Animated subpictures on menu - not switched menus ?

[guns1inger]

The DVD of the first of Sam Raimi's Spiderman movies has an interesting effect. The subpictures for the menu select are not static, they are a series of animated dots. I can't figure out they did it, given that these sit on a motion menu, so switched menus are out of the question. It is rather cool, so any suggestions of how to do it (preferably in DVD Lab Pro) would be appreciated.

[adam]

Its just like you said, its a series of animated dots. Each different position of the dots is a different subpicture. When played in succession they are animated.

[guns1inger]

how do you get them to play one after the other ? I have never seen this done elsewhere.

[reboot]

The dots would be made into an m2v.
This would be overlayed onto the menu, then the whole thing rendered again as a motion menu.
(I haven't seen it, so this is just an educated guess).

[borax]

I have done such a thing with dvdauthor for test purposes. But is is a bunch of work. Works good with WinDVD (4.0) and my SA (Philips 625), bad with PowerDVD 5.0.
You need the 'animation' both as m2v file (normal menu) and as a bunch of png files with the 'highlight' animation. Then a xml file where you specify the buttons and the 'highlight' animation. The xml could look like this (PAL assumed):

<subpictures>
  <stream>
    <spu start="00:00:00.000" end="00:00:00.040"
         highlight="f:\Volume3\Temp\MMHigh1.png"
         select="f:\Volume3\Temp\MMAct.png"
         force="yes"
         autoorder="rows">
   <button name="MMB1" x0="89" y0="58" x1="353" y1="269"/>
   <button name="MMB2" x0="89" y0="298" x1="353" y1="509"/>
    </spu>
    <spu start="00:00:00.040" end="00:00:00.080"
         highlight="f:\Volume3\Temp\MMHigh2.png"
         select="f:\Volume3\Temp\MMAct.png"
         force="yes"
         autoorder="rows">
   <button name="MMB1" x0="89" y0="58" x1="353" y1="269"/>
   <button name="MMB2" x0="89" y0="298" x1="353" y1="509"/>
    </spu>
    <spu start="00:00:00.080" end="00:00:00.120"
         highlight="f:\Volume3\Temp\MMHigh3.png"
         select="f:\Volume3\Temp\MMAct.png"
         force="yes"
         autoorder="rows">
   <button name="MMB1" x0="89" y0="58" x1="353" y1="269"/>
   <button name="MMB2" x0="89" y0="298" x1="353" y1="509"/>
    </spu>
    <spu start="00:00:00.120" end="00:00:00.160"
         highlight="f:\Volume3\Temp\MMHigh4.png"
         select="f:\Volume3\Temp\MMAct.png"
         force="yes"
         autoorder="rows">
   <button name="MMB1" x0="89" y0="58" x1="353" y1="269"/>
   <button name="MMB2" x0="89" y0="298" x1="353" y1="509"/>
    </spu>
 ....
</stream>
</subpictures>

You need to specify a png for each frame of your animated menu (the png files may be used several times, if it is a cyclic animation)

Then you may multiplex the png files on your 'background' animation with a command like this:
"C:\Programme\dvdauthor\spumux.exe" "f:\Volume3\Temp\MMSpu.xml" <"f:\Volume3\Temp\MMBackg.mpg" > "f:\Volume3\Temp\MMMenu.mpg"

[adam]

I don't know what ya'll are referring to. The highlights on the Spiderman menu are not part of the encoded video, they are actual subpictures.

Like I said, its just a bunch of subpictures, nothing else. Its no different than the regular subtitle track they just use pictures of dots instead of pictures of words. You would make such a subtitle stream in the exact same way you'd make a normal one. Subpictures are overlayed graphics. You can make any picture you want you are just limited to how many colors you can use to map to.

If I wanted to duplicate such a feature I would just make 3 bitmaps with the dots in the different positions. On my timeline editor of my DVD authoring program I'd drag each of the three subpictures onto it and drag them as close to each other as I need to complete the animation. Then I would create the overlays (draw buttons, map colors,etc..) for each as normal.

[guns1inger]

adam - that makes sense and is obvious now that you mention it.