Menu design idea - is it possible? - any ideas?

fultro wrote on 4/12/2005, 11:34 AM
On the DVD of The Corporation is an extra for interviews with people shown in the main movie. First play is a static menu with a dozen thumbs/links of faces of the characters, all linked to the respective interviews. The interesting part for me that I would like to duplicate happens when you select and activate the next page button: The whole menu slides at a moderate speed to the left pulling a similiar page into its place with all new thumbs. You can go back and forth between these pages with the "forward" and "back" buttons. It is as if you are looking out a window and a page twice the width of that window is pulled leftwards so that you can see the other half of the page.
Does anyone know of a way to accomplish this with DVDA?
Thanks Fultro

Comments

ScottW wrote on 4/12/2005, 11:59 AM
You can fake this with DVDA 2.0, but can't truely reproduce the effect. Basically what you need is "delayed menu button" support to do this fairly seamlessly. If you are willing to accept a possibly non seamless method....

The next/back button on the menu does not link to the actual menu, instead it links to a transition video that implements the effect, then the end action of the transition video links to the actual menu.

A rough sequence would be:

1) Generate your menus, including your next/back buttons, but don't assign anything to them
2) take a snapshot of each menu in preview mode
3) Use the snapshots to build the transition video in Vegas
4) Bring the transition video into the DVDA project and make the action of the next/back button play the transition video and the end action of the transition video links to the appropriate menu.

Based on the text from a DVDA 3.0 advert that someone saw, my guess is that this will be a little easier to do in DVDA 3.0 - but that's just a guess.

--Scott
jkrepner wrote on 4/12/2005, 1:01 PM
Scott, well said.

It's funny that I read this because I just recreated a similar effect. (I'm still new to DVDA, so it doesn't take much to impress me..) I wanted the menu too zoom in and flash to white when a button was pressed. I took the snap shot of the completed menu and then went into Vegas and created 5 small videos that zoom in on the various buttons that I wanted to zoom and flash. I exported those "transition" videos (along with a reverse jet flyby sound effect) and then used them to link between the real menu and the video clips the titles linked too.

It worked pretty well. I just wonder if the client's DVD player will read fast enough to sell the effect.

Jeff

fultro wrote on 4/12/2005, 2:55 PM
Sounds about right - thanks - will try this when I get home this evening
I guess that I will have to make two transition vids - one forward and one backward....

Thanks again - fultro