How do you Slide Thumbnails onto Menu?

mickbadal wrote on 6/26/2007, 10:14 AM

I'm not completely sure that I understand what you mean by "sliding" a thumbnail, but if you mean you want to set a particular frame in your video as the thumbnail for a chapter, then you can do it this way:

1) In the "timeline" window, navigate to the scene you want to use as a thumbnail.

2) In the "Project Overview" window, right-click the particular link item (item corresponding to the chapter) that you want to set the thumbnail for, and select "set thumbnail from view".

ScottW wrote on 6/26/2007, 11:15 AM

Frankly, I find it easier to do this type of stuff in Vegas.

A couple of things that can trip you up. First, your menu must loop and it must have a loop point set; also it must have some duration other than the default. Once you've got this, you should be able to right click on the menu timeline just below the video where it says "transformations" - this will allow you to insert keyframes at that timeline location. Note that any keyframes must be inserted before the loop point.

Also, on any object that you want to slide, click on the object, select the "transformations" tab and specify that the object is to be shown before the loop point.

Then select your first keyframe, click on the keyframe tool and drag the menu object to where you want it to start. Then click the next keyframe mark and drag the object to where you want it to be at that point.

Click "Preview" to see how it all looks.

--Scott

Grazie wrote on 6/26/2007, 12:23 PM

Scott, along with my "other" experience today with DVDA, I did set about doing exactly what you said, and then I posted my question here.

And now I read that I was on the correct track anyway, and that this is easier from within Vegas. Well, I've gone further now and have been able to send a Thumbnail marching along a Curved Bezier Path, against time!

My experience today - and with the other experience, and that is, DVDA is a very powerful package, but it needs some more User friendly transparent guidance in just how to use it. The power functions within DVDA, for me, are difficult to get at.

I shall persist. Scott, I'd like to further bend your ear.

TIA,

Grazie

Galeng wrote on 6/26/2007, 1:04 PM

I've been working on this also. I am curious about the thumbnail appearing on the main menu page. Right now my menu background is a psd file. I have frames and thumbnail masks identified in the psd file. If I try, for example, just to have a thumbnail fade in, it works for the thumbnail itself, but I have not been able to figure out how to get the psd frame layer to also fade in at the same time.

My ultimate goal is to figure out how to have a frame along with its thumbnail mask to "float" into the menu and eventual settle on it. Sort of like a piece of paper with a slight curl to it floating down to the ground.

Any suggestions??

Thanks

Galen

mickbadal wrote on 6/27/2007, 8:21 AM

OK, obviously I was way off and you folks are way beyond me. I'm now curious as to what you're doing and how to do it. I don't want to rabbit-trail this thread, so I have only two questions:

What do you mean by "easier to do this...in Vegas"? Do you mean render the whole effect with the thumbnails as a video, and set it as the background or transition?

I did the setup in DVDA that you described (set menu to loop, set loop point, change duration to "specify" and 10 seconds). I don't see the "transformations" just below the video. Can you advise?

Thanks

ECB wrote on 6/27/2007, 9:47 AM

Select the object you want to move by left clicking on it. On the right under Properties click on Transformations and, in this case, set Show before loop to yes. Go the Timeline Video track and find Transformations. Move along the video track to where you want to insert a key frame, right click and use the submenu to keyframe. Using this method DVDA has to build a composite video and will recompress your video background if you use mpeg.

EB

ScottW wrote on 6/27/2007, 11:46 AM

You'll have to check and see if this functionality is available in DVDAS 4.0 - remember that DVDAS doesn't have as many features as DVDA has.

As far as "easier to do in Vegas" - since Vegas is designed to do video editing, I find it easier to create complex motion menus using it than DVDA. YMMV.

mickbadal wrote on 6/29/2007, 1:26 PM

I've got a question for you on this - I assume what you mean is you create the entire animation (moving thumbnails and so forth) in Vegas, then use that video as a transition into (or out of) the menu.

I've used a similar approach, and it involved capturing a snapshot of the menu in DVDA (preview, then use the "copy to clipboard" thing) which I then used in my video as the starting frame (as a transition coming off the menu). However in my experience the resolution of the snapshot image doesn't seem to be as good as the actual menu. So in my end product, the menu as it appears in the video is of a lesser quality, then it suddenly becomes a better quality as the video ends and the DVDA menu begins.

Do you think the lower quality is a result of the snapshot DVDA takes?

ScottW wrote on 6/29/2007, 7:28 PM

There's a quality setting in DVDA for the snapshot - make sure it's set to the highest (haven't got the software on this machine, so can't tell you exactly where the setting is). Also, I usually render my motion menus to DV AVI or Uncompressed AVI, not MPEG-2, because no matter what, DVDA will almost always recompress the menu video, so you might as well start with as good a source as you can get.

mickbadal wrote on 7/2/2007, 2:08 PM

Would it be the drop-down list next to the "Copy to Clipboard" button in the Preview, where you can choose (among other options) Production Quality?

ScottW wrote on 7/3/2007, 6:59 AM

Sounds like the right one to me.