Making Custom Menu w/ motion

[alanteigne]

Hello all, I'm fairly new to the DVD editing and authoring scene and would like some advice.

I have created a lot of vacation video using my miniDV camera and am making a custom DVD. I've made a 10 second clip of the ocean and waves that loops perfectly when played back to back. I've also created a few PNG's of different Seashells.

Here's my goal for the DVD menu:

1. motion background of the 10 second ocean clip (including audio)
2. text descriptions for options (Play Movie, Chapter Index, Funny Clips, etc)
3. an invisible seashell next to each option that lights up when that option is selected.

Thus far I have converted all my video into DVD-compliant MPEG's, and added my 10 second clip to the root menu as the background. However, I appear to have run into a limitation of DVD-lab in that I cannot have buttons on the "Normal" layer on top of the motion background. Also, I set the seashells to be invisible when not selected, so when they are, the can be seen but all that is visible is their sillouhette in whatever color is chosen for highlighting what is selected.

So, I'm stuck. I've seen DVD's like this before...either I'm missing something or I don't have the software to do it.

Can someone who's done this or knows how point me in the right direction?

Thanks...

Alan

[violao]

Originally posted by alanteigne
...but all that is visible is their sillouhette in whatever color is chosen for highlighting what is selected.

Menu button images are contained in a subpicture stream that has maximum 4 colors or more precisely 3 usable, since one color has to be assigned to subpicture background, therefore transparent. 3 colors are being used as foreground, highlight and select, so basically you are restricted to 1 color for button highlight.

The only way to put a png as a button "highlight" would be to make separate menus for every "button highlight", having that button image incorporated into background video stream and chain those menus with invisible buttons in which case transition between those menus will certainly not be seamless.

[reboot]

You need to use switched menus.
Generate one menu with all the components on it, and all the links where you need them to go.
Generate the switches, choosing to NOT "Change color of Selected Item".
Then click OK twice.
Open each menu, and on the MAP tab, under Color Map, set "Selected" and "Activated" off (slide the sliders all the way left.
Now on each menu, make "Invisible Normal" the things you DO NOT want to see, leave the others visible.
Now the seashell will show up ONLY when that item is selected, without the purple haze obscuring it.
Lots more on switched menus in my tutorial, including switched motion menus, doing exactly what you want (the visible seashell as the visual clue element showing what's selected).
http://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?link=734