custom DVD menu for DVD Architect PRO using Photoshop

[John Rofrano]

I would use Vegas to create the menu. You can import the background as an image and then use Track Motion to position the three looping videos. Render the whole thing out to MPEG2 and drop it in DVD Architect as the menu background.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Olaf Steel]

thanks for your reply.

i dont have vegas. i use avid…
its important for me to use photoshop for this as i will be making buttons and highlights also. the three looping videos will not be the onl thing on the menu.

i’ll give you a basic desrciption of the full menu. perhaps it will makie it easier to understand what im doing and find out how to do it.

i have filmed myself painting the menu that i will use, kind of like the menu on the ‘fear and loathing in las vegas’ criterion special edition menu where the title of the film can be seen being written in ink.

the intro video to the menu is the title of the film being written and some images being drawn. then i draw three triangles in the centre of what will be the menu and that is where i hope to put the three looping video segments, each sgement playing a few seconds from the film.
usually i would use encore to build my menus, but encore wont allow three video clips to be played at once, and it wont let three video boxes lie so close to eachother. i have experimented a little with sony dvd architect and it allows for all these things, i just cant create the triangular boxes i need.

i hope this helps…

thanks a lot. once again any help would be greatly appreciated.

olaf

[John Rofrano]

DVD Architect Pro is not available without purchasing Vegas Pro 8.0 so I don’t understand how you cannot have Vegas and yet have a copy of DVD Architect Pro?

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Olaf Steel]

hi.

i dont have either.

im attending a film college and they have the vegas studio, aswell as premiere and other adobi products. however we are encouraged to use avid for our editing and have not been introduced to any of the sony software at all yet.

i have this project im trying to complete which cant be done with the help of teachers and am trying to use DVD Architect for the first time.

olaf

[Olaf Steel]

since i dont know any of the vegas programs at all, id rather use photoshop along with dvd architect, if thats possible for what i want to know. that way i only have to learn one program rather than two in the short time i have left.

thanks again for your continued help,

olaf

[John Rofrano]

If they have Vegas Movie Studio then you might have DVD Architect Studio. I don’t think the Studio version of DVD Architect supports using Photoshop to make menus. If you do have a copy of DVD Architect that supports PSD menus I can tell you that it’s not easy to create them (or at least I don’t find it easy and so I never use it). The instructions would be in the help file if you search for PSD. It involves creating layers and naming them a special way so that DVD Architect knows what to use each for.

If the three looping videos are going to be buttons, just drag and drop them onto the menu and set them to animate which will create the looping. If they are just playing as part of the background, then I would make them part of the background video. This is why I suggested using Vegas but you can use Avid if you’d like.

Just to recap, make the looping video as part of the menu background video and create the buttons and other overlays with Photoshop or DVD Architect itself. DVD Architect also has the ability to create a menu overlay image to highlight the buttons if you don’t use Photoshop.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Adam Rose esq.]

well, you could drag three triangular buttons from the BUTTONS tab on to your menu, then set their media to the 3 videos on your drive, and set the Media style to animated…….

BTW, what version of DVD Architect are you using?

[Olaf Steel]

hi, thanks for your help

i think its sony dvd architect pro 4.5… however i dont actually have it on my computer, i have to wait till tomorrow to use it. im pretty sure it is that version though.

i dont quite understand what you said though, would you be able to simplify what you said a little as i really have no idae how to use dvd architect, never used it before… i only know encore.

thanks a lot,

olaf

[Adam Rose esq.]

somewhere on your screen will be 4 tabs, EXPLORER, THEMES, BUTTONS, BACKGROUNDS

1) find the triangle button, and drop it 3 times on your menu
2) click and delete the text from each button
3) select a button, and click on the word MEDIA in your Properties pane (usually docked on RHS of screen)
4) under Thumbnail Properties, click Thumbnail Media and choose REPLACE.
5) find first looping video you want to use
6) do same to other 2 buttons
7) set the STYLE property further down, of each button, to ANIMATED
8) select all 3 buttons, choose HIGHLIGHT in Properties pane, and change STYLE to custom

ok, that gets you the animated triangles. If you want any of them to be actual links, you would set the MEDIA property in top right to appropriate video/audio for each button. You would also prob want to alter the HIGHLIGHT /STYLE property to something else other than CUSTOM (eg to UNDERLINE) so the user knows when they have selected a triangle.

alternatively, if none of the triangles are to act as buttons, you will add your actual videos by simply drag n dropping them, via the Explorer tab, on to your menu and making suitable adjustments, and then altering the order of the buttons (dragging them) in the tree structure pane on the LHS.

hope this helps. not sure if have understood you completely.

[Olaf Steel]

hi, thanks for your help.

i have tried what you suggested before, and it wont work for me as the triangles are all slightly different in size and shape, hence the reason i wanted to create them in photoshop.

when desinging menus in photoshop for encore, there are certain names that have to be given to things i have created (ie. (+) denotes a button in encore and (=1) denotes a highlight). i have found that a similar system works for dvd architect, obvioulsy using different names, but i cant find the name to use for video boxes.

thank you for your continued help. greatly appreciated.

olaf