Play Sound Clip after Button Select - Scenarist

[Eldorado]

I'm about to tackle my new menu creation, first one I did was a simple menu, now I want to learn new things..

The way I do menu's is a pretty simple and quick way for me at least, first I create the menu in Photoshop, create my background and a layer for each button. And since I can't figure it all out in scenarist, I use ReelDVD to import the .PSD file, it automatically grabs the layers, assigns them as buttons, bingo bang there's my menu with working buttons. I export it to a scenarist script, load it in scenarist, then I do all the fixing up of button linking, colors etc.

So my next step is first adding background music to the menu, which I'm assuming isn't too difficult, is it simple a matter of importing the sound clip, drag and drop it into the track editor along with the still background and sub-picture? Do I have to look for an option somewhere to make it loop?

What I would then like to do is when someone selects a button (to play one of 3 movies), I want the background music to stop and a small sound clip to play (2 seconds) then jump to movie.. I've searched around and either I didn't put in good search arguments or it hasn't been discussed yet.. Is there any special tricks to do this? What I was thinking was just import the sound clips, put them into their own PGC's, and make the button link to them, then from that PGC go to the menu.. ? Is it that easy?

To make it a bit more complex, I thought it would be cool if I could have the sound clips randomize, say I had 6 different clips, one clip could get randomly selected to play when a button is hit.. Anyone have any ideas on how to do this? If not I'm ok with just doing simple static sound clips..

[auenf]

im not sure how to do it exaclty in scenarist, but heres the basics:

you can create another menu for each button that has the same background, with just the one highlight and the new background sound, and the menu timeout timed how you want it. instead of going to the movie, goto this extra menu, then to the movie.

if you want to randomize it, create multiple of these small menus for each button, and instead of linking directly to the menu, link to a command sequence that chooses a menu based on a random number.

hope that helps you.

Enf...

[Eldorado]

Thanks for the reply, that makes sense, and not too hard to do, hopefully it will work seemlessly where you don't notice a little hicup of any sort when it goes to the duplicate menu..

I'll give that a shot and see what happens!


Can I get some help on creating menu music? I have an AC3 file that I want to use, I have a still menu all setup with a sub-picture, everything is complete, buttons and all. I want to add music to it now, so imported the AC3 file, and tried to drag-drop it in the track editor into the Menu track and I get an error along the lines "Menu shall not have audio track" ? Am I missing a step somewhere? A still menu can have background music correct?

[DVDragon]

I had this same problem too. You have to choose the menu as a slide show instead of a still menu then you will be able to drag and drop a sound track for the menu.

[Eldorado]

Thanks, I finally was able to try this out in ReelDVD, dragged and dropped my .PSD file and selected Slide Show with Subpicture. I was then able to drag and drop my audio file..

Now, I notice things don't look quite right, ReelDVD is reporting my menu as being about 9 secs long, my audio file is about 39 secs long which is right, but it looks like it is only being allowed to play 9 seconds because of the menu. Is there a way to make it just constantly loop? I tried changing the attribute of the Subpicture to 'Infinite', but it won't let me since I have buttons created already.. is this what I need to do to make my menu music play in entirety and loop itself?

[auenf]

in reeldvd, you should be able to select the item in the layout, then stretch the video (the still) length so it matches the audio, you might have to stretch the sub as well.

Enf...

[Eldorado]

Yep I was able to do that, it plays the music in it's entirety, except when it's finished I get a message along the lines of 'Next track is not defined'..

Is there an option that I'm missing to make it loop itself? It seems that the way it is now it will just completely stop, and you'll probably have to hit play again to get the menu back..

[Eldorado]

Ah found it, for anyone who wants to know:

I just let ReelDVD create my menu with buttons and the music. Saved it as Scenarist script, loaded it in Scenarist, fixed all the crap that ReelDVD created in the layout editor (anyone know why ReelDVD does such a messy job?, linking of pgc's etc)

Then from the PGC that the menu was in, made a link from the POST to it's own PRE, and she loops around just nicely, menu working perfect..

[auenf]

i think you should be able to link the post and pre of the same menu in reeldvd anyway.

actually i just looked, and i created a motion menu that looped and didnt have a 'next' defined.

Enf...