• Adobe After Effects

  Advice for Authoring Motion Menus from AfterEffects CS3?

  Posted by Accountclosed on September 29, 2007 at 5:36 am

  We’ve been authoring DVDs in Scenarist 2.7 for a number of years. In the past, we did things the hard way, with subpictures created in PhotoShop. That was fine when we mostly did still menus, but more and more titles we author today specify motion menus in the job spec.

  Often, we recycle prior projects as templates for new projects by unlinking the source media from the PGCs in the Assets manager and then selecting the new path and file for each asset and then Placeholder -> Data.

  In light of the need to have an efficient workflow for motion menus, we’ve been experimenting with creating them in Adobe AfterEffects CS3. The general concept is to have a 29:29 duration composition, in which the animation/video elements are created/merged. The top layers are text layers for the (usually Zapf Dingbats) highlight button shapes. Between the button layers and the backround video, we place a white solid layer.

  To render the video background, we turn off the text layers (buttons) and the white solid and render an MPEG2 file.

  To render the button overlay/subpicture, we turn on visibility for the white solid and text button layers and export frame to TARGA 32-bit with alpha channel at the project dimensions of 720×480.

  The problem we’re having is that in Scenarist, when we are starting to work on the creation of highlight buttons, the button graphics from the subpicture are illedgiblely-distorted and seem to be at very low resolution. If we turn on visibility for the subpicture, it is very sharp and clear. But the highlight graphics produced are exceptionally blocky and unreadable.

  I recall that back in the still menu era, we used to have to produce PhotoShop files that were 720 x 576, not 720 x 480, and then scale them to 720×480 before saving. I don’t see how AfterEffects would be any different.

  The challenge is that in AfterEffects, the project dimensions are the same for the motion graphics and the subpicture overlay. I think some of our menu quality issues are hiding in there.

  Has anyone figured out a proper way to produce the subpictures from AE, so that they appear with full resolution on the DVD? If so, what are the export settings and project settings that work?

  Take care,

  Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

  https://www.basspig.com The Bass Pig’s Lair – 15,000 Watts of Driving Stereo!
  https://www.mwcomms.com
  https://www.adventuresinanimemusic.com

  Accountclosed replied 18 years, 7 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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