DVD-lab PRO questions?

[dblue]

1: im trying to make a Motion Menu that replays half way though the mpg.

EX: it will play the hole mpg, but when it restarts, it replays half way into the mpg and stays repeating.

or

2: is it possible to auto go to the next menu?

EX: starts first menu 1 then auto to menu 2. ( menu 2 will repeat the motion movie menu untill you push the button to go to the movie)

3: what is a VMG Menus?

[guns1inger]

all of these questions are answered in the help files that come with dvd lab pro. Have you tried looking there ?

[abc-123]

1: im trying to make a Motion Menu that replays half way though the mpg.

EX: it will play the hole mpg, but when it restarts, it replays half way into the mpg and stays repeating.

I'm not sure if this is what you're after, but I think you need 2 motion menus for this. Set your first motion menu to play the whole clip and then automatically go to the second motion menu (that looks exactly the same)which holds the half clip repeating.

In the first menu, draw a square anywhere and link it to the second menu. Make it "invisible all". Take off auto-route and make it unselectable by the user by reassigning the routes of the other buttons. In the menu playback properties of the first menu, set:
Duration: a/v
Hi lite default button: (whatever number this square is)
Force activate button: (whatever number this square is)

In the second menu set the playback properties like this:
Duration: inf
Hi lite default botton: (whatever you want)
Force activate button will be greyed out.

3: what is a VMG Menus?

I tried looking for a definition of sorts at dvdlabs helpsite but couldn't find anything usefull. (Doing a search on "VMG" delivered nothing.) I even tried googling it but it was messy. I know the info is all there... I just can't find it with a nice neat ribbon wrapped around it.

Anyway, I *believe* the only time you actually need a VMG menu rather than a VTS menu is if your clips have different aspect ratios. Those need to be placed on separate VTS's so that your player will play the correct aspect for each clip. Each VTS is like a separate disk, self contained (kind of like a partition on a hardrive). A VMG menu sits on a higher level and is used to navigate between the separate VTS's. It might be used for more stuff, but I haven't discovered those yet.

[guns1inger]

Is it really that hard ?

In the DVD Lab Pro help file (in the current 1.53 release this is a pdf file, although a html version is available on the site) look up the following

Motion Menu - Delayed Buttons and Menu Cells

Duration, Timeout and Force Activate (hint : Force Activate is the one you want)

VTS, VMG and Other Stuff will give you a good verview of how the higher menus functions hang together.

Now bend over and I'll wipe your a**e for you as well.

[abc-123]

Now bend over and I'll wipe your a**e for you as well.

Cheers gunslinger, let me buy you a drink. You seem a little stressed.

I know this stuff is searchable and it's relatively easy to do, and some days I share your attitude. But I keep hearing about how dvdlab has a higher learning curve than some other apps out there and I just want to do my part to help those at the beginning. I'd hate for inferior products to gain popularity over a wonderfull tool such as this simply because the information assimilation was too much. Dvdlab is easy once you get the basics down, it's just that some people need a bit of help at first.

[dblue]

Is it really that hard ?

In the DVD Lab Pro help file (in the current 1.53 release this is a pdf file, although a html version is available on the site) look up the following

Motion Menu - Delayed Buttons and Menu Cells

Duration, Timeout and Force Activate (hint : Force Activate is the one you want)

VTS, VMG and Other Stuff will give you a good verview of how the higher menus functions hang together.

THX for the help.

Now bend over and I'll wipe your a**e for you as well.

make sure u use the double quilted kind.

=============================================

i got some more questions.


is there a way to box a word or a picture on the menu to be a flash button?


EX:

------------------
| PLAY MOVIE | flashing
------------------

OPTIONS

EXTRAS

and when u move it down



PLAY MOVIE

------------------
| OPTIONS | flashing
------------------

EXTRAS

[Shadowmistress]

Initially, I was going to say no because motion buttons and such tend to get hard-coded into the background in which case you would not be able to select something before seeing it (all the boxes would flash at once).

But on thinking about it I suppose you *could* achieve this effect, although it would be a little difficult to do since that particular preset is not already built into dvdlab. What you'd have to do is create 2 identical menus and set them up to timeout to eachother after 1 second. One menu would show the box visible, the other would not. But for that to work you'd have to make sure the button you are currently selecting is carried over into the next menu. To do this you have to mess with the GPRM settings <---I don't know how to do this, sorry. And you wouldn't be able to get it flashing faster than the one second interval.

Must it be flashing? You could have just the box and set it to invisible normal so that it appears only when selected. Only one box would appear at a time since only one button can be selected at a time.

Or... you could go another way and achieve an equally stunning effect. Highlight your text and hit the D-FX button. Have it animate. Once all your text is animated, render motion menu. Once that's done, create duplicate text and place it overtop of the old text. (So now you have a plain "play movie" button right overtop the animated "play movie" button, in essence, hiding the text/animation.) Then set the plain text button attributes to completely opaque when normal, completely invisible when selected, and whatever you want when activated. This effect will show the user plain text for "play movie" "options" and "extras" but each button will animate once the user selects it.


Until thinking about it to answer your question, I never realized how cool this would look. Thanks for inadvertently giving me the idea.

[dblue]

Initially, I was going to say no because motion buttons and such tend to get hard-coded into the background in which case you would not be able to select something before seeing it (all the boxes would flash at once).

But on thinking about it I suppose you *could* achieve this effect, although it would be a little difficult to do since that particular preset is not already built into dvdlab. What you'd have to do is create 2 identical menus and set them up to timeout to eachother after 1 second. One menu would show the box visible, the other would not. But for that to work you'd have to make sure the button you are currently selecting is carried over into the next menu. To do this you have to mess with the GPRM settings <---I don't know how to do this, sorry. And you wouldn't be able to get it flashing faster than the one second interval.

Must it be flashing? You could have just the box and set it to invisible normal so that it appears only when selected. Only one box would appear at a time since only one button can be selected at a time.

Or... you could go another way and achieve an equally stunning effect. Highlight your text and hit the D-FX button. Have it animate. Once all your text is animated, render motion menu. Once that's done, create duplicate text and place it overtop of the old text. (So now you have a plain "play movie" button right overtop the animated "play movie" button, in essence, hiding the text/animation.) Then set the plain text button attributes to completely opaque when normal, completely invisible when selected, and whatever you want when activated. This effect will show the user plain text for "play movie" "options" and "extras" but each button will animate once the user selects it.


Until thinking about it to answer your question, I never realized how cool this would look. Thanks for inadvertently giving me the idea.

know problem thx for the info.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

im having problems with the color properties.

i went to objects then to frames then made the frame that i picked as a button. but when i go to properties color and change it to blue, then check it on my DVD player, its pink (i tryed every color and still no luck). does anyone know why, is there a default? is there a apply button?

[Shadowmistress]

I've noticed too that you can't really change color on some of the frames and bullets. It's because of all the effects they have such as beveling and light sources and such. Some change color, some only change to particular colors, some don't change at all.

The only thing I've remotely found effective for this is to set the buttons normal color (as you see in normal/selected/activated) to a transparent blue to "tint" the frame to the color you like when unselected.

[dblue]

I've noticed too that you can't really change color on some of the frames and bullets. It's because of all the effects they have such as beveling and light sources and such. Some change color, some only change to particular colors, some don't change at all.

The only thing I've remotely found effective for this is to set the buttons normal color (as you see in normal/selected/activated) to a transparent blue to "tint" the frame to the color you like when unselected.

thx Shadowmistress

===================================

im having problems with compiling multiple menus.

14 motion menus and 1 nonmotion menu.

with the nonmotion menu in, i get this..
_menu.vob
_spcLB
_spcPS
VTS_01.VOB
VTS_01_0.VOB
VTS_01_1.VOB

when i take out the 1 nonmotion menu, i get this.

(this is what im looking for)
VIDEO_TS
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.VOB
VTS_01_0
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.VOB
VTS_01_1.VOB

i would really like to keep the nonmotion in, but it will not compile right.
is there a setting im missing that can fix this problem?