[Phil Condit]

Hopefully the image will be attached to this response.

[Phil Condit]

Hi Daniel,

Here is one of my Scene Selection pages (I hope). It looks to me like I have 10 buttons. There are highlights on all of them. Do the highlights count as buttons?

Thanks

[Phil Condit]

Thanks for the facts. I looked at everything Lynda.com had on Encore, but I must have missed that point. Just so I’m clear – I may only have 18 links/buttons TOTAL on my DVD. Right? That’ means I have to cut my chapter selection down a lot if I want to include featurettes on the making of. How do the makers of DVDs of Hollywood movies get around the limitation? Between scene selection options, outtakes (one at a time/play all) director’s comment track, the inspiration, the design, the making of, the acting, the special effects, poster gallery and previews it seems like I’m already over the limit.

[Phil Condit]

I am building a DVD for a feature film with 20 chapters accessed through three “Scene Selection” sub menus. I checked the project and came up with no errors. But when I tried to build it I got an “Encoding Failed” message, with no elaboration. Am I using too many links/buttons?

[Phil Condit]

Thanks for the unfortunate advice. I may have a work around. I’m thinking about looping the video background for a minute or so in Premiere and exporting that to mpeg2 and wav. Then taking that into Encore. Anybody who leaves the menu on for over a minute deserves to see 12 frames of black =;)

[Phil Condit]

So what you’re saying is that if I am making a 5.1 surround sound DVD using ac3 tracks in Adobe Encore, my repeating video menu background will have 12 frames of black between the repeats? Funny, that’s exactly what is happening to me! You suggest switching to PCM audio, but not only does that mean a much larger file size, it also means my feature will be in STEREO – NOT 5.1! Is there not a way to have a 5.1 surround sound audio track and a menu with a video background that repeats without 12x of black? I’d hate to have to switch to a static background for my menu as that really diminishes the quality of the program – kind of like showing a slide show instead of a movie.

[Phil Condit]

I just found the answer to my question on the site. I needed to turn “on” the background layer in the Photoshop file. When rendered, Encore replaced it with the motion asset. My suicide is temporarily delayed. Now I have to find out why there is a one second pause before the motion and audio repeat, leaving the text buttons on a black background before starting up again.

[Phil Condit]

Re-number the files in Bridge, then re-import them.

[Phil Condit]

Hi Todd,

Thanks for the suggestion. I have already been pouring over the Lynda.com tutorials on After Effects. I am just not finding how to sample from one spot on a subject to another spot on a subject continuously resampling as the subject moves on the timeline. I have the tracking completed, but when I try to connect the tracking data to the position of the paint stroke with a whipstick, the data does not effect the position and the clone stamp does not update with each frame. Maybe I was right – This IS brain surgery!

Thanks,
-Phil

[Phil Condit]

Hi Todd,

Thanks for your response. I guess I’m a little further back on the learning curve than you expected. I’m having trouble connecting my tracking data to the clone strokes (I have six – nine dots to retouch). I can’t open up the expressions options you show in your example. Also, I wanted the clone tool to resample from the spot I selected on each frame, so that when my subject passes through a shadow, the samples would darken as well. Is this possible?

I will look for a lesson on assigning tracking data to my clone stamp.

Thanks,
-Phil