Is there a limit to number of menus I can create in DLP?

[Alain2007]

I am building a DVD in whic menus are imported from Photoshop and used as Swicthed menus....After 20 menus, DLP seems to crash everytime I try to add one more....has anyone encountered this? I have about 71 movies as well....

Thanks
Alain

[guns1inger]

You are well within the theoretical limit of the DVD spec, although this sounds like a complicated structure.

If you are using DLP2, try clicking on Project -> Set to Mega-Project, which introduces more aggressive memory management.

Do you get an error message, either in the window or in the Windows error logs ?

Any reason you have so many assets ?

[Alain2007]

Well, the DVD is bilingual, meaning every single menu screen exists in 2 versions (1 french and 1 english). So the size of the DVD structure will be double the size of a single language user interface DVD. My first screen is the language select. The second is the Main Menu. One of the menu options leads to a 3rd menu (where the user selects the category of the videoclips he/she wishes to view (ie. dancing, singing, acting, etc,,,). Selection leads to a gallery screen where they see thumbs of the videos they can choose to view for that particular catagory.

Keep in mind though that I am not using DLP2 Pro to construct any of my graphics. Everything is built in Photoshop and because of the glow effects, I am using switched menus (which I will probably have to use for thumb selection as well since a glow appears around the thumb when selected). Yeah, its turning out to be a massive project!

In terms of error, it just hangs when trying to load the Imported menu.....
BTW, happy holidays...i look forward to reading your response after Christmas!

[Alain2007]

Hmm, looks like I will have to go with a simpler version. Watching commercial DVDs at home also showed me that most of them are simple color changes on the fonts and sometimes accompanied by a bullet. I dont think I even have a single DVD at home that has a glow effect on each user selection...SO...

Lets say I have 5 selections on my menu and I want the star bullet to follow...I assume I export the menu from Photoshop with all menu items in their "off" color, and with the rasterized star bullet next to each of the 5 selections (so that I have a star appearing next to each selection when I import in DLP). If I have done correctly so far, then this is where I need assistance! What do I assign to Inivisble normal? The 4 last stars? What about the text of the menu items?

[guns1inger]

Assign every star as invisible normal. When you test the menu, you will see only the star with focus is visible, and this will change as you move up and down the choices.

[Alain2007]

So you assign "Inivisible-Normal" to the bullets, and "Visible" to the text. Then you highlight both with Group Hotspot...You link the group??? Do you need to modify the visibility of the group as a unit too?

[guns1inger]

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to do. If you just have a menu of text items, and the star is the link and the only thing to turn on and off, you do not need groups of anything complicated. The text remains just text, and links to nothing at all. The stars link to the movie items, and have the visibility set to Invisible Normal.

If you want the text and the star to be the sub-picture highlight, then create the text and star separately and line then up as required. Select each text and star combination in turn, and click on Menu->Create->Combo Button. Click OK on the dialogue that appears, and you now have a single object as the link. Set the visibility for this object to Invisible Normal, and you are done.