DVD Menu: Flame animation.

Today I imported the flame animation I created on photoshop into encore as a timeline file. At first I couldn't get the animation to link to the menu or play with the menu but after asking for some help from simon, I finally got the animation to work by first hiding the background layers to the main scene selection file before holding alt whist dragging the movie file onto the scene selection page in the monitor panel. I then clicked preview before rendering the files which then played properly. However since I added the animation into my menu the audio no longer works, so that will be something I will have to work on and try to fix the next time we're able to use encore in class.

DVD menu; Audio + links, Improvements + reflection.

Today I finished linking the pages of my DVD menu so that all the buttons led to the right page, it took a while as encore kept shutting down but I finally managed to finish the links. I used the flowchart tab in the preview box to help layout the pages of the menu before using the pickwhip to link the buttons to the different menu pages.

After I did this I added an audio file to play through out the menu by importing the music file as an asset before clicking on the properties menu of each menu file to link the pickwhip audio to the music file I'd chosen. I did this for all the menus until I had music playing on each page. I then changed the duration to 00:01:00:00 and the loop set on forever for a continuous play of music.

So far I like how my menu has turned out, my only problem being the use of animation as I wasn't able to successfully create the animation I wanted and get it to play correctly with my menu. Because of this I don't think my menu is as good as it could have been but I'm still happy with the result as I think it fits with the horror genre and also looks like a real DVD menu, although the animation would have made it that little more proffesional looking.

I looked at various ways to create the animation such as creating it on a seperate canvas and then trying to add that into my menu and also trying to create the animation on my actual menu design file. I also tried creating the animation and then importing it into encore as an assett, but this still didn't work and after searching for tutorials and looking through the encore guide book I still couldn't find anything to help.

DVD Menu design

Today I finished making the dsesign for my DVD menu on photoshop. I included one main menu with 5 sub menus; scene selection, bonus features, setup, language options and a 2nd page for scene selection. To create the design I layered numerous brush effects such as old paper and splatter patterns before changing the opacity of each. I then added a black soft layer before adding my image over the top for example, some trees/ a house/ a windmill etc.

For the scene selection pages I layered another 4 images before resizing them so they were smaller and appeared like scene selection chapters on a DVD menu. To make them stand out I added a drop shadow effect.

For the buttons of the menu I renamed the layers with the codec (+) along with the name of the button I then did the same for my rollover buttons, but instead using the codec (=1) along with the name of the rollover button.

My Menu:

Main Page:

Scene selection page 1;

Scene selection page 2:

Setup:

Bonus features:

Language options:

I then imported the psd files onto encore where I set the main menu page to first play before using the flowchart to help create the links between the different pages of the menu. I did this to check that everything flowed well and the buttons and rollovers worked properly.

All I need to do now is add some animation to my photoshop files for the menu and then some audio.

Flame animation for DVD menu;

For my DVD menu I have one sub menu that has a candle in it's background. I though it would be really cool if I could animate the flame so that it would look like it's flickering in the background. To help guide me in doing this I followed this tutorial;

http://tutorials.watchandlearnphotoshop.com/tutorials/ps/1207frameanim.html

The first thing I did was open a new transparent canvas with a 600 width and 300 height, I then selected the ruler tool to mark a cross on the canvas before selecting the lasso tool and changing the feathering to 15px. I then used the gradient tool and selected a gradient that best fit a flame before changing the colours so that is was more orange/ yellow. After I did this I then created 10 blank layers.

I then used the lasso tool whilst on the first layer to draw a flame shame. I then used the gradient tool and changed the opacity to 75% before filling in the outline of my flame. I then repeated this 10 times, changing the shape of the flame outline and the starting point of the gradient tool.

After I had finished making the 10 layers I then transfered them to the animation menu by selecting ' make frames from layers' on the drop down menu in the animation box. I then changed the timing of each frame to 0.1 second before clicking play to preview my frame.

After creating the flame I tried to then recreate it on my menu design page, however after trying numerous times the same thing would happen. It would play on a transparent background but not with my menu design background. To fix this I then created a copy of my menu design page I wanted the flame on and cropped it down before trying to recreate the flame again, although this still didn't work.

This morning I continued with my sketches for the design of the graphics and DVD menu. I sketched a drawing of a voodoo doll that is going to be used in my design. The doll will be hanging off of one of the letters of the title of the film and I hope by using animation to make the doll sway from side to side. I also began to play around with different techniques on photoshop to try and creat a realistic fog eeffect over different images. I researched into different tutorials and tried a variety of different ones that I'd found. I will use these to hopefully creat my desired fog effect.

Here is an example of one of the tutorials I looked at, I hope to try and recreate this effect for my own menu.

After looking at a number of different tutorials for fog effects, I found a website that gave a good step by step guide to help create the fog effect.

http://www.biorust.com/tutorials/detail/229/en/  After following the guide I finally created an image with the fog effect I want to create for my menu.

To create this image I layered two of my images for the menu before following the steps of the tutorial .

In todays lesson I created a moodboard for my DVD menu. I imported images that I thought best suited the genre of my DVD (horror) and what fit with my intial idea for it. The images I used mainly stuck to the colours of black, grey and white as this is going to be the colour theme for my menu. I also included some images that had text effects that I like such as glowinging text and a scratchy looking text. Because my idea for the menu is based on ghosts/ witches I included images like voodoo dolls and also 'witch' type symbols such as the star of david and other symbols I found online. After I did this I then added text boxes to the moodboard in which I annotated the images.