How to do Animal House-style menu?

DavidMcKnight wrote on 11/1/2005, 3:15 PM

I don't know how useful this would be, but watching the Double Secret Probation edition of Animal House last night, the menu composition was one I don't think I've seen before and wondered if it could be done in DVDA 3....

The menu screen is divided in two, as if using track motion in vegas to display two different video sources - the left side is playing a looped background video, and the right side is the menu. While the looped video is playing, the menu is functional - you can button up and down all day long, while the video on the left side is playing. Once you choose Play All or whatever, the video stops and the disc loads the movie like normal. It seems the combination of moving video and working menu on the same screen at the same time is different - am I unaware of some cool (or basic) functionality? Can DVDA do this?

thanks,
David

Comments

jrazz wrote on 11/1/2005, 4:01 PM
I have not seen the movie, but it sounds like they are using layers with a video as the background. For instance, in photoshop, make your menu with an alpha channel somewhere on the left (to set it up like the one you are referring to) and make the rest of the menu on the right. import this into DVDA3 set it over your video background (edited in Vegas to fit the left hand side) and it should give you that type of result.
Thinking about it though, I don't know if you can import the layer on top of a video background, but it shouldn't be difficult to find out. I hope I didn't miss the scope of your question.
j razz
Chienworks wrote on 11/1/2005, 5:07 PM
Seems pretty easy to me. Set the background media to be a video clip and build a menu on top of it. It shouldn't be any different than building a menu on top of a still image. I would imagine though that the menu will "hang" for a few moments when the video clip loops.
RBartlett wrote on 11/2/2005, 5:36 AM
Unless the left hand side playback continues whilst navigating the right hand side menu. Then the important part, that this navigation causes right hand objects to alter, as if it were a new page being brought up, or to cause the surrounding assets to animate on that right hand side without breaking the left hand side?

Complex "Do....While" and "Select on" type scripting does seem beyond DVD Architect's command structure. Albeit that I am not able to bend the envelope too much on DVD authoring using DVDA3 myself. I do tend to use what I've fathomed, dictated somewhat by the interface and not by the ideas I might have in my mind, or by imitating someone elses commercial disc.

That is the only aspect that I could think could have been missed out but that would have brought someone to bother to write the initial post in the first place. Because we all know that you can create an animated object that isn't necessarily highlighted by navigation, just using DVD Architect's objects and by changing the highlighting mode. Don't we?