DVD Menu - Completed

I have now finished the design, creation and production of my DVD menu and have reached the final stages of my project.

I have now moved onto my Evaluation. This essay like document explains everything I have learnt about myself throughout the project, all the new skills I have learnt and finally what I like and dislike about my project. It is important to be critical of yourself when creating so you know what to change next time.

After this I will move onto burning my DVD and tieing up loose ends in my post-production work.

Below are some screen shots of my Menu (some details appear differently in the final piece):

Main Menu

Scene Selection 1

Scene Seletion 2

Setup

Languages

Extras

DVD Menu - Building the DVD Menu

With flowcharts, storyboards, templates, animations and Menus designed and created, you now have all the materials for building the final menu. This is a quite a long complicated task, as, with nearly 60 different interactive items to control and link, it is easy to forget about some things and leave loose ends behind.

It is a case of building up from the ground. Starting by creating a new folder with the PAL, DVD settings, I have the blank slate for the project. To start, I thought I would put the main menu in first to act as a branching off point. However, it is also important to try and do things in a sequence to stop confusion so I also included my opening animation and set it as my first play. This means that it is the first thing that will happen on autoplay. By the end of the project I will have a Film Logo as first play, but for the purposes of testing I used the opening animation.

From the main menu I linked each button to a menu, for Scene Seletion, Setup and Extras. Then menu by menu I moved through the process of linking pages to each other. Often, half way through the process of page linking I discovered variosu problems with menus, such as overlapping buttons, buttons that wouldnt render (which was caused by over complicated button designs, e.g many colours, complex images, layer styles and effects). Luckily, Encore encorporates an "Edit Menu in Photoshop" button which lets you open up Photoshop, make the various changes without having to re-import the PSD. You simply save and it's changed in Encore. It is important to contantly test so you know when you need to Edit the PSDs. I find it's always better if you find a problem earlier on. I check both manually and by using the "Check Project" tool which diagnoses issues and faults in the menu.



The Encore Workspace



With Menus created, I have to transition between menus. To do this I linked every Main Menu button to my "closing" animation, which was copied 4 times, one for all four options. These individual .mov files were then linked onto the next Menu which inturn had their own options. I chose not to have sub-menu transitions as they tend to slow the process down andover complicate the build. At that level of the menu, the viewer just wants to get to there desired option, whereas before, the transition helped build tention and atmosphere.


Then it is a matter of repeating previous stages such as button design and creation using the Photoshop Codecs and applying to Encore, linking pages using the Properties Menu. As I didn't actually have a film to link to I created a "Work in Progress" Page to link to. I also seperated these into Scenes to show I understood the technique of creating them and linking them, without having the practical materials to complete this.

Lastly I chose and edited Audio. For this I used free samples ripped from the internet of "Descrete Electric Whining", "Amplified Gunshot" and the Music Track "Havoc B" by Enter Shikari. Some of these clips needed volume and cutting and other general editing. Sadly, Encore has limited editing options for audio clips so I searched the college computers for appropriate software. I found "Nero 9 SoundTrax" in the Nero Media Package and used the "Clip Editor" on my imported Audio Files. Here I changed some lengths and changed the Volume Bend, which lets the user define the volume of the piece at whatever given point. I then exported it as an MP3 and added to the project. Either adding the MP3 to the timeline (for movie clips), or setting the track as the audio selection in the "Motion" Menu (for Menu editing).

The final step is extensive testing, making sure all you links work and in your set sequence with no glitches. This is a time consuimg but vital exercise and decreases the margin of error. At the time of writing I am only having 1 Audio issue on an animation but the rest seems to be working. Soon I will have to start testing on Third Parties.

DVD Menu - Planning

Before building the menu in Encore it is important to plan things out before you begin. To do this I made 2 new documents to help explain to myself and the examiner what I am trying to create, a Storyboard and a flow chart.

For the storyboard, I had 6 panels showing the screen size, (PAL Widescreen 1270x576), the order of the panels interms of playback chronology and the Duration of the shot or sequence so I and the client knows what I, as the creator is looking to create in terms of visuals, animations and movie files. This is a technique more regularly attatched to the film making process but it applies and is helpfull here for breaking down the animation and flow of the media.

The flow chart is something more regularaly applied to the process of designing an interface, which is in the end, what we are creating for the DVD. It is a user interface. So what does the flow chart represent? Well, it shows every item, asset, timeline, menu etc that makes up your full menu. Then, you can draw lines from item to item in the specific order with links and end actions. This way you know how everything will run and where thinks have to be linked when you actually build the menu on Encore. It acts like a map for the programmer and saves you having to contantly "Check Project" and you alwsys know your next move.

With these steps completed, and the animationsn and media created, it is time to start the Encore build....

DVD Menu

I am now well into the creation of my DVD menus, focusing at the moment on Photoshop files, using the Encore Codecs which link the two programmes. After having some trouble with these in the past, i decided to just simplify everything, using just the traditional "blob selection tool". This involves creating a new Photoshop Group for each future button and assigning it the "(+)" codec. This tells encore that the layers in this folder make up a button.

So in each folder I have the word of the option (in this case, to get a better font, I have screen printed one from dafont.com) and a blob, positioned next to the word  option with the codec "(=2)" which tells Enore it is an image rollover. A seperate folder is also created for the background, to both onfuse Encore less and to make it easier when compiling layers into gorups.

I have put a couple of menus together with a few animations, so my Menu is starting to build up, with it's already working Menus and Transitions.

The transitions and opening animations were created using Photoshop Animation. As I explained in my previous post, this can be a time consuming process. The extra difficulty factor here was added by the changing illumination of the room from my flickering light. Now on each layer the lighting effects had to be altered to make a convincing effect.

The image below shows an animation reel from Photoshop:

Once this was completed, using CS3 I rendered the finished .mov files to be imported into Encore



Photoshop Animations

One of Photoshops many uses is creating simple cell animations which can be exported to other programmes. Photoshop Animation was a skill I had learnt to do before the course but only for simple things. This is because Animation on Photoshop is a very limited process and doesn't let you create complicated animations. To achieve some of the better animations, you have to trick the system...

Usually, the image you are using for your animation can't be changed frame by frame as it changes every single other frame with it. So for instance, if I  rotate a square 10 degress in in the 3rd frame, it will also rotate the square in the first and second frame, limiting what you can do. To get around this annoying issue you have to plan for each and every change you want to happen. Then create one image with a new layer for each change to the image you are going to make.

Here you will duplicate the frame as usual but your fous as an animator will be on the layers. So now, to get altered image I want on screen without changing every other frame, raise this layers Opacity to 100%. Everything else you don't want visibile should be altered to 0%. Doing this for every frame will give you the effect you want.

Using my first set of original generated images, used for testing, I created a small loop where a light flickers on and off illuminating a character.

Below is an animated GIF of my first test using CS2 (click to view):

DVD Menu Moodboard

I have been working on my next moodboard which is being made for the DVD Menu. As we know, Moodboards are a great way of getting your visual ideas down as a sort of brain storm, but also trying to create a mood and visual style for your work.

I tried to be a bit more creative with this Moodboard, giving it a style instead of an assorted set of images. While a compostion of similar images is the traditional style, I thought that this method was a bit vague and I wanted to concentrate on the specific mood I was building.

I tried to make it look like the desk of the killer character, planning out his vengeful murders. This was to show the theme of a "systematic" and planned killer which sets a creepier mood. This "desk" theme goes horizontally through the board and above and below I tried to use more traditional moodboard methods. This gave me a chance to go more indepth into the visual feel and iconography of the piece.

Also included in the Moodboard is my current working title for my work "...And Watch Them Crawl"

So there's my finished moodboard (click to enlarge)

Half-Term: Generating Images Update

After some advice inclass I have chosen to make some changes to the images I took during Half Term. There were problems creating the animation I wanted because there was some extra light from a flashh and the outdoor environment. To achieve the flickering light effect I want, the only source of light I can use is the lights on the ceiling of the car park.

In terms of composition I have also been encouraged to use the rule of thirds meaning I have rethought my shots. At the reshooot I will be using lower angles than before and try and make the whole thing off centre, to the right.

This will leave me with more appropriate space for  Titles and Links and will look more like a DVD Menu instead of a shot from a movie.

Half Term - Generating Images

During Half Term I went out to shoot original images for my DVD Menu using my chosen designs from my Final Idea.

I chose to take the pictures at Chichester Multistory Car Park. These city car parks are quite creepy areas, and I liked the long corridors between parking sections which are illuminated by lights. I based my original sketched design on it as I had been inspired by it walking past one day and also I knew I would have a location instead of having a 100% original design and needing to find a location to shoot it. This meant I saved time and could put more research into my idea by visiting the location before shooting.

On the day I had help from 3 friends for the shoot. Two of them posed for me as characters in the picture whilst one lent me an SLR camera, lenses and tripod to take the picture as I don't own any decent equipment. After a quick brief, we set up in the car park and I took about 30 photos, trying different variations of the same shot in terms of pose and lighting.

I was pleased with these first set of shots which will be used in the Menu but I need to get some more for Sub-Menu Backgrounds and Scene Selection Icons.