By popular demand: "How to make video streams for animated menus" (TEMPORARY)

[Arky]

What I have included below, for the meantime, was originally written by myself, and by MIKEATHOME, when Flexion was still online. I am TEMPORARILY leaving this at the top of the board, as a sticky, just so that anyone who's interested in creating animated menus will have time to see it and make a start, before it gets pushed to the back of the queue (this forum moves so incredibly quickly!!).

Acknowledgements go specifically to MIKEATHOME, who wrote the Premiere method. My input was on the less-popular (and oh-so-underrated) EditDV/Cinestream solution. You choose whichever suits you...


So without futher ado - here they are. Please bear in mind that these are literally cut-&-pastes, so they will be a bit rough and ready.


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Arky's EditDV / Cinestream method (used to be owned by Digital Origin, then by Media100, and now by Discreet).

1. How to make those cool moving-image buttons on DVD menus! ) PART ONE


last updated at 08 Apr, 2001 06:03 p.m. (2 times)
Hi there!
I posted a message some time ago asking how to make those cool moving-image buttons on DVD menus (see, for example, "Trainspotting").

The beauty of this method is that it is incredibly simple because it is all drag-and-drop (hell, I learnt it on my own in a couple of hours, and you'll do it faster with these guidelines!):

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HOWEVER, before even starting this project, please make sure that you have a DVD Authoring software package which supports Motion (or 'dynamic') menus.

For example,

'DVD Maestro'

'Scenarist'


There are others, but the following definitely **do NOT** allow dynamic motion menus:

'SpruceUp'

'DVD QuickBuilder', 'DVD Wise', 'DVD Junior'

'MyDVD' http://www.mydvd.sonic.com/


You will also need to make sure that any video footage you are intending to use during the project is in either AVI or Quicktime format - you cannot directly import MPEG streams into Edit DV, unfortunately.

Date: 25 Mar, 2001 on 06:02 p.m.

Arky
Team member
in Silver Group

posts: 942
since: 20 Sep, 2000 2. Re:How to make those cool moving-image buttons on DVD menus! )


last updated at 25 Mar, 2001 09:00 p.m. (2 times)
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Read the part of the EditDV/Cinestream manual referring to PIP filter (Picture In Picture). You will see that by adding extra video tracks to the timeline from the drop down menu at the top of the screen, and then inserting the PIP filter into the FX track of each of these video tracks (you achieve this by literally dragging the PIP filter from the 'filters' box (which contains ALL EditDV's special effects and transition filters) onto the FX track of each video track in the timeline. The PIP filter may be green - I can't remember), you can determine how many separate streams you will include in your final output (in our case this will relate to the number of 'buttons' we wish to include on our menu, so for four buttons, we will need four video tracks and a PIP filter for each of these, in their respective FX tracks).

***********************************************
Note:

If you DON'T want a BLACK background in between your motion 'buttons', you will need to add one extra track (*WITHOUT* a PIP filter in it's FX track). In this case, you MUST make sure that Track 1 is the track without the PIP filter. Simply drag and drop an image or a video stream from your assets bin onto the VideoTrack 1 in the timeline and this will form the background IN BETWEEN your buttons.
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Now simply drag and drop your desired button-videostreams, from the assets bin, onto each of the video tracks (order is irrelevant, EXCEPT for observing the above instructions regarding Track 1 IF, and only IF, you wish to have a special background in between your buttons). Please make sure that you adjust the length of all your tracks to be the same as each other, as this will make your menu work correctly when you import the rendered stream into your DVD authoring software package (e.g Scenarist, Maestro, (or DVDit! - yeuch!!). Do remember that you will want to exclude audio from your final render, as most professional DVD authoring Apps do not accept multiplexed footage. You can render the audio separately (to the identical duration of the video, of course).


At this stage, you really WILL need to read the manual, in order to understand how to use the PIP filter, but it is extremely simple to get the hang of, so please don't be daunted by the apparent complexity.
Double-click on the top-most (in terms of the entire **timeline** screen) PIP filter (not in the filter selection window!), which will be the FX track of Video track 1, if you want a black background, or the FX track of video track 2, if you want to specify the background (as I described above). This will spawn a window which allows you to set certain parameters, and please read the manual if you need assistance - personally, I found most of it very self-explanatory anyway, just by looking at the results in the preview screen in the top right of your monitor.
More importantly than this dialogue, what you will notice, if you look at the preview screen in the top right of your monitor, is a rectangle in the middle of the screen which you can drag around and alter the size of, by dragging a corner. This is going to be button number 1, so place it wherever you want it to be on your finished menu, and at whatever size you wish. Having done this, close the filter settings dialogue, and repeat the FX-track double-clicking process for each of the remaining video tracks (you must do this sequentially, because the video streams ('buttons') will show in the correct order for you to easily manipulate them on screen. Clicking on the FX track of Videostream 4, for example, will show streams/'buttons' 1,2,3 and 4, but NOT 5,6,7...etc - do each numerically in turn and things will run smoothly, without getting into a muddle!.

So, when you are satisfied with the size and positioning of all your video streams, you can render the entire composition as a single video stream, by selecting, from the drop-down menu at the top of the monitor, 'Render ***VP*** track' (I am typing this entire tutorial from memory on another computer, so bear with me if the exact labels are very slightly differently named!).

When you have finished rendering (and this may take several hours depending on the resolution / length etc of your footage), you should have a fantastic single video stream which incorporates all your original streams to look like virtual buttons on the screen.

***PLEASE NOTE*** EditDV 2.0 renders into Quicktime using Radius's SoftDV codec (but don't panic - it will IMPORT AVIs!). The quality is superb, so do not be troubled that you are not creating an AVI.

(N.B. The system-requirements specification for EditDV 2.0 states that you need a minimum PII 400, and this is absolutely correct if you want to view the full-resolution DV-Quicktime files it renders). However, I do all my work on a PII 366 notebook, and although my system won't let me PLAY the rendered Quicktime files produced by EditDV, this is not a problem in my experience, because I can still transcode these to MPEG with no problems playing back the resulting MPEG file


Now all you need to do is Encode to MPEG1 or MPEG2. Personally, I recommend MPEG2 (!) . TMPGEnc or CinemaCraft are the obvious choices here...

***********************************************

So!! now we have (hopefully!) a drop-dead-cool composite video stream in MPEG2 format which we can import into our DVD authoring software.

Now all that remains to be done is use the DVD-authoring software to overlay transparent buttons onto the moving! 'virtual' buttons we created earlier.
***********************************************

Oh HAPPY DAY!!


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...Anyway, once you have mastered the basics of this process, I highly recommend that you play around with the pop-up dialogue you saw when you double-clicked on the PIP filters in the FX tracks. You will see (to your delight, if you are anything like me!) that it is also possible to have the streams ('buttons') moving across the screen, to begin with, before settling at their final destinations. This software is so easy to use and so cool, that all you need to do is move the cursor over the timeline, then reposition your boxes (and resize them if you like) everytime you've advanced the timeline cursor. In this fashion, you create 'Keyframes' which will show as tiny arrows on your timeline, wherever the cursor was when you moved the streams/'buttons' in the preview screen to different positions or sizes. If you select the "spline" option, you will see that Edit DV actually interpolates the intervening parts between the keyframes to render a smooth path across the screen, which may be curved or just straight. This technique of interpolation will also work to give a gradual 'zoom' or pan effect if you resized your streams during the process. I suggest that you work backwards, postioning the timeline cursor at the END of the timeline first, and getting your 'buttons' exactly where you need them to be on the preview screen, then you can play as much as you like with their positions by first moving the timeline cursor backwards (don't forget to do this first or you'll be tearing your hair out if you took ages correctly positioning the buttons! - the safest way is to save the project under a different name - e.g. ProjectMk2, before moving the buttons and timeline cursor away from the final destinations), and then manipulating the position and/or size of the buttons/boxes within the preview window, automatically creating key frames as you go.

As long as you ensure that the final destinations of the streams, towards the end of the rendered footage, are where you intend your buttons to be, there is no reason why you cannot be really creative.

What I mean by this is that ***for your 'first-play'*** stream, you can have the button-streams moving around all over the screen and then settling in their final 'button' destinations. Then, you can render a separate stream for the background to your menu which will have these 'virtual' button streams stationary (but, of course moving footage), in exactly the same destinations as the end of the 'first-play'. Another good reason for having the buttons totally stationary for the menu, is that they will look correct if you 'loop' the footage within the menu.


This would give the effect, when played in the final DVD, of moving buttons which work when they have settled, and the viewer would be none-the-wiser that they are actually two different streams - only the latter having genuine button properties, because of the overlaid button highlights during the DVD authoring-process.

Any comments, peop's?

To those of you who felt like they were being taught to suck eggs (not that any of you are grannies, I don't suppose! ), my apologies - I'mjust trying to be as helpful and explicit as I can for the newbies - no offence intended!

Regards to all,

Arky ;o)

Date: 25 Mar, 2001 on 06:39 p.m.



the movie length is irrelevant as long as it's a couple of seconds or more (there are technical limitations on how short a clip can be - it's a DVD authoring software/navigation issue) - personally I vary according to project, but somewhere in the region of 10 seconds makes the effort worthwhile. It's a compromise really, because viewers will not sit and wait to see the entire movies in the buttons - all they want to see is a recognisable piece of footage to easily jog their memory as to which bit of the film it refers to, so obviously, you need to take a great deal of care in selecting the most pertinent clips. Also, take a little time to make sure that when the miniature movie clips loop on themselves, they do so smoothly from end frame to beginning frame (i.e. try not to start a clip with bright colours and then end the clip in near darkness, or black & white, because when it loops, it will be too noticeable, and look very amateur).

N.B. I have posted a relevant solution for looping here on Doom9 not so long ago - here is the link:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.ph...hlight=looping

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[Arky]

MIKE AT HOME's Adobe Premiere method:




last updated at 05 Apr, 2001 02:52 p.m. (1 times)
... and this time with Adobe Premiere
What you need:
- just Premiere 5.1 is enough
- NO further plugin needed, no Boris, no nothing
- but full version to allow more than 2 video tracks

Howto:
- import your clips into media asset bin
- create additional video tracks, click on the small triangle at the very far right upper corner of the timeline window and choose Timeline Options/Track Options, now add your videotracks, one per button needed
- import your video clips into the tracks just created
- the videotrack No.: 1 will become your background
- now right click every clip you want to become a video-button, one by one and do it top down, good for preview (since the video is shown layer by layer top down)
- choose Video/Motion...
- in the window (now popping up) choose show all, just for preview
- set the parameters for your buttons
* first the centre start point (the centre of the view area is 0,0)
* choose appropriate offsets for your buttons
* and choose the zoom, 15-20% is a good value
* you have to do this two times per clip/button one at the inframe and second at the outframe, so use the slider to move to the keyframes (you can even create more keyframes or zoom in/out your buttons, crazy...
* repeat this for every clip/button with (for sure) different offsets
* I did the following 9 buttons (NR - x,y,zoom)
1 - -20,20,15%
2 - 0,20,15%
3 - 20,20,15%
4 - -20,0,15%
5 - 0,0,15%
6 - 20,0,15%
7 - -20,-20,15%
8 - 0,-20,15%
9 - 20,-20,15%

comprende ???

- You can save your settings for later use, the next menu !!!!!!!!!
- don't bother with the small squares, you can't adjust appropriately with them, use the textinput boxes for setting
- load your background clip in videotrack 1
- encode with e.g. CinemaCraft, here comes the very big advantage, NO NEED TO RENDER the new clip, you can encode from timeline !
- set high bitrate, since there are many small details, the encoder needs pretty much bitrate (I set 1000/3500/8000, min/avg/max., 3-pass VBR, Quality to 0 = maximum) -> great result

What else:
nothing, just import into the DVD authoring program and enjoy, this was very fast done, great result, you can put the audio for the animated video just below the animated buttons and encode with your favoured MP2 encoder from the Premiere timeline as well, that synchronises the audio automatically

have fun, mike


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Premiere:
- install CCESP Premiere Plugin OR Avisynth frameserver (only the new beta versions from: http://www.videotools.net/ will work for Multipass VBR, don't forget to rename them to *.prm (*.flask -> *.prm), but you don't need them at all, use the plugin instead !

- after you arranged everything on the timeline goto
FILE/EXPORT/MOVIE (select the timeline window before and set the work area to all; hold ALT key + Click in the work area line (where the small blue line above the videotracks is))

- set an name
- click on settings, choose you export format (CinemaCraft CCE)
- click on Video ONLY for CCESP w/ Athlon (bug)
- click on video and so on and set the right options
- last click on advanced (on the first setttings the GENERAL tab) and set the options for CCESP, like bitrate etc.

- SAVE your profile !
- press ok and start -> ready

YOU DON'T NEED TO DO A PREVIEW AT ALL if you trust in your arrangement, just go-on

mike

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Hope that some of the above methods help those of you contemplating animated menu authoring.

If you have any further questions, just ask. THANKS AGAIN TO MIKEATHOME for his very considerable contribution. I dare say most of you will choose to use his method, rather then mine, because most of you use Premiere for it's plugin-compatibility (esp. CCE plugin), and frameserving potential.


Arky ;o)

[nincollector]

just tried mikes method and it only plays the background video none of the buttons i put in show up, any ideads on how i can make up play over the background instead of behind (which is most likely what is happening)?

[Arky]

Well, I'm off to bed in a minute, cos it's 04:45 in my part of the world! However, very briefly, quite a few people used Mike's tut when he originally posted it all those months ago. I'm too tired to re-test it in Premiere at this time of the morning (I realise it's the afternoon where you are, in Oz), but it sounds to me like you may be getting the video tracks in the wrong order - it sounds like you may well have correctly created your PIP streams (Picture In Picture), but they are being "masked" by the background stream, cos they are the wrong way around. I'll be back on the forum in a day or so, and if you still have no joy by then, and if no-one else has helped you, I'll run through it and give you some more assistance. Just from memory, you have to manipulate each video track in the correct, specific order - if you create 10 other tracks (which will become "buttons" once they are scaled-down and positioned / superimposed over the base/background stream), you need (I think, from memory) to BEGIN with the highest track-number first, then work downwards.


Arky ;o)

[nincollector]

ok thanks heaps btw heres an interesting thing i found possibly another way of doing it

http://www.adobe.com.au/motion/tips/totalpre1/main.html

http://av.adobe.com/motion/tips/totalpre1/movs/main.mov

[nincollector]

o kinda worked it out and i can watch it in the preview window but how do i encode it as an avi? do i need to use a different program for that??

instructions with pictures
http://www.nickhodge.com/nhodge/mung...e.php?mcid=395

ok i worked it out sorry about all the posts n stuff - i had to render the work area 1st thanks soooo much

[Arky]

excellent link, nincollector - you've saved me wasting my time doing a Premiere tut wiv piccies an evryfing!

I may still do an AAFX one sometime, but not if someone can find an existing tut on this already (HINT HINT!!)


Arky ;o)

[auenf]

ahh, that brings back memories...

its a pity that the premiere motion settings is fairly basic, not sure about arky's method, but it shows that premiere has way too many features than can fit on the screen at once

i should install borisFX (came with the digisuite we got at work) and see what stuff it can do, did the intro logo on it for our company, but only scratched the surface on what it can do, and its only a 'transition' for premiere.

keep up the good work Arky and Mike

Enf...

[sidders]

This is another link that gives a basic Picture in Picture tutorial.

http://www.totaltraining.com/html/tutorials.html#

It's the last one called 'We're gonna zoom!'

Sidders

[dvd_master]

Where can i get EditDV/Cinestream ?

[Arky]

Hmmm... very strange - the discreet.com site appears to be down (and this seems to be true for www2. as WELL as www.)

Well, anyway, this what I could find for the time being, on the Japan site:

http://www.discreet.jp/products/index.html

Sorry I can't be more helpful at the moment - not my fault!


Arky ;o)

[VinnieB]

A little tip for those who don't want to install complex software:
for my recent vacation video project I created the animated chapter menus with Virtualdub and the Virtualdub Logo Filter.

http://sauron.mordor.net/dgraft/logo.html

The filter supports animated logos as bitmap sequences.

very simple Guide:

0) if you don't have a background video, create one of the intended length. You can use any available clip and use filters to obtain the necessary background, of brightness control to create a black background etc...

1) In Virtualdub, cut, trim and resize all your 'overlay' clips and export them to .bmp sequences (be sure to put the video compression to 'uncompressed'!!! or the bmps will be corrupt)

/*2) Rename all the 5-digit bmps to 4-digit bmps. (ulupasrename can do this quite fast and easily) */
Updated: this step is only necessary if you have bmps that don't comply with the logo filter requirements of i.e. img0000.bmp; for Virtualdub you can skip this step..

3) Open up your background video

4) compose as many logo filters, containing the intended overlay bmps clips as you like (logo filter includes example about how this works..)

5) render avi

6) encode to mpv using (see other guides) and use in DVD authoring tool

greetz,
VinnieB

[Crazyjoe]

Originally posted by VinnieB

2) Rename all the 5-digit bmps to 4-digit bmps. (ulupasrename can do this quite fast and easily)

Ehm....sorry about the stupid question, but what exactly do you mean by that? And why should I rename the files?

[VinnieB]

I think you're right and I was confusing things...

The logo filter requires sequential bitmaps numbered <name>0000.bmp to <name>xxxx.bmp

If I'm right this time, in Virtualdub you can set the number of digits used in de bmp filename when you export avis as sequential bitmaps. So if you put this to 4 digits the rename step is not required!

I was confused, because I use the same process to overlay animated texts from Cool3D, and Cool3D by default gives sequential names with 5 digits (<name>00000.bmp). Since the logo filter won't accept these, a rename step is necessary.

hope this clearifies it all?

greetz,
VinnieB

[Crazyjoe]

Thanks, now it's almost clear. But I still have a problem. I've got a 500 frames clip, which I reduced to the right size, then exported it to an image sequence (BMP, uncompressed RGB) and VirtualDub names them the following: name0.bmp to name500.bmp (name stands for whatever name I give them). So, now I load my 720x576 (PAL) Backgroundvideo, in the filter section I load the appropriate filter and in the filter setting I load the first image (name0.bmp), check "animation sequence", leave starting frame on zero, duration to 1, disabel "transparent color", and set "alpha blending" to the maximum of 255. The problem is, that after rendering the avi I only see my background video and the smaller clip keeps black...

What am I doin' wrong?

[VinnieB]

The Logo filter really only works if you use 4 digits in the filename, in your case name0000.bmp to name0500.bmp

If you don't do that, Logo only shows the first frame (name0.bmp) for a duration of 1 frame, and nothing after that, so you only see the background.

In the Virtualdub bmp export tab, set the number of digits to 4!

That should do the trick.

greetz,
VinnieB

btw another tip: Logo's starting frame is the first frame of the in Virtualdub selected range, so if you use the Select Range function, the frame numbers of Logo and Virtualdub are no longer the same.

[Crazyjoe]

Thanks for your help!

In the meantime I solved the problem myself. You were right with the 4 digits. The best is, I first tried the animated menus with Adobe Premiere, but the exported clips didn't play fluently, but with your VirtualDub solution it works perfectly well!

Thanks again!

[Tapion DB]

I named my files:
zzz0000.bmp
zzz0001.bmp
etc.. upto: zzz0078.bmp

However, when I checkoff Animated Sequence and do Show Preview, it just sits at the first frame of the sequence... I'm using Logo 1.3 Beta 4, is that the same version as you (the URL you gave for Logo is currently down)? Has this ever happened to you before? I named them correctly, right?


EDIT:

Nevermind. I didn't quite understand what "Duration" meant... I had it set to 0 (which does nothing) and to 78 (the amount of bmps), which also does nothing... but I'm guessing it does nothing because it wouldn't fit on the piece of video.

Setting it to 1 and looping it fixed it, though.

[Arky]

The following tutorial is absolutely SUPERB!!!!!!
*************************************************

h**p://www.wrigleyvideo.com/videotutorial/quadpipdemo.htm


Arky ;o)

[jeffnoone]

Firstly, agree with Arky about Wrigley tutorial

But has anyone tried this and experienced problems with the MPEG2 import module in Premiere 6.5?

This problem seems to effect only some trailers (have tried making moving menus with trailers)

On R1 NTSC Blood Work, there is a ripple effect on the trailer early on - Premiere completely unable to manage this, a part with a very high bitrate I assume. Had to use Media Studio Pro 6.5 to convert the MPEG2 to avi - then Premeiere 6.5 was able to handle it without any jerkiness in output.

BTW Premiere was also unable to do a straight convert of this MPEG2 trailer to any format (even uncompressed avi) without jerkiness and frezzing.

On R1 NTSC Eye See You - there seemd to be no problem

This did not seem to be a field order or IVTC or deinterlacing problem , as I was able to use DVD2AVI, avisynth and CCE to encode the mpeg2 trailer to another mpg2 file no problem, and using just mpeg2dec in the script

Anyone else had MPEG2 import probs into Premeiere?
Any workaround?

Anyone know if Media Studio Pro (which I have access to, but dont use) will do the moving menu thing? Which filter should I experiment with?

Thsanx
Jeff