length of motion menus

tfc wrote on 11/11/2003, 2:08 AM
Let's say that I have a main menu with several objects which are motion menu links. Now, I know that in order to make them loop, one must go to the far right hand side under Page Properties and check the Looped box. Next one must put in a time limit for this loop. I assume that when one puts this time limit in that Architect uses this for all the motion menus. My question is this - is there any way to have multiple motion menus with different loop times? In other words, loop one motion menu at 30 seconds, another at 45 seconds, another at 15 seconds, etc, all in the same project?

Comments

farss wrote on 11/11/2003, 6:41 AM
I think so, if you tell it to autocalculate the length ie use the whole of the video it should work that way. On ething with motion menus, the loop is not that smooth at times as the players heads have to fly back to the start, I've gotten around this by having a fade at the beginning and end of the clip or if I have the space on the DVD repeating the clip a few times so it's unlikely the viewer ever gets to see the loop!
davideo wrote on 11/11/2003, 8:42 AM
Each individual menu can have its own looped TIME regardless of any other menu times farss is right tho even of some commercial dvd's there can be a rather rough loop and he's right the way to go is to make a fade in and fade out on your background clip
jetdv wrote on 11/11/2003, 8:57 AM
All items on the same MENU get the same length.
JSWTS wrote on 11/11/2003, 10:26 AM
I personally don't fade in and out with menus in authoring apps like DVD-A, because you can't time the appearance of the subpicture/menu highlight appearance. If you fade to black, your motion menu background looks great, but your button highlight(s) remain on screen. I would make my motion menu long enough to give the average viewer enough time to make a choice before the menu loops. The more choices that a viewer has to scroll through to get to an option, the longer I would make it. Somewhere in the 30-60 sec range usually covers it. Of course, motion menus take up more disc real estate than a still image, so you want to make sure you don't have too many of them.

I find the pause as the set top player goes back to repeat the menu less annoying, than seeing nothing except a button highlight. If you have a motion menu that buids on itself until the buttons/hotspots finally come in--you have the annoying subpicture/highlight overlay displayed the whole time. Some apps allow you to delay the subpicture appearance (like ReelDVD) to avoid that. You can't do it directly in DVD-A.

Jim
kameronj wrote on 11/11/2003, 4:16 PM
"All items on the same MENU get the same length"

Not entirely true.

If you create an Animated thumbnail for media "a" that is fifteen seconds long - and you create an animated thumbnail for media "b" that is 30 seconds long...and then you set everything to loop....

...as long as you set the loop time equal to or longer than your longest animated thumbnail (in this case...30 seconds) - the loop for media "a" will loop twice within thirty seconds...while the thumbnail for media "b" will loop only once.

If you set a music background on your menu page - and (let's say) it is one minute long...it will begin the loop after every minute.

Media a and media b will loop their respective times regardless of the 1 minute music piece. However, when the music starts over - all of the thumbnails will start over regardless of where they were in their looping.

And don't argue with me on this one anyone. I tested it before I posted this reply - so I know what I"m talking about.

However - if you are only animating a thumbnail from the media that you have inserted (as in you haven't created a separate media for the thumbnail) - then you are "stuck" with the looping of the longest loop, or what ever you set the loop time to.

And...the best you are going to do is tell DVDA where you want the animation to start (as in which point of your media).

But that is so boring. I like creating my own menu items.
jetdv wrote on 11/12/2003, 11:49 AM
If you create an Animated thumbnail for media "a" that is fifteen seconds long - and you create an animated thumbnail for media "b" that is 30 seconds long...and then you set everything to loop....

Are you sure about this? I admit I've not fully tested this but here's my understanding:

If you create a 15 second clip and a 30 second clip and set the menu loop time to 30 seconds, the 15 second version would show 15 seconds of clip and then 15 seconds of black. The 30 second clip would play the full length.

If YOU re-create the 15 second clip as a 30 second clip showing the original clip twice, then it would show correctly.

Am I mistaken about this?

Since I always pull clips from the full video, it always takes the "menu" length of time from the video so they all show the menu length.
kameronj wrote on 11/12/2003, 2:09 PM
Are you sure about this? (Yes).

I admit I've not fully tested this but here's my understanding:

If you create a 15 second clip and a 30 second clip and set the menu loop time to 30 seconds, the 15 second version would show 15 seconds of clip and then 15 seconds of black. (Not correct)

The 30 second clip would play the full length. (Correct)

If YOU re-create the 15 second clip as a 30 second clip showing the original clip twice, then it would show correctly. (Correct...to a point. If you re-create the 15 second clip as a 30 second clip to show twice...then it will show twice in 30 seconds. But you don't have to go that far, just have the one 15 second clip and set it to loop. It will loop twice within 30 seconds.)

Am I mistaken about this? (Yes. You are mistaken.)

Since I always pull clips from the full video, it always takes the "menu" length of time from the video so they all show the menu length. (Yes...you are correct here...doing it this way.)

As I tried to illustrate - I typically create / use a different file to animate my thumbnail motion menus than using the media it is pointing to. Doing it this way - I can have "whatever I want" show as the looping thumbnail.

In doing it this way - I can have clip a be 15 seconds and clip b be 30 seconds. And, as long as my loop length is set equal to (or longer than) my longest clip (in this case 30 seconds)....clip a will repeat as many times as mathmatically possible within the loop set time.

In this example (of 30 seconds) it will loop twice. It will not play for 15 seconds and then go to black.

You have to remember to choose "loop" and to choose "animate". If you do not choose loop for the object (say for menu a) then it will play for 15 seconds and then either go black or stay on the last frame. Then, menu b will play for the next 15 seconds....and then everything else will just stop.

You can't have one menu loop with the others not looping. The loop box is very general for all the objects on the page.

Give it a test....that's what I did.

Hope that helps.