Animated Subpictures (Ghostbusters, MIB, etc.)

[easy2Bcheesy]

As a DVD professional, I had a chance to take a look at a version of the Spider-Man DVD out in November. Yes, it's a great DVD, even though it's a 16:9 transfer (no 2.35:1) but the most interesting thing I noticed about it from a technical standpoint is that the menu highlights are animated.

When I say animated, I'm not talking about switching between MPEG2 movies, I'm talking about a subpicture that has rotating colours. So, your selection point is a series of three chevrons - and the highlight colour flicks between each chevron. I've never seen anything like it on any DVD before and it is certainly impossible in Maestro (isn't it?)

Comments?

If I'm not explaining this very well, I apologise! Just imagine, for example, your highlight is "ABC" - for half a second A is highlighted, then B, then C, before returning to A again.

[mpucoder]

I don't know what app is used to create animated subpictures (which is what you are seeing, I think), but they do exist. I have the demo DVD from DVD Demystified, and on it there is a sequence where a subpicture dog runs across the screen, another where color wipes of the text are done. I know the subpicture codes to do this (mostly a sequence of DCSQ's using the same bitmap. Timing is in SP_DCSQ_STM, and the colors and areas affected are in instruction 07 - CHG_COLCON, see http://mpucoder.kewlhair.com/DVD/spu.html ) I don't think authors are doing this by hand, so one of the high-priced apps must have implimented it.

[auenf]

i think i know what your talking about easy, and this was possibly done with button over video and multiple subpicture 'files' dropped onto the timeline, with different colour mappings for each.

i cant remember if you have to have the same colour mappings for everthing on the same subtitle line, but i supposed using multiple subtitles (and auto switching with commandsequences and chapter points) would work in theory.

only other way would be to do some VOB hacking and splitting and joining of the actualy menu in the VOB after compile, hard and time consuming, but would the Majors do that? they would need to use a program like DVDDecryptor to extract the stream and a different program to put the stream back in ;)

Enf...

[mpucoder]

As I mentioned, but maybe it wasn't clear, the subpicture overlay itself can be animated, and looped. Instructiuons in the spu exist to change the colors without changing the bitmap. This can then be placed over a video still. I've got a couple email requests out now for software that can create this, hopefully one of them will reply.

[auenf]

its just to work out which one has implemented it ;)

Enf...

[mpucoder]

And it looks like I'll have to wait until November to disassemble it. One email came back from an author who did something similar. He says Scenarist was all he used to perform the color changes. The main difference is he made color wipes in the subpicture during the movie, not a menu. Although the player knows no difference, Scenarist might object - I need to play with that.

[auenf]

that would be button over video as opposed to an animated menu?

Enf...

[Alper]

I think changing subpicture color is a technique developed for Karaoke DVDs.

[Arky]

From the Sonic page:

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

Subject: How do I change display colors in Scenarist Subtitle format?


Scenarist Subtitle format allows you to change colors
and contrast in middle of file.
Sample description:
:
0003 01:00:17:08 01:00:19:15 img0003.bmp
Color (1 2 3 4)
Contrast (15 15 15 0)
0004 01:00:19:16 - img004.bmp
Color (5 6 7 8)
Contrast (10 10 10 0)
0005 01:00:21:27 - img0005.bmp
Color (1 1 1 5)
Contrast (15 15 15 0)
0006 01:00:23:26 01:00:26:02 img0006.bmp
:

img0003.bmp subpicture is applied the definition.
img0004.mgp subpicture is applied "Color ... and Contrast ..."
definition line.
"-" in end time field means that the subpicture does not have STOP.

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

Now I'm not saying I understand all that, cos I haven't yet grappled with Scenarist, but if I may re-quote from above: "Scenarist Subtitle format allows you to change colors and contrast in middle of file.", which sounds to me like they are talking about our topic of interest...


Arky ;o)

[Arky]

And from the Maestro manual:

"Using Spruce Technologies’ .stl format, you can script animated color or opacity wiping effects for use in text or graphics. This way, for instance, subtitles can be “keyed” to allow for word-by-word pacing for Karaoke and other applications. Arbitrary animations can also be created by changing the image on every frame of video."

This seems to suggest that mpucoder and Auenf may BOTH be correct - i.e. the above quote seems to imply that there is more than one way to achieve the effect.

I haven't investigated this any further as yet.

Please let's keep an active discussion going on this topic until we find a solution in both Scenarist and Maestro - easy2bcheesy, you've got me inspired with this little poser of yours! At the very least, it seems promising that I found the above in the Maestro manual, so the effect is clearly not restricted only to Scenarist gurus.


Arky ;o)

[Arky]

Hmmmm...now this looks promising - just found this from the Maestro helpfile as well:

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

An Example of a Color Animated Wipe Subtitle Script

Working with color wipe animations is something best learned from experience. If you are interested in this area, experimentation with simple scripts and changing various parameters will clarify the operation of this command set.
To help you in this regard, below is a fragment of a script from an actual Karaoke title animated using .stl color wipe animation commands.
$FontName = Arial Narrow

$FontSize = 50

$WipeTextColor = 1

$WipeOutline1Color = 2

$WipeOutline2Color = 2

$WipeBackgroundColor = 4

$WipeTextContrast = 15

$WipeOutline1Contrast = 15

$WipeOutline2Contrast = 0

$WipeBackgroundContrast = 0

01:24:21:08, 01:24:24:20, What I like about you

{
WipeInfo: 41, 145, 405, 290, 454, 10, 0, Left, 145,600
WipeInfo: 51, 300, 405, 378, 454, 10, 0, Left, 145,600
WipeInfo: 61, 390, 405, 515, 454, 12, 0, Left, 145,600
WipeInfo: 79, 515, 405, 600, 454, 4, 0, Left, 145,600

}

01:24:24:20, 01:24:27:20, Ya hold me tiiiiight

{
WipeInfo: 40, 173, 405, 230, 454, 5, 0, Left, 173,580
WipeInfo: 45, 240, 405, 422, 454, 10, 0, Left, 173,580
WipeInfo: 60, 422, 405, 580, 454, 20, 0, Left, 173,580

}

01:24:27:20, 01:24:31:02, Tell me I’m the only one

{
WipeInfo: 59, 110, 405, 270, 454, 11, 0, Left, 110,635
WipeInfo: 70, 280, 405, 440, 454, 8, 0, Left, 110,635
WipeInfo: 78, 450, 405, 540, 454, 16, 0, Left, 110,635
WipeInfo: 96, 555, 405, 635, 454, 2, 0, Left, 110,635

}

01:24:31:02, 01:24:32:10, wanna come over

{
WipeInfo: 2, 160, 405, 325, 454, 9, 0, Left, 160,555
WipeInfo: 11, 335, 405, 450, 454, 10, 0, Left, 160,555
WipeInfo: 25, 460, 405, 555, 454, 6, 0, Left, 160,555

}

01:24:32:10, 01:24:34:00, toniiiiiiiiiight

{
WipeInfo: 0, 228, 400, 517, 454, 35, 0, Left, 228,517

}
210,535

Copyright ©2001 Spruce Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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


Arky ;o)

[Arky]

...And also, from a different page of the same manual:

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

By scripting subtitle wipes, you can have subtitle lyrics that change color to the pace of the song — perfect for Karaoke titles.

The basic script line for the subtitle above is as follows:
01:25:02:11 , 01:25:04:25 , Tell me all the things | that I wanna hear
By itself, this line would be placed immediately on the screen without any special effects. To add the color wipe effect, we need to define a set of parameters that follow the affected line, as below:
01:25:02:11 , 01:25:04:25 , Tell me all the things | that I wanna hear
{

WipeInfo: 10, 135, 347, 590, 404, 20, 0, Left, 135,590

WipeInfo: 34, 160, 405, 310, 444, 16, 0, Left, 135,590
WipeInfo: 51, 310, 405, 580, 444, 23, 0, Left, 135,590

}

The color wipe statements are all contained with facing brackets (“ { } ”). Within the brackets, we see (in this case) three separate lines that begin with the term WipeInfo followed by a colon and followed by several parameters separated by commas.

Each WipeInfo statement refers to a linear section of color wiping. Multiple WipeInfo statements are used to provide wiping that paces with the music and also to wipe across multiple lines of text as shown here.

Copyright ©2001 Spruce Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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


Arky ;o)

[auenf]

hmm, lots of Karaoke talk there, altho i think that would have taken me longer to do that what i ended up doing (in Premiere), but ive got Karaoke finished for now, (www.flashbackentertainment.com/searched.asp?Genre=Karaoke), pity theres two more to do, at least that will be a lot more interesting with 5.1 DD.

Arky,

i guess you are learning quite a bit in Scen. now, does this mean you will abandon maestro yet (or soon ;))?

i only wish i had more spare time to play with either of them.

Enf...

[mpucoder]

Originally posted by Arky
This seems to suggest that mpucoder and Auenf may BOTH be correct

Of course, we're both infallable moderators ;)

I'm just waiting to get my hands on that DVD to see how they did it. I imagine there are several ways.

[Arky]

Originally posted by auenf


Arky,

i guess you are learning quite a bit in Scen. now, does this mean you will abandon maestro yet (or soon ;))?

i only wish i had more spare time to play with either of them.

Enf...

Oh, heavens no! Believe me, I am still VERY much a Scenarist novice!! :scared: (but, owing to the nature of the progra and it's appalling manual, I'm in good company...lol)

Every time I decide to throw some serious time at it, to learn it, I find something else demands my precious time instead. Like work. Or this forum... :rolleyes:

I still think Maestro's great :cool:


Arky ;o)

[auenf]

Originally posted by Arky
I still think Maestro's great :cool:

for the power and ease of use, its no wonder Apple bought spruce out.

its a pity they did as well, but when mr jobbs says jump...

Enf...

[dan]

Hey all,

Looking through the archives, this issue has come up before, but never in this exact capacity...

[For those who don't know what I'm talking about by the Subject alone...]

On a few DVDs, namely Ghostbusters and Men in Black [among others], when the director's audio commentary is selected, there's a subpicture stream that also gets turned on that shows [in the case of Men in Black] the silhouettes of Barry Sonnenfeld (the director) and Tommy Lee Jones sitting in chairs in a movie theater. It overlays the video, so the movie can be seen as well as the two guys in the "theater". It is dynamic, as in, the silhouettes move to point at things on the screen, and the two guys use a telestrator [the thing that's used by commentators during sporting events on TV to point at a player or "draw" arrows on the field] to circle parts of the screen or write words. Because, it can be switched off or switched to traditional subtitles, I'm very, very sure this is all in a subpicture [or, I guess, subtitle] stream [not separate angle, as one post in the SVCD forum would seem to hint at].

How are these streams made?
I figure it must be a two color video in whatever video program one would use, but how does that turn into a subpicture stream in the authoring process? For what it's worth, I'm a Scenarist kind of guy, and it doesn't seem to have any provisions for such things. [I mean, I could do a pubpicture wipe (yeah!) but that's besides the point.
I'm thinking that maybe two or three months ago someone had posted some sort of tool that could be related to this [perhaps the forum member mpucoder? but who knows], but I didn't download it, and couldn't find it in the archives.

Thanks in advance.

Dan

[auenf]

I'm very, very sure this is all in a subpicture [or, I guess, subtitle] stream

well, yes and yes (in button over video subpicture == subtitle)

basically this is directly related to something mentioned in another thread regarding rotating colours on menu select: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35021

basically the subpicture/subtitle stream is made up of almost a 25/23.976/29.97 subpictures per second.

Enf...

[dan]

Thanks for the response, but how do they incorporate this animated subpicture into the DVD structure? Scenarist provides a means of changing colors, doing wipes, and fading in/out subpictures. A truly animated subpicture [a la Ghostbusters, etc.] could not be easily [or even possibly?] implemented using this method. I also doubt that the professionals are defining each image in the animated subpicture sequence's in and out points. Are these animated [not just color-changing, fading, etc.] subpictures out of the realm of Scenarist? Having become relatively familiar with it, it's rare that one would come across something in the DVD standard it wouldn't support.
Thanks,
Dan

[mpucoder]

There is a program floating around (no, I don't know how to get it), written in Delphi, that takes video and converts it into 2-color bitmaps. You then feed that, and the subpicture script, into Scenarist. This was used for the running dog subpicture sample in DVD Demystified. If you haven't seen it, it shows a dog running across the screen at various frame rates (5, 10, 15, and 30)

[dan]

Thanks a lot for the answers guys.

Dan

[Arky]

Dan / Auenf, to avoid the possibility (nay, *probability!*) of a very interesting topic becoming confusingly spread between two separate threads, I've taken the liberty of merging the two threads in question.


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

Back to business :-

Originally posted by mpucoder
There is a program floating around (no, I don't know how to get it), written in Delphi, that takes video and converts it into 2-color bitmaps. You then feed that, and the subpicture script, into Scenarist. This was used for the running dog subpicture sample in DVD Demystified. If you haven't seen it, it shows a dog running across the screen at various frame rates (5, 10, 15, and 30)


...I'm purely brainstorming here, but all this talk of animated 2 colour bitmaps has left me wondering if this might also be possible in Adobe After Effects. I've never actually tried it, but I know it is very possible to animate simple pictures in after effects, even linking these to, for example, a waveform's peaks and troughs, such that a cartoon character's mouth can be made to open when a narrative audio file's waveform 'peaks' (if you want to see this exact example, just look in the demonstration quicktime files provided on the AAFX5 CD). This use of what Adobe term "expressions" might provide an excellent way of achieving the subs we desire. I will have to look into the dark recesses of the AAFX manual to see what output format options there are for such a project. It's such a pity that the DVD spec can not be made to incorporate Macromedia flash files/projects!!

Regarding Scenarist's abilities, I am less familiar with this program than many others on the forum, but, although I doubt Scenarists abilities to DIRECTLY create such 2-colour bitmap streams, I do NOT doubt it's ability to incorporate such streams, authored first in an external program.

I must admit, I am seriously contemplating splashing the cash on Jim Taylor's bible, purely in order to get my hands on this walking dog DVD demo everyone keeps quoting! :D


Arky ;o)

[auenf]

Originally posted by Arky
Dan / Auenf, to avoid the possibility (nay, *probability!*) of a very interesting topic becoming confusingly spread between two separate threads, I've taken the liberty of merging the two threads in question.

well, you have very nearly sent me crazy by joining them, but thats another story, too many cheeseburgers for me...

in maestro, it seems the minimum length for a subtitle is 15 frames, what is it in scenarist? the minimum length will be the key to making them manually, as for a easier way, i guess more brainstorming is necessary :)

umm, i was going to write something else, but got distracted by sunday night movie...

Enf...

[dan]

The minimum subtitle time in Scenarist is 1 frame [as in, perfect for video]. I do believe I've figured out how to generate the streams. Set-up the video the way you'd want it in Premiere. Export the movie as an image sequence [you'll get an image of whatever format you picked for each frame]. In Photoshop, make a batch operation that, for each image, forces it to two colors [forced colors is one of the options in the adjust menu, I believe]. Tell Photoshop to run every image through the batch, and then you'll have all the frames that would make up the two color video. Because Scenarist claims to support GIFs, but in actuality, doesn't [at least for me], you'll need to be sure that the batch ends with saving the files as TIFFs [or bitmaps or a number of other formats (look in the manual)or even jpegs...though jpeg isn't ideal for this...but not GIFs...again, my experience shows Scenarist doesn't like GIFs]. [It'll probably look horrible, but it depends on what the scene looks like...I've had mixed results.] I've done it this way, because the subpicture for the particular project I'm working on "needs" to be from a video stream. Of course, this isn't ideal, and produces results of questionable quality, but, for the sake of argument, it works.

For those of you wondering about Flash...Flash has avi export option. Load the avi in VirtualDub or Premiere, then save the avi as an image sequence of one of Scenarist's supported image formats. Remember, Scenarist doesn't like LZW compression for tiffs, so we're looking at (relatively) a lot of harddrive space for a comparitively small amount of video, as the image formats are practically (if not wholly) loss-less. GIF would be better, and take much less space, but, somehow, I doubt that space is a true consideration in the DVD authoring community.
[Scenarist users, look at section 1.6.2 [or around there] to see the naming format in which the names should be.] Use a mass re-naming tool [such as Renamer] to have all names be in the correct format.

Once you have those image sequences, a script must be generated so Scenarist knows what the heck to do. [Of course, one could import the frames individually, and move them down to one frame in length, but that'd be a waste of time.] My programming experience is very limited [as in, would you guys really want the program to generate the script to be in MATLAB programming language?]. The actual programming behind this isn't hard, and one of my friends who is much more proficient in programming even volunteered to make a simple script generator. It'd be incredibly simple [as in, it'd use the defaults, and not provide much functionality beyond generating a script file with durations of 1 frame]. Of course, it might not be done soon, but eventually I'll somehow guilt him into it.

Because I'm familiar with Scenarist, Photoshop, and Premiere [and MATLAB! YEAH!...anyway], and know a bit of the functionality for Flash [i.e. the avi export], these are the only platforms I could provide any help for, but I do think the procedures are fairly straight forward, so that they could be easily "ported" to different programs [Well, maybe not Maestro, which has a minimum subtitle length of 15 frames].

For those of you not looking to convert video source to subpictures [everyone but me], I do believe that Flash avi export to image sequence [by way of VirtualDub] followed by a script generator program [in the works] is the way to go.

Dan

Edit: For what it's worth, VirtualDub also provides image sequence export. The newest version 1.4.11 allows for TARGA sequences as well as bitmap. [for those of you who don't have Premiere]
I also clarified some stuff.

[Arky]

Originally posted by auenf
well, you have very nearly sent me crazy by joining them, but thats another story, too many cheeseburgers for me...

Enf...

I'm sorry to hear that! In what sense have I offended your sensibilities? :D ("...the road to hell is paved with good intentions..!")


I've just had a quick play with AAFX5 and it lets you export movies as image sequences in Bitmap format, amongst others. Other than black and white, I only tested it with 16 colours, which, of course, exceeds the required. Anyway, the point is, it will do the trick. I read your above post with great interest, dan!


Arky ;o)

[auenf]

Originally posted by Arky
In what sense have I offended your sensibilities? :D


well;

Cheesburger x 2 + ConfusingArky - LotsOfSleep + LotsOfUnneededStress == NotVeryGoodAtAll

The minimum subtitle time in Scenarist is 1 frame [as in, perfect for video].

and scenarist is the winner for creating weird menu buttons ;)

now if only i didnt use Virtuoso at work all the time, id make some room in my brain to learn scenarist and try lots of stuff out (well, almost everything in this forum...

Enf...

[Arky]

I'm confused now - WHO is confusing WHO?!? :eek: :confused:

BTW, I often think I'd like to learn other stuff which is going on in other threads, but let's be honest about this - Doom9 forum-world is so big, and so detailed, that this would be absolutely impossible with only one lifetime available!

Shame.


Arky ;o)

[dan]

*update*
The script generator program is finished, and works like a dream. [Well, if your dreams involve grasping the finer points of subpicture manipulation.] Although it works, the generated script needs to be tinkered with just a bit so that Scenarist accepts it. Right now, the guy who programmed it is working on ironing out those bugs so that it's truly automated...as in, no editing of the script file before it goes into Scenarist. Once that editing [I guess "debugging"] is all set, I'll post it. The script import in Scenarist is pretty picky [you have to define which palette colors you are using, contrast, etc.] so the generator is to-the-letter, so to speak, of the required format, which means, it'll be useful to probably just the "advanced" DVD authors [well, this is the name of the forum, so it shouldn't be a problem].
I'd post the program here, but I'll wait until it's 100% finished before posting it so that an incomplete version doesn't start floating around on the Internet. If you want to see where the program is at at the moment, private message me. Just a warning, you'll need the .NET framework from Microsoft to run it. I don't know enough about programming to be able to tell you guys why [no offense, but I'm not asking], but look around Microsoft's site for it.

Thanks guys,
Dan

[Arky]

FANTASTIC stuff, dan. My thanks to you and your friend. I will really look forward to seeing the finished program.

(Woohoo!) :D


Arky ;o)

[Septimus]

I currently doing this:

-Create animation in Flash
-export it as a series of 719*574 8 bit bitmaps (using 3 colors + white)
-run this through a PAL script generator that loops the bitmaps by a chosen frame or time interval

-import to scenarist, ajust colours and burn on cdvd (cdrw)

I haven't yet got to sorting the multiple highlights that would be require for buttons

I guess you would need about 3 minutes worth to avoid damaging the player with all that forced looping.

Anyway, on cdvd it works fine if the encoded .sp files are about 3-4k, once above this at high subpicture framerates it breaks down.

I've had a few nice geometric animations overlaying the videostream
Rotating Logos etc.

A good thing to use also is the scripting host facility offered by photoshop - you can program for example the generation of mulitiple bitmaps - ie: generate a set of subpics with a elapsing timecode throughtout the movie, which is switchable.

[jk2]

First of all - I'm not a programmer -- but necessity being the mother of invention ....

I've written a small program for personal use, that takes a series of bitmap files and loops then over time by an interval of seconds or frames into a Scenarist .sst file.

If anyone is interested??

Its written in Visual Basic 6, so you will need to download the runtime libraries from www.microsoft.com - if you don't already have them

I only use PAL under which it works quite well.
It should work just as well under NTSC.

If it doesn't work, then just delete it ;)

Anyway, the program plus an example can be downloaded at

www.mindtrap.co.uk

[rdbello]

Hi jk2,

I've some questions about your program, could you help me?

- how can I do to use this script (copy and paste an scenarist exported script)?

- about the time: if I set 30 secs the program will resume all frames to this time ( for example: I create a movie in Flash with 900 frames (30 fr p/sec) but you script create 30 bmps only)

Thanks

[jk2]

The SubLooper program creates a Scenarist Subtitle script file. (*.sst), this is different from a Scenarist Script file (*.scp) - which contains information about the entire project.

Subtitle Script files (*.sst) are imported by choosing: (In Track View)

Tool > Import Subtitle from the menu, and browse and select the *.sst file. Scenarist will then load all the looped *.bmp files onto the track.

As for your problem with only having 30 *.bmp files:

If you are running at 30 fps in flash, input 30 seconds for the duration in SubLooper. Then set as frames rather than seconds and choose 1 frame for the interval.

This will give you 30fp/s * 30 s ~= 900 frames
:)

[rdbello]

Thanks, jk2. I'll try to follow this tips.