David Sapadin
Forum Replies Created
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Hi:
Thanks for all your help. I finally got it working. The problem was in the groupings designed into the Adobe .em Menu. In Ps, I took the titles out of the title folder and canned the folder so each title became its own layer. The background graphics (for menu selection) I grouped in folders with the text buttons. Saved it as a .psd file and gave it my own name. Went back into En, and deleted the original menu completely from the project panel and imported (as menu) the .psd file that I had just customized. Then followed the normal path of Menu>Create After Effects Project. Animated as usual. Saved as .aep Then dynamically linked the .aep into the Em project. Poked out the eyeballs. Voila, its working perfectly.
I wonder if 1) this is easier in CS5, and 2) If Adobe is including more stock menus in Encore in CS5.
Thanks again,
Dave
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Well, it should! But it didn’t. First problem (guess best to work backwards from here) is that when I finished the comp in Ae, and then went back into En, to Dynamic Link, and > Import After Effects Composition, it comes in OK. But when I alt-drag it onto the menu viewer and it links up with the original En menu, the length of the composition comes in at 45 sec. The length of the comp in Ae is 28 sec. When I first started the comp in Ae, I had it set at 45 sec. but discovered that since I’m using the .wmv file (three times since its only a 15 sec clip) I ran out of RAM to be able to preview. So I shortened the Comp settings to a length of 28 sec. in the Composition?Composition Settings> Duration to 28 sec. Which worked fine in Ae, it indeed shortened the comp to 28 sec which is plenty. Got the comp working fine in Ae with the titles and buttons animating in quickly only over about 2 sec. and then the .wmv plays (static on the TV) for the whole time, even added some sound and it looks exactly the way I want it. So I saved it as a .aep file and then used Dynamic Link to import it into my En project which it seems to do OK, but its the wrong length, The “Render Motion Menus” selection is greyed out (which is wrong), and when I “preview from here” its just the static original Em menu that I’m seeing. I did poke out all the eyeballs I could on the original Em menu (layers panel) in Em but that didn’t seem to help. Any suggestions where to go from here greatly appreciated! I thought sure this would fix it, but it didn’t. Its AE 7.0 and En 2.0 all part of CS2. Thanks again for all your help.
Dave
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Hi:
Still working on it but confident I will resolve it. I did get this to work about a year ago. I am pretty sure I have been de-selecting the wrong layers once I dyamically linked the En menu into Ae. On my Encore, I have to go to MENU > Create After Effects Composition to get the En menu into Ae. If I go to “File” there is nothing available except “Adobe Dynamic Link,” and if I click on “New After Effects Composition,” under that, then En indeed fires up Ae but it does not create anything except a comp, but the menu doesn’t come along with it. But with the En menu selected, if I go to MENU > Create After Effects Composition, then it fires up Ae and creates a comp and the folder with all the menu layers is in there too. It is in that folder where I get dupes of the buttons. I had been un-eying the ones with the button info and using the ones that had the Ps icon. Sounds like it needs to be the other way around. So I am about o try that.
I see what you’re saying about extending the Ae comp past the 2 seconds or so it needs to animate in two titles and two buttons. But the problem is back in En. The En menu I am using is linked to a .wmv file. (Static on a TV). Once I make the Ae project the new background, the .wmv is no longer linked to the menu. In order to to do that I am going to import the .wmv as an object into the Ae comp and then run it through the whole thing and instead of making a 3 second comp, I’ll make it a minute comp so the .wmv file will be part of it. Then dynamically link it back into Em and set the loop point after the buttons stop animating. At least I think that’s what you’re saying, so I will give that a try now.
Thanks!!! Dave
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Problem solved I think. I was able to simply import the original project into a new one with the right settings. Tried a test export to AVI and voila. Normal. The only mystery that remains is, when I exported the original project to DVD using Premier’s Export to DVD, the video was normal, and NOT 24p, although the disk skipped alot – acted like the write was bad. Wheras when I exported the project to DVD using Encore, you could see immediately that the video was 24p. ???
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Well I think I figured out the problem. The entire project is set to 24p. I can’t imagine how I opened a 24p project because I’ve never ever used one before. Can Premier change the project to 24p on its own? Anyway, now I need to know if there’s a way to cut and paste sequences out of this project and into a new one that is not set to 24p. I don’t even know if its possible…
Dave
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I have made a little progress here. I decided to simplify for the time being by staying with 4×3. I ended up with two menus at the beginning of the DVD, one does the animation of the buttons into the menu (2 sec long) and then it links to an identical menu which is the original .psd that came with Encore (Photoshopped of course so both menus look the same). Since you can only (I think) link one menu to one video clip OR After Effects Comp, then the 1st Menu is linked to the AEP and you see the buttons animate in, but there is no static on the TV screen. When the 2 seconds is up, that first menu links to the 2nd menu which IS linked to the .WMV of static/snow that came with Encore. And then you see that the buttons remain static, but the snow appears on the TV screen. I have a feeling this is as close as I am going to get unless someone can tell me to have one menu linked both to an AE Comp AND to a .wmv file at the same time.
The only real problem with this is there is a short hiccup when Encore goes from the 1st menu to the 2nd. Is there any way to smooth out that transition? We’re not pressing any buttons when Encore goes from Menu 1 to Menu 2, so I don’t even get the Transition tab under properties.
Any ideas once again would be greatly appreciated.
Dave
PS. I should be able to duplicate the success I’ve had so far in 16 x 9, trying to do that is next on my list…
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Hoping to catch the eye of Jeff Belune here…resurrecting an old post but a great answer: but I need to take the idea a step further…
Jeff, I followed your step-by-step for motion menus in this threadh with great success using Encore in CS2 Production Studio. I am trying to take it a step further though and you seem to be very knowledgeable on the subject of Encore and customizing menus.
I want to take one of the menus that came with Encore 2.0 and customize it. It is a MOTION menu (a .em file) that has a short .wmv video file associated with it. It is also only available in 4 x 3, and I need it in widescreen!
So….easy enough to change the .psd portion of the menu in Photoshop by adding some fill on either side of the 4 x 3 canvass to fill it out to 16 x 9. Easy enough to customize the title and buttons. (By the way this is the televsion.em menu which has a TV set in it and the video is simply snow/static on the TV screen…)
Also easy enough to go through the steps you outlined in this thread to animate the buttons in and then go to a static menu awaiting the user to make a selection.
The problem comes in when I try to link it to the .WMV video and get the static onto the screen. That I cannot seem to be able to do at all and have the static on the screen show up when I do a preview.
Can you help?
Thanks in advance,
David Sapadin
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Thanks, but I’m using CS2. So I need to figure out the right settings to export to .avi which works better with Encore CS2.
Dave
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Which is the proper Codec to select? Microsoft AVI or DV AVI? I tried it again with DV AVI and it went much faster. But the quality doesn’t seem to be as good. I am wondering if I accidentally reset the codec and now I can’t find the right one to use…
Thanks,
Dave
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The output end is going to be DVD. Which seems like it will work fine since everything looks OK in Encore, but I imagine if someone puts the DVD into their computer to watch it instead of a DVD player, its going to be squished. Why is that? I would think Windows Media Player, et. al. would be able to display a 16 x 9 easy enough. It seems to do fine with other videos that I play.
Thanks again,
Dave