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CS2 Motion Menus and CS5 Questions
Hi:
I’ve been using Production Studio CS2 for a long time now, mainly because when I bought it Total Training had a very nifty Production Studio training bundle that included not only basic instruction, but advanced as well.
But it didn’t go into animating menus. Which I have discovered to be a rather large pain, especially if you want to animate a menu that is already one of Encore’s motion menus (.em). When you animated the menu in AE, and import it to En, the .aep becomes the motion video associated with the menu, and the original .wmv file is replaced by it. So you basically have to do two menus, if I have this right, the first one is the animated menu you make in AE, and then you have it link to a second menu that looks the same as the first but is associated with the .em file. Which produces a short flicker when the menu using the .aep links over to the the orignal .em menu. So I guess first question is there any way around that so that you don’t end up with the short flicker?
My next question has to do with CS5. I am contemplating upgrading to CS5 (finally) because Premier is now native 64 bit and will work with Windows 7 and larger amounts of memory, at least I think so anyway. But I haven’t been able to find any training (Lynda or Total Training) that will go beyond “the basics.” Since this is probably a leap from CS2 to CS5, I am concerned about trying to make that leap without good training that will go beyond the basic ABC’s. If anybody knows of any, I’d love to hear about it.
Thanks,
Dave
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6 Replies
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When you send the En menu to AE via File | Dynamic Link from En, does the original motion menu video clip show up in the AE project and comp? If so, just interpret the clip in AE to loop however many times you need it to in order to get the length of menu that you want back in En. Make sure to extend the clip layer and the comp to contain the full length that’s generated by the number of loops you chose.
When you get back to En, you shouldn’t have to make a second menu. Just set the loop point back to where the button/text animation ends and those elements are static over the motion background.
(PS – did you get your loop point issue solved?)
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Hi:
Still working on it but confident I will resolve it. I did get this to work about a year ago. I am pretty sure I have been de-selecting the wrong layers once I dyamically linked the En menu into Ae. On my Encore, I have to go to MENU > Create After Effects Composition to get the En menu into Ae. If I go to “File” there is nothing available except “Adobe Dynamic Link,” and if I click on “New After Effects Composition,” under that, then En indeed fires up Ae but it does not create anything except a comp, but the menu doesn’t come along with it. But with the En menu selected, if I go to MENU > Create After Effects Composition, then it fires up Ae and creates a comp and the folder with all the menu layers is in there too. It is in that folder where I get dupes of the buttons. I had been un-eying the ones with the button info and using the ones that had the Ps icon. Sounds like it needs to be the other way around. So I am about o try that.
I see what you’re saying about extending the Ae comp past the 2 seconds or so it needs to animate in two titles and two buttons. But the problem is back in En. The En menu I am using is linked to a .wmv file. (Static on a TV). Once I make the Ae project the new background, the .wmv is no longer linked to the menu. In order to to do that I am going to import the .wmv as an object into the Ae comp and then run it through the whole thing and instead of making a 3 second comp, I’ll make it a minute comp so the .wmv file will be part of it. Then dynamically link it back into Em and set the loop point after the buttons stop animating. At least I think that’s what you’re saying, so I will give that a try now.
Thanks!!! Dave
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[David Sapadin] “On my Encore, I have to go to MENU > Create After Effects Composition to get the En menu into Ae. If I go to “File” there is nothing available except “Adobe Dynamic Link,” and if I click on “New After Effects Composition,” under that, then En indeed fires up Ae but it does not create anything except a comp, but the menu doesn’t come along with it. But with the En menu selected, if I go to MENU > Create After Effects Composition, then it fires up Ae and creates a comp and the folder with all the menu layers is in there too”
You’re right. Sorry. My mistake. In CS4 and CS5 you need the same command, Menu | Create After Effects Composition. (I’ve been working a lot with Pr CS5, En CS5 and the Adobe Media Encoder CS5, and File | Adobe Dynamic Link opens up useful import possibilities in En and the AME so the command is sort of stuck in my head.)
What you proposed should work perfectly.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Well, it should! But it didn’t. First problem (guess best to work backwards from here) is that when I finished the comp in Ae, and then went back into En, to Dynamic Link, and > Import After Effects Composition, it comes in OK. But when I alt-drag it onto the menu viewer and it links up with the original En menu, the length of the composition comes in at 45 sec. The length of the comp in Ae is 28 sec. When I first started the comp in Ae, I had it set at 45 sec. but discovered that since I’m using the .wmv file (three times since its only a 15 sec clip) I ran out of RAM to be able to preview. So I shortened the Comp settings to a length of 28 sec. in the Composition?Composition Settings> Duration to 28 sec. Which worked fine in Ae, it indeed shortened the comp to 28 sec which is plenty. Got the comp working fine in Ae with the titles and buttons animating in quickly only over about 2 sec. and then the .wmv plays (static on the TV) for the whole time, even added some sound and it looks exactly the way I want it. So I saved it as a .aep file and then used Dynamic Link to import it into my En project which it seems to do OK, but its the wrong length, The “Render Motion Menus” selection is greyed out (which is wrong), and when I “preview from here” its just the static original Em menu that I’m seeing. I did poke out all the eyeballs I could on the original Em menu (layers panel) in Em but that didn’t seem to help. Any suggestions where to go from here greatly appreciated! I thought sure this would fix it, but it didn’t. Its AE 7.0 and En 2.0 all part of CS2. Thanks again for all your help.
Dave
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1. When the AE comp appears in the En project panel, what is the duration shown in the project panel?
2. Did you ever transcode the AE comp from inside of En? It’s even possible that rendering the motion menu may have set and locked in a different duration. Does Encore 2.0 have the commands File | Revert to Original or File | Replace Asset? If so, try those.
-Jeff
The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0
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Hi:
Thanks for all your help. I finally got it working. The problem was in the groupings designed into the Adobe .em Menu. In Ps, I took the titles out of the title folder and canned the folder so each title became its own layer. The background graphics (for menu selection) I grouped in folders with the text buttons. Saved it as a .psd file and gave it my own name. Went back into En, and deleted the original menu completely from the project panel and imported (as menu) the .psd file that I had just customized. Then followed the normal path of Menu>Create After Effects Project. Animated as usual. Saved as .aep Then dynamically linked the .aep into the Em project. Poked out the eyeballs. Voila, its working perfectly.
I wonder if 1) this is easier in CS5, and 2) If Adobe is including more stock menus in Encore in CS5.
Thanks again,
Dave
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