custom DVD menu for DVD Architect PRO using Photoshop

[Olaf Steel]

just to make things a little clearer: im trying to map the three triangular video boxes over hand drawn triangles that i have previously created.
the intro to the dvd menu will be me drawing the menu on paper, which i have already filmed. the last thing i will draw is the three triangels. once i have finished, a video should appear in each triangle and play on a loop.
none of the triangles are buttons.
there are three buttons elsewhere on the menu which i have also hand drawn. they will be simply slected by moving a small indicator up or down.

hope that helps a little.

thanks,

olaf

[Adam Rose esq.]

understood – YOUR triangles need to be irregular sizes etc, because you be drawing them freehand, right? and DVDA only makes them uniform etc etc

pity you don’t jhave vegs, since doing all the menus in vegas is easy as pie, since one can use bezier masking

know about the photoshop stuff in theory, but never used it. quite finicky stuff, unfortunately. look in the online help for DVDA – Layered Graphics Files.

[John Rofrano]

What you want to do is not going to be possible in any DVD authoring application. If I understand you correctly you want to draw a triangle and then have video loop appear within it, then draw another triangle and have another video loop appear. This is video editing work. You are compositing multiple videos with overlays and this needs to be done in an NLE and then use it as the background for the DVD menu. You will have to learn how to do it in Avid if that’s all you have. As we have already said, this is simple to do in Vegas.

If you just want to create a new frame, just drop an existing frame onto the menu and look in it’s attributes to see what files were used to create it, the mask, and the highlight. Then find those files on the file system and open them in Photoshop to get an idea of what you have to do to make your own. Then make your own and change the properties to point to your versions.

~jr

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

[Olaf Steel]

Thank you for all your help everyone.
I found a way to do what i wanted to do. Using photoshop i made my three triangles and named them framemasks.
then in dvd architect i could insert the video clips i want and they take up the triangular shape i created.

it looks great!

thanks again for all your help,

Olaf

[Bob Mark]

I know this post is really old, but could say how you did this step by step? Thaanks

Bob

[Olaf Steel]

Hi Bob,

I’m really sorry, its been so long since I made that menu and I can’t remember how I did it really…
Even though DVD Architect is good for creating animated menus and buttons, better than Encore, I understand Encore quite well and prefer to use that, so I never returned to using Sony’s apps after that project.

From what I read in my last post, it looks like I created a layer in photoshop and named it framemask, then created the shape I wanted.
After exporting the project from Photoshop with a transparent background, I would have brought it into DVD Architect and I presume just dropped the video files into the shapes.

Now I’m not sure in Photoshop if you should crate a new layer group and lable it framemask, and then create layers within that that contain all the shapes you want, or if you need to lable each layer itself framemask.
I guess the best thing is to try both options.

I’m sorry I can’t be more help to you on this. Hopefully the above will be of some use.

Olaf

[Bob Mark]

Thank you for your reply Olaf. I will look into trying that. I appreciate the info!

Bob