Help with creating transitions in DVD-A 3.0

heartwork7 wrote on 3/27/2006, 5:27 AM
Hello Everyone,

I am posting this becasue I need some serious help with a project I am working on & I know this is the place to find it.At least, I hope so.

I am ATTEMPTING to create transitions for a dvd project. What I am trying to do is this: Main Menu (Play & Scene Selections)->Press "Scene Selections" -> then a transition video pops up leading to scene selections screen. For the life of me I can't do this.
I am using VEGAS 6.0 & DVD-A 3.0 (Build 106).

I have tried using the "help" section of DVD-A & it is just not working.
I have tried creaing the transition video itself in Vegas 6.0 as both an MPEG-2 & A NTSC DVD ARCHITECT video stream.Nothing works. I have followed the instructions to do this to a T. Help!

The transition itself is 4 seconds long.

Can someone please point me in the right direction here? Is there a guide (besides the one in the program) that someone can refer me too. What am I doing wrong? Once again,please help!

Please reply on here or e-mail me:

heartwork7@yahoo.com

I am in a bit of a crunch to get this done so any help will be greatly appreciated...

Thanks,
Greg

Comments

cbrillow wrote on 3/27/2006, 9:47 AM
When you say 'help section' are you referring to the Help function within DVDA? Have you tried looking in the manual PDF?

If you search for "Creating Menu Transitions", perhaps you'll find what you need to get going. It's on page 65 of the version I'm looking at, but may vary with the latest PDF.
bStro wrote on 3/27/2006, 10:10 AM
Help us help you by telling us:

1. What steps you took, and
2. What about the process "is just not working"

Do you kind of get what you want, but you're just not happy with the result? Can you just not get it to work at all?

The most common problem associated with menu transitions is that there is a slight gap between the elements (ie, from menu to transition and transition to sub-menu). This is because the laser in your DVD player has to move from one file to another during playback. The length of the gab is dependent on the player itself, and there's not much you can do in the authoring process about this.

Beginning with version 3.0, DVDA provides a little bit of help in this area. It has a new feature for menus called a loop point, which means that -- if you use a video background for a menu -- you can put your transition at the beginning of that video (using Vegas). You then only need to link from the main menu to the sub-menu, and set the loop point on the sub-menu where the transition part is done. (Look up "loop point" for more info.)

If that's not the issue you're having, let us know what it is.

Rob
ScottW wrote on 3/27/2006, 10:31 AM
DVDA does make this a little more difficult than it really needs to be and unfortunately, you'll probably not like the results since the transitions won't be seemless.

OK, I assume you've got your scene selection menu created by right clicking on the movie and selecting "insert scene selection menu" - now, in the project tree view on the left, click and drag the scene selection menu from its location up to the project root (indicated by the DVD icon). Click on the scene selection entries that say "broken link" and set the destination to be the correct menu.

Now, using the explorer window, locate your transition clip and drag it to the root of the project in the project view.

Navigate to your main menu and add a new empty button. Change the destination action of this button to point at your transition clip and change the text of the button to say "scene selection" (or whatever).

Double click on the transition video in the project view. Set the end action of the movie to link to the scene selection menu.

--Scott
heartwork7 wrote on 3/27/2006, 7:13 PM
Hello Scott,

THANK YOU & everyone who responded for your input. I am finally getting somewhere!!!!!!

Quick question: Once the video transition is set up: When I preview the transition it gives me 2 seconds of BLACK after the transition is done. Is there anyway to avoid tis & have it "bleed" into the Scene Selections (individual segment selection)? Once again, thank you for all your help!

ScottW wrote on 3/28/2006, 4:15 AM
First off, check that your audio and video are the same length in Vegas; having an audio track slightly longer than video can cause this.

Also keep in mind that you cannot have an entirely seemless transition. As Rob pointed out, the laser has to physically move from one position to another on the DVD.

One additional trick is to use the loop point that Rob mentioned and make your transition clip part of the menu background that you are transitioning too. This will eliminate one of the potential places for a pause.