[John Rich]

It sounds like to me that you have a still menu with a 49 second audio .wav clip to play behind it. You may have already done this but… if not, 1. Import audio clip as asset. 2. Select menu 3. Go to properties, motion 4. Take pick whip of AUDIO and run it to the audio clip in the project window 5. This should give you a still menu that plays for 49 seconds and then stops except you will set the item at the bottom of the window to forever and it should loop forever.
I don’t think you have to render this before you preview, because the menu is still .
Anyway this should work properly if you “preview from here”.
Let me know if it works or not.
John

JOHNR

[John Rich]

Mylenium,
Thanks for your answer. Would you do me a favor and give me a few specific directions to get me started here, with prolonging the activated period.

Thanks,
John Rich

JOHNR

[John Rich]

Mike,

Thanks again. You are of course correct in that my hexagons had rounded edges which don’t look that great. These things are all “subpicture highlights”, which have a low resolution and only one color and won’t accept any styles, but I agree it would be nice to make them crisper ie sharp corners. Illustrator always seemed so expensive, but maybe I have to bite the bullet.
John

JOHNR

[John Rich]

Just a couple of things.
I assume when you say you take the button into Encore, you mean, when you view the menu in the monitor window using “preview from here”. If that’s the case, then you are seeing the layer you named with (%). That’s the normal response from Encore, because that’s a TV button and it will be covered with either a still or a movie depending how you set it up, because it doesn’t matter what color it is.
Google “Doogs” and check tutorials on how to do buttons. Also, jmrser.com and check the color set tutorial which talks about buttons.
One other thing is that you may have to “rastorize” you shape buttons and then apply a layer mask to your video button.
John

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[John Rich]

I tried this and it seemed to work.
First make sure you have converted your picture to a PSD.
Then make your selection and Layer-New-layer via copy and this makes a second layer above with just the selection.
Then select the large or original picture. Then CNTL click the second layer with the smaller selection right over the square icon.
This creates a selection in the larger picture and then backspace to create a hole in the larger picture, but with both eyeballs on the picture looks intact. However, select the layer with the selection on it and you can turn down the opacity of that layer.
Save the Psd picture with the two layers and you can always change the opacity again later.
Do me a favor and let me know if that is what you want.
John Rich

JOHNR

[John Rich]

Mike,
Thanks for responding. I don’t have illustrator (I may get it after what your said). It’s only a button though, so I figured it out in photoshop. Just CNTL select the hex shape and Modify – expand (on a separate layer)and fill the whole thing on the second layer with a color. Then go back to the original shape with the larger hex layer selected and CNTL click on the original shape. That selects a smaller hex inside the larger and backspace makes a hole in the second layer. Actually what you have to do is make several increasingly larger hexes before you cut out the middle for each of them if you want concentric hex shaped rings.
Thanks again,
John

JOHNR

[John Rich]

I forgot to mention I am using Photoshop CS2.
John

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[John Rich]

Another thing you could do is make the sphere primitive and then animate your letters in the same set rotating around the sphere.
Then I applied some type of surface to the sphere which made it invisible. (It’s been so long ago, I forgot what surface, but that should be easily discovered). Then I positioned the zax layer on top of another layer I made out of CC sphere and a flat map.

It works pretty well because the letters seem to disappear behind the sphere. I wasn’t sure if I could put the flat map on the sphere created in Invigorator Pro.
John

JOHNR

[John Rich]

This is a little basic, but it might help. jmrser.com and look under tutorials and and the motion tracking one is in the middle.

John Rich

JOHNR

[John Rich]

This may not be exactly what you want, but I have gotten nice printing with an Epson (some letter 200) using their software and Photoshop.
I scanned in a disk and then used that as an outside diameter for my photoshop document. Then I created a document about 2275 by 2275 pixels and put the disk outline in it. Then I put the picture I wanted in and scaled it up so it would fill the whole circle and saved it out as a jpeg.
Then using the epson software, I imported the picture and adjusted it so it was inside the circle.
Use File – adjust inner circle to make the right size of the inner circle, in case you get a bunch of small circle disks.
Don’t forget to turn off the eyeball of the circle layer, for the jpeg picture, before you save it.
You may have to adjust your photoshop document slightly with the Epson software. Let me know if it works, since I am using a Windows machine.
John Rich

JOHNR