Comments

farss wrote on 10/8/2006, 2:30 AM
I've used the Vision loops from MMS, pretty reasonable prices and many of them do make good menu backgrounds, with a bit of work.

Still the Visions-UK stuff looks good, doesn't seem to be that much available as yet, still for $29 you can't go far wrong.

Bob.
cheroxy wrote on 10/8/2006, 8:47 AM
Thanks Farss, I just subscribed. They only have 40 total now, but w/ all the buttons, etc I think it was a good 29 dollars spent.

Does anybody know of similar sites? I've been looking for stuff like this for a long time.
ScottW wrote on 10/8/2006, 9:11 AM
www.dvdstyle.com - no motion menus, but some nice backgrounds and many of them can easily be made into motion with some simple Vegas effects applied.

--Scott
goshep wrote on 10/8/2006, 9:55 AM
Pretty neat stuff. It seems like these would be pretty easy to create with Particle Illusion, Combustion, et al.. Am I oversimplifying it? I've always assumed that motion menus were created with complex applications by trained specialists in Hollywood. The samples I viewed (while impressive) seem pretty easy to create.
ScottW wrote on 10/8/2006, 10:47 AM
Motion menus are as complex or as simple as you want. They are eye candy for the DVD. A simple motion menu might be a static background which contains a screen with scenes playing from the movie (Star Wars). A slightly more complex menu might have an intro where the buttons fade in a a background (which may or may not be static) and then the button masks appear. Even moe complex will have an intro, a center section that repeats followed by an exit (which you can't really do with DVDA).

I create most of my motion menus in Vegas; for example, a static holiday scene with a christmas tree and the lights are blinking on and off with a light snow falling and smoke wisping from a chimney. All done in Vegas with cookie cutter, and generated media along with some track motion.

--Scott
goshep wrote on 10/8/2006, 12:14 PM
Scott,

Do you have any veggies you'd be willing to post? I have some ideas in my head for menus but in regards to using vegas, I could use some inspiration. I want to to kick my menus up a notch now that I've graduated from beginner to novice!

Shep
ScottW wrote on 10/8/2006, 3:35 PM
All the stuff I've currently got on tap uses licensed material that I'm not allowed to re-distribute electronically except as part of a DVD or some other compiled work. Here's a sample though: http://www.allthingsparker.com/images/labmotion1.wmv

The steam was done with a clip I have from Digital Hotcakes that's supposed to be the exhaust from a jet - a luminence mask was applied and a cookie cutter to feather things out some. The tube glowing was done with the Vegas glow effect and track motion to increase and decrease. Music is from Smartsound and other sound effects are from the Sony sound effects library (the hissing steam is the shower running sound for example). The menu is designed with a short intro and then it loops before reaching the end - when a button is pressed, we jump to the third cell of the menu and you hear the click/echo and we exit the menu (this menu was designed for use in DVD Lab Pro, as DVDA doesn't allow you to set a menu out point, only a loop point).

--Scott
cheroxy wrote on 10/8/2006, 6:58 PM
update: I downloaded a few of my favorite. I don't do wedding videos so that takes out 85% of their product, but the rest are fairly good. Not perfect video quality, but pretty nice.
Serena wrote on 10/8/2006, 7:59 PM
That link leads me to a Sony "page removed".
ScottW wrote on 10/8/2006, 8:17 PM
OK, I don't know why, but I've replaced it with the exact location. Sorry about that.
cheroxy wrote on 10/8/2006, 8:55 PM
the old link had the desired link as part of a sony link. In other words it had http twice. That happens on this forum sometimes. If you see it you just cut out the sony http and it will work.