Authoring Works 5: need help with motion menu

[romeon]

Hello,

I need help with the motion menu in Authoring Works 5. My authored BD looks like this:

* animated main menu with 6 tracks, no further menus
* the motion menu consists of a 6 minutes long h264 video file with integrated painted "buttons"
* all 6 Authoring Works track-thumbnails were deleted (replaced by a transparent gif-file), so only the overlay bar is visible when navigating in main menu
* the first 35 seconds when the disc starts is a kind of intro with hidden navigating bar, after 35 secs the bar is displayed to navigate and start the clips

My problem:
After a track has ended the bluray jumps back to the main menu (that's ok), but it starts again with the intro from the very beginning. It's a bit annoying to see this intro again and again after every track has ended or was stopped. Then I have to wait these 35 seconds of the intro before I can navigate and start another track.

=> is there a possibility to start the motion menu after ended or stopped tracks from another position than the beginning, in this case after 35 seconds? I think I haven't seen something like that ...

Many thanks in advance!
romeon

[nic2k4]

Create a track menu only. Set the first play action to play first track, make your intro video a separate track and make it the first track, disable the display of any thumbnail for it. Make the secondary play action (what happens after a track has played) to display main menu.

What you should get is a single menu with a button for every track, you won't get a chapter menu. When you put the disc in the first track will play (your intro), then the menu will play. You should have a button for every track except the first one and there should be a play all button. When you click a button the associated track will play then return to the menu without playing the first track.

[romeon]

thank you, nic2k4 !

I really wonder, why I didn't get this great idea by myself . Many thanks!

One last thing: do you know, if there's a way to extend the duration of TAW5 motion menus? The maximum length is 360 seconds. I would have doubled it, if there's a way.

Maybe you also can tell me, if my strategy in the first post was correct. I only wanted overlay bars to navigate and no TAW thumbnails. So I replaced the automatically created thumbs with transparent gifs. Or is there another, faster way in TAW5 to build overlay-only-menus without thumbs?

Thanks again!

[nic2k4]

Happy to help. Don't worry, although TAW is a great program using it is not obvious; I've been there before. There's no right or wrong way, what you wish to achieve is the only thing that matters.

Using a blank GIF with painted in buttons is one work around. TAW can use PSD's (photoshop native image file) for button image. The beauty of it is that if your image has a transparent background, the selection shading will follow the shape of the image; you're not limited to square buttons. You can even replace the built-in nav buttons.

I always create custom menus and use layouts with more items than needed; you can't add to a layout without starting over, but you can easily remove from it. Since the menus a fully editable, it doesn't matter if you start with thumbnails that aren't the size you want. There are also text only options; I've used the nero_faker.ttf font to create blank text buttons, can't remember if spaces would do it too or if the button still appears if you delete the text.

I wasn't aware there was a limit to the menu duration, but I can't say that I've ever created one that lasted much more than 3 minutes; usually the menu is only a small part of the entertainment.

Like I said TAW isn't that obvious, at first I started using PGCedit to modify buttons, menus and navigation. I got used to it and find it easier to work with. It's the only way to control advanced menu functions like autoplay, shading color, selection sequence... And you can also modify the commands to do things like Easter eggs or menus that only appear in specific circumstances.

[romeon]

thanks again! ~2 years ago I also used pgcedit, dvdremake, maestro, of course vobblanker etc, for creating hd2dvds frequently, but - to be honest - I never liked these utilities very much. They demand very much time, tries and hair .

I found a very easy way to add my intro in TAW. It's not necessary to add a further standard track for it. It's possible to add a "firstplay track" by using the small arrow beside the add-track-button. This firstplay track doesn't show up in your menus, no menus have to be changed. Nice.

I understand why it's better to start with more buttons/items, but I haven't found out how to remove unnecessary ones? If I start with maybe 6 buttons and need in the end only 5, I'm not sure how to delete the sixth one. Via context-menu it's not possible, the related option isn't selectable. The very same with titles, button names. I clear all the text in the boxes, but can't delete the boxes themselve. Maybe I've overlooked something?

[nic2k4]

Go to the chapter display menu and remove all the check marks except for the first chapter of each track (or the chapters you want a thumbnail for).

Once you delete the text from a title box it won't display anymore; I usually stack them up in a corner of the screen, then clean them out in PGCedit.

I'm using an older version, it doesn't have the firstplay track option.