Motion Menu the better way

Previously we learned how to create a simple motion menu where we replaced the background with a motion clip. What we got was more or less this a motion background with a subpicture over it.

That's hardly satisfactory.
The version 1.3 adds a cool new tool called Pre-Render Motion Menu.

What it does is it to merge all video objects with other menu objects and create new motion background file which you will use in the menu.

Part 1: A Simple Menu with a motion clip.

Here is our task: A simple menu with just one motion clip.
First we create a menu with background:

Then open the desired clip in the Assets and drag it to the Preview (or double click on it).

Now drag a still frame from Preview to the menu. It doesn't really matter at this moment what frame you are adding. This will create just a reference still.	Resize the new Video Still to the desired size.	Next, add a frame on top of the Still, add text, buttons and links.

And continue...

Oh, the background doesn't very match with the video so we used Gen-EFX and apply some noise and color to the background.	What we have now is a perfectly valid menu - but of course nothing moves (yet). Now is time to change it. From the Wizard select Render Menu Motion.	A new window will appear. The Render Motion tool will recognize our Video Still as being the only motion object available in the menu.

Before you start rendering the motion, set few parameters. Most notably you would like to change the start point from which the clip will play. By default the start point is from the beginning of the file which is not good - there is a black fade and a titles. Logically I like to use some clip from the middle of the video.

Set the total clip time. A 10 sec. is a good value, motion clips are usually between 10-30 sec. long.	We have only one Video Still object on the menu so there is not much to select here.	Now you can set the Start point (3) from where the Video Still (1) will play. Of course we would like to include this object in the clip (2) and with the slider (3) we can select a good start point. You can use Fine scrub to fine adjust the start point.

And press Render button. First you will have to select the destination file which is AVI (remember DVD-lab has no build MPEG encoder). The AVI will be quite large, around 300 MB per 10 sec. so select a disk with enough space.

The process will start. First the frames from the clip will have to be extracted to the temporary directory. This is quite fast.

Then these frames will be merged with the menu objects to the final clip. This process is slower and you will see the progress and preview.

In five or so minutes we will have the AVI created. We can check the AVI in Media Player, it should play fine.

This is time to encode the clip. You can use TMPGEnc, Cinemacraft or any other encoder you have to do the job.	In TMPGEnc we loaded the default NTSC DVD template and used ES (Video Only) since we have no audio.

Now, open the result MPG or m2v in the assets...

... and drag it directly to the menu. This will add the clip as a motion background to the menu.

You don't have to delete any objects from the menu, just keep them there. If a motion background is defined no objects (except the motion background and Subpicture) will be visible.

Compile the DVD, and you should have your first real Motion menu done (of course much smoother than the animated GIF here...)

See the next page for Part 2..