[Ashley M. kirchner]

[Joe Bowden] “Got any overrides set in the project?”

Joe’s familiar mantra at its best. 🙂

[Ashley M. kirchner]

I just realized that AE 7 has an effect called … drum roll please … Audio Spectrum (and one called Audio Waveform) that does what I want. 🙂

[Ashley M. kirchner]

Thanks guys. I’m busy experimenting, generally playing with different setups so I can understand the different methods better. The project is moving along quite nicely. I’ll report back when it’s done, maybe I’ll try to capture what the menu does and post that.

Speaking of which, what’s the best way to do that? Capture the actual end result of the menu once it’s on DVD and working? I have all the separate elements in Encore, built onto the time line, but is there a way I can “show” this working? Am I limited to using something such as Camtasia to capture the DVD video playback from my screen?

[Ashley M. kirchner]

Is that a plugin within AE, or is it a third party one?

[Ashley M. kirchner]

Well, AE is available, however I don’t know much about it yet. I’m still learning. So I’ve resorted to the Photoshop/PremierePro/Encore combination. It’s okay, it’s a good learning experience. 🙂 Thanks!

On the other hand, if you do feel inclined to give me a run down of how to do it in AE, I will use that to create a dummy menu to learn.

[Ashley M. kirchner]

That link works in IE, though not in Firefox. They’re not sending the proper encoding from the page. 🙂

[Ashley M. kirchner]

Thanks David. That’s what I have right now for the most part. In Encore, I imported that AVI as an asset and dropped it on a time line called First Play. Then I imported the Photoshop file that’s the completed menu (called Motion Menu).

The Project’s ‘first play’ points to the First Play time line.
The First Play time line’s ‘end action’ goes to ‘Motion Menu: Default’
The Motion Menu’s end action just stops.

This allowed the intro motion to play then at the end go straight to the menu (no delay, no black video, just nice and smooth.)

You’re saying I should create a mask (in Photoshop) on the menu to use as the vignetted ‘hole’ and have the 30 second loop as a separate asset (AVI containing video and audio) in Encore. Then how or where do I place that asset in Encore to have it work?

[Ashley M. kirchner]

Aha! That actually does make sense. Is that how games are created? My daughter has several Disney (and others) DVDs that have games on them where you’re either doing a multiple choice type thing, or searching for things. I always wondered how they a) keep track of all the possible choices that each screen presents, but also b) how they keep track of what you’ve already answered that would affect a future question or part in the game. I can’t imagine that being an easy task.

[Ashley M. kirchner]

Nevermind. Fixed the problem by turning off overlays in WMP. Annoying as heck. Tools -> Options -> Performance -> Advanced -> uncheck ‘Use overlays’ under ‘Use video mixing renderer’.

What’s interesting is, if I enable ‘Use high quality mode’, the picture is fuzzy. Leaving it unchecked produces the expected output, nice and sharp. And if I uncheck that ‘Use video mixing renderer’ all together, the colors get whacked again. Really weird.

Anyway, problem solved.

[Ashley M. kirchner]

Hey Jeff, seeing as how I was also bitten by this “issue” not too long ago (and the problem getting solved after following your advice), is there a tutorial somewhere that does talk about the overrides, what they’re used for, how to use them, etc., etc., etc. I mean, obviously they’re there for something, and not to be ignored or not used. I’d like to learn more about them.