[Nate Vander plas]

Thanks for the reply, Dan. I tried this out and it works to a certain extent. I tweaked the numbers a bit (see below) but haven’t gotten the results I wanted. When the null changes direction it inevitably comes to a stop here and there, which also causes a blob to form at that spot. I can get rid of the blob by adjusting the numbers, but then there is no effect on the rest of the line. Is there a way to fix this? Maybe a different method of controlling the birth size besides the speed?

[Nate Vander plas]

Well, it worked! I’m not sure if originally I had some sort of wacko settings for my menu that threw things off, but this method worked. I even was able to copy and paste my button folders from my old menus right into the new menus and they worked without changing anything.
I guess if anyone is having menu problems this would be the first thing to try. Hope this helps someone in the future.

[Nate Vander plas]

Sorry it took me forever to get to this. I’ve been a little busy with other things. I tried making the menus static. I even created a brand new project with one static menu and just one video for each button. Nothing worked. Finally I just used a stock Encore menu without making any changes other than a link from a button to a video. That worked (thank goodness) so I knew it couldn’t be a problem with my DVD burner/player or disc media. Then I managed to edit that menu in photoshop a bit and that worked too. I think my plan now is to build my menus from existing Encore ones, just heavily changing them. I’ll let you know if it works.

[Nate Vander plas]

Vince, thanks for the info. My Premiere project is NTSC DV Widescreen, 1.2 pixel aspect ratio, 16:9, not 4:3 with bars. My problem is I’m used to making DVDs with iDVD, which accepts Quicktime files. The MPEG 2 worked great in Encore, but I think I had it at 6 mbps instead of 8, so the quality wasn’t what I wanted. I’ll try 8 and hopefully that will get me where I want to be.

Nate

[Nate Vander plas]

Is there a way to not only remove unused clips from your project but also delete them (the source file) at the same time?
Nate

[Nate Vander plas]

Thanks for the reply, Harm. I forgot to mention that I’m working on a Mac, so I don’t have the AVI option. I did try an MPEG 2, which worked and burned fine. Would anyone know the best settings for a short (4 minute) video in the Premiere encoder? CBR or VBR 1 or 2? Bitrate? I know there are a lot of settings, but maybe if someone knows the most important ones to change from the default settings. Thanks,
Nate

[Nate Vander plas]

I’m no expressions guru, so my solution would be to just duplicate the layer (3-4 times), mask off each dup so that it only shows 3 digits, then make a little space between where the comma should be and just add commas with separate layers. I know this isn’t the ideal way, so I recommend asking Dan Ebberts in the expressions forum or by e-mail (he’s very helpful and generous). He has his own website dedicated to expressions, but I can’t remember the address. Just google it.

[Nate Vander plas]

I’ve done it before by using fractal noise, stretching it vertically, and then colorize with a tweaked gold preset. If you wanted it to be bumpier you could use a photo of a bumpy surface and use it as a displacement map for the fractal noise layer. Here is what mine looked like:
Fake gold glint
It is very near the beginning on the “Calvin Engineering” letters.
Hope this helps!
Nate

[Nate Vander plas]

Thanks Yikes for taking over. I’ve been busy with a 25 hour film festival.
Nate

[Nate Vander plas]

I assume this is a night shot? If so- good luck rotoscoping every frame of your tilt to insert you house. If not- you may be able to key out a blue sky if there are minimal clouds. Once you have that, motion track the sign/whatever is visible during the tilt. If you don’t know how to motion track look a few threads down. I think someone posted a bunch of links to tutorials.