Blinking Menu

[reelthing03]

Does anyone understand how one can make a menu with a button selector that blinks (such as the opening menu of the matirx)? Is this possible to do in maestro? It seems like somekind of an animated subpicture (which there are a couple of threads on that i very much almost understand). How would one go about making a menu like this, perferably in maestro?

Thanks in advance

B

[oddyseus]

Well, this isn't much of a help, but I can tell u where to find this info.

In Maestro's manual there is a chapter about this several pages long with a detailed example.

Sorry m8, never done it before, so I can't be of more help.

[ultimatebilly]

I don't know how to do this in Maestro, but it should be possible to design the subpicture in after effects (composed of four colors), output them as an image-sequence, and generate a subpicture-script to import them into Maestro...
If there are only few pictures (like for blinking buttons), you can also create the subpicture in photoshop for example, one time with, for example a red button-overlay, and another time with blue, and then write a script where each overlay is shown for a specified time...
Now you map red to green 100%, blue to green 33%, and you have your blinking effect...
I did this in scenarist, and it basically worked...

Hope this helps...

[auenf]

put the blinking on the actual background, then use the subpic to uncover the one you want to blink.

Enf...

[reelthing03]

Wow thanks. That is a really smart way of making a button blink. I don't think this is how it was done in like the matrix though becasue this would require the part that was blinking to be covered while it is not selected, while in the Matrix, you see the video where the cursor blinks when it is not selected.

Thanks aenuf, as this will certainly serve my purposes. If anyone has any outer ideas i'm still interested.

[dan]

Yeah, go with the blinking background [as opposed to blinking subpicture] method. For what it's worth, there was a pretty lengthy discussion about this stuff [animated subpictures] in the fall, and we pretty much definitely decided that the DVD standard didn't support animated subpictures for when a button is selectable [i.e. a menu] Frame rates that were slower than or equal to 1fps worked, but below that seemed to be against spec (according to Scenarist at least).

Not to be argumentative or dumb, but Scenarist will preview the menu in the simulator when you have an animated subpicture track, but will not allow the creation of the disc image, giving an error about the 'highlight starting too soon before the next highlight' [I'm paraphrasing, obviously] or something to that matter. [Like you said, the topic came up in the past, so search the forums for that particular topic, as I can't remember which one it was in particular.]

For example, the animated commentary of Ghost Busters, Men in Black, etc. don't have any selectable buttons, so they get by at full-frame rate without going against spec.

For the Matrix, in particular, that blinking button [if it's the one I'm thinking of...the button you see right before the choices for playing movie, special features, etc.], it's a video clip that is linked to the main menu video [which shows the options]. It's a menu creation trick, not an authoring trick. Again, not to be argumentative or anything, just hoping this'll help you.

Thanks,
Dan

[auenf]

Originally posted by reelthing03
Wow thanks. That is a really smart way of making a button blink. I don't think this is how it was done in like the matrix though becasue this would require the part that was blinking to be covered while it is not selected, while in the Matrix, you see the video where the cursor blinks when it is not selected.

Thanks aenuf, as this will certainly serve my purposes. If anyone has any outer ideas i'm still interested.

as dan pointed out, the matrix menu isnt blinking when you have the selection up, altho there is a way to emulate that, but not in maestro. scenarist allows you to have basically full motion subtitle streams, so creating button over video with a motion sub stream can produce some really interesting effects.

Maestro on the other hand will only let you have the 1 sub at a minimum of a GOP, but using button over video you can possibly create a blinking cursor too.

ill add this into my list of things im going to do for a demo disc (when i get around to it).

Enf...

[dan]

hey auenf...I don't mean to be the guy in the forum that's going, 'You're wrong, you're wrong!!', but how did you manage to make animated subpictures that function with a highlight layer? When the topic came up in this past winter, we [well whoever participated in the thread] pretty much decided that the frame rate of the animated subpictures couldn't be full NTSC video speed [29.97], or even half of that because of the error you'd get when one goes to make the disc image. And again, Scenarist will preview it in the simulation mode, but won't make the image.

For what it's worth, the animated subpictures go just fine when there are not buttons [highlights] present.

Again, not to sound like a jerk or anything, but have you gotten it to work with a highlight there somehow and if you did, how did you do it?

Thanks,
Dan

[Arky]

Some of the relevant threads from months gone by:

Note that not all of them pertain to menus, but all refer in some way to animated subpics. The first one is the best discussion, IMHO.

~1~ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=37074&highlight=animated+subpics)

~2~ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=41214&highlight=animated+subpics)

~3~ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=39396&highlight=animated+subpics)

~4~ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=37797&highlight=animated+subpics)


Arky ;o)

[dan]

Thanks for posting the links to the threads I had mentioned, but again, they don't explain to make a menu where the animated subpictures work with a highlight layer present in Scenarist. [Again, I don't mean to be a jerk or anything, it's just something that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out and get working, only to realize that it was seemingly impossible. It'd be cool if someone did figure it out, but a lot of conversation seems to be 'Scenarist could do it.' when it actually seems like it can't.]

Anyway, I was tinkering with it again today, and managed to put three successive subpictures of 14 frames one after another with a copy and pasted highlight for each [as the highlight length needs to match the corresponding subpicture]. That made and image and got a cool little effect of the color of the text changing on the button, but when I added a fourth subpicture and highlight, I got the usual error, "Highlight interval is too short."

Tried a one frame subpicture and still got the same problem.

It seems like subpicture/highlight lengths of one second are perfectly fine though, as added about a minute's worth of them and it muxed, imaged, and played just fine. It's just that it's not nearly as interesting as it would be if it would work on the frame timescale as opposed to seconds. I've not seen the Spiderman DVD, but when the colors change, is it about one second between color changes? If it's less, I guess the "issue" is still unresolved.

If you want to try this stuff out on your own anyone, just make a new menu as you would with a video clip [not a still], import a subpicture, giving it a running time of something rather low, add that subpicture to the subpicture track, copy and paste it however many times you want, define a highlight area for the first one, copy the highlight enough times for it to match the subpictures, then, if you want, adjust the color change properties of the individual button on the highlights, then make the disc image. Sorry if that's rather "duh" for most of you [well, those who are still reading this thread, I'd guess].

Anyway, try this out, who knows, maybe my version of Scenarist is screwy for some reason and that's why it's all messed up.

Thanks,
Dan

[auenf]

Originally posted by dan
hey auenf...I don't mean to be the guy in the forum that's going, 'You're wrong, you're wrong!!', but how did you manage to make animated subpictures that function with a highlight layer?

DVDMaestro limits subtitle's to a minimum of 1 GOP, so theoretically you could make the frame change every GOP (maybe, i'd have to check the Chapter minimum distances), which could create a blinking caret fairly easily (on for a second, off for a second, repeat).

like i said, i havent tried it in scenarist at all (learning scenarist when i use DVDVirtuoso and DVD Studio Pro at work will make me get completely confused at work, especially as DVD Studio Pro 'scripts' want me to learn 'something ?= 5' for a random number.), but i am planning to try lots of stuff out in Maestro when i get a week or so to myself.

Enf...