Mouse Over effect?

Begbie wrote on 8/10/2003, 7:02 AM

i was wondering if it was possible ot have a mouse over effect, which i will try to describe.

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/harvey_jim/dvda_rev/index.html
In fig 3 on the above page you have text links on the right and video thumbs on the left - i was hoping it would be possible to have all the video thumbs not animated until you highlight one of the text links?

Eg Video thumbs 1, 2, 3, 4 and text links 1, 2, 3, 4 - when your cursor has highlted text link 1, then video thumb 1 begins to play?

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 8/10/2003, 6:45 PM

I think you're confusing what you can do in HTML for web pages and what's possible with DVD-A as far as customizing the menu. In HTML a 'mouse over' or roll over changing one image to another (see my web site for an example) is accomplished because there are two images for each button. An active and inactive thumbnail. Whatever has the focus is what's shown. So when you aren't over the thumbnail the staitc image shows, move over the thumbnail a second image shows. That is accomplished with Java Scripting on the web page, again to see how look at the source of my web page.

In DVD-A you can as the Cow tutorial shows pull out the text from the thumnail and place it elsewhere making the text the link. For now you're pretty much limited to the selections DVD-A has like various highlights of the thumbnail and/or the text.

So while the focus changes from one thumbnail to another or to a different text caption, moving over the next one does nothing but highlight. To get a chapter to play you need to click its button.

Begbie wrote on 8/10/2003, 9:02 PM

Thanks - yep very familiar with DHTML and JS mouse overs.

But i am sure i saw on the gladiator DVD the scenes werent playing until you highlighted them - do you think it ids possible using other softwares, or this is a limitation with authoring DVDs in general?

On my PC i play 4 animated buttons and my PC is almost stopped, 1fps - will it have a similar effect on some DVD players? Or if it will play ok on mine it should be ok on others?

So far dvda is easy enough to use, but does seem pretty limited, in regards to effects etc, is this because dvda is limited or there isnt a lot else you can do with dvd authoring, except maybe making flash guis?

I am new to the authoring part if you couldnt tell :)

JSWTS wrote on 8/10/2003, 10:03 PM

Begbie,

To get the desired effect you are describing, you would have to have an auto-activation feature available for your buttons, which DVD-A doesn't support. You have to get into some pretty expensive stuff on the PC side of things to get that feature. Basically it works by having multiple identical menus, with the variations being the different animations for the thumbnails. The first time you select/roll over the thumbnail it would 'auto-activate' and bring you to an identical menu, but with the thumbnail now showing motion. Selecting that button again will bring you to that chapter, selecting another button will bring you to another identical menu except for that new button showing motion. DVD-Lab is pretty inexpensive and I believe offers this feature. However, the way that the disc is compiled and the language written to allow the feature, where and what order the menus are placed, etc; all have an effect on how seamless the navigation appears. DVD-Lab offers a lot for it's price, but it is no where near as reliable as the high end apps that offer this, and many other features. If it's for your own personal viewing, then you might tolerate the glitches, so it wouldn't matter.

Jim

Begbie wrote on 8/10/2003, 10:24 PM

Thanks i will try dvdlabs - no its not for me (entirely) i plan to make a few for others too. Its not the be all end all, but a nice to have - i thought if it were possible i would like to do it.

thanks

Begbie wrote on 8/11/2003, 7:18 PM

DSE says - http://www.digitalproducer.com/2003/03_mar/tutorials/03_10/dvda_menus.htm

"but many do allow for unique mpg files to be played following a button selection and prior to the actual selected media. Even though this feature is missing at all levels in the 1.0 version of DVDA, "

In version 2 maybe?

S R wrote on 10/4/2006, 3:59 PM

DVDA version 4 has been released.

Would still like a Mouse Over effect,
or
if this is awkward within the DVD spec .... (without a Javascript equivalent)
DVDA software should implement it
doing whatever it has to do behind the scenes,
including creating multiple copies of the current menu
substituting just the mouse over graphic

richard-courtney wrote on 10/4/2006, 6:27 PM

Yes, autoactivate as described back then, each button would be a menu page.
The buttons that auto activate are the ones NOT animated if that helps.