Film Strip

The idea is to have a film-strip with thumbnails and when user move to next thumbnail by clicking the navigation buttons the film will move in opposite direction to center the new selected thumbnail.

First we have to design the film-strip. I did it in Real-Draw Pro since that's ideal software for these kind of stuff.

Here is what I designed in Real-Draw. I used different colors for each object so I can see what I do. How is the perforation done? Very simple - Text, select Arial Bold and type ......................, then resize it so it is in scale.

Now when this is done, select all objects and press the CombineXOR.

Here is the film-strip object. Project-Trim Canvas and now Export as PNG Transparent.

The rest is all done in DVD-lab. You can import the saved PNG by dragging it from explorer (or build in file viewer) to either Video & Audio Asset - this will be temporary or you can permanently keep it when you drag it to Buttons & Frames or Images.

Place the film on Menu 1 and then with the Frame tool draw 3 frames inside the film strip. The color doesn't matter.

Note: We do something what is not normally recommended: we go with the side buttons close to the screen border beyond the Action area. (see the two rectangles on every menu) But here it serves the purpose because the real action will be always in the middle.

Now select each frame and set The properties in Link - Button Visibility to Invisible Normal.

We will use these frames as buttons which are invisible in normal but they will become visible when the button is selected.
Set the left and right frame to Auto-Action. Leave the center without Auto-Action. You may want to simply drop any link to the frames just to see the button order. If you start drawing the frames from left to right then the left most is the first, the center is the second and the right is the third button. Since the center one is a number 2 we will set Force Select Btn: 2 in a general tab.

A good idea is to lock all frames so they can't be accidentally moved.

I would like to have 6 links to a various chapters of a movie so I duplicate this menu 5 more times.

Now the fun part starts. First you probably need to set a chapter points in your movie. Then on each menu you put 3 thumbnails from the movie; where the active thumbnail (which actually link to the chapter point) is in the middle. The thumbnails on the sides (together with Auto-Action) links to the respective menus.

Move the thumbnails to back so they are behind the film strip

Now copy the thumbnail which is in center on one menu to the left place on next menu etc..

Tip: Once you move the thumbnail behind all the objects it is not possible to normally select it. So how to select object which is on back? Click away from the object so nothing is selected. Hold Ctrl and then you click. The bottom-most object will be selected.

Here is the list of all menus as viewed in player when the middle thumbnail is selected. (I set color mapping to the full yellow) You may see the idea right away. For example on Menu 1, the left frame links to Menu 6 with auto-action, the center frame links to the first chapter point and the right frame links to Menu 2 with Auto-Action. Similarly on Menu 2 frame links goes: Menu1, Chapter 2, Menu 3. etc.
Again, make sure the Force Select Btn. on each menu point to the middle frame (which is Button 2 in our case so on each menu we set it to 2)

Of course you can add additional text above the center thumbnail on each menu describing the scene etc.
The result is very cool looking menu. I wouldn't mind put this on my DVD.

Again see the animated result grabbed from a DVD player on top of the page:

A little modification.
I did another modification which looked even better.
I re-colorized the side thumbnails and leave only the center in its original colors.

How to do it? It is really easy in DVD-lab. First CTRL click on the thumbnail (so the thumbnail which is on the bottom gets selected, not the top frame) and then simply pick a Fill Color which is different than Automatic. Alternatively if you use black as new color the image will be desaturated (Black & White).

Simple, but quite effective.