Custom buttons - how to? (dvda3)
 

Hi
I was wondering how to make custom buttons with Sony DVD Architect 3?
I know how to create highlight masks with png files so I know how to make a word highlight, but don't know how to make one of those curser type buttons.

For instance, on a stephen king dvd, when highlighting a word in the main menu, an image of a red slash cut goes over the word.
How do you do that?
I can create the image in photoshop, but then getting it into dvda3 and have it appear on the selected button puzzles me.

Could somebody please point me in the right direction?

Normaly I'll use the "custom shape" tool in photoshop and then use it as a button mask. Let me know if you need more detail.

more detail please :)

I know how to create highlight masks with the 'image mask overlay' function, but don't know how to make the the buttons disappear so it looks like a curser function

thought - is it something to do with telling DVDA to display a certain layer when a specific button is highlighted? so the other layers with the other buttons will disappear?

if the menu has been created in After Effects how do you do this?
create the text and buttons in photoshop and overlay those images in dvda?

(edit - ignore the after effects bit - just figured out you can import the composition with seperate layers into photoshop - which is a damn fine feature!)

ok
after my brain started working again, I figured out how to do the custom shaped button as described in the first post

my next issue is this: how do you add dimension to the image? I know how to create the shape, import the .png file as a mask etc..... but it only appears as the single colour/shape silhouette

I'm pretty sure that in DVD Architect, the button can only be one colour (anti - aliasing etc... aside) so ...
I know some of you are photoshop savvy, how do I create my image so it at least has some shading or dimension or detail?

If I'm not mistaken you need to tell the overlay (actually a subtitle) the color
it is supposed to be inside DVD! Could you also tell us how you fixed your first
problem? This to help out others who might want to do similar things? Thanks.

oh ok :)
I created a motion menu in after effects, then imported that into photoshop to create the button masks. I imported a photo (a long stem rose - it's a wedding video) to use as my custom button.
After creating a layer with just the rose (the rest being transparent), I copied and pasted it where I wanted the button to appear in the menu. That is, I had a chapter list and next to each chapter name, I pasted a copy of the rose image.

I then turned off all of the other layers so, in photoshop, I had a page with just a few roses and nothing else.
I saved that as a ".png" file (as this keeps the transparant parts).

To DVD Architect. In my menu background options, I chose my after effects avi that I made as my background, and then chose the photoshop .png file as my highlight mask.
Now to create the actual buttons.
Insert empty button - right click and choose "image only". In the highlight options choose "image mask overlay".
Then resize the button so it will cover a single rose image and place it over the first rose.
(To see your highlight mask, go into "work overlays" or something like that and choose highlight mask)
Copy and paste this button so each rose has a button over it.
Choose the colour of your buttons in the highlight options.

Then select a button, and in the navigate options, choose the appropriate movie and chapter point. Do this for each button.

And there you have it - custom shaped buttons.
The only thing I haven't figured out yet, is how to make the button multi coloured or shaded.
So for example, the rose at the moment is a silhouette. I would like the petals to have shadows, but am not sure if this is possible.

Thanks Matt! And good luck with the rest.

Update...
I found a great tutorial on how to do this, but it is for DVD Studio Pro:
http://www.editorsbin.com/apple/dvds...lay/index.html

There are limitations (such as background textures etc...) but it works none the less. However, it is my understanding, after experimenting with Sony's DVD Architect 3, that the limitations of this software will not allow this function. You cannot choose to have your buttons/masks to be a certain colour when they are not active. They can only be highlighted when active.

I think I'm going to find another piece of software as I find this function very restrictive.
Any suggestions on what to go for (must be for a PC).
I've heard scenarist is the business.

Try DVD-Lab PRO.

Hey that looks pretty good - it's very cheap too.
Has anyone who has bought it, out grown the program or look for features that don't exist or is it pretty solid?

I do not like the fact that it is does not have real-time preview, but it is pretty solid other than that. Plus it is updated continually.

Thanks for your input Emre :)

I know it's been 3 years for this topic... but I wanted to expand on it.

The first time I read this, I had the impression that Matt had succeeded in creating translucent non-active buttons (roses). I now see that he had only created custom shapes for his buttons...

So here we go again... is it possible to create the "slash" effect, as mentioned in the first post of this thread? I've been playing with layers and the layer naming format in photoshop, but the results are horrible. The closest I've gotten to a translucent non-active button is a pale white highlight.

Any thoughts? Is this possible?

Perhaps the only way to do this would be to lay the buttons on a solid-color background... and then make the non-active buttons the same color as the background. Pretty limiting.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

Another thought...

If these translucent buttons are not possible, there is one other way that I could think of...

Think of a basic 2 button menu... The menu first appears, and the custom image overlay is hovering over the 1st button, with the 2nd button being clear of any image overlay. If you set the 2nd button to auto-activate, it could take you to a copy of the menu, and the default button on the copy menu would be the 2nd button. On the copy menu, the 2nd button now has the image overlay, and the 1st button is clear of an overlay. If you click over to the 1st button again, it would be set to auto-activate, taking you back to part 1 of the menu.

It would not be a smooth transition though... between the 2 copies of the menu would be a slight pause, thus making any menu audio next to impossible.

Thoughts?