creating DVDA menus in Vegas with masks

epirb wrote on 7/22/2005, 5:34 PM
I though I remembered how to do this, but trying it just got me more lost.
Looked on the Vasst site but didnt locate , does any body know if there is a short online tutorial for this?
Or if offered on one of the Vasst DVD's which one?
We covered it at the Vasst seminar last year but I have done it in a while.

Ive created the menu in Vegas and I want to highlight the text for each chapter,
each one of those is a generated media text file in Vegas.

I need a kick start...

Comments

kkolbo wrote on 7/22/2005, 6:25 PM
Well, that is one of the sections that I am currently working on for my DVDA DVD. I know you know the basics, so I will just kick start it.

You want to make a Black and White image of the highlights that you want on the menu. Layout the the menu in Vegas. Then mute all of the tracks except the generated media that you want to have highlights on. Make sure that you have changed the text to white. In the preview window, you should now see a black image with the white text.

Set preview to best full. Press the snapshot button and save as .png. (lets call it MenuMask.png)

Now go to DVDA.
Put your background media into your menu by right clicking on the menu and choosing select background media.

Go to the menu page properties by clicking on the menu. Go to the background media tab. For highlight mask choose replace and choose the MenuMask.png file.

Insert and Empty button or drag the media for a button onto the menu. Place it where you know one of the highlights lives.

Go to the button's properties and select button style, Image. For thumbnail chose remove.

Go to the button's highlight tab. For style choose image mask. It will use the highlight from the MenuMask.png file that is in its area.

I assumed that you knew how to get to the various propoerties. Let me know if this worked for you, or if I misunderstood.

Keith
epirb wrote on 7/22/2005, 6:51 PM
Thats Exactly what I needed Keith! Thank you !! As soon as I read your post it all clicked! Perfect answer!

Now one more Ity Bity question...My selections appear about 5 seconds into the menu, how do I prevent the masks from appearing before that time?

epirb wrote on 7/22/2005, 7:35 PM
I think I sort of found out if I set the loop point in the menu page properties to where all the menu selections are present that will do it i just have to get the music sync point right now.
Unless there is a better way.

heres a link to the menu Im trying to do, you'll see the selections dont appear until about 17 seconds into it.

http://epirbfilms.com/movies/DVD MAIN MENU_512.wmv
kkolbo wrote on 7/23/2005, 12:15 PM
Setting the loop point is the way to do it. Yuppers, the key will be getting the music to hit that point. You do not have to set the loop point right where the menu items appear. You can set it where the music loops best right after that. It sounds like you have a loopable point at about 0:18.20 . The menu looks very nice.

Keith
jetdv wrote on 7/23/2005, 3:12 PM
There's an article in Vol 2 Issue 6 of my newsletters explaining how to do this.