[Nate Hanson]

Andrew,

This is going to be a video tutorial. I teach high school multimedia classes and when kids are absent from class it is a nightmare to get them caught up. So I’ve been making video tutorials of what I covered in class.

I’ve made several that have worked out great…but I was trying to improve the process (I was trying for a bigger capture size so I can zoom in and maintain quality) but I got all hung up on this one.

I really appreciate everybody’s input.

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

[Nate Hanson]

Well, I am out of room on my hard drive, so I’ll have to clear some space for a self-contained export.

FYI: even though the media files are in Animation, the file sizes are not extremely large. If the image doesn’t change much (as in a screen capture), there is a lot less data to record, so using Animation doesn’t result in gigantic file sizes. I’ve got a clip that runs 11 minutes long and it only weighs in at 279 MB. That’s at 1440×960.

I’m using an iMac with a 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 2 gigs of RAM…seems to be running smoothly enough.

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

[Nate Hanson]

Hi Andrew,

Video media came from two sources:
1) Screen capture from iShowU HD Pro (captured in Animation)
2) Motion graphics from After Effects (also Animation)

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

[Nate Hanson]

Timeline has all grey (media files) except for two very small purples (rendered). When I mouse over the render bars in the timeline, the yellow box that pops up says:

Video: media file
Audio: media file
RT Extreme does not support this sequence
Does that have anything to do with it?

Sequence settings are as follows:

1440 x 960
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square
Field Dominance: None
Editing Timebase: 30
QuickTime Video Settings – Compressor: Animation

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

[Nate Hanson]

Hi Shane,

I think everything is rendered. There are no red bars at the top of my timeline. And when I “Render all”, nothing happens. So it should all be rendered, right?

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

[Nate Hanson]

Try clicking the “Collapse Transformations” button (looks like a sun, between the Shy and Quality buttons) for your precomposed layer. This should allow everything in the precomp to respond to the camera in the main comp instead of looking like a flat layer.

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

[Nate Hanson]

Ok, here’s my best shot:

1) Design the door with swinging sign video in AE(refer to my earlier post) and animate that for about 30 seconds.
2) Bring your “scene” into DVDSP and drag that to Track 1. Right click on track 1 in the Graphical view and choose First Play (you should see a disk icon show up on the track 1 graphic).
3) Now open the menu editor and drag the animated “door with swinging sign” to the menu.
4) Add whatever buttons and text you want to the menu
5) Link all the buttons and link the scene so it goes to the menu when it finishes.

What you should end up with when you put the DVD in to play is:
1) Your scene plays out until the door slams
2) The AE animation of the door with swinging sign takes over for 30 seconds while menu buttons and text appear and become clickable
3) The door animation will loop back and start over every 30 seconds (not the scene, just the door video).

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

[Nate Hanson]

Hey Chris,

I guess I was just explaining how to achieve the video effect inside of After Effects. If you are looking for a How To on the whole DVD process I’m not sure I can help.

I’ve done this sort of thing a couple of times in DVD Studio Pro (sort of). Is that the software you are using? Or are you using the Adobe DVD software?

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

[Nate Hanson]

Hi, Jonathan. I’m actually teaching my multimedia students to do this exact thing today in class…weird.

So to get your text to show up, follow these steps:

1. Type your text as one layer in AE.
2. Use the pen tool to draw a path that roughly travels through the center of each letter (this is much easier if you can do it all with one mask).
3. Apply the Stroke effect to the text layer.
4. Change the paint style property to “reveal original”
5. Make the brush size large (try 20 to start, adjust later).
6. Animate the End property: start at zero, move up to 100% at the end of the animation.
7. Go back and adjust the brush size until it looks ideal.

Here is a video tutorial that explains this process:
https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/graffiti_writing/

Hope that helps!

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

[Nate Hanson]

1. Render out a still image of the frame once the door is closed.
2. In Photoshop, open the still image use the clone stamp to create a version of the door with no sign on it.
3. Back in AE, use the “sign-free” door as a background layer
4. Drop a copy of the door footage on top of that, and use a mask to hide everything but the sign swinging.
– OR –
Use PS to create a still of the sign, and then animate it (move anchor point to top, animate the rotation property) on top of the still image of the door.

Probably other, better ways also.

Good luck!

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films