Matrix White Rabbit Tutorial?

[Adex]

I would like to do a feature similar to the "Follow the White Rabbit" feature on the Matrix DVD. After doing a search of the forum I can gather that it has something to do with seamless branching and a selectable subtitle overlay but the how-to part is a little vague.
Anyone know of a step by step tutorial that walks you through this? Preferably in Maestro?

Thanks a lot in advance.

[Doom9]

part of it is in my miniDVD with scenarist guide.. I'm afraid I never finished the process.. please let us know when you've accomplished it (I'll be asking you to write a guide or at least write up the procedure so I can turn it into a guide).

[Adex]

Thanks Doom, and I'd be honored to contruibute a guide once I get it going. :D

[Adex]

I'm not sure this can be done effectively in Maestro but I have a theory although it's far from perfect :angry:

This is kinda hard to explain in words so bear with me :confused:

First you would encode your movie like you normally would and this would be the default video stream.

For your "white rabbit version" you could use your favorite video editing software to pull out the parts of the movie where you want the "white rabbit" to show up.

You would then use these video clips to make motion menus with a selectable button overlay that would take you to the desired special feature. So the scenes where the white rabbit shows up would actually be menus that the viewer could either use to access the hidden extras or simply let them play and when the menu timed out it would go back to the movie and continue playing.

The drawbacks I see to this are that the timeout on menus isn't perfect so I'm not sure the movie would play very smooth. Plus since the player would have to stop the movie and switch to a motion menu for the white rabbit scenes there would be a noticeable pause when it jumps to the menu and again when it goes back to the movie.

Anyone else have any better ideas? I'm open to suggestions here. :confused:

[Adex]

Or you could just have the whole movie be a series of linked motion menus, each with their own button overlay. The button could be made to show up at the right time by using the loop/highlight slider.

There would still be a slight pause at the end of the menu but this could be made less noticeable by putting the end of the menu at a "fade to black" point in the movie.

I'm also assuming there is no time limit on how long a motion menu can be. Does anyone know this for sure?

[auenf]

Originally posted by Adex
I'm not sure this can be done effectively in Maestro but I have a theory although it's far from perfect :angry:

well, i did it, it isnt as good as it can be done in scen., but works nonetheless, the key is to use button over video, and send it to a different VTS, then resume back to the main movie.

Enf...

[mikeathome]

Originally posted by auenf
well, i did it, it isnt as good as it can be done in scen., but works nonetheless, the key is to use button over video, and send it to a different VTS, then resume back to the main movie.
Enf...

Yes, button over video would be my choice as well.

MiniHowto:
- import your main video and your comment video(s) into asset bin
* both should be of same GOP setting, GOP length and structure (the IBP stuff, you know)
* both bitrates added together should never exeed 9000kbps (this leaves you head space for one AC3 track with max. 448kbps)
* the comment audio should be AC3 as well (2 channel stereo sufficient, 192kbps)

- put your main video and your audio on the timeline

- create a SubPicture (BMP, or what else Maestro accepts)

- set your branch chapter points (the point where you want the whiteee to show up), the chapter points should be formatted as Chapter Point + Button Highlight.

- at this points insert your desired comment video(s) on a new video track, aligned with the chapter marks

- once ready, let Maestro create a synched audio track for the comment video track (right click in audio track and choose create synch audio track)

- at the chapter points insert your SubPictures and draw a button over the Rabbit, set the button to hidden if you like BUT make this button pre-selected when you enter the SubPicture (means the button gets selected automatically when the SubPicture is displayed, that's why you may want to make 'em hidden, or just set the selection color transparent and the action color to somewhat different to indicate the pressed OK on the remote)
Tip: you can copy/paste the SubPicture once you finished one, select with the mouse and drag it while you hold down the CTRL on your keyboard, this works basically everywhere in Maestro as well in the connection screen and saves you a hell lot of work !!!

- set the button action to stream preselection, Audio to comment track and Video to comment angle (in this case we create a multiangle, seamless switching, that's why you need to ensure that the video parameters fit), alternatively you can create a second (comment) title (VTS) for your DVD and branch out with the button action, than the resume function will bring you back once the comment has been played (as auenf described). The advantage is, you no longer have the bitrate constraints and the video can be encoded totaly different). The advantage of the multiangle solution is the seamless branch you'll achieve.

That's the way it should work, pls. correct me if I got something wrong.

mike

[easy2Bcheesy]

mikeathome's technique sounds very impressive.

Could you go into more detail on making the White Rabbit visible/invisible? In The Matrix you could just watch the movie as is, without any appearance of the White Rabbit, or you could turn it on and it appears whenever there's a documentary to jump to.

That's the one part of the equation I can't work out. Surely the subtitle layer is always visible when using buttons over video?

[Adex]

LOL, button over video...who would've thought?

This is what happens when you try to learn a program without the manual :D

Thanks alot guys, I really appreciate the info.

[mikeathome]

Originally posted by easy2Bcheesy
mikeathome's technique sounds very impressive.
Could you go into more detail on making the White Rabbit visible/invisible? In The Matrix you could just watch the movie as is, without any appearance of the White Rabbit, or you could turn it on and it appears whenever there's a documentary to jump to.

That indicates a subpicture technique, does, it?

That's the one part of the equation I can't work out. Surely the subtitle layer is always visible when using buttons over video?

Hi,

SURE ???

I don't remember and will test, normaly you should be able to watch the movie with subtitles switched on or off, the easiest way would do using two Play buttons where you set stream pre-selection for the subpicture stream on/off.
Alternatively create a button which turns Subpicture stream on/off, via stream preselection (action: back into the menu) or even a command sequence should do, shouldn't it ?

NEway I need to do a test how I made it work, finally.
I did test all those nice features ones and now switched back to simple techniques due to lack of time, paying more attention to my father role...

mike

[Adex]

I'm having the same problem, namely getting the movie to play without the button over video.

I tried a command sequence that turned the subtitle track 1 off then started the movie but the button still shows up. So I tried turning on a blank subtitle 2 track thinking maybe it would override the button but that didn't work either.

So far the only thing I can see is to make two versions of the movie, one with the special button overlay and one normal version. However due to size limitations on the disc I'd rather not do this.

Mikeathome if you've figured this part of the puzzle out then I would be most gracious to know how you accomplished it.

When you have the time of course :D

[auenf]

Originally posted by mikeathome


That indicates a subpicture technique, does, it?



Hi,

SURE ???

I don't remember and will test, normaly you should be able to watch the movie with subtitles switched on or off, the easiest way would do using two Play buttons where you set stream pre-selection for the subpicture stream on/off.
Alternatively create a button which turns Subpicture stream on/off, via stream preselection (action: back into the menu) or even a command sequence should do, shouldn't it ?

NEway I need to do a test how I made it work, finally.
I did test all those nice features ones and now switched back to simple techniques due to lack of time, paying more attention to my father role...

mike

the way i did it with a little test, i setup two command sequences to set the white rabbit on and off in the menu, and used two playlists, one to force display of subtitle 1, and the other to force hidden subtitle 1.

Enf...

[Adex]

the way i did it with a little test, i setup two command sequences to set the white rabbit on and off in the menu, and used two playlists, one to force display of subtitle 1, and the other to force hidden subtitle 1.

Could you go into a little more detail auenf? I think I kind of understand what you're saying but I'm not sure how to setup the command sequences the way you're describing.

[mikeathome]

I GOT IT FIGURED OUT !!!

It works exactly as described above + do the following:

- you need two SubPicture tracks !
- you copy the subpictures from the white rabbit track down to the second track ( http://mpegencoderfreak.tripod.com/images/movie.jpg )
- choose edit
- it shows up exactly the same way as the one above, don't worry, now select a bmp doesn't really matter which just a .bmp in the color setting set this .bmp to transparent, all sliders to the left in the first slider box, so that it does not show up any more
http://mpegencoderfreak.tripod.com/images/sub1.jpg - the original
http://mpegencoderfreak.tripod.com/images/sub2.jpg - the fake with .bmp
http://mpegencoderfreak.tripod.com/images/sub3.jpg - the transparency setting
- in your main menu (or your subtitle selection menu) set the stream pre-selection of the buttons either to SubPicture stream 1 + ON for the white rabbit feature OR subpicture stream 2 + ON (the one with the bmp overlayed) to play w/o white rabbit feature

Et voila the button does not show-up anymore when you play the second selection.

Ok, this just a rough solution you can tune that foresure to maximum convinience, the trick is obviuosly due to the overlayed .bmp the button get's blended out.
For the shape of the white rabbit you may want to use a .bmp overlay in subpicture stream 1 as well in this case you need to set different colors may be b&w than you'll be able to blend the button as you do with normal menues.
Just want to confirm what I recommended here, yes it works if you put subpicture overlays in both subpicture tracks, in track one with a button shape color white and the background black in track 2 a .bmp w/o a button shape, just background black. You can make the shape a rabbit an draw the button over it later on. That way you can very easy hide it or show it.
Again it's not a big deal, holding down the CTRL button and draging the subpictures will automatically copy them to every chapter you consider the white rabbit to show up. Don't forget to configure the chapter point as a 'Button Highlight' !!!

Try and report it works like a charm, no Playlist no Command Sequence BUT MultiAngle Seamless branching ...
You may need to rightclick and save the pictures/screenshots.

mike

[Adex]

After compliling all the methods presented so far I think I have come up with the easiest so far, and you don't even need multi-angle branching woo hoo!!!

mikeathome was right, you need two subtitle tracks. I used two bitmaps just to make it easy. One bitmap has your white rabbit or whatever, the other is just a blank bitmap (all black).

For subtitle track 1 I used the blank all black bmp as my overlay and drew a button on the right side of the screen then made it fully opaque using the color sliders. (Don't worry it won't show anything during the movie cause it's a blank overlay, making it opaque is just to cover up the white rabbit). Set the button pre-selection to button 1.

For subtitle track 2 I used the white rabbit overlay and drew the button on the left side of the screen, made it fully opaque and set the pre-selection to button 2.

The reason for drawing the two buttons on opposite sides of the screen is because when the buttons are in the same spot the invisible overlay wants to act as a window which always lets the visible button show through. Why? Don't ask me I just work here.

Now you can set up a white rabbit on/off menu. Set the off button's stream pre-selection to auidio 1, subtitle 1, and angle 1. Set the on button's stream pre-selection to audio 2, subtitle 2, and angle 2.
And if I wrote everything down correctly this should work like a charm.

Thanks to everybody who helped on this thread and hopefully it will help someone else out in the future.

[auenf]

hmm, using two subtitle tracks seems to be a bit of an overkill, but here is the pics of what i did, i even examined the mulan rouge disc (green fairies) and modeled it closely on it. and mulan rouge doesnt have any 'normal' subtitles, just the fairy one.

button in the timeline: http://www9.brinkster.com/sportschook/img.asp?timeline.jpg
setting on the playlist w/rabbbit: http://www9.brinkster.com/sportschook/img.asp?play2.jpg
setting on the playlist w/out rabbit: http://www9.brinkster.com/sportschook/img.asp?play1.jpg

Enf...

[easy2Bcheesy]

Good stuff all round! Nice work Mike and Auenf.... :)

[Jestorius]

And now after reading this tread I'm so curious that I have to buy this DVD just to see what you are talking about.

[Adex]

LOL Jestorious :D

But you should buy this DVD anyway because the movie is so good, except for Warner Bros. stupid cardboard snap-style DVD case...when oh when will they wise up? j/k

[mikeathome]

Originally posted by Jestorius
And now after reading this tread I'm so curious that I have to buy this DVD just to see what you are talking about.

Oh, yeh, go buy it, I own it as well, great movie on the disk...

mike

[auenf]

Originally posted by Jestorius
And now after reading this tread I'm so curious that I have to buy this DVD just to see what you are talking about.

so are you going to buy matrix for its rabbits, or mulan rouge for its green fairies (and hidden windmills in the menus)?

Enf...