How to import DVD menu from AE into Encore CS3 ?

[Simon Bonner]

Haven’t seen the tutorial you’re talking about, but when I make a menu in AE (version 7) I go to composition, save frame as, photoshop layers. Then in Encore I import the photoshop file as a menu. Voila!

If you’re not sure how to make the buttons etc transfer from AE to Encore, that’s easy too. In your comp in AE, select the button layer in the timeline and choose layer, adobe encore dvd, set as button. Your layer will be renamed with a (+) at the start, which is the Encore naming convention for buttons.

If you have a subpicture layer (an image that you want to appear over the button when it is selected with the end user’s remote), there is an additonal step which you should perform first. Select the subpicture layer and choose layer, adobe encore dvd, assign to subpicture 1. The prefix of this layer will be changed. Then select both the subpicture and the button layers and complete the above described step to make the pair of them a button (a new comp will be made containing both layers).

[Oliver Morgan]

What I don’t understand is how any of this applies to video. Surely the main reason to be using After Effects in the first place for a DVD menu is if you have video in it. As I do in my case. Yet none of the tutorials I have come across talk about how you get the video working in Encore on a menu. Instructions only seem to apply for static menus. And when you have a video layer blended with a Photoshop layer in After Effects, how can you get this functioning as a menu in Encore, that’s what I would like to know.

[Jeff Bellune]

[Oliver Morgan] “Yet none of the tutorials I have come across talk about how you get the video working in Encore on a menu.”

Treat the dynamically-linked AE comp (or the exported AE video) as an asset in the Project panel. Then Alt+Drag the asset from the Project panel to the menu that is showing in the Menu Viewer.

[Oliver Morgan] “And when you have a video layer blended with a Photoshop layer in After Effects, how can you get this functioning as a menu in Encore”

Create buttons as desired in Encore or Photoshop, then delete (or hide) all of the layers in the button except the subpicture layer. This creates a “highlight-only” button that will overlay the button graphics you created in AE/PS.

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Oliver Morgan]

Will my AE video automatically play in the menu when I create my DVD? Because I’ve done this and dragged the video onto the menu and it appears to be there, but when I select the ‘Preview From Here’ option on the menu, I see the menu with the video, but it is not in motion. Is that normal? Will it actually be in motion when I author the DVD itself?

[Jeff Bellune]

You have to render the motion menu to see it in motion during Preview.

If you make changes to the buttons (except for the highlight layers) or text or other graphics that will be composited, then you have to render it again to account for the new or changed composited elements.

Motion menus are rendered when the project is built, even if you have never manually rendered the menu(s).

-Jeff

The Focal Easy Guide to Adobe Encore DVD 2.0

[Justin Faragher]

Thanks a bunch guys, just the answer I was looking for.

[Justin Faragher]

One more thing guys, I added a Warp effect in AE to some of my text but when I preview the DVD menu the text is static ?

[Davide Vanni]

Hi Justin, I saw this forum today and I saw the Millenium tutorial…I reproduced it in after effect, then I’ve imported i tin encore..renderized it…the video goes well but the only thing I don’t understand is how activated the button created in ae before…?

Could you give me any suggestins, please?

Dav