Simple question about creating motion menus and layers

[Gradlock]

I already know how to create still menus but how do I work with video and Photoshop or some similar program with layers to place the text, etc. over the video?

[Arky]

If you make your 'button' images in Photoshop, using a transparent background, you can overlay this onto your video within AfterEffects and render the composite, then transcode it to MPEG2 with, for example, CCE or TMPGEnc, and then import it into Maestro and drop it into the menu editor.


Arky ;o)

[Gradlock]

Cool, thanks Arky

[Gradlock]

Eeehhh...just took a look at the price tag on After Effect. Any other programs/methods to do this?

[Arky]

Well, there's Pinnacle Commotion, which is bundled free with Edition at the moment, for a very reasonable price IMHO. I'm not sure what budget programs are able to handle transparent overlays for compositing purposes. It may be that VirtualDUB will allow this, but I've never investigated it's capabilities in this department - I suggest you ask in the VirtualDUB forum, where more experienced V-DUB users will be able to offer advice on the topic:

http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=22

In principle, I do not see why this should not be possible in VirtualDUB, because it is essentially the same process as "watermarking" a video stream, which, with the right filter, VirtualDUB is definitely capable of :)

VinnieB mentioned something like this in the sticky here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27176

( h**p://sauron.mordor.net/dgraft/logo.html )


Also, please read this new post, regarding Ulead Cool3D:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41865


Arky ;o)