importing TGA or PNG into Vegas and saving as an uncompressed AVI. Looks great in Vegas but still black in DVD Arc. Any suggestions? Is there some step I am missing?

Comments

bStro wrote on 8/13/2004, 9:14 AM
Its either a still PNG or an Animation with not transparance. How can this be for software at this price?

There's no such thing (officially) as an animated PNG. As noted in the FAQ by the folks that made PNG. There are programs that "promise" to make animated PNGs, but since there's no standard for the format, it doesn't suprise me that results would be unpredictable.

Regarding transparency in uncompressed AVIs from Vegas, I've had trouble with that, too...not just using them in DVDA, but using them anywhere. I guess I just haven't figured out all the right settings... Check on the Vegas for help there.

Rob
bStro wrote on 8/13/2004, 10:01 AM
BTW, we know for a fact that DVDA supports transparency in AVIs through the use of alpha channels, because such AVIs are used for the arrow buttons in the Animated theme. You just have to figure out what Sony did and do the same thing. ;-)

Rob
ucanbyteme wrote on 8/13/2004, 11:18 AM
Guys, thats why I am here, I checked the manuals, and If I could figure out how they made animated buttons with transparentcy then I wouldnt be posting to the Sony Forums.

You would think with all the posts about this topic and no one really with a good solution they would post a how to in a FAQ section or something.

I might try one more thing, I can seperate out the Alphas from the regular file and use it as a mask but not sure of the results. Anyone tried this? Say a black and white AVI in the Mask slot?
bStro wrote on 8/13/2004, 12:06 PM
Regarding the Animated theme, the animated button frames are GIFs. Only the arrow buttons are AVI.

Ask on the Vegas forum how to make your AVIs with transparent backgrounds and how to check to be sure they done correctly.

Rob