IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:05 | Hey everybody, this is Chad Perkins
and welcome to Encore CS4 Essential
| | 00:10 | Training. I was one of the first in
the world to become certified in Encore,
| | 00:14 | back when it was called Encore DVD,
and it's just such a treat to see what
| | 00:18 | it's evolved into.
| | 00:20 | This program used to just before DVD
authoring and now it's also for authoring
| | 00:24 | Blu-ray discs and Flash websites as well.
In this training series we are going
| | 00:27 | to learn all the basics of Encore, but
we are going to learn so much more.
| | 00:31 | We're going to learn advanced tips and
tricks, and we are also going to take a
| | 00:34 | special look at creative ways
to use Encore authoring features.
| | 00:38 | In addition to that, we have added even
more content from the last version of
| | 00:42 | Encore. So even if you went through
Encore CS3 training, there is a lot you can
| | 00:45 | learn here. We are going to talk
about how to use Encore as a presentation
| | 00:48 | tool. We are also going to look a lot
more about how to create Flash movies
| | 00:51 | with Encore. And also, a chapter
devoted just to looking at Blu-ray, its
| | 00:56 | features, and how to use Encore
to create some great Blu-ray discs.
| | 01:00 | Another new chapter that we have added
to Encore Essential Training this time
| | 01:03 | around is an entire chapter just on
the codes in Photoshop to make Encore
| | 01:09 | buttons and menus. There's also a lot
more projects including creating a menu
| | 01:13 | from scratch in Photoshop, and much, much more.
| | 01:16 | Thanks again for watching,
and let's get started.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Is there a trial version of Encore?| 00:00 | In this movie I want to speak directly
to those of you that do not own Encore yet.
| | 00:05 | Encore is a little bit different.
The only way to acquire Encore is to
| | 00:09 | actually purchase Premiere Pro.
| | 00:12 | Once you purchase Premiere Pro,
it actually comes for free with the
| | 00:14 | application. When you are on adobe.com,
which I'm currently on, when you go to
| | 00:19 | select Encore and you try to get a
free trial, there is no trial for Encore.
| | 00:26 | Adobe's reasoning is that the
licensing to be able to author DVDs is too
| | 00:30 | expensive to be able to create a free
30-day trial, like they do with all the
| | 00:34 | other products.
| | 00:36 | So your best bet when trying to find a
free trial for Encore, if they release
| | 00:40 | one, it would be included with Premiere.
Unfortunately, many people want to use
| | 00:45 | Encore as a standalone application,
meaning they just want to buy Encore by
| | 00:48 | itself, and Encore is not sold
by itself, only with Premiere Pro.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the example files| 00:00 | In this movie, we're going to talk a little bit about the exercise files,
which is important because they're kind of weird for this training series.
| | 00:06 | If you're a premium member of the Online Training Library
or if you purchased this tutorial on a disc, then you have
| | 00:11 | access to the exercise files that accompany with this training.
| | 00:14 | And here's how I've broken this up. I've created a folder
in the exercise files for every chapter of the training.
| | 00:19 | That chapter folder contains all the projects
that I used in that corresponding chapter.
| | 00:25 | There's also a media folder that contains
various media elements used in the projects.
| | 00:30 | Now if you are a monthly or an annual subscriber to the
lynda.com Online Training Library, you will not have access
| | 00:36 | these exercise files.
| | 00:37 | But that's okay. You can just watch
or follow along with your own assets.
| | 00:42 | Now as I mentioned, the exercise files for
this training series are a little wacky.
| | 00:46 | Encore projects that are created on the Macintosh
platform cannot be opened in Windows and vice versa.
| | 00:51 | So to allow you to follow along
we created two sets of exercise files.
| | 00:55 | One we've named to Exercise Files WIN.zip and one we've
named Exercise Files MAC.sit. So as long as you are downloading
| | 01:04 | and using the right set of exericise files
for your platform you should be fine.
| | 01:08 | Now in case you receive an error telling you that 'the project was created
on the Macintosh platform, cannot be opened, we apologize for the
| | 01:15 | inconvenience' or vice versa,
| | 01:17 | then here's what you do. First of all, you close Encore
| | 01:20 | and you open the folder associated with the selected exercise
file. That will be folder that has the same name as the .NCOR file.
| | 01:28 | And then you want to delete the ProjectMedia.ACX file.
| | 01:31 | Then,
| | 01:32 | re-open the Encore file, the .NCOR file, and this will
take a little bit longer than usual to open in Encore, but then it
| | 01:39 | will work and everything should be just fine.
| | 01:41 | And that's how to use the exercise files.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
1. Getting Familiar with EncoreUsing this chapter| 00:00 | Okay ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
the first real chapter of Encore CS4
| | 00:04 | Essential Training. What we are going
to do here in this chapter is basically
| | 00:07 | create the DVD project you are seeing
in front of you from scratch. It's just
| | 00:12 | going to be a quick little project,
very simple. Everything that we are going
| | 00:15 | to be doing in this chapter, we are
going to go into more detail in the rest of
| | 00:18 | this training series, but I just want
you to get your feet wet with this little
| | 00:21 | project that looks like this.
| | 00:21 | There is a menu with one button, we
click the button, we watch a video, and at
| | 00:26 | the end of the video, we are taken
back to the main menu. We will create the
| | 00:30 | menu from scratch, we will bring in
the video, create timelines, we will link
| | 00:34 | it up, we will even take you to the
process of exporting in the next few
| | 00:38 | minutes in this chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using content included with Encore| 00:01 | In this we were actually going to kick
off our project. Now typically when you
| | 00:05 | encounter Encore, it's always going to
ask you to set up a project. Now we are
| | 00:09 | going to breeze through this. Again,
I'm going to come back to this in a couple
| | 00:11 | of chapters down the road. For now I'm
just going to not worry about the name,
| | 00:15 | or where it is saved, and I'm
just going to select DVD/NTSC here.
| | 00:20 | And as you can tell, there are a lot
of options I'm skipping over here, but
| | 00:23 | again, the whole point of this chapter
is just to have a brief intro project
| | 00:27 | just to get you familiar with Encore.
So I'm going ahead and hit OK here. Once
| | 00:29 | you click OK, you are brought into the
Encore interface and it's this Library
| | 00:34 | panel here on the bottom right-hand
side that I want to talk about in the
| | 00:37 | majority of this movie.
| | 00:38 | You see when you are starting out with
Encore, oftentimes you know getting stuff
| | 00:42 | into Encore could be the biggest
challenge. Once it's here on Encore, it's very
| | 00:46 | easy, but where do you get the menus
from, where do you get the videos from,
| | 00:49 | where do you get the buttons and the
text, and all that kind of stuff? Well,
| | 00:53 | thankfully, Encore ships with a library
that has many of the assets you need to
| | 00:57 | create a great DVD project.
| | 00:59 | You won't find videos here, but it has
pretty much everything else. And for the
| | 01:03 | most part, this is what we are going to
be using in this intro project, in this
| | 01:06 | chapter. As I resize this panel,
which you can do by putting your cursor in
| | 01:10 | between these panel. Again, we are going to
be talking more about the interface later on.
| | 01:14 | Now I can click on these cursors, and
just click to resize this panel. If it's
| | 01:19 | not showing, simply go to the Window
menu at the top of the screen, and select
| | 01:23 | Library. As you look at the Library
panel, we see these icons here. These
| | 01:28 | little icons, represent, what type of
object we are looking at. So this little
| | 01:32 | thing that looks like a button is a button.
| | 01:34 | This whole thing that looks like a
menu is a menu. And there are shapes, and
| | 01:38 | styles, and images, and backgrounds,
and all sorts of stuff to play with here.
| | 01:42 | You could even sort how we are looking
at stuff using this panel. If I want to
| | 01:48 | see just backgrounds for example, I'll
click this button, and that's all I'm seeing.
| | 01:53 | To preview these backgrounds, simply
click it, and you see a thumbnail of it
| | 01:56 | here in the Library panel. To get back
to seeing all of the content here in the
| | 02:00 | library panel, hold the Alt key on the
PC, or the Option key on the Mac, and
| | 02:04 | click that one more time, and
now I could see everything again.
| | 02:06 | Now you might be looking at this saying,
we that's a whole lot of free stuff
| | 02:10 | that it comes with, but if you go to
the top here, there is this Set dropdown.
| | 02:14 | Right now, we are only looking at the
General set, and Encore actually ships
| | 02:18 | with many sets or categories of assets.
| | 02:21 | So if you are doing a project, or
a DVD for a Wedding, or maybe a big
| | 02:25 | corporation, for a year end review
or something, then you can go these
| | 02:29 | different categories and
select them. Let's select Education.
| | 02:33 | Now it takes us a second for this
library set to initialize, that's normal,
| | 02:40 | that's standard, so don't think that
you have a terrible computer or there is
| | 02:42 | something wrong with Encore, that's
just part for the course. And then after
| | 02:45 | that you get to see all these
assets that pertain to education.
| | 02:49 | So here is this image that you can use
as a background, which has some chalk
| | 02:52 | and some chalk drawings, and looks like
it's kind of like on a chalkboard. And
| | 02:55 | as you can see here, many more assets
that pertain to library as well. This
| | 03:01 | elephant ones, like one of my favorite
as I go to school, elephant like drawing
| | 03:04 | with his schnoze, super cool!
Actually not super cool, it's math-tastic!
| | 03:09 | So, anyways, good stuff here in the
Library panel. Now we are going to move on
| | 03:12 | to the next movie, where we are going
to talk about, how to actually create
| | 03:14 | stuff using the Library
panel, add this to our project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a menu to a project| 00:00 | Now we are going to actually add one
of the menus from the Library panel into
| | 00:04 | our Project panel. For this I'm going to
change this set at the top of Library panel.
| | 00:08 | I'm going to change this to Entertainment.
| | 00:10 | I'm actually looking for the Nightlife
Menu. I can go in and click on it here,
| | 00:15 | or if you are just browsing, I can
actually click on one of the names of the
| | 00:19 | menus here. Now once you actually
select the content inside the Library panel,
| | 00:24 | you will get this little orange
highlight around the edge here that let's you
| | 00:27 | know that this is selected and once
you do that, you can use the arrow key,
| | 00:30 | the up and down arrow keys in your keyboard,
to kind of browse through these menus.
| | 00:35 | And this is the one that we want so
I'm going to just double-click on it, give
| | 00:39 | it a couple of seconds, and it's
automatically added to your project. Now at
| | 00:43 | this point we are kind of done with
the Library panel, but it's taking up a
| | 00:45 | huge portion of our interface.
| | 00:48 | We can drag the panels around to fix
them, but that's the long way. I want to
| | 00:50 | go to the Workspace dropdown at the
top of the interface, and I'm going to
| | 00:54 | select, Default. It takes it back to
the way it was initially. Now I'm going to
| | 01:00 | select the Project panel, in the left
hand side, and again tweak my windows
| | 01:04 | just a little bit.
| | 01:06 | So now we have this cool menu for
our project. It's already set up with
| | 01:09 | buttons, and everything looks great.
But we need to tweak this a little bit to
| | 01:13 | customize that for what we want. So
what I'm going to do is, I'm going select
| | 01:16 | these buttons, which you can do with
the Regular selection tool up here in the
| | 01:20 | Tool bar, in the upper left hand
corner of the Interface, just select the
| | 01:23 | Selection tool, and then come over and
click on these buttons, and once they
| | 01:26 | are highlighted with the green
selection boundary around them, just go ahead
| | 01:29 | and hit Delete on your keyboard.
| | 01:31 | We really need one button here for now.
We are going to have a very simple
| | 01:34 | project to start out with. Now the
next thing I want to do is change the name
| | 01:38 | of this menu. As cool as Entertainment
Lifestyle is, it's just really not doing it for me.
| | 01:43 | So what we are going to do is, come
over here to the Type tool, the T right
| | 01:46 | here, and select it, and come over here,
and then once your cursor goes over
| | 01:51 | editable text, the brackets on the
outside of the cursor will go away. That
| | 01:55 | will let you know that you are ready to
edit existing text, rather than create
| | 01:59 | new text, which this little bracket means.
| | 02:01 | So I'm going to come over here and click,
so Entertainment Lifestyle, you shall
| | 02:05 | be replaced by something significantly
cooler. And I'm just going to call this
| | 02:09 | Chad's City DVD. Not mush improved
over Entertainment Lifestyle, but a little
| | 02:15 | bit of improvement. Then I'm going to
come over here to Our Big Nightout, now
| | 02:19 | what I'm going to do is, I'm going to
click, and drag to select and highlight
| | 02:22 | all this text, and now
replace it with, The Movie.
| | 02:27 | And then go ahead and accept it by
clicking outside of the screen somewhere. So
| | 02:32 | even though it's not quite the coolest
thing you have ever seen, we are able to
| | 02:35 | create this menu extremely fast,
without any assets whatsoever, just using the
| | 02:40 | stuff that ships with Encore.
| | 02:43 | Now we don't have a complete DVD just
yet; just a menu. So in the next few
| | 02:46 | movies we are going to add to our
project to make a complete DVD presentation.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing assets| 00:00 | So let's continue where we left off in
the last segment. In this movie we are
| | 00:03 | going to talk about importing assets.
Here is the way this works. An Encore
| | 00:07 | project, you only have one project open
at a time, and your project also stores
| | 00:12 | the links to the source
files that you will be using.
| | 00:14 | So if you are familiar with Photoshop
for example, when you bring in a new
| | 00:18 | image and you like copy and paste the
image into another document, basically
| | 00:22 | the photo becomes part of that new
document. Well, in Encore that's not the
| | 00:25 | case. We import footage, and we bring
it here into the Project panel, on the
| | 00:30 | upper left hand side of the interface.
We bring in audio, we bring in video, we
| | 00:34 | bring in menus, Photoshop files, a
whole bunch of stuff we bring in here.
| | 00:38 | But when you bring stuff in, when
you import stuff here in the Encore, it
| | 00:43 | actually doesn't change the size of the
project. You see, Encore just remembers
| | 00:47 | the links to the original files; it
doesn't actually embed the files into the
| | 00:53 | Encore project. So Encore
project files are typically very small.
| | 00:57 | Now the good side of that is you
could just play around and experiment with
| | 01:00 | stuff all you want. You can import
tones of videos, and images, and audio
| | 01:04 | tracks, just to kind of play around
with, and to see what works best for your
| | 01:08 | project, and it doesn't really affect
the final size of the project very much.
| | 01:13 | The down side of that is, that Encore,
maintains links with those original
| | 01:17 | files. So if you were to move, or
rename, or delete the original file in your
| | 01:22 | hard drive, then Encore would not be
able to find it. So it's a good idea to
| | 01:26 | set up your files in an orderly way,
kind of like we set up the Exercise files.
| | 01:30 | So we have the Media folder, and we
have all the different assets organized in
| | 01:33 | a different folder. So it's easy to
locate and identify where assets are
| | 01:37 | supposed to be. Now let
me show you how that works.
| | 01:39 | Let's go and import a file. We can do
this in several ways. You can go to the
| | 01:42 | File menu, and select Import as,
that's one way to do it. We could also right
| | 01:46 | click and select Import as, that way.
But what I would like do to import, is
| | 01:50 | just double-click in this blank area,
in the Project panel, and you could bring
| | 01:53 | in whatever you want.
| | 01:54 | So if you navigate through the
Exercise files folder, which I have on my
| | 01:57 | desktop, inside that folder, there will
be a folder called Media. And when I'm
| | 02:01 | working on a project, this is
usually what I like to do. I like to make
| | 02:03 | separate folders for each different
type of media. So in this case, we are
| | 02:06 | going to go Artbeats Clips. We got this
clip from artbeats.com. It's an amazing
| | 02:11 | website, full of great stock video.
We will be using their footage throughout
| | 02:15 | this training series. This will be a
low resolution clip, the one that's included
| | 02:18 | with your exercise files. So if you
would like to purchase the real thing,
| | 02:21 | you can go to artbeats.com.
| | 02:23 | So I'm going to select this file,
CR215H19005000, looks like somebody fell
| | 02:28 | asleep on the keyboard. It actually is
the correct name of the file. So we are
| | 02:31 | going to go ahead and select it, and
hit open, and now this asset has become a
| | 02:35 | new file in our Project panel.
| | 02:38 | Now I use the word asset, media,
content, footage, I use all those terms
| | 02:43 | interchangeably. Basically, it just
means stuff, anything you bring into your
| | 02:46 | Project panel in Encore. Again it
could be videos, audio files, still images,
| | 02:52 | Photoshop documents, anything of that
nature that you bring into use in your
| | 02:56 | Encore project is referred to as an
asset, or footage, or clips, or whatever.
| | 03:01 | In the next movie we will talk about
what to do with this movie, now that we
| | 03:05 | have imported it into Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding timelines| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to
continue on where we left off in the last
| | 00:02 | segment, where we have imported a piece
of video footage in to our Project panel.
| | 00:06 | Now just because you have imported
something in your Project panel, doesn't
| | 00:09 | mean it's actually part of your DVD,
your Blu-ray or Flash presentation. We are
| | 00:13 | going to talk about how to link up
this movie to your menu in the next movie.
| | 00:19 | But I want to talk about in this movie,
is that we have to make it intermediate
| | 00:22 | step first. We have to insert this
movie into a timeline. You see when we are
| | 00:27 | working in Encore, we have,
two different types of elements.
| | 00:30 | One is the stuff that we bring in,
just like the raw videos, and images, and
| | 00:34 | audio, and all kind of stuff. The other
things that we deal with are the Encore
| | 00:38 | objects. So we don't just have photos,
we have photos as backgrounds in menus;
| | 00:43 | the menu is the DVD object. And
likewise, we can't just have video; we can't
| | 00:48 | just link our buttons to video.
| | 00:51 | The video actually has to be in case
in something called the timeline. So
| | 00:55 | again, the videos that we bring in, the
timeline is a necessary Encore object.
| | 01:01 | So the way that we put this video
footage into a timeline, is by selecting in
| | 01:04 | the Project panel, with that selected,
come down to the bottom of the Project
| | 01:07 | panel, click this little page icon,
let go, and then you will see the option, Timeline.
| | 01:14 | If you select Timeline, with this piece
of video selected, then it will create
| | 01:19 | a new timeline for you. Here is the
timeline, and our video is inserted as an
| | 01:24 | element inside of this timeline. So now
when we are back at this menu here, and
| | 01:28 | we want to connect this button to the
movie, so that when somebody clicks on
| | 01:33 | the movie button, they are taken to the movie.
| | 01:35 | Then now we link up this button to the
Timeline, and not to the actual movie
| | 01:41 | itself. We'll talk later on in this
series about how to manipulate video in
| | 01:45 | this Timeline. We could select the
monitor, which is where we actually view
| | 01:48 | video. We can click this playhead here,
called the Current Time indicator, so
| | 01:52 | we could scrub in time and watch our
video. We could also hit the spacebar key
| | 01:56 | to play, and then pause our video.
| | 01:59 | And we can also perform some basic
edits, move footage around, add additional
| | 02:03 | videos to the same timeline, and so on.
But what you really need to get out of this
| | 02:07 | video before we move on talking about
linking in the next movie is that again,
| | 02:11 | we cannot link just the movies; we have
to have our movies inside of timelines
| | 02:16 | that we create in Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating links and navigation| 00:00 | So far in our project we have pretty
much done all the set up work. We brought
| | 00:03 | in a video, we put it into a Timeline,
we have created a menu. Now we need to do
| | 00:07 | is create links, also sometimes
referred to as navigation because it's
| | 00:11 | basically you are determining how the
user will navigate your menu to get to
| | 00:16 | your content. There are a couple of
different ways to do this, but they are
| | 00:19 | actually both cool ways to do it. So
take your pick, whichever one works for you.
| | 00:23 | So right now we are looking at the
Monitor tab which is how we how we view
| | 00:26 | Timelines. I'm actually going to go over
to this NTSC_Nightlife Menu so we could
| | 00:30 | see the actual menu. This is called
the Menu Viewer we are looking at now.
| | 00:34 | The first way I'm going to show you
how to create navigations by using the
| | 00:37 | Properties panel. The Properties panel
is invisible; you can go to the Window
| | 00:41 | menu and select Properties here.
| | 00:43 | And basically the Properties panel is
this context-sensitive panel, meaning
| | 00:48 | that it changes based on what's
selected, and so right now we are looking at
| | 00:52 | the Properties for a menu and we could
actually adjust our menu and create links
| | 00:56 | and do all sorts of stuff from the
Properties panel to menus with the menu
| | 00:59 | selected. But if I were to select a
Timeline from the Project panel for example,
| | 01:03 | then the Properties panel updates to
reflect the fact that we are adjusting the
| | 01:06 | properties for this Timeline. And
we get a whole different set of options.
| | 01:10 | So I actually don't want to adjust the
properties for the menu per se; I want
| | 01:15 | to adjust the properties for the Movie
button. So click on the Movie button and
| | 01:19 | then you go over here to the Properties
panel and this Link area, about halfway
| | 01:23 | through this panel, this link is what
establishes what this button is linked
| | 01:28 | to, in other words what's going to
happen when users click on this button.
| | 01:31 | To determine that you can click on this
little curly Q called a pick whip and
| | 01:35 | click and drag the pick whip over to
the Timeline. So that way when people
| | 01:40 | click this button they
will be taken to the Timeline.
| | 01:43 | Now I'm actually going to hit Command+Z
on the Mac or Ctrl+Z on the PC to undo
| | 01:48 | that action. I'm going to
show you another way to do this.
| | 01:50 | Now we've talked about the Monitor for
viewing Timelines and the Menu Viewer
| | 01:55 | for viewing menus. The other tab here
is the Flowchart. We could also use the
| | 01:58 | Flowchart for creating navigation also.
| | 02:01 | This is our disc here on the left-hand
side and this first little arrow here
| | 02:05 | indicates what's known as the First Play
Object, which we will talk about a little bit
| | 02:08 | later on in the training. Basically it
means the first thing that's going to
| | 02:11 | happen once the DVD is played.
| | 02:14 | And it links here to this menu. Again
we could tell it the menu because there
| | 02:17 | is little menu icon here and the
buttons for this menu are listed below it.
| | 02:21 | So we could also create links by
clicking-and-dragging from the button to
| | 02:25 | assets down below here. And now you see
in the Properties panel with the button
| | 02:31 | selected that the link has been set up
here in the Link area the same as if we
| | 02:35 | would use the pick whip to make that link.
| | 02:37 | Now before we export this movie and
burn it to DVD or output it to Blu-ray or
| | 02:42 | Flash or whatever, there is one last
crucial step that we are missing and that
| | 02:46 | is to create an end action for this
Timeline. Basically we need to determine
| | 02:50 | what's going to happen at the end of
this Timeline. Again, we will talk more
| | 02:53 | about end actions a little
bit later on in the training.
| | 02:56 | I'm going to click the end of this
Timeline and drag it back to the menu. So
| | 03:01 | basically now the way our project is
set up that it starts with the disc and
| | 03:04 | when people first put this in, the
first thing they see is the menu, they click
| | 03:07 | on the Movie button, they watch the
Timeline and then once the Timeline is done
| | 03:11 | they go back to the menu.
| | 03:12 | If you want to see this project at a
glance you could actually come down here
| | 03:16 | to the middle of the Flowchart and drag
this Navigation slider in a little bit
| | 03:20 | so we could see more of our project at once.
| | 03:22 | Now our project here is basically done.
It's ready to be exported, but before
| | 03:27 | we do that, typically we do a couple
of things first. One is that we want to
| | 03:31 | check our projects for error, which
we will talk about later on in this
| | 03:34 | training series. Another thing we want
to do is we want to preview just to make
| | 03:37 | sure it works okay. So to do that I'm
going to select this Preview button in
| | 03:41 | the toolbar in the upper left-hand area
of the screen, go ahead and click that.
| | 03:45 | And so here we have our menu here and
there is our button, just like this would
| | 03:48 | look on a DVD player. So I'm
going to click this Movie button.
| | 03:54 | Here is the Artbeats clip. At the end of it the
end action says go back to the menu and here we are.
| | 04:00 | Thankfully it works as expected, so
now we are ready to export, which we will
| | 04:03 | talk about in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introduction to exporting| 00:00 | And finally here for our quick tour
of a project we are going to talk about
| | 00:03 | exporting. Now I'm continuing on where
I left off in the last segment with this
| | 00:07 | Preview window open, so we are going
to close simply by clicking Exit here or
| | 00:11 | Exit and Return, either one. And the
way that we export this project is by
| | 00:16 | going to the Build panel. Usually on
the left-hand side docked with the Project
| | 00:20 | panel. I'm going to put my cursor
right here and then click-and-drag to the
| | 00:24 | right when I get that icon so I
can expand this a little bit more.
| | 00:28 | The first thing we need to do is choose
a format. We can choose DVD, Blu-ray or
| | 00:33 | Flash. First let's talk about DVD. DVD
is perhaps the most common option. Most
| | 00:38 | computer these days come with a DVD
Burner, and if you have the output selected
| | 00:42 | to DVD disc all you have to do is
click Build and it will burn your DVD. Same
| | 00:46 | thing with high-definition Blu-ray disc.
Again remember that we are going to be
| | 00:50 | talking about each of these in much
more detail later on in this course.
| | 00:53 | One of the most interesting options is
Flash and we could create a Flash movie
| | 01:01 | or actually a SWF file that can be
played in a web browser. This is great for
| | 01:06 | review. For example if you are burning
a DVD or Blu-ray disc instead of burning
| | 01:11 | a copy, then sending it on for
them to review which can be a lengthy and
| | 01:14 | perhaps costly process as well, you
could actually just create a Flash movie
| | 01:18 | and put it up on Internet and have
people to just check it out that way.
| | 01:21 | You could also use the Flash format
to put your work on the web. Might be
| | 01:25 | slideshows or regular menus or whatever
and Encore CS4 actually adds even more
| | 01:31 | Flash capabilities to Encore.
| | 01:33 | Now exporting to the Flash can be a
little quirky. You'll notice the Build
| | 01:39 | button here is grayed out by default.
Don't worry about this. We are going to
| | 01:42 | be spending an entire chapter later on
on just outputting to Flash, spending
| | 01:46 | another entire chapter on outputting to
Blu-ray. We are going to cover all this
| | 01:49 | stuff in detail. Again I just want you
to be familiar here, but in the meantime
| | 01:53 | what you want to do to get this button
so that you can output to Flash is come
| | 01:57 | down here to the destination area.
| | 02:00 | The Build button is grayed out because
there is no destination; it doesn't know
| | 02:02 | where to save the file at. You see
when you output to Flash it creates many
| | 02:07 | files that we will look at a little bit
later, but again Encore needs to have a
| | 02:10 | place to save those. So you click Browse,
navigate to somewhere, let's just say
| | 02:14 | this for example, click Choose and
then you can select Build and export your
| | 02:18 | project to Flash.
| | 02:19 | And there you have it, folks. In two
shakes of a lamb's tail you made an entire
| | 02:23 | Encore project from scratch.
| | 02:26 | In the next chapter we are going to
take a step back and examine some of the
| | 02:29 | technical concepts at work when authoring DVDs.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Introductory Technical ConceptsUnderstanding disc formats| 00:00 | In this movie we will look at some of
the more common disc formats you might be
| | 00:03 | dealing with when working in Encore.
| | 00:05 | Now obviously DVD is the most common.
Encore used to be called Encore DVD a few
| | 00:10 | versions back. Most DVDs come in one
of two sizes either a single layer DVD,
| | 00:16 | which is 4.7 gigabytes large, or a
dual layer, which is 8.5 gigabytes large.
| | 00:24 | Take note that layers are not sides;
you could actually have a dual-sided DVD.
| | 00:30 | You actually have one DVD
on each side of the disc.
| | 00:33 | Now most Hollywood DVDs are those dual
layer 8.5 gigabyte DVDs. Some of them
| | 00:40 | have like a wide screen on one side,
may be essential features on the other
| | 00:43 | side or a full-screen presentation of
the same movie on the other side, and so
| | 00:47 | those are usually dual-sided dual
layer discs, or they have basically a dual
| | 00:52 | layer DVD on both sides.
| | 00:54 | Now also in Encore we deal with the high
-definition Blu-ray disc format. Again
| | 01:00 | this is high-definition optical disc
format; we have an entire chapter later in
| | 01:04 | this training series devoted just to Blu-ray.
| | 01:07 | For now just know that a single layer
Blu-ray disc can contain 25 gigabytes of
| | 01:13 | data. A dual layer Blu-ray disc can
contain up to 50 gigabytes of data.
| | 01:18 | Now what's kind of cool about this is
back when I first started doing Encore
| | 01:22 | training on lynda.com, when we talked
about different disc formats we basically
| | 01:25 | talked about DVDs and VCDs and burning
to a CD and things like that, and not
| | 01:31 | very powerful stuff. And now VCDs
aren't even part of the equation anymore. We
| | 01:34 | are now taking about the future, we
are talking about Blu-ray discs and even
| | 01:38 | dual layer Blu-ray discs which
can contain so much information.
| | 01:42 | So it's definitely an exciting field
with some new things coming out all the time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About television standards| 00:00 | In this tutorial we are going to
take a look at the different television
| | 00:02 | standards you will come up against when
you are working in Encore. Essentially
| | 00:06 | standards are rules for how
video should be displayed.
| | 00:10 | The important thing to note from
this movie is that there are different
| | 00:13 | standards in different places in the
world. These standards determine things
| | 00:18 | like the pixel dimensions, how big in
pixels the screen is, they also determine
| | 00:23 | things like Pixel Aspect Ratio, the
Frame Rate, colors all sorts of stuff.
| | 00:28 | Now there are two main standards that
you will come up against in Encore that
| | 00:32 | first being NTSC (National Television
Standards Committee), this is a standard
| | 00:38 | in North America, Japan
and other countries as well.
| | 00:42 | The other standard is PAL (Phase
Alternating Line). This is a standard in
| | 00:48 | Europe, Australia and a
few other countries as well.
| | 00:51 | Now there is another standard you
might hear of called SECAM. SECAM is a
| | 00:56 | standard in France and some of Africa
and a few other parts of the world. But
| | 01:00 | PAL and SECAM is essentially the same
thing. So if you are creating something
| | 01:04 | for a country that uses the
SECAM standard, just use PAL.
| | 01:07 | So again these two standards, NTSC and
PAL, the ones you are going to want to
| | 01:10 | use for your projects in Encore, and
so as you are creating your project ask
| | 01:14 | yourself, where will it be seen?
| | 01:16 | If it will be seen in Japan, use NTSC
as your standard. No matter where you are
| | 01:22 | use the standard of the locale for
which you are creating the project.
| | 01:26 | Now you might have heard of some
conversion on the horizon with television
| | 01:31 | standards. For example NTSC is going to become
the ATSC; also PAL is going to become NVBT.
| | 01:38 | Now the big thing here is not to worry.
As since it was changing is the way
| | 01:42 | that the signal is broadcast to the
TV. As far as our work in Encore is
| | 01:47 | concerned we really don't have to
worry too much about the changes in
| | 01:51 | standards. And that's why you need to
know about the basic television standards.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| What is transcoding?| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to talk
about Transcoding. Basically it's important
| | 00:04 | to know that we couldn't just take a
regular old PCV, let's say for example
| | 00:07 | this crazy bird in motion_1.mp4 video
clip. You will find this by the way in
| | 00:13 | the videos folder in the Exercise Files.
We couldn't just take and burn this
| | 00:17 | onto like a data DVD for example,
and have it work on our DVD Player.
| | 00:21 | Now there are some special players out
there and I actually have one, they are
| | 00:25 | very cool like a DivX Player that might
play of variety of media, MPEG files or
| | 00:30 | whatever you throw at it, and that's
pretty cool. But in most cases these types
| | 00:34 | of files will not play on a DVD Player,
they have to be changed in order to do
| | 00:39 | that, and that process of changing or
converting videos that it will playback
| | 00:44 | on a DVD is called Transcoding. Many
programs have a similar feature called Encoding.
| | 00:51 | Now if I go here to the Project panel
and I open it up, we will actually see
| | 00:54 | some transcoding stats. We could see
the DVD Transcode Status. This clip is
| | 01:00 | Untranscoded and also our DVD
Transcode Settings, which are set to Automatic.
| | 01:05 | Basically Encore is going to try to
give it the highest level of quality
| | 01:10 | possible. We will talk a little bit
later in this chapter about compression
| | 01:13 | that will make more sense then. But this
untranscoded thing is very interesting.
| | 01:17 | One thing that really frustrates
people that are new to Encore is how long it
| | 01:22 | takes to transcode video files? It's
seriously forever. I swear you could go
| | 01:27 | out to the store and buy some seeds,
come back and plan a garden and reap fruit
| | 01:32 | from that garden you just planted
before Encore will be done transcoding video
| | 01:37 | files. Now it's not Encore's fault,
any program out there that creates video
| | 01:41 | for DVD will take hours and hours and
hours, even longer than the original video.
| | 01:45 | If you have an hour-and-a-half long
video for example it might take three,
| | 01:49 | four, five hours to get that
video transcoded and put on a DVD.
| | 01:54 | So what you can do while you are
working in Encore is just right click on an
| | 01:57 | asset here in the Project panel and
select Transcode Now, that will transcode
| | 02:02 | your asset in the background while you
are still building your DVD. And then if
| | 02:07 | all your assets are transcoded when
it comes time to burn the DVD, it might
| | 02:10 | take 20 minutes or so to burn your DVD
but the transcoding, the real long part
| | 02:15 | is done. It's been done because
you did it while you were working.
| | 02:17 | Now if you want to change your
Transcode Settings after right-clicking on a
| | 02:21 | file you could select Transcode
Settings. Note that all these options below
| | 02:25 | here are only for Blu-ray transcoding,
which allows for more options. For DVD
| | 02:30 | transcoding you will have to stick to
this top list. We will talk more about
| | 02:33 | these options later when
we talk about Compression.
| | 02:37 | So we have talked about how you can
transcode when you output to DVD, which we
| | 02:41 | will talk about towards the end of this
training series. I have also taught you
| | 02:44 | in this movie how you can transcode
while you are working. You could also bring
| | 02:48 | assets into Encore already transcoded,
and we'll see what that's all about in
| | 02:53 | the next segment.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exporting video for Encore| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to talk
about some issues related to exporting video
| | 00:04 | for Encore from other applications.
Now if you don't have other applications,
| | 00:09 | in this example we are going to use
Premiere Pro. If you have some other
| | 00:12 | application you might be able to apply
these principles here. If you don't use
| | 00:15 | another application with
Encore then don't worry about this.
| | 00:18 | But I have here the same footage that
we looked at in the last segment crazy
| | 00:21 | bird in motion_1.mp4 from the videos
folder of the Media folder in the Exercise
| | 00:26 | Files and I have imported this into a
sequence, so let's say we want to export
| | 00:29 | this now from Adobe Premiere Pro, and
by the way this works very similar to the
| | 00:34 | way it works in After Effects.
| | 00:35 | So I select File > Export > Media.
This opens up the Export Settings, and in
| | 00:40 | most applications especially Adobe
application if you dropdown the Format
| | 00:45 | option here in this Media Encoder
looking dialog box that pops up, and as you
| | 00:50 | will see when we go to the format
dropdown, there is a bunch of formats here,
| | 00:53 | both video, still image, audio only
etcetera, and most of the time you will
| | 00:57 | find this, MPEG2 - DVD. Now notice
that there is an MPEG2 and an MPEG2 - DVD;
| | 01:03 | this is the one that you want
if you are outputting to DVD.
| | 01:06 | For Blu-ray as we will learn about
later when we cover the Blu-ray stuff in the
| | 01:10 | Blu-ray chapter there are actually
two options, H.264 Blu-ray and MPEG2
| | 01:14 | Blu-ray. So if we select MPEG2 - DVD
and then we export this, when we bring it
| | 01:19 | back into Encore it will already be
transcoded. Now see a lot of people will
| | 01:23 | like doing it this way, so they could
basically before they clock out Friday
| | 01:27 | night they set it to transcoding from
their video editing program and then when
| | 01:31 | they come back in Monday morning they
find that everything is transcoded and
| | 01:34 | ready to go, and then when they start
working in Encore and they go to output
| | 01:37 | it to DVD it's a very quick process.
| | 01:39 | Typically I prefer not to do it this
way, but again, this is only my personal
| | 01:43 | choice, so take it for what its worth.
Now here's why I don't like to do it
| | 01:47 | that way. For one if we were to --
let's say for example select MPEG2 - DVD
| | 01:51 | from these options here, and may be we
took this Quality Slider up really high
| | 01:56 | because we want the highest quality
video, but then when we got back into
| | 01:59 | Encore may be we start adding more-
and-more video to our project and we
| | 02:02 | realized that we have to
compress it or transcode it again.
| | 02:06 | We will not only then have we lost all
that extra time, we have to re-transcode
| | 02:09 | it; we have also compressed the video
again which lowers the quality. There is
| | 02:15 | one other reason why I don't like to
use my Video Editing program to do my
| | 02:19 | transcoding, because when you encode
video into MPEG2, 4 - DVD they create
| | 02:25 | something called GOP or Groups Of
Pictures and there are these GOP headers
| | 02:30 | basically every 20 frames. It is
pretty complicated for this early in a
| | 02:34 | training series, but I'll use this for
reference if you want to come back to it
| | 02:37 | later. But when you create your chapter
markers if using an MPEG2 encoded video
| | 02:42 | then basically you are only allowed to
put chapter markers at those GOP headers.
| | 02:46 | So you don't have as much flexibility
as far as where you are placing your
| | 02:50 | chapter markers when your video is
already transcoded. But again, a lot of
| | 02:54 | people really like using their video
program to do their transcoding for them
| | 02:59 | and this is how you do that.
Again, it's going to vary from
| | 03:02 | application-to-application, but most
Adobe applications especially the Adobe
| | 03:05 | video applications will have this MPEG2
- DVD, and also MPEG2 and H.264 Blu-ray
| | 03:12 | options for exporting because they
know that you are going to be spitting it
| | 03:15 | out into Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About compression| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to look
briefly at compression and some other things
| | 00:03 | you need to know about
compressing video for transcoding in Encore.
| | 00:07 | I have this crazy bird in motion file
we have been looking at, but any file you
| | 00:10 | have in the Project panel will do.
What I want to do is right-click on this
| | 00:14 | piece of footage in the Project
panel and select Transcode Settings.
| | 00:17 | Now at the top where it says DVD
Transcoding, we have a Quality Preset
| | 00:20 | dropdown, I'm just going to click this,
and typically I leave my Transcode
| | 00:24 | Settings on Automatic.
| | 00:26 | Encore does a great job of changing the
settings only when you need them to be
| | 00:30 | changed. It typically compresses
things as little as possible leaving them at
| | 00:34 | the utmost highest quality possible
until your project starts getting too big
| | 00:38 | in which case it starts scrunching
stuff down and compressing things a little
| | 00:41 | bit, but for my money I think
Automatic is a great setting.
| | 00:44 | But for those times when you need to
manually compress stuff or manually change
| | 00:47 | compression settings there are
some good things to be aware of.
| | 00:50 | First of all we have a mega-bit
setting for all of these presets here. So we
| | 00:55 | have 7 megabits, 4 megabits, 8
megabits, we will talk about the difference
| | 00:58 | between bits and bytes in the next
segment. But for now just know that this
| | 01:02 | essentially like a Quality Setting. So
8 megabits is a higher quality than 4 megabits.
| | 01:10 | Now typically for a DVD 7, 8 megabits
is a pretty good compression setting.
| | 01:15 | That's a very high quality. Me
personally, I can't really tell the difference
| | 01:18 | between 7 megabits and 8 megabits if
you are just looking at a regular Standard
| | 01:23 | Definition Television.
| | 01:24 | Now the other thing you need to know
about Compression Encore is this CBR and
| | 01:29 | VBR. The CBR stands for Constant Bit
Rate; VBR stands for Variable Bit Rate.
| | 01:35 | That CBR for this setting means that
the video will be transcoded to 8 megabits
| | 01:40 | per second for the entire video,
essentially a Constant Bit Rate.
| | 01:44 | But when you choose one of the
settings with the VBR, in other words Variable
| | 01:48 | Bit Rate, what it does, it looks for
areas of the video may be where there are
| | 01:51 | things not moving very much and it
will compress those more because it can
| | 01:56 | compress it more and get away with it
because there is not that much going on.
| | 02:00 | This is great if you have a movie with
a lot of high action sequences and you
| | 02:03 | need those to be extra pristine and
beautiful, and basically this will go in
| | 02:07 | and make the scenes that don't have
that much action and compress those more,
| | 02:11 | so those action scenes come out looking great.
| | 02:13 | Now the downside of using a Variable
Bit Rate is that it takes much longer to
| | 02:17 | transcode and as we talked about
already in this chapter that process can
| | 02:20 | already take forever in a day. So
you want to be careful about that.
| | 02:23 | But if you do have the time to
transcode I might recommend to you using VBR.
| | 02:28 | Essentially this 2 Pass thing refers
to how many times it will go back and
| | 02:32 | transcode it. So the first time it goes
through and then examines the video as
| | 02:36 | it's transcoding it, and 2 Pass
means it does it again to get a better
| | 02:40 | compression out of the video.
| | 02:42 | So that's what you need to know about
Compression. The higher the number here
| | 02:46 | of megabits the better the quality,
but the longer it's going to take to
| | 02:49 | transcode the file, and the more space
it will take up on the disk. And again
| | 02:55 | the Variable Bit Rate with the
additional passes can help you to have a better
| | 02:59 | looking video at a smaller file size,
but the price you pay for that is longer
| | 03:04 | transcode time.
| | 03:05 | So, now let's move along and talk about
the difference between bits and bytes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Bits vs. bytes| 00:00 | In this brief little tidbit of
information we are going to cover the difference
| | 00:04 | between bits and bytes. Often times on
working in Encore at different places
| | 00:08 | you will see a Kb or an Mb with a big B
and with a little b, that's what we are
| | 00:12 | going to talk about here,
difference between those two.
| | 00:14 | First of all I have this file we have
been using in this Chapter crazy bird in
| | 00:18 | motion from the Videos folder of the
Media folder of the Exercise Files, and
| | 00:22 | I'm going to right-click on in the
Project panel and go to Transcode Settings.
| | 00:25 | Now for the Quality Preset dropdown, we
can see that there is a little b here.
| | 00:30 | Now you might be attempted to call this
megabytes because you frequently might
| | 00:34 | see that Mb all over the place. This
is actually Megabits. When there is a
| | 00:38 | lower case b that indicates bits, not bytes.
| | 00:42 | If you want to do professional DVD
Authoring there is no quicker way to look
| | 00:46 | like an amateur, then to call
something that should be bits, bytes and
| | 00:50 | something that should be bytes, bits.
So when you see a little b or a lower
| | 00:53 | case b I should say, it's Megabits or
Kilobits or Gigabits whatever the case may be.
| | 00:58 | In Encore bits usually refer to
quality or compression. Now, contrast that
| | 01:03 | after I scroll down a little bit here,
with the big B, the capital B that we
| | 01:07 | see in different places. So here we
have Kilobytes and Gigabytes. So the
| | 01:11 | capital B represents bytes not bits.
And in Encore bytes usually refer to
| | 01:17 | storage space.
| | 01:18 | So that is what we are seeing here at
the Disc Info, how many bytes are being
| | 01:21 | used up. So in the project gets all
the way to here up to the right-hand side
| | 01:24 | and gets full, then we don't have that
many Gigabytes left. So you might need
| | 01:28 | to reduce the number of Gigabits
referring to the compression. So we have more
| | 01:33 | Giga-Bytes free referring to storage.
| | 01:36 | So again in summary the little b
that you see represents bits and usually
| | 01:41 | refers to compression or quality
amount. When, you see a capital B that
| | 01:45 | represents bytes and
usually refers to data storage.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The importance of bit budgeting| 00:00 | In this tutorial we are going to look
at something that Encore refers to as Bit
| | 00:04 | Budgeting. That means basically
taking account of all of the stuff in your
| | 00:08 | project to make sure that
you don't go over the limit.
| | 00:11 | Now I have here this project called
Bit Budgeting, you will find this in the
| | 00:13 | Chapter 02 folder of the Exercise Files,
it's basically a complex project with
| | 00:17 | tons of stuff going on. There are a
bunch of video and Timelines. There is a
| | 00:20 | slideshow with bunch of images and audio,
and a menu and all sorts of stuff going on.
| | 00:26 | If we go over to the Build panel, we
can see if we scroll down just a little
| | 00:29 | bit, there is a little read out here in
the Disc Info area of the Build panel.
| | 00:33 | It basically lets us know how much
space we have used up. Now because I don't
| | 00:37 | want to distribute these super huge
video files with this training making it
| | 00:41 | really tough to download the exercise
files, we don't really have any big files
| | 00:45 | to use here. But if you had a video
that was like the standard length, may be
| | 00:49 | 90 minutes or longer, this would fill
up pretty quickly, and so all the extra
| | 00:53 | stuff you added, the extra special
features or motion menus, slideshows with
| | 00:58 | the motion, all those things start to add up.
| | 01:00 | And so Bit Budgeting is essentially
keeping track of all the extra stuff you
| | 01:05 | are adding. It's kind of like the
same way you might set a budget for your
| | 01:08 | finances at home that you have so much
money to spend on this and may be like
| | 01:12 | you spend the most money on rent or
mortgage or whatever; that's kind of the
| | 01:16 | way Bit Budgeting works, it's
basically keeping track of the things in your
| | 01:19 | project that are going to take up room.
| | 01:21 | Now some things like menus don't take
up very much room at all. However when
| | 01:25 | you add a video to that background,
making it a motion menu that will take up a
| | 01:29 | little bit of space, if your project
gets too big you might have to either
| | 01:32 | remove things from your
project or compress them more.
| | 01:37 | Now we talked about transcoding already.
We go back to the Project panel, say
| | 01:40 | we go to video for example, and
we have these Transcode Settings.
| | 01:43 | Now again these things are set to
Automatic by default. So if you start adding
| | 01:47 | stuff, may be your Build panel shows
that your disk is full, if you still bring
| | 01:51 | in more content it might allow you to
do that, but it's going to have to start
| | 01:55 | compressing things more in order to
get them to fit and once the quality gets
| | 01:59 | too low, even Encore will just say,
hey! You know what, enough is enough. I
| | 02:03 | can't burn this project because the
quality would just be too horrible. So it's
| | 02:07 | basically full.
| | 02:08 | So again Bit Budgeting is the process
of keeping tabs on all those stuff that
| | 02:12 | you are using in your project, making
sure that it's not so big that you are
| | 02:15 | going to start losing quality.
| | 02:17 | If you check the Help in Encore you
can go and consult for exactly how much
| | 02:22 | space every item will take up. So it
will tell you how big menus are on a disk,
| | 02:25 | it will tell you how big slideshows are,
it will tell you how big audio is and
| | 02:29 | so on and so forth.
| | 02:30 | And again, if you are doing simple
projects, if you have a video that totals
| | 02:34 | like an hour, may be a little bit more,
this isn't really something you need to
| | 02:37 | worry about, but if you want to bring
in that's like two hours long and have a
| | 02:40 | bunch of special features then you are
going to need to keep tabs on odd stuff
| | 02:43 | through bit budgeting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About pixel aspect ratios| 00:00 | In this tutorial we are going to
talk about something called Pixel Aspect
| | 00:03 | Ratios, and we are actually not even
going to be in Encore. For this we are in
| | 00:07 | Photoshop, but don't worry about that.
It's just easier to demonstrate this
| | 00:10 | concept in Photoshop than it is in
Encore. And this is a technical concept, but
| | 00:15 | this is going to really help you be able to
solve your own problems if you ever run into this.
| | 00:19 | I get a lot of questions about, well,
how come my menu that I made in Photoshop
| | 00:23 | looks all screwy in Encore or when I
send this to a DVD or whatever, sometimes
| | 00:29 | things look off, and this
might be one of the reasons why.
| | 00:32 | We are going to be talking about
pixels, short for Picture Elements, the
| | 00:35 | building blocks of images, so we can
see those. Here I have this photo of a
| | 00:39 | Seattle Sunset and if I zoom in to
these little squares and keep zooming and
| | 00:44 | zooming and zooming, eventually we
could see all these little tiny squares that
| | 00:48 | make up the image. These
little squares are pixels.
| | 00:51 | Now on a computer there are really not
any problems with this. So if you are
| | 00:55 | just used to doing web design or things,
I mean may be in print or whatever,
| | 00:59 | this may not be a familiar concept
to you. Pixels on a computer are just
| | 01:03 | square; they are always square. They
are as equally wide as they are tall.
| | 01:06 | But when you start dealing with video.
Video pixels are almost never square. So
| | 01:13 | if you are doing something for full-
screen video, the pixels are going to be a
| | 01:16 | little bit taller than they are wide.
If you are doing something for a
| | 01:19 | wide-screen video, the pixels are going
to be a little bit more wide than they are tall.
| | 01:23 | Now if I go back over here to my
little square, currently I'm viewing this as
| | 01:28 | if I were looking at square pixels.
But in Photoshop I can change the view by
| | 01:32 | going to Pixel Aspect Ratio in the
View menu, and let's say I look at this as
| | 01:36 | if I were reviewing this on a television
set with the Pixel Aspect Ratio to 0.9.
| | 01:40 | And you see it's a little squish,
it's no longer square, or if I change the
| | 01:45 | Pixel Aspect Ratio to may be a wide-screen.
Now it's a little bit wider than tall.
| | 01:50 | So the point I'm trying to get across
to here is if you are finding that your
| | 01:54 | image is getting squished, when you
make your graphics in another program, you
| | 01:57 | bring them into Encore and when
burning into DVD they just look a little
| | 02:01 | stretched in some direction or other,
and you might want to look at your Pixel
| | 02:04 | Aspect Ratios.
| | 02:05 | And by the way if you are creating
graphics in Photoshop, when you create a new
| | 02:10 | document by going to the File menu and
selecting New, if you click the Advanced
| | 02:14 | button to open up the Advanced options
you can change the Pixel Aspect Ratio
| | 02:18 | right here when you create the document.
So if you know, for example, you are
| | 02:21 | creating a menu for a full-screen DVD
project then you would want to use 0.91,
| | 02:25 | the Pixel Aspect Ratio for a full-
screen DVD project, or if you are creating a
| | 02:29 | wide-screen DVD project you'd select
NTSC Widescreen here. There are also
| | 02:34 | full-screen and wide-screen PAL presets.
| | 02:37 | Now actually let me show you one other
tip dealing with Pixel Aspect Ratios. If
| | 02:41 | I go back in Encore here I'll just use
this Bit Budgeting project. If I open up
| | 02:45 | images for example, I'll select any
image, if I right-click on it I can select
| | 02:49 | this Interpret Footage option. Open
up Interpret Footage and this will
| | 02:53 | basically allow me to change the Pixel
Aspect Ratio for the image. So you can
| | 02:58 | use the assets Pixel Aspect Ratio, so
you don't really have to worry about it,
| | 03:01 | or you could force it to conform to a
different Pixel Aspect Ratio from this list here.
| | 03:07 | And so again, if you need to make
changes in Encore to an image, right-click
| | 03:11 | and change the Pixel Aspect Ratio from there.
| | 03:13 | So there is just a little
information about Pixel Aspect Ratio and how to
| | 03:17 | problem-solve some
stretching issues that might occur.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About overscan and safe areas| 00:00 | In this tutorial I'll again be using
the Bit Budgeting project from the Chapter
| | 00:04 | 02 folder. And we are going to look at
something called Overscan, and this is
| | 00:08 | actually a property of television sets
that you should be aware of as you are
| | 00:12 | planning your DVDs.
| | 00:13 | Now most TVs especially the CRT ones,
they have this thing called Overscan,
| | 00:18 | which basically means that the edges
of the image being broadcast doesn't
| | 00:24 | always display with any
degree of certain bureaucracy.
| | 00:27 | Sometimes the entire video is showing
and sometimes the edges are clipped off,
| | 00:31 | you never can really tell. And so to
compensate for this we have a video
| | 00:36 | program something called Safe Areas,
and you will find this in the Menu Viewer
| | 00:40 | down at the bottom here that kind of
looks like a little target, so click on
| | 00:43 | that button which says Show Safe Area
and we could see these safe areas here.
| | 00:47 | When designing menus it's always a good
idea to have these visible and showing.
| | 00:52 | Now this outside area is called the
Action Safe Area. Anything that you want to
| | 00:58 | have displayed as far as action goes,
if you are dealing with video you want to
| | 01:03 | be on the inside of this Action Safe Area line.
| | 01:06 | This other line here indicates the
Title Safe Area. So anything that you have
| | 01:11 | as far as text you do not want to put
outside of this line. That's because,
| | 01:15 | again, because of Overscan it might
get lost or if it's too close to the edge
| | 01:19 | it might get warped around one of those
old school tube TVs that has the round
| | 01:24 | edges. You might lose some of that edge
detail and not be able to read the text.
| | 01:29 | Personally when I'm designing stuff
whether it's a menu or whether it's video,
| | 01:33 | everything outside of this Action
Safe Bar I just consider that just trash.
| | 01:37 | Whatever is outside of that,
plan on that not being there.
| | 01:40 | Sometimes it may, sometimes it might
not be there depending on the user's
| | 01:44 | television set, but you can never
plan on it for sure being there.
| | 01:48 | So just a tip as you are working with
objects, certainly buttons you would not
| | 01:52 | want to put outside of the title safe.
As a general rule when you are designing
| | 01:55 | keep these safe areas on, so you know
where things are, you can keep things
| | 01:59 | inside the safe area, so you can
guarantee with certainty that users will be
| | 02:03 | able to see the stuff that you are designing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Project BasicsKnowing your audience| 00:00 | In this brief tutorial I'll just want
to make you aware that you need to keep
| | 00:03 | the audience in mind when you are
creating your presentation whether it be on
| | 00:06 | DVD, Blu-ray or Flash.
| | 00:09 | If you are creating a DVD for let's
say a wedding or may be child's birthday
| | 00:13 | party you probably want to keep things
fairly simple. Users of that particular
| | 00:17 | DVD probably shouldn't have to travel
very far or search very hard to get to
| | 00:21 | the information they are looking for.
It's probably not safe to assume that the
| | 00:24 | users are very technically savvy.
| | 00:26 | Now let's say on the other hand you
are going to create a DVD for may be a
| | 00:30 | history of the World of Warcraft video
game. People that play that game are a
| | 00:33 | little bit more technically savvy
usually. You might be able to have deeper
| | 00:36 | menu options and other materials that
users will have to be searching for a
| | 00:41 | little bit more. It's also a good idea
to plan out your DVD for many reasons,
| | 00:46 | but keeping your audience in mind is a
good one. Make a sketch like a flowchart
| | 00:51 | on a piece of paper and make sure that
all the content you are putting on that
| | 00:54 | disk is easily accessible by the
user in an intuitive way that they will
| | 00:59 | understand, and again my point here is
that that differs based on your intended audience.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a new project| 00:00 | We are now going to look at creating a
new project from scratch. You can get to
| | 00:03 | the screen by clicking New Project in
the Welcome Screen or by going to the
| | 00:07 | File menu up here at the top of the
interface and selecting New Project.
| | 00:11 | Let's start at the top here. The first
thing we want to do is name our project.
| | 00:15 | So I'm going to just click here on this
top field, select the text to highlight
| | 00:18 | it and replace it with the text of your choice.
| | 00:20 | Next, we just want to select a
location to save our Encore project in. Now
| | 00:26 | Encore creates a project file called .
ncor, but in addition it's also going to
| | 00:32 | create additional folders with extra
files to help Encore do its work. So be
| | 00:36 | aware that when you save your project
it's also creating additional files as
| | 00:40 | well, not just that one file. Also be
aware again that as of the time of this
| | 00:44 | recording Encore projects are not
cross platform. So if you do your Encore
| | 00:48 | project, if you create it on a Mac it
will not be useable on a PC and vice versa.
| | 00:53 | Next, we have the Project Settings.
First let's talk about DVD. When we select
| | 00:57 | DVD we basically have two choices. We
can select the NTSC Television Standard
| | 01:01 | or the PAL Television Standard. We've
talked a little bit about these standards
| | 01:05 | in the previous chapter.
| | 01:06 | Now, it's when we switch over to Blu-
ray then we get tons of options. So if you
| | 01:11 | are creating a DVD then everything is
pretty much done for you. You really
| | 01:14 | don't have too much of a choice. But
because Blu-ray authors an HD and there
| | 01:18 | are so many different formats of
HD we have a lot of choices here.
| | 01:21 | We will talk more about Blu-ray in the
Blu-ray chapter towards the end of this
| | 01:24 | training series. Just for now I'm just
going to explain what these options are
| | 01:27 | very briefly. Of course again we have
a Television Standard and we also have
| | 01:31 | the different dimensions of our
project. We can do this Standard DVD size,
| | 01:34 | 720x480, and just author for Blu-ray
if we want to take advantage of Blu-ray
| | 01:38 | features. We could also author this
at 1280X720, also known as 720p because
| | 01:44 | it's progressive scan. The
fields are not interlaced.
| | 01:47 | We could also do 1440x1080, also
progressive, and we could also do 1920x1080,
| | 01:53 | also progressive as long as the Frame
Rate is 23.976. In other words the Film
| | 01:57 | Frame Rate. We change this to 29.97, we
don't have a choice, but it's going to
| | 02:02 | have to separate into fields.
| | 02:03 | The Frame Rate is the speed at which
your video plays back essentially. How
| | 02:07 | many frames per second or how many
pictures per second. Film operates at 23.976
| | 02:13 | frames per second, often previewed as
24 frames per second, and then Standard
| | 02:16 | Digital Video operates at 29.97 often
previewed as 30 frames per second, and
| | 02:21 | high-def often goes to 59.94 frames per second.
| | 02:26 | And you could tell when we adjust
these frames rates our dimensions and our
| | 02:29 | fields adjust accordingly. So you
don't necessarily have total control here.
| | 02:34 | When authoring to Blu-ray you also
have the choice between MPEG2 and H.264,
| | 02:38 | which we will discuss later on in the
Blu-ray chapter. And that's really all
| | 02:41 | there is to creating a new project.
| | 02:43 | Now there is also an Advanced Tab
here and basically that deals with
| | 02:46 | transcoding settings, which we talked
about briefly in the last chapter. We
| | 02:50 | will talk about a little bit again
towards the end of this training series, but
| | 02:52 | that's all the Advanced Tab does.
| | 02:54 | Essentially that's all you need to
create a basic project. If you want to
| | 02:56 | create a DVD, again, pretty much
everything is done for you. If you want to
| | 02:59 | author a Blu-ray disc then you have a
lot more options in terms of dimensions,
| | 03:03 | frame rates, codec and that type of thing.
| | 03:05 | Simply click OK and you are done.
Before we do that, I want to draw your
| | 03:08 | attention to this statement down at
the bottom of this dialog box here. A
| | 03:11 | project's Authoring Mode can be changed
anytime in the Project Settings dialog.
| | 03:14 | So what that means is if I select DVD
and go ahead and click OK here and wait
| | 03:19 | just a minute for those transcode
settings to finish up and then we can go to
| | 03:22 | the File menu, go to Project Settings
and from this dialog we could actually
| | 03:26 | change our project from DVD to Blu-ray.
| | 03:29 | Now we can't go back in and change the
dimensions and the frame rate and the
| | 03:33 | fields and all kind of stuff of our
project after it's created. We can't change
| | 03:36 | the Authoring Mode from DVD to Blu-
ray, so if you are creating a DVD
| | 03:39 | presentation you realize, hey, you know
what, this can may be go to Blu-ray one
| | 03:43 | day. I want to take advantage of Blu-
ray features, and simply switch over it to
| | 03:46 | here from going to the File menu
and selecting Project Settings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| A quick look at the interface| 00:00 | We are now going to take a quick tour
of the interface of Encore. I know that
| | 00:04 | doesn't sound super-interesting but
trust me, when you know the interface of a
| | 00:08 | program really well you work much
more efficiently in it. So basically in
| | 00:12 | Encore we work with panels. So for
example I have the Project panel. Click on
| | 00:17 | Menus and I'm looking at the Menus
panel, Timeline panel, the Monitor panel,
| | 00:20 | the Flowchart, etcetera, etcetera.
panels are arranged in groups of panels
| | 00:25 | called a frame.
| | 00:26 | So this frame for example includes the
Monitor panel, the Menu Viewer and the
| | 00:31 | Flowchart. To close the panel, maybe to
clean things up a little bit get stuff
| | 00:35 | out of your way. That sometimes helps
when you are working. Click the little X
| | 00:38 | next to its name and it disappears.
| | 00:40 | If you ever want to get any panel back
you go to the Window menu at the top of
| | 00:43 | the interface and from this dropdown
select the panel that you would like to
| | 00:47 | retrieve. And I closed the Flowchart.
I actually want it back. So I'm going to
| | 00:50 | select Flowchart and it comes back
to where it was when I closed it.
| | 00:54 | Now Encore has tried to do a pretty
good job of guessing where you want stuff.
| | 00:58 | So when you are working with Timelines,
there is a Timeline down here and you
| | 01:01 | are actually looking at it in the
monitor and you might be working with the
| | 01:03 | Timelines panel. So there are three
associated panels just for Timelines.
| | 01:07 | For some reason you may want them grouped
together. And you could do that. To move a
| | 01:11 | panel simply click on it. This will
activate it creating this orange highlight
| | 01:15 | around it letting you know that it's
active and selected. And then click on the
| | 01:18 | panel and drag to move it around. When
you do you will see these little shapes
| | 01:22 | called drop zones. This indicates where
the panel will be and what will happen
| | 01:27 | once you let go over your mouse.
| | 01:28 | When you select a center drop zone it
will group that panel with the other
| | 01:33 | panels in that frame. If I were to drag
and use one of the side, top or bottom
| | 01:39 | drop zones, it will create a brand new
frame with just that panel on that side.
| | 01:44 | And now I actually want to put the
Timelines panel back where it belongs.
| | 01:48 | So I'm going to click and drag the name
of it, again use the center drop zone to
| | 01:51 | group it with the other panels in
this frame and there it is. I can even
| | 01:55 | reorder it by clicking-and-dragging to the left.
| | 01:58 | Now with all of this panel rearranging,
I'm kind of left with a huge panel that
| | 02:02 | I don't really want on this side, so I
can resize it by putting my cursor in
| | 02:06 | between a divider line of these objects
here and just simply click-and-drag in
| | 02:11 | the direction of the arrows. I could do
that with the horizontal line as well,
| | 02:15 | drag up and down. And if you put your
cursor at a junction where several frames
| | 02:19 | meet you will get this little four-
way arrow icon, I could click and resize
| | 02:23 | multiple frames at once, which just
kind of look and feels cool aside from
| | 02:28 | being helpful. Another thing you might
want to be aware of is that most panels
| | 02:32 | have this thing on the right-hand side.
This icon represents a flyout menu.
| | 02:37 | This gives you additional options for
that particular menu. So with the Project
| | 02:41 | panel selected I come here to the
flyout menu and I have some options for this
| | 02:45 | panel. For most panels the flyout
menu just gives you options of how to use
| | 02:49 | this panel in the interface so you
could undock the panel or close the panel,
| | 02:53 | close the frame etcetera.
| | 02:54 | I'm going to show you how to do some
of these options with keyboard shortcuts
| | 02:56 | as well. If I select the Project panel
and hold down the command key on the Mac
| | 03:00 | or the Ctrl key on the PC and I drag
this away it will become a floating panel.
| | 03:04 | So if I want this panel to exist over
what I'm doing I can just move it around
| | 03:08 | that way, but you'll notice as I click
-and-drag the name of the panel again
| | 03:12 | it's going to want to re-dock it, and I
can just click again to reshuffle that
| | 03:17 | to get the tab where I want it.
| | 03:19 | Another great keyboard shortcut is to
maximize the frame, you put your cursor
| | 03:23 | over a particular frame and use the
tilde key, the little squiggle above the
| | 03:26 | Tab key in left of the number 1 on
your keyboard and that will maximize that panel.
| | 03:31 | Hit the tilde key again to restore it,
and again this works with any panel. So
| | 03:36 | over the Library panel and I could see
exactly- whoa, look at that view. I can
| | 03:39 | see so much stuff here in the Library
panel. Click it again to restore the
| | 03:42 | interface back the way it was. There
are also the tools here at the top in the
| | 03:46 | left-hand corner and
again the Menu Bar at the top.
| | 03:49 | So if I say go to the Timeline menu,
this is exactly what I'm talking about, or
| | 03:53 | go to the View menu this
is what I'm talking about.
| | 03:55 | The last thing you need to know
about the Encore interface is that this
| | 03:58 | Workspace dropdown has several pre-
built workspaces for you. So if you are
| | 04:02 | designing menus for example, you could
select the Menu Design workspace here,
| | 04:06 | and now they have all the panels out
that you typically use when designing a menu.
| | 04:10 | Also for Navigation Design there is a
big flowchart already made for you, or
| | 04:14 | Slideshow Design and Timeline Editing.
This adds the Timelines panel at the
| | 04:20 | bottom of the interface right next to
the Timeline Viewer here so you can work
| | 04:23 | on both of them at the same time.
Typically, I'll use the Default workspace
| | 04:26 | when I'm not doing one of those specific tasks.
| | 04:29 | See that wasn't that bad, was it?
That's the ins and outs of the interface
| | 04:32 | right there. Again, knowing those
things are going to make you significantly
| | 04:36 | more efficient.
| | 04:37 | Next we are going to talk about the
rules for importing files into Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rules for importing| 00:00 | We are now going to look a little bit
more closely at importing. We mentioned
| | 00:04 | in the Quick Tour project in Chapter 01,
you could double-click in the Project
| | 00:08 | panel to open up this dialog box;
it will import something as an asset.
| | 00:13 | Again, let's just bring things into
the Project panel, so you could use that
| | 00:15 | however you want in your project and
asset against just a generic term referred
| | 00:19 | to any type of media that you bring
into your project. In the next movie we'll
| | 00:22 | look at how to bring assets in as
Encore objects, but if you want to just bring
| | 00:27 | things in generically
this is just a few tips here.
| | 00:30 | Now I'm going to go into the Exercise
Files folder and in the Exercise Files
| | 00:35 | folder you will find a Media folder.
I'm going to navigate to the Videos folder
| | 00:38 | to bring one of these in. Before I
do that I want to show you this Enable
| | 00:42 | dropdown, so I'm going to click that
here. Now what you see here might change
| | 00:46 | depending on whether you have QuickTime
installed and what platform you are on.
| | 00:49 | But essentially these are the
different file formats and types that you could
| | 00:52 | import into, and you will see that the
majority of common file types are here
| | 00:57 | including high-end DTS surround sound
audio, MP3 and M4A, other high-end audio
| | 01:04 | file formats AIFF and WAV, and in
the MPEG category there is DVD, the M2V
| | 01:11 | format and the H.264, regular
QuickTime movies, AVI files and also every type
| | 01:17 | of still image file that you would
probably ever want to bring into Encore, all
| | 01:21 | that stuff is supported.
| | 01:23 | Now in old versions of Encore, they
were very specific about what you could
| | 01:26 | bring in, had it exactly match the
file dimensions and pixel aspect ratio of
| | 01:31 | your project, that's not the case
anymore. So if I bring in this file, which is
| | 01:35 | called character expressions, and I
scroll down in my Finder window. I could
| | 01:39 | see this is actually 672
pixels wide by 512 pixels tall.
| | 01:45 | Now my project is set up for DVD, which
is 720x480. What that means essentially
| | 01:51 | in case you are having a calculator
in front of you, is that basically this
| | 01:54 | movie is not as wide as our project,
but it's taller than our project.
| | 01:59 | So we are going to import this so you
can see what it looks like when you bring
| | 02:02 | in a file that doesn't match your
project. I'll click Open, and again with this
| | 02:06 | selected in the Project panel, I'm
going to go down here to the bottom. There
| | 02:09 | is a new icon; it looks like a page
turning. I'm going to click Timeline to
| | 02:12 | make a timeline out of it.
| | 02:13 | So here's what that looks like. The
Timeline is still going to be 720x480, the
| | 02:19 | stuff that's too tall gets cut off at
the top and the bottom, and the stuff is
| | 02:22 | not wide enough. There is some black,
just some blank black space inserted on
| | 02:26 | the sides to make up for the difference.
| | 02:29 | So the moral of the story essentially
then is that you want to do the best you
| | 02:32 | can even setting up your assets that
match your project, but if you don't then
| | 02:37 | a worst-case scenario, this is
what's going to look like in the end.
| | 02:41 | Again, its promise, next we are going
to look at importing assets as Encore
| | 02:44 | objects already made.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing assets as Encore objects| 00:00 | In the last movie, we looked at
importing object as just simple assets.
| | 00:04 | In this movie we are going to talk
about importing and creating Encore
| | 00:07 | objects upon import.
| | 00:09 | Thereby saving you this step later of
having to convert assets into objects.
| | 00:14 | Unlike many things in Encore
you could do this in two ways.
| | 00:17 | One way is you can go to the File menu
and come down here and select Import As.
| | 00:20 | You also get a similar menu by
right-clicking the Project panel and
| | 00:24 | selecting Import As.
| | 00:26 | Again if you select Asset what it's
going to do is bring it in as just a generic
| | 00:30 | asset that can be used in
different ways in your project.
| | 00:33 | But let's say for example, we select Timeline.
| | 00:35 | Let's say, for example, we took this
movie called character expressions, which
| | 00:40 | we looked at that in the last segment.
| | 00:41 | Let's go ahead and open that up, and
because we selected Import as Timeline, it
| | 00:46 | create a Timeline for us
automatically upon import.
| | 00:50 | We could do the same thing if we right- click
select Import as Menu, let's go up a folder here.
| | 00:55 | Actually in the PSDs folder, in the
Media folder in the Exercise Files folder,
| | 00:59 | select Groundswell Menu Final, click Open,
and now our PSD file, the Groundswell
| | 01:06 | Menu Final comes in as a menu.
| | 01:09 | We'll talk more about PSD files and
menus a little bit later on, but just be
| | 01:13 | aware that if you want to create a menu,
Timeline, slideshows whatever, while
| | 01:17 | you are importing you can do
that using this Import as feature.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Previewing assets in the Project panel| 00:00 | The Project panel actually has some
great tools that help you preview assets
| | 00:04 | that you've imported into Encore. I'm
going to double-click here on the Project
| | 00:07 | panel. I'm going to navigate to the
Animals folder, which is inside the Photos
| | 00:10 | folder, which is inside the Media folder,
which is inside the Exercise Files folder.
| | 00:14 | So go to the Animals folder, I'm going
to select cool bird.jpg and click Open,
| | 00:20 | and since I'm importing stuff, I'm
going to double-click one more time. So I'm
| | 00:23 | going to go to the root directory in
the Media folder inside the Exercise Files
| | 00:26 | folder. I'm going to select the
Videos folder and open up crazy bird in
| | 00:30 | motion_1.mp4, click Open.
| | 00:33 | Now while you are working in Encore,
you might often want to just get a
| | 00:37 | glimpse, get some more information
about the stuff you have imported into the
| | 00:41 | Project panel. So what you can do is
come over here to the Project panel and
| | 00:44 | select -- click once to select the
stuff that you've brought into the Project
| | 00:47 | panel and the Project panel actually
gives you a little display of some of the
| | 00:52 | most important information about your asset.
| | 00:53 | So just by clicking it once, I learned
this is a JPEG image, it's a still image
| | 00:57 | and the resolution is 3888 pixels by
2592 pixels. I also again get a little
| | 01:04 | thumbnail of what this looks like.
Same for video. I can click my video track
| | 01:08 | and it tells me the name of the video,
also tells me the video file, tells me
| | 01:11 | the pixel dimensions, 720x480, it also
tells me the duration. Again the time
| | 01:16 | code reads hours, then minutes, then
seconds, then frames. So this is telling
| | 01:21 | me that this clip is 10
seconds and 4 frames long.
| | 01:24 | Additionally with video tracks, I can
select a video track and then click the
| | 01:27 | Play button here so it actually preview
the entire video in the Project panel.
| | 01:35 | It is little small but this gives you a
general idea of what's in that piece of footage.
| | 01:39 | I could also scrub the playhead here,
little mini playhead down at the bottom
| | 01:43 | to scrub through my footage. If this
area does ever get in the way I actually
| | 01:47 | find it extremely helpful, but if it
gets in the way for you, you can click
| | 01:50 | this little disclosure triangle in
the upper left-hand corner, and it will
| | 01:53 | basically just give you the name of
the file, tell you what's selected rather
| | 01:56 | than giving you a preview.
| | 01:58 | Next we are going to look at how to
organize the assets you've imported into Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Organizing the Project panel| 00:00 | For this tutorial I've created a
project called Organizing the Mess.
| | 00:03 | You'll find this project in the Chapter
03 folder in the Exercise Files, and I have
| | 00:07 | here in my Project panel loads of files
that I've imported into my project here
| | 00:12 | and you could see the list
even extends a little bit further.
| | 00:15 | Now so far all we have is one Encore
object, this menu and then a bunch of
| | 00:19 | other assets we have imported, so we
even have timelines or other menus,
| | 00:23 | sub-menus other things that we would
create in Encore and it's still a mess. So
| | 00:27 | what I want to talk about in
this movie is how to organize this.
| | 00:31 | Now one of the things we could do is
just filter what we are looking at, this
| | 00:34 | is just a temporary solution. The
bottom left-hand corner here we could click
| | 00:37 | this little funnel looking thing and
right now we are seeing assets, menus,
| | 00:42 | timelines, etcetera. If we want it to
we could click Assets to uncheck assets
| | 00:47 | only. So all that we are seeing are
Encore objects. To see those assets again
| | 00:51 | just go back to that funnel and
click Assets and there we are.
| | 00:54 | Now a better and more permanent way to
organize your project is coming to the
| | 00:57 | new icon and select Folder. In this
way you can create folders in which to
| | 01:02 | organize your assets. So I'm just going
to call this Videos. I'm actually going
| | 01:09 | to spell it right. So I'm going to right
-click on it and select Rename and that
| | 01:13 | will just drive me nuts, so I'm trying
to spell it correctly. So let's go ahead
| | 01:15 | and do that and I can just select
objects and drag-and-drop them into this folder.
| | 01:20 | I could even select multiple objects
using the Ctrl or the Command key and then
| | 01:25 | select a bunch and then
drag them all in at once.
| | 01:29 | Close the folder by clicking the little
disclosure triangle at left-hand side,
| | 01:32 | and instantly clean up our project.
| | 01:36 | Now what I would do and what I
typically do in most projects that I'm working
| | 01:38 | on is that I create a new folder for
each of the different type of assets that
| | 01:43 | I have imported into Encore. So I
could fill the audio into this folder. Make
| | 01:47 | another folder, call this Images and
then I could drag images into that folder as well.
| | 01:55 | And there we go, look how much neater
that looks. Now this prompts like we are
| | 01:59 | little bit more complete and I had
many more Encore objects such as menus and
| | 02:03 | timelines and slideshows and that
type of thing. I'll probably create new
| | 02:07 | folders of each of those
and organize those as well.
| | 02:10 | You know folks, not only this good
organization that they keep things from
| | 02:13 | getting cluttered, but when you are
looking for something, when you are trying
| | 02:16 | to identify something very quick, you
are looking for a specific image to use
| | 02:19 | again or another video to add to your
Timeline, you know exactly where to go.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Properties panel| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to be
continuing on with the Organize Mess project
| | 00:04 | basically what we started out with last
time only organize. I have also created
| | 00:07 | a slideshow here, that's this cool bird
little thing in the Project panel, and
| | 00:12 | here we are going to talk about the
Properties panel. This is what you will
| | 00:15 | come to and use all the time as you are
working and creating navigation in Encore.
| | 00:19 | Now we have talked about this
briefly before in the Quick project at the
| | 00:23 | beginning, but basically the
Properties panel gives you the properties for
| | 00:26 | whatever is selected. So if you want
to make a quick change or something, you
| | 00:30 | don't have to remember where it is
the menu, maybe up here at the top or
| | 00:33 | whatever else.
| | 00:34 | Now a lot of applications you
might use aren't so clear-cut, but this
| | 00:38 | Properties panel makes things very easy,
simply select an object in a Project
| | 00:41 | panel and whatever selected, you will
get the properties for that object here
| | 00:45 | at the Properties panel.
| | 00:47 | When you have nothing selected such as
the case right now you will be able to
| | 00:51 | make changes to the entire disc, so we
are looking at the Disc properties now.
| | 00:55 | When we select the Slideshow, we get
Slideshow properties. Now this is actually
| | 00:59 | different than if we go down to the
Slideshow Viewer and click on an individual
| | 01:03 | slide because then we get different
properties for the slide. So you always
| | 01:08 | want to look at the top of the
Properties panel to know exactly what you are
| | 01:10 | adjusting. It can get a little tricky,
so if I click on Slideshow we see a
| | 01:14 | transition tab and a basic tab,
and we click on a slide we see also a
| | 01:18 | transition tab and a basic tab.
| | 01:20 | So you want to make sure that before
you make any changes in the Properties
| | 01:23 | panel then you make sure that you have
the right thing selected so that you are
| | 01:27 | adjusting the properties of the right object.
| | 01:30 | Also be aware that you will get the
most options when you have an Encore object
| | 01:34 | selected. When you have just an asset
like maybe an image selected, you don't
| | 01:38 | have too many options here, you can
give it a name and description and most of
| | 01:42 | these other things are pretty much info only.
| | 01:44 | So if you are in a pinch, you select
something, you can't find an option to
| | 01:47 | change maybe you have the assets
selected instead of the Encore object. So
| | 01:53 | instead of selecting this image as an
image, we want to select this image as a
| | 01:57 | slide in a slideshow, then we get the options.
| | 02:01 | Same thing with videos. If we select
just the video not too much in the WAV
| | 02:05 | options, but if you put that video
inside of a Timeline then we select the
| | 02:09 | Timeline and we'll have many more
options than we would have through just
| | 02:12 | selecting the asset.
| | 02:13 | The thing that you will probably do
most with the Properties panel is to create
| | 02:18 | linkage. We've already talked about
this briefly. We'll talk about it much more
| | 02:21 | in depth in Chapter 07. But just again
the quick story here, let's say I have a
| | 02:26 | menu. Let me double-click that here to
open it up. Click one of these buttons
| | 02:29 | to highlight it and then I could just
click-and-drag a pick whip to a link,
| | 02:34 | let's say, I'm going to link this
slideshow here, and then you let go and the
| | 02:37 | link is set. So now this button when
the users click it, will watch the cool
| | 02:41 | bird slideshow.
| | 02:42 | Now it can't get much more complex
than that, but basically that's how you
| | 02:46 | create a simple link.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting familiar with the Library panel| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to take a
deeper look at the Library panel, a place
| | 00:04 | where you can go to access all the
free stuff, the several gigabytes of stuff
| | 00:09 | that come with Encore.
| | 00:10 | Now basically we just have a blank
project open. What I'm going to do is put my
| | 00:13 | cursor over the Library panel and hit
the tilde key on the keyboard. That's the little
| | 00:17 | squiggle above the Tab key. So I can
maximize the Library panel since that's the
| | 00:21 | focus of our discussion here.
| | 00:22 | I'm going to introduce you to the
different categories of stuff here in the
| | 00:26 | Library panel. First we have menus. So
what I'm going to do to display only the
| | 00:32 | menus in the Library panel is click the
Menu button. Now all that we are seeing
| | 00:37 | here are menus. The star indicates
that this is the default menu for this
| | 00:42 | current set which is the General set now.
These ones with the dog ear indicate
| | 00:46 | a motion menu.
| | 00:47 | So if we are going to add this Crib
Menu to our project, for example, if we
| | 00:50 | come over here in the Library panel,
it's icon in the upper right-hand corner
| | 00:54 | had this little folded edge over here.
And basically what that means, again this
| | 00:59 | is a motion menu. So if we are going to
put this in our DVD, for example, there
| | 01:02 | would be some motion somewhere.
Some kind of movement somehow.
| | 01:07 | Now for this specific menu, the Crib
Menu, there is actually this really cool 3D
| | 01:11 | motion as like this little hanging
thing over the kid's crib, moves around and
| | 01:16 | kind of comes to life. Sometimes it's
only just like a flicker of light or
| | 01:20 | something kind of weak, honestly, but
that does mean when you see that folded
| | 01:24 | dog-eared menu icon that there is
some kind of motion with that menu.
| | 01:29 | HD also means that this is a high-
resolution or high-definition menu suitable
| | 01:33 | for Blu-ray discs. When you see WIDE,
that means it's meant to be wide screen.
| | 01:38 | And most menus will also have a sub-
menu. So we have this Crib Menu for our
| | 01:43 | main area of navigation.
| | 01:44 | We also have this sub-menu. If you want
to see thumbnails of a video then use a
| | 01:49 | different menu for that. And keep in
mind again if we change the category,
| | 01:52 | let's say to Corporate then we would
see a whole entirely different set of
| | 01:58 | menus. So you could see why I get so
excited about this, I mean there is just a
| | 02:00 | wealth of free stuff that shifts with Encore.
| | 02:03 | Now I'm going to go back to the General
set. Right now we are seeing again only
| | 02:09 | menus, so I'm going to click this
button to the right of Menus to display the
| | 02:12 | Buttons Only. So these are just buttons
that you could add to an existing menu,
| | 02:17 | and maybe you are not that familiar
with Photoshop, so you just want to create
| | 02:20 | a very simple menu out of a photo, or
you can then come into the Library panel
| | 02:25 | and complete that menu by just dragging
-and-dropping one of these buttons or
| | 02:29 | several of these buttons onto that menu.
And keep in mind these are only the
| | 02:33 | buttons for the general set. There
are all these different categories of buttons.
| | 02:38 | Now the next category here is Images.
Just little things that you might want to
| | 02:43 | put on your menu to spice it up and
make it look a little cooler. There is also
| | 02:48 | Backgrounds, which essentially allow
the same backgrounds that you saw with the
| | 02:53 | menus, but isolated, so they are separate.
| | 02:54 | There's also Layer sets, Textiles. If
you apply one of these textiles to your
| | 03:00 | project as if you are going to create
ABC text with this exact style in the
| | 03:06 | middle of your menu. You could
then go in and customize what it says.
| | 03:09 | There is also a whole host of Shapes.
So in case again you want to add some
| | 03:14 | type of shape or decorative object
to your menu or for a sub-picture or
| | 03:19 | highlight, you can use these shapes,
and finally there are replacement layers.
| | 03:23 | Now we will talk about replacement
layers in Chapter 12 of this training
| | 03:27 | series, but essentially what it does,
it allows you to create some cool effect
| | 03:31 | and then swap out the
pictures and leave the effect.
| | 03:34 | So right now over here there is like
some girl talking on the phone apparently
| | 03:37 | so what this icon means when you see
it is that you drag and drop your own
| | 03:40 | image here, it will switch it out with
the cell phone image and it will make it
| | 03:44 | black and white but keep the
foo-foo, la-la stuff around the edges
| | 03:47 | thereby blending it in.
| | 03:48 | Now let's say you are making a new
menu and you want to look at different
| | 03:52 | backgrounds and buttons and maybe text
and maybe shapes at the same time.
| | 03:56 | We could hold down the Shift key to
preview multiple types of objects here in the
| | 04:02 | Library panel as well.
| | 04:03 | So now all that we are seeing are
shapes, text, buttons, and backgrounds.
| | 04:08 | And if you want to get back to seeing
everything in the Library panel at once, hold
| | 04:12 | the Alt key on the PC, the Option key
on the Mac and click any button, and now
| | 04:16 | you could see the full array
of stuff in the Library panel.
| | 04:20 | Now if you are only seeing the
general set, so if you do not have all these
| | 04:24 | other sets you just have general, I
won't allow you to select any other set. It
| | 04:28 | means that all the extra content that
shifts with Encore was not installed on
| | 04:31 | your machine. So we are going to have
to do is go back to the disc that you
| | 04:34 | used to install Encore and install the
additional content as well. It's about
| | 04:39 | 3-4 gigabytes if I remember
correctly something like that.
| | 04:42 | We could also do is group the Encore
menu, if you are on a Mac or if you are on
| | 04:47 | a PC go to the Edit menu, go to the
Preferences and then go to the Media area
| | 04:52 | of the Preferences. Here you can
change the location of the library. What I
| | 04:57 | would like to do is install my library
on a secondary hard drive, so that way I
| | 05:01 | don't have 4 gigabytes of my main hard
drive taken up with this library, and if
| | 05:04 | you choose to do that, in other words
install it on a separate hard drive, then
| | 05:06 | you can click Browse here to navigate
to where that additional folder is on
| | 05:11 | that other hard drive.
| | 05:12 | Now whether you are new to Encore or
whether you are a seasoned veteran and
| | 05:16 | totally know what you are doing. I
really think the Library panel is one of the
| | 05:20 | best assets of Encore because it's
always got a couple of extra bells and
| | 05:23 | whistles that you don't have to make
yourself. Or sometimes even maybe with
| | 05:27 | backgrounds or whatever you can start
with what comes with Encore, and then
| | 05:31 | adjust it and make it your own. But
at least you have that starting point,
| | 05:34 | thanks to the content that comes with
Encore, accessed by the Library panel.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Resource Central panel| 00:00 | In this movie, I want to introduce you
to a new feature in Encore CS4 called
| | 00:03 | the Resource Central panel. Typically
the Resource panel by default is grouped
| | 00:08 | with Library, Styles, and Layers panel
down here in the lower right-hand corner
| | 00:11 | of the interface.
| | 00:13 | Now many panels are grouped together
so much that you can't see all of them.
| | 00:16 | You get this little scroll bar here
at the top so we could actually use the
| | 00:19 | scroll bar to click-and-drag to the
right to see the Resource Central panel.
| | 00:23 | Let's go ahead and click
on that to open that up.
| | 00:25 | Now the point of the Resource Central
panel, the reason why I'm mentioning it
| | 00:29 | here in this Chapter is because it
basically allows you to go get more content,
| | 00:34 | you could actually preview content,
there are tutorials here and you can access
| | 00:38 | and download them from this panel.
| | 00:40 | So for example, right now I'm looking
here, it says; click here to go to video
| | 00:44 | tutorials and how to use Soundbooth.
So if you want to go to the Soundbooth
| | 00:46 | Video Workshop, click here to
watch some free videos on Soundbooth.
| | 00:50 | Come down here to this little icon
here and click Page 2 of 5 and basically
| | 00:54 | that's some more information about the
Resource Central panel. Click it again
| | 00:58 | Page 3 of 5, there are new scores
develop for Soundbooth. So when you are
| | 01:02 | designing your Encore project, and you
are looking for more in terms of actual
| | 01:06 | resources and content to use here in
Encore or in Soundbooth or other places in
| | 01:11 | the Production Premium Suite then you
can come here to the Resource Central panel.
| | 01:15 | Now as of the time of this recording
this is actually months before Encore be
| | 01:19 | released so there will be much more in
terms of Resource Central available to
| | 01:23 | you once you are watching this. This
search feature here at the top will be
| | 01:27 | much more useful and there will be
much more content to check out as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Menu BasicsUnderstanding menus| 00:00 | In this chapter, we are going to get
to up to speed with menus and I want to
| | 00:04 | take the beginning of this chapter,
this movie here, to just get you familiar
| | 00:08 | and acquainted with the importance
of menus and basically some other
| | 00:12 | information about them.
| | 00:14 | First of all, let's go ahead and open
one up. I'm going to go to the Library
| | 00:17 | panel, I'm going to change the set to
Government and I'm going to click on this
| | 00:22 | first button so that we are seeing only
menus. Not exactly sure why this is the
| | 00:27 | Government set of menus because the
first one looks like a horror movie, action
| | 00:31 | movie DVD and the second one looks
like a Sci-Fi, so I'm not really sure what
| | 00:36 | this has to do with Government exactly,
but we are going to go with it. Go
| | 00:39 | ahead and double-click the Gold Texture
Menu to open it and add it to your project.
| | 00:44 | Now menus are really where the core
of navigation comes from in your DVD
| | 00:48 | project. When users need to find
something, when there are special features,
| | 00:52 | when there's Timelines, whatever, they
access this information through menus.
| | 00:57 | It's really the hub of your presentation.
| | 01:01 | Now, one very important thing to know
about menus in Encore is that they are
| | 01:04 | nothing more or less than Photoshop
files. If you were to navigate to where, on
| | 01:10 | your hard drive, these menus are stored,
you would see that they are just PSD
| | 01:15 | files. Even Motion menus are just Photoshop
documents with a movie in the background.
| | 01:21 | Now we will talk a little bit later on
in this title, towards the end, about
| | 01:25 | how to create a menu from scratch in
Photoshop, but it goes without saying that
| | 01:29 | if you really want to be a master menu
maker in Encore that it really pays to
| | 01:33 | have some Photoshop skill, knowledge,
and experience as well. I'll be giving
| | 01:38 | you, in this training series, the
specific Photoshop knowledge that you need
| | 01:41 | for Encore, but it also pays to have
general Photoshop Knowledge, which you can
| | 01:45 | get from watching the other great
Photoshop training on lynda.com.
| | 01:50 | Now, I'm unbiased, because it's not my
training, but I think lynda.com has the
| | 01:54 | Photoshop training that you will find
anywhere from some of the best people out
| | 01:58 | there. So check that out if you need
to brush up in your Photoshop skills.
| | 02:02 | And to see what makes up a menu,
let's actually go over here to the Layers
| | 02:06 | panel, which is next to the Library and
Styles panel. You'll see the different
| | 02:10 | components here. Now what you are
seeing here in the Layers panel on Encore
| | 02:13 | actually, kind of, mirrors what you
would see in the Layers panel in Photoshop.
| | 02:18 | We will lock the background layer and
we have this folder with a Plus (+) in
| | 02:23 | the parenthesis and then the name of
these buttons. Well that's basically how
| | 02:27 | buttons are made; they are layer
groups in Photoshop. In the next chapter, we
| | 02:30 | are going to look at the anatomy of a
button, and we'll talk about all the
| | 02:33 | different pieces that comprise a button.
| | 02:35 | So if I click on this little
disclosure triangle to open up this folder, we
| | 02:38 | will see there are actually a few
layers within this set and that's actually
| | 02:43 | what makes up a button, but again, we
are not going to get too into buttons in
| | 02:47 | this chapter because we are talking
about menus; I just want you to be aware of
| | 02:49 | that. We will talk about
buttons in the next chapter.
| | 02:51 | You will see the only one layer, the
top layer that says Menu, this is the only
| | 02:56 | layer that has white eye icon;
all the other ones are gray. It's a subtle
| | 03:00 | difference, I realized, but what that
indicates is that I can adjust and play
| | 03:04 | with this and actually I could turn
the visibility for this layer on and off;
| | 03:07 | so I could click the Eye Icon to turn
it off and click it again to turn it back on.
| | 03:12 | So that's what we need to know about
Encore menus. They are PSD or in other
| | 03:16 | words Photoshop documents and just as
we see here there is a background layer
| | 03:20 | and that's basically this, kind of,
junk in the background and then here we
| | 03:24 | have four different buttons and as you
click on them they are selected here and
| | 03:28 | then we have just this menu text. Oops!
It thinks I want to rename the layer,
| | 03:32 | because I double-clicked it, I don't
want to do that, but that's all that
| | 03:36 | really makes up a menu, but just
remember as you are going through your project
| | 03:40 | that menus are so crucial because
these are the gateways that people use to
| | 03:44 | access the content on the disk.
| | 03:45 | Next we will look at creating
a menu from scratch in Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a menu| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to continue
on with a blank project, where we left
| | 00:05 | off in the last movie where we talked
about basically understanding what menus
| | 00:07 | are and we are now going to create
a menu from scratch here in Encore.
| | 00:12 | Now, later on, in this training series
we are going to talk about how to set up
| | 00:14 | a menu from scratch in Photoshop;
that's really where you get the most control;
| | 00:18 | that is also the most complicated, but
there are ways to do that here in Encore
| | 00:22 | without any knowledge of Photoshop whatsoever.
| | 00:24 | So that's what we are going to cover
here. So what I'm going to do is I'm going
| | 00:26 | to change the set to General and I'm
still looking just at the menus here. I'm
| | 00:33 | going to click on Blank Menu, and I'm
going to double-click to add that to my
| | 00:37 | project. Now with a blank menu, the
world is our oyster and we can add all
| | 00:43 | sorts of stuff to this basically
making this menu from scratch using these
| | 00:46 | elements in the Library panel.
| | 00:48 | So, now what I can do is go over to
the backgrounds area by clicking this
| | 00:50 | button here and add a background to
this menu. Now you don't have to add a
| | 00:55 | background, you could actually import
an image and drag and drop that and use
| | 00:59 | that as a background for your menu.
Now what I want to do is I'm going to
| | 01:02 | select this Hipster background. Now if
I just double-click this background, the
| | 01:06 | Hipster BG background, it's going to
automatically add this as the background of my menu.
| | 01:10 | Now if I knew ahead of time that I
wanted to make a menu with this image as the
| | 01:16 | background, a little secret here, I
could just drag and drop into my Project
| | 01:19 | panel and it makes a brand new menu
with that image as the background, very cool.
| | 01:24 | Actually, I don't want to use this and
that's, kind of, confusing so I'm going
| | 01:27 | to select it and hit the little Trash
Can to get rid of it. Also, if at any
| | 01:31 | point we decide, maybe, I going to
double-click the Entertainment background,
| | 01:35 | it swaps out the Hipster with the
Entertainment. So it's a benefit there, is
| | 01:39 | that at any point we could double-click
one of these to replace it with another one.
| | 01:42 | Next we need to add some text to our
menu, you could do this in one or two
| | 01:47 | ways, you can go up to the Toolbar at
the top and you could select one of the
| | 01:51 | Type Tools and you could click and
then just start typing. That will be plain
| | 01:54 | old boring text. You can alternatively
go into the Library panel and click on
| | 01:58 | these Text items and I'm going to
select this one here, the White Nueva Std
| | 02:03 | Bold Condensed, and I'm going to Double
Click that. It adds ABC to my project;
| | 02:08 | it's not exactly the size that I want.
| | 02:10 | So, I'm going to go to the edges here;
actually let me go back and select the
| | 02:12 | Selection Tool, the black arrow, back
here at the top of the Toolbar and I'm
| | 02:16 | going to click and drag out, to
expand this. I also hold the Shift Key to
| | 02:21 | constrain the proportions, so it
doesn't get all out of whack; maybe too fat or
| | 02:24 | too skinny, that looks right, and then
I could select my Type Tool, come back
| | 02:29 | over here, and once my cursor is inside
where the text is, I can click and drag
| | 02:34 | to highlight and then replace it with
the text of my choosing. Go back to the
| | 02:38 | Black Selection Tool to
accept the text and move it around.
| | 02:43 | Now this actually isn't where I want it.
It's stuck, but that's okay for now,
| | 02:48 | because we are going to talk about
editing menus next. So we are just going to
| | 02:50 | assemble the elements in this movie,
and in the next one we will fiddle with them.
| | 02:55 | Another feature that I think is really
cool is you go over here to the left of
| | 02:58 | backgrounds we have images to use. So
we have all sorts of arrows and cool
| | 03:02 | crazy things, so we could actually just
drag and drop arrows and if we get this
| | 03:06 | curved arrow here along the edge or on
the corner, we can move this around and
| | 03:11 | rotate it, just add some extra
elements to this menu. Be aware that once you
| | 03:16 | click away and deselect that menu that
you cannot use the Basic Selection Tool
| | 03:20 | to move it, it's, kind of, stuck there;
but again, in the next movie we will
| | 03:24 | talk about how to adjust
and tweak these to our liking.
| | 03:27 | Now, finally, and perhaps most
importantly we need buttons on our menu. Buttons
| | 03:32 | tell people where to go, so we really
need those buttons. So I'm going to click
| | 03:36 | this Button in the Library panel and I
need to find a cool button to use here;
| | 03:41 | I think this Flower Button is going to
work well for our purposes here, so I
| | 03:44 | could just drag and drop here to put
this exactly where I want it or I could
| | 03:49 | simply double-click it here and a menu
Button will be automatically added, and
| | 03:53 | that's all there really is to it.
| | 03:55 | Now in the next movie we are going to
customize this and get this exactly the
| | 03:58 | way we want it; but as for now, we
have made a custom menu from scratch using
| | 04:04 | just elements that come with Encore.
And just before we close up this movie
| | 04:07 | real quick, one thing that you want to
do is save your project when you make
| | 04:10 | something like this from scratch.
| | 04:11 | So I'm going to go to File, Save, and
actually that just saved a copy of this
| | 04:17 | Untitled Project in My Documents folder.
I want to save a copy of this for you
| | 04:21 | to use in the Exercise Files. So I'm
going to select File, Save As and I'm
| | 04:25 | going to navigate to the Chapter 04
folder and I'm going to call this Menu from
| | 04:31 | Scratch and then click Save
and now our menu is saved.
| | 04:38 | Even though it's not really an asset
that we could use from the Menus area or
| | 04:42 | the Library panel our project is saved,
so we can get to back to this menu when
| | 04:46 | we need to in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing menus| 00:00 | In this video, we're going to look at
editing menus. We're actually going to
| | 00:03 | edit the menu we created in the last
movie, and if you're just popping into this
| | 00:07 | movie, you can go to the menu from
Scratch.ncor project, you could find that in
| | 00:12 | the Chapter 4 folder of the exercise files.
| | 00:13 | So, we made this menu and there are
some cool elements here, but it's just
| | 00:16 | really, really noisy. Now, some of
these elements, you know, like this red
| | 00:19 | here. Just drives me, now it just
doesn't go with the background at all. So, if
| | 00:22 | we're really doing this for real,
you'd probably want to adjust these colors
| | 00:26 | and tweak them a little bit. But for
right now, I could live with it, but I
| | 00:29 | can't live with how they are placed.
| | 00:32 | Now the problem is that when I click an
object like this menu text, and try to
| | 00:35 | move it, it doesn't move. The buttons
are able to be moved but not these other
| | 00:39 | elements, the arrow and that type of
thing. So, the way I actually need to
| | 00:43 | adjust them is by going to the Toolbar
at the top and selecting the white arrow
| | 00:47 | tool, also called the Direct Select tool.
| | 00:50 | With this tool selected, I can click on
things I that I couldn't select before
| | 00:54 | such as the menu text. I could click
and drag, and move that into place. We'll
| | 00:58 | talk a little bit more about what the
Black and White Arrow tools do, in the
| | 01:03 | next chapter on Buttons.
| | 01:05 | So, I'm going to rotate this by putting
my cursor with this menu text selected
| | 01:09 | where I have this bonding box around it,
this blue bounding box. Put my cursor
| | 01:12 | around the corner, and get that curved
arrow, let me rotate it, make it look a
| | 01:16 | little saucy there, looks awesome.
There I put my cursor directly on the corner
| | 01:20 | to get this icon, and I'm going to
scale it down, holding the Shift key.
| | 01:25 | Actually I'm going to hold the Alt key
or the Option key on the Mac as well, so
| | 01:29 | this scales from the center. So, if I
let go off the Alt key or the Option key,
| | 01:33 | then it scales from that lower left
hand corner. If I hold the Alt or Option
| | 01:38 | key, it scales from the center and
Shift keeps it Constraint. If I let go off
| | 01:41 | Shift, then I could do all sorts of
weird stuff, which is a little too
| | 01:45 | dangerous for me. I
don't want that much freedom.
| | 01:47 | So, I'm going to hold Shift and Option,
or Alt and then move it into place.
| | 01:52 | That looks pretty good. Next, I think
I'm going to click this arrow and move it
| | 01:57 | out of the way, just a tad. And then
I could go back to my Selection tool,
| | 02:02 | click these buttons, and get
them where I would like them to be.
| | 02:06 | We'll talk in Chapter8 about how to
automatically align these, so that these
| | 02:10 | are all aligned up. But for now, we
can just eyeball it. We can object select
| | 02:13 | this, such as this button. You could
also use the arrow keys on your keyboard
| | 02:16 | to nudge these, just a little bit. For
example, if I use the right arrow key on
| | 02:21 | the keyboard, if I just hit this a few
times. It advances like one pixel over
| | 02:25 | to the right, every time I hit it.
| | 02:26 | So again, this still isn't perfect
but we know about these two different
| | 02:30 | selection tools. We have the ability
to go in and customize this menu even
| | 02:34 | more. Now if you know Photoshop, you
could also edit a menu by selecting it in
| | 02:39 | the Project panel, and then by hitting
this button, which is Edit Menu in Photoshop.
| | 02:44 | Alternatively, if you forget, you can
go to the Edit menu and select Edit Menu
| | 02:48 | in Photoshop as well. Or if you are a
super-mega pro user, you can use the
| | 02:52 | keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+M or
Command+Shift+M on the Mac with the menu
| | 02:57 | selected. So, before it opens up your
menu, it will probably give you this
| | 03:02 | Warning dialog box that says Pixel
aspect ratio correction, blah, blah, blah.
| | 03:06 | It's that it is just an info only;
it's not a warning or anything. So just go
| | 03:09 | ahead and click OK on it. And
then your menu pops up in Photoshop
| | 03:14 | automatically. Now what's kind of cool,
is that -- look at all this stuff that
| | 03:17 | it made for us. I mean we made this
menu from scratch in the last movie and
| | 03:21 | look at all these crazy layers and
doohickeys and bell vessels we got going on.
| | 03:24 | And none of this we had to do
from scratch, it was all made for us.
| | 03:27 | So, you could then go in, let's say I
could select the background layer, and
| | 03:31 | come down, maybe over to my
Adjustments panel. And I could click any of the
| | 03:35 | adjustments to add. Let's say Hue/
Saturation, so I click this little icon to
| | 03:39 | represent Hue/Saturation, and up it
comes. And we could adjust the whole hue of
| | 03:44 | the background by adjusting the Hue slider.
| | 03:46 | So we might want to get this exactly
where we want it, maybe we want this to
| | 03:51 | blend more with these little flowers,
so now we have more green and yellow,
| | 03:54 | making these look a little bit more
cohesive there. And we could probably just
| | 03:58 | tweak this a little bit more.
Maybe desaturate it a little bit.
| | 04:02 | Make whatever kind of changes we want.
We could update this text if we wanted
| | 04:05 | to, remember the styles on the text.
Anyone of a number of things we could do
| | 04:09 | to this menu. And I may hit Ctrl+S or
Command+S on the Mac to save it, and I
| | 04:14 | may go back to Encore and once I do,
look at that, voila! We edited our menu;
| | 04:19 | the changes we made in
Photoshop are reflected here in Encore.
| | 04:22 | So whether use the Direct Selection
tool to make subtle changes or to use
| | 04:26 | Photoshop to make big changes, all
that can be done quickly and easily in Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Menu Viewer vs. the Menu panel| 00:00 | There are two menu related panels and
using them can often be a little bit
| | 00:05 | confusing because you might see one and
they could see other and vice versa. So
| | 00:10 | how to use this, just as an example,
I'll go to the Library panel and I'm going
| | 00:12 | to open up the Entertainment Menu,
one of my favorite menus here. Ah!
| | 00:16 | Just beautiful, I love the colors.
| | 00:18 | Now, right now we're looking at
this menu in the Menu Viewer. If we had
| | 00:23 | multiple menus, let's say I double-
click the Element Menu here and edit, that's
| | 00:27 | my project as well. Then what I could
do is I could change, which menu I'm
| | 00:30 | looking at in my project from the
Menu dropdown. So, indeed it is the Menu
| | 00:35 | Viewer. But we also have grouped with
the Project panel, the Menus panel.
| | 00:40 | So, if I click this, then I see the
different menus in my project. Now if I
| | 00:46 | actually expand this, you could see
that I'm looking at a whole bunch of
| | 00:50 | information. Actually even more than
it is there, I could keep expanding this
| | 00:54 | more. That basically tells me where
off the bad. What the end action is, for
| | 00:58 | this menu overwrites for the menu,
the Aspect ratio of the menu and maybe a
| | 01:02 | description that we might have added.
| | 01:03 | I'm going to select the Entertainment
menu and collapses a little bit, so you
| | 01:08 | could see this. But when we select the
menu in the Menus panel, it tells us at
| | 01:13 | the glance at the bottom all the
different buttons. So as you could see here we
| | 01:17 | have Play, Scenes, Extras and Audio.
And here we have Play, Scenes, Extras and
| | 01:22 | Audio as well.
| | 01:23 | It also, the Menu panel, tells us at a
glance the button routing. We'll talk
| | 01:29 | about button routing a little bit
more in detail and then the part of this
| | 01:32 | training series, but essentially this
tells us in which order the buttons go
| | 01:36 | in. So, the first button is the Play
button. We see the number here is 1. That
| | 01:41 | tells us that's the first button
selected or highlighted when users get this menu.
| | 01:45 | When you click down with your remote
controller or next to go to the Next
| | 01:49 | button. Then it goes to Scenes and
then to Extras and then to Audio. And look
| | 01:54 | at all this extra information here, we
have he button Type. We have the menu
| | 01:57 | it's associated with. We have what it's
linked to. We have overwrites if there
| | 02:01 | are any. The highlights and whether
Sync button text, the name is on or whether
| | 02:06 | Set name from link is on.
| | 02:09 | So, don't get confused about the two
different types of Menu panels in Encore.
| | 02:14 | The Menu Viewer, which we use to view
menus, and also the Menus panel which we
| | 02:19 | can use to add a glance, check our
menus and the buttons and all sorts of
| | 02:24 | information associated with those.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating motion menus| 00:00 | Now we are going to look at how to
create Motion menus in a couple of different
| | 00:03 | ways actually. Basically what a Motion
menu is, is a regular menu with a video
| | 00:08 | playing in its background. First,
let's look at one of the Motion menus that
| | 00:11 | ships with Encore. In a general set,
in the Library panel, I'm going to go to
| | 00:16 | the Crib Menu HD. Remember, that icons
that are completely squared here in the
| | 00:21 | Library panel indicate that
-- are just regular old menu.
| | 00:24 | But icons that have this dog-eared
upper right-hand corner indicate a Motion
| | 00:29 | menu. So, I'll double-click to add this
to my project. Now, a little sicker way
| | 00:33 | can tell that this is a Motion menu is
that not only has the menu been created
| | 00:39 | and added in my project but also a
movie as well. And I had previously imported
| | 00:43 | nothing. So this movie had to come from
the adding of this menu to my project.
| | 00:48 | To preview Motion menus, you can right
click on the menu, select Preview from
| | 00:52 | here. This Preview window talks up
which we'll talk about more in detail later
| | 00:57 | on in this training series and so far,
we can't see really any big deal here.
| | 01:02 | Nothing is moving.
| | 01:03 | So what I'm going to do is come here
to this icon, lower left hand corner of
| | 01:06 | this window, and I'm going to click
Render, so that this menu will render. So
| | 01:14 | once this menu is done rendering. Then
we could see that there is actually a
| | 01:17 | lot of stuff going on here, there's
this cool 3D mobile, with these star light
| | 01:22 | patterns going around the room, it's
like this cosmic sci-fi bedroom, which
| | 01:26 | actually if you're a kid,
that would be pretty awesome.
| | 01:28 | Anyway, so I'm going to go ahead and
click Exit and Return to get back to the
| | 01:33 | main area of Encore. Next, what I'm
going to do is I'm going to show you how to
| | 01:36 | create Motion menus from Scratch. So,
I'm going to select both of these assets,
| | 01:41 | and click the Trashcan to get rid of
them. And I'm going to right-click on the
| | 01:44 | Project panel and select Import As Menu.
And in the PSDs folder of the Media
| | 01:49 | folder of the Exercise Files folder,
I'm going to select Groundswell Menu
| | 01:53 | Final.psd and click Open.
| | 01:55 | By the way, as you could see here,
when it says Enable Menu Files, menu files
| | 02:00 | can come in two varieties, PSD files
and .em. PSD is a standard Photoshop
| | 02:05 | document. .em is a Photoshop document
with a Motion menu. So, I'll click Open,
| | 02:11 | and again, this is just a regular old
PSD file. But what I want to do now is
| | 02:17 | import a movie to use as a background for this.
| | 02:19 | So, I'm just going to double-click to
Import as an asset. I'm going to go to
| | 02:23 | the Videos folder of the Media folder
of the Exercise Files folder, and I'm
| | 02:26 | going to import this file, which is
Surfing Motion Menu.mov. I'm going to click
| | 02:31 | Open. If you have problems opening this
file, you could just download the free
| | 02:36 | version of QuickTime from apple.com or
quicktime.com and get the new version
| | 02:40 | and you should be able to use this just fine.
| | 02:42 | So, now with this video here, what
I'm going to do is I'm going to drag and
| | 02:44 | drop this onto my project while
holding the Option key on the Mac or the Alt
| | 02:49 | key on the PC and let go. Now, it's
been replaced with that regular still image
| | 02:54 | from Photoshop is been replaced by a
video. If I select the video on the
| | 02:58 | Project panel, I could play it back.
| | 03:03 | And here's what it looks like as the
background of our Motion menu. Again, I'm
| | 03:06 | going to right click on the menu in the
Project panel, select Preview from here
| | 03:11 | and once here, I'm going to click this
button, which is Render Current Motion Menu.
| | 03:19 | Then our menu plays back with the
video as its background, pretty sweet.
| | 03:24 | I'm going to select Exit and Return here.
| | 03:27 | Assets are that all there is to
creating Motion menus. Motion menus can get a
| | 03:31 | little distracting, so be careful.
But if it's just used simply, just add a
| | 03:35 | little bit of motion in the background.
It can give an extra, added dimension,
| | 03:39 | a life to your menus that is
very engaging and exciting.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About submenus| 00:00 | If you have ever looked at the Library
panel and seen basically two versions of
| | 00:05 | every single menu, like the Blue Notes
menu has two versions, the regular menu
| | 00:09 | and then the submenu and if you have
looked that and said, "What the heck is
| | 00:12 | going on?" then this movie is for you.
| | 00:14 | Basically we are going to talk about,
what is a submenu and since I'm here in
| | 00:18 | the general set of Library panel, we
are going to go ahead and double-click the
| | 00:21 | Blue Notes menu to add it to my project
and the Blue Notes submenu to add that
| | 00:25 | to my project as well. Now, the regular
menu will look much more conventional.
| | 00:31 | The submenu however will look a
little unconventional with these big old
| | 00:35 | squares here. Essentially what this
is for is that it allows the user to
| | 00:40 | navigate to specific chapters or areas
of your timeline. So maybe your family
| | 00:45 | took European vacation and maybe you
have an hour and half worth of footage
| | 00:50 | that you have in your DVD. Now it's beyond this.
| | 00:54 | It might have been a great time for
you, but every relative in the world
| | 00:57 | doesn't want to sit through an hour or
hour and half of your vacation footage.
| | 01:01 | So, what we could do, is basically
break it up, so that each city that you went
| | 01:05 | to or each major event that you
attended or whatever, is a different chapter,
| | 01:09 | so then users could navigate to that
chapter, without having to sit through the
| | 01:13 | entire movie or you might have some
family members or friends that have lower
| | 01:17 | threshold for boredom and they
want to watch the whole thing.
| | 01:21 | So they might want to watch maybe the
first half and then take a break and come
| | 01:24 | back and watch the second half or
whatever they missed out on. So this chapter
| | 01:28 | selection allows them to basically
jump into a certain point on a DVD and not
| | 01:33 | have to watch the whole thing from
scratch. You could also have these
| | 01:38 | thumbnails, the videos that are
actually playing scenes from your video.
| | 01:42 | We will talk more about how to do that,
how to set that up in the chapter on
| | 01:47 | timeline and also more about that on
the chapter on linking and creating
| | 01:50 | navigation, but just be aware that some
menus allow users to jump into certain
| | 01:56 | points of your content, without having
to watch the entire thing. In many cases
| | 02:01 | submenus are an act of
mercy. Use them accordingly.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Button BasicsThe anatomy of a button| 00:00 | In the last chapter we looked at menu
stuff. In this chapter we are going to
| | 00:04 | dig a little bit deeper into buttons
and button theory. Particularly, in this
| | 00:10 | movie we are going to look at what
comprises a button. When I was first
| | 00:15 | learning Encore, then called Encore DVD,
it was a little bit confusing the way
| | 00:19 | buttons were, I assume it was just text
that you link to stuff, but buttons are
| | 00:23 | actually a set of components.
| | 00:26 | So we are going to look at a simple
example, and then a little bit more complex
| | 00:29 | example after that. Go to the general
set in the Library panel, open up the
| | 00:33 | Element menu. In the Element menu, we
have these simple buttons, if we right
| | 00:37 | click on this menu and select Preview
from here, we will see these buttons and
| | 00:42 | this little plus here, this is
referred to as the subpicture highlight.
| | 00:46 | We will talk more about that later in
this chapter. Basically it's a highlight
| | 00:49 | that goes over the buttons as they are
selected. So again, very simple menu,
| | 00:54 | not too much going on. I'm going to
click Exit here or Exit and Return, either
| | 00:58 | one. Now with this menu in the Project
panel selected, I'm going to go over to
| | 01:03 | the Layers panel and you would think
that with it selected here on the Project
| | 01:07 | panel, I would see it there in Layers
panel and for whatever reason, this isn't the case.
| | 01:10 | What we actually have to do is go into
the Menu Viewer and then click on one of
| | 01:14 | the buttons to see the layers of the
menu. That doesn't quite make too much
| | 01:19 | sense to me, but all right, we will
work with it. Now we have here the
| | 01:22 | different buttons, Volume 1, 2, 3 and 4,
which we also again here in the Menu
| | 01:26 | Viewer, Volume 1, 2, 3 and 4.
| | 01:28 | The Volume 1 button is currently
selected here, so let's go ahead and open up
| | 01:31 | the Volume 1 button. Now as I
mentioned in the last chapter, menus in Encore
| | 01:36 | are essentially just Photoshop files
and Buttons are basically a layer set or a
| | 01:43 | layer group in Photoshop and the
reason why it works like this is because
| | 01:47 | again, there are many layers or
component to a button, so you group them into a
| | 01:52 | folder and that is basically the button.
| | 01:54 | Now, here we have this =1,this is the
highlight. This is the little plus that
| | 01:59 | we saw over here to the left of the text,
and we were previewing this a little
| | 02:04 | bit earlier. We also have the text, the
Volume 1 text, this can be changed and
| | 02:09 | this really is not the button. When
you create links, you don't use the text,
| | 02:14 | you use the entire button and then
through that we have a decorative element,
| | 02:19 | this little horizontal bar in the
background makes it a little bit darker.
| | 02:22 | If I click this I icon, I could see
that before and then with it on. So here is
| | 02:26 | with that off and here is with it on.
Now, typically with the button, all you
| | 02:30 | usually have is just text and a
highlight. But you can play with this that's
| | 02:35 | one thing that makes buttons so
confusing is you open up some button sets and
| | 02:38 | they might just have two layers, maybe
text and a highlight, but some of them,
| | 02:42 | as we look at another menu,
have many layers to that.
| | 02:44 | And if you want to create a DVD
Easter Egg, in other words, secret features
| | 02:48 | that aren't really visible, maybe so
that there is private content and you want
| | 02:52 | to be able to give out special
instructions to somebody to get to that, nobody
| | 02:55 | else would be able to figure out, you
can all the stuff invisible. We will talk
| | 02:59 | more about, how to create DVD
Easter Eggs later on in this title.
| | 03:02 | For now let's go back to the
Library panel, this time let's open up the
| | 03:06 | Cocktail menu. Double-click to add
that to you project and after a couple of
| | 03:11 | seconds there, let's go ahead and
click on one of these buttons which are
| | 03:14 | actually these big old fat things or
the buttons. Now let's go back over to the
| | 03:17 | Layers panel. Right now, play all of the selected,
so let's go ahead and open up, Play All.
| | 03:21 | So you have a little bit more going
on here, we have the Play All text, so
| | 03:26 | there is without the Play All text and
with the Play All text right there. We
| | 03:30 | also have the highlight, now the
highlight in this case is a little bit
| | 03:33 | different. The highlight actually
goes around the thumbnail here, so
| | 03:39 | subpictures can come in all shapes and
varieties. We'll look a little bit more
| | 03:43 | closely at that later on in this chapter.
| | 03:46 | So then we have something called a Red
Layer, so if we turn this off, there is
| | 03:50 | just like a red tint that's part of the
button for some reason and then we also
| | 03:53 | have a Replacement Layer which is again,
we will talk about Replacement Layers
| | 03:56 | later, but that's part of this button
as well and then the button background.
| | 04:00 | So the actual button itself is based
on a composite of all these objects. If
| | 04:05 | you are used to Adobe Flash for
example, which you have also used to make
| | 04:09 | buttons and usually use that up
occasion to make web outs. You have to actually
| | 04:13 | draw an area that says, this is the
button, but thanks to DVD, you don't have
| | 04:17 | to do that. Basically, if you just say
this is a button, it's going to select
| | 04:21 | your subpicture highlight and if you
click OK with this subpicture highlight
| | 04:25 | selected, then it works.
| | 04:27 | You don't actually have to define a
button area. So as you can see there is not
| | 04:31 | a standard for buttons in Encore, you
got to have buttons, but they look very
| | 04:35 | different. A lot of times, when you
see a lot of these layers, they are just
| | 04:38 | decorative elements; they don't
actually do anything for the button itself.
| | 04:41 | Really what you need for a button is
the button group with this icon here,
| | 04:46 | which we will talk more about in the
chapter, when we get into creating buttons
| | 04:50 | and select that from scratch in
Photoshop. But really the most important
| | 04:54 | component that you need is the folder
with this icon that's what tells you that
| | 04:59 | this is a button set and that really
is the button. All of these different
| | 05:03 | layers and different components they
help, but the button is really a set
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the black and white arrows with buttons| 00:00 | For this we have basically just added
the Radiant Menu Wide menu to my project
| | 00:05 | from the general set of the Library
panel. And what we want to talk about here
| | 00:08 | is difference between these two arrow
tools, this one being the Selection tool,
| | 00:12 | this one being the Direct Select tool.
Many Adobe programs have this same black/
| | 00:18 | white arrow tool thing going for it.
Photoshop, Illustrator and others.
| | 00:22 | Now the subject at hand is buttons, so
I'm going to show you how to use these
| | 00:25 | two different arrows on buttons in
just a moment, but it's better if you
| | 00:29 | understand the overriding concept of
what these arrows do. Generally, the
| | 00:34 | black arrow tool or the Selection
tool. This tool is for selecting entire
| | 00:39 | objects. The white arrow or the Direct
Select tool is for selecting pieces of objects.
| | 00:46 | So if I select the black arrow tool
and click on one of these buttons for
| | 00:49 | example, remember from the last movie
that buttons are actually a series of
| | 00:53 | components, but with this black arrow
tool I move and the entire button moves.
| | 00:57 | But what if I want to move the Chapter
1 text over to the left a little bit?
| | 01:02 | Well that's the point of the Direct
Select tool. I could select this and then
| | 01:06 | select components of the button and
then rotate them or move them as I please.
| | 01:13 | Here I'll select the piece behind it
and move that. So keep this in mind,
| | 01:19 | generally when you are working in Encore,
if you need to get down a little bit
| | 01:22 | deeper and work with the piece of an
object, see if the Direct Select tool has
| | 01:26 | what you need. Essentially again the
black arrow tool's for selecting whole
| | 01:30 | objects or groups of objects and then
the Direct Select tool, the white one, is
| | 01:35 | for selecting smaller pieces of the whole.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Viewing and adjusting button routing| 00:00 | To start this movie, I'm again going to
be using the Radiant Menu here in the
| | 00:05 | Library panel, the general set. Let
me expand this to get this a little bit
| | 00:09 | bigger here or what we are going to be
looking at in this movie is button routing,
| | 00:13 | essentially the order in which
buttons are navigated when users are
| | 00:17 | using their remote control.
| | 00:18 | So say for example, if this menu is
selected and they click on the Chapter 1
| | 00:23 | button, let me get back to the
Selection tool. Click on the Chapter 1 button.
| | 00:27 | When they hit the right arrow on their
remotes, you probably want them to go
| | 00:31 | over to Chapter 4. But maybe you don't
like that. Maybe you want this to be the
| | 00:35 | Chapter 2 button. Maybe instead of
going 1, 2, 3 from top to bottom and then
| | 00:40 | going over a column and then going 1, 2,
3 that way, maybe you want to go left
| | 00:45 | to right, then down arrow and then left
to right, then down arrow, then left to right.
| | 00:49 | It's all up to you. And at the very
least you want to be able to control the
| | 00:52 | routing of the buttons. Now to see the
routing of the buttons, come down here
| | 00:56 | to the Menu Viewer and click this
little icon, which is the Show Button Routing
| | 01:01 | button. Click that and you could see
the button routing for all buttons.
| | 01:04 | And we could see that this
has already been done for us.
| | 01:06 | We have button 1, button 2 and the
number in the center is the number of the
| | 01:11 | button, 3, 4, 5, 6. So basically the
button routing matches the number of the
| | 01:17 | button. Just remember that the text
that's actually on the button has no
| | 01:21 | bearing on the button routing. Encore does
not look at the name of the button for anything.
| | 01:25 | So if you want to manually go 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, you'll have to actually set it
| | 01:31 | to be so. Now the other numbers, the
other four numbers around this center
| | 01:34 | number basically say what happens
when the user uses one of the four
| | 01:38 | navigational arrows on the remote
control to get around to buttons. So when
| | 01:43 | the user, if the button 3 is selected
for example, if they push up, they will
| | 01:48 | select Chapter 2, if they push down,
they will wrap around and select button 1
| | 01:53 | again, and if they go left or right,
they will select the Chapter 6 button.
| | 01:58 | Now what if you don't like that. What
if you wanted users to be able to hit the
| | 02:01 | right arrow with this selected and
then to go to Chapter 4, instead of
| | 02:05 | Chapter 6. Now as it stands that makes
perfect sense to me. But what if that's
| | 02:09 | not the way you want it to be. The
first thing you need to do is turn off a
| | 02:12 | feature called Automatically Route Buttons.
By default, this is etched in stone
| | 02:17 | and when you click on this to try to move it,
you get that No icon. So what we have
| | 02:21 | to do is turn off Button Routing and
this is done in the Properties panel.
| | 02:24 | But if you look in the Properties
panel, there is no such option.
| | 02:27 | This is because Automatic Button routing is
a feature of the entire menu, not just of
| | 02:33 | one particular button. Encore assumes,
and rightly so in opinion, that if you are
| | 02:38 | going to automatically set the buttons,
you want to do this for an entire menu,
| | 02:42 | not just for one button. So what we
need to do is click on the menu background
| | 02:46 | or select it in the Project panel to
select it here in the Properties panel.
| | 02:50 | And then now we see the option
Automatically Route Buttons. So once we
| | 02:53 | uncheck this, then we can go in and
play with the button routing. So let's do that.
| | 02:58 | I'm going to click on this
Chapter 1 button. Now what if I wanted this
| | 03:03 | button to be Button number 6 for
whatever reason. I change that by going to the
| | 03:08 | Number dropdown in the Properties
panel with the button selected, change this
| | 03:12 | number to 4 or 5 or 6 or whatever.
| | 03:15 | Now when users go to this menu, it is
the Chapter 4 button that will be the first
| | 03:19 | one highlighted, not the Chapter 1
button. Of course, that's not really the way
| | 03:23 | we want it. So I'm going to hit Ctrl+Z
or Command+Z on the Mac to undo that.
| | 03:27 | Now, right now again as users are on
the first button, Chapter 1 button,
| | 03:33 | and they click the right arrow, they are
going to be going across a street to the
| | 03:36 | Chapter 4 button.
| | 03:37 | If you want to change that click and
drag the right side that number 4, click
| | 03:42 | and drag that to wherever you want it to go.
If you want it to be Chapter 2,
| | 03:45 | click and drag to Chapter 2, release
the mouse and now when users hit the right
| | 03:50 | arrow with Chapter 1 selected, they
will go to the Chapter 2 button. And so in
| | 03:54 | this way, you can grab the ends of
all of these buttons so that you can
| | 03:58 | completely customize your user's experience.
| | 04:01 | It's also a good idea generally,
before exporting you final DVD, just to do a
| | 04:06 | quick check of the button routing,
especially if it's a menu you made yourself,
| | 04:10 | just to make sure the buttons are
number one in the right order and also
| | 04:14 | so that the arrows keys on the user's
remote works exactly like users would
| | 04:18 | expect them to work.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using buttons with video preview| 00:00 | For this tutorial I'm going to be
using the Video Buttons.ncor project. You
| | 00:04 | could find that in the Chapter 05
folder in the Exercise Files. Basically what
| | 00:08 | we are going to looking at here is
creating animated video buttons. Oftentimes
| | 00:13 | specific submenus, you see these
little blank placeholders here and this is
| | 00:18 | where when you link to video, a
little thumbnail of the video will go here.
| | 00:23 | But if you want to add some spice to
your menu you could actually animate the
| | 00:27 | video or playback the video in this
little area while users are looking at your
| | 00:31 | menu. So first thing I'm
going to do is create the link.
| | 00:34 | Now quickly to do this and this is
actually a little bit safer to do with
| | 00:37 | videos buttons. I can grab a Timeline
and just drag and drop right into the
| | 00:43 | video button and then I get a little preview
of my movie here in this little preview area.
| | 00:49 | Now if you we were to preview this
menu now as is, this is what we would see.
| | 00:53 | Now this isn't particularly a very
descriptive frame of what this video
| | 00:56 | contains, it's kind of hard to tell
what's going on. So if we could actually
| | 01:00 | see the video of this here, it would
make it much easier to figure out what
| | 01:04 | this link actually linked to.
| | 01:06 | However, by default the animation of
buttons is turned off in Encore and like
| | 01:11 | many things we adjust that in the
Properties panel. However if I select this
| | 01:15 | button then go over to the Properties
panel. We won't see any animation options
| | 01:20 | whatsoever. However, just like button
routing that we looked that in the last
| | 01:23 | segment, button routing and animated
video thumbnail previews, they are both
| | 01:28 | the function of menus. So click the
background menu then we see this option
| | 01:33 | Animate Buttons under the Motion tab.
| | 01:36 | Again Properties panel with the menu
selected, select the Motion tab and then
| | 01:41 | select Animate Buttons and now when
we right-click on the menu and select
| | 01:45 | Preview from here, well nothing happens.
| | 01:48 | Now the reason why nothing is
happening because we have to actually render
| | 01:52 | these video thumbnails. We do that
by clicking this button in the lower
| | 01:56 | left-hand corner of the Project
Preview window. So I'm going to go ahead and
| | 02:00 | click that to see that what we have. So
once that's done rendering then we can
| | 02:07 | see a little preview of our movie.
| | 02:10 | Now you can imagine if you had like
five or six of these buttons going on and
| | 02:16 | they are all showing you those scenes,
they are all playing back the video, now
| | 02:19 | it can be a little noisy and distractive.
I can imagine doing now with a Motion menu.
| | 02:25 | So you want to be tactful and tasteful
and not over do it with these but I just
| | 02:29 | have one button here, I have a static
menu, at the background nothing else is
| | 02:32 | moving and so in this case it looks pretty good.
| | 02:36 | And thus end the tutorial portion of
this movie, but for those of you that are
| | 02:40 | dying with curiosity to see what this
great moment in sound effects is, then I
| | 02:45 | give you this, enjoy. You are welcome.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| What is a subpicture?| 00:00 | For this movie I'm going to be using
the Subpictures project that you'll find
| | 00:03 | in the Chapter 05 folder of Exercise
Files. I'll talk briefly a little bit
| | 00:06 | about what a subpicture is. I just
wanted a be-all, end-all movie that
| | 00:10 | basically described what a subpicture is.
| | 00:13 | It's actually better if I just
demonstrate this to you. So I'm going to select
| | 00:15 | this Blue Notes Menu in this project,
I'm going to right-click on it and select
| | 00:19 | Preview from Here and basically these
little music notes are the subpicture
| | 00:24 | highlights or just subpictures for sure.
| | 00:27 | As you can see there are cute little
music notes here. Essentially what these
| | 00:29 | subpictures do is indicate which button
is currently selected. Now essentially
| | 00:34 | these are created from shapes with the
button. Basically, they are silhouettes.
| | 00:40 | You can have subpictures that are
photos or have other textures in them or
| | 00:44 | different colors. They
are just one single shape.
| | 00:47 | Now if you want a subpicture that's
a little bit more intense then just a
| | 00:51 | single silhouette of a shape, I'll
show you how little bit later in this
| | 00:55 | training series, how to kind of hack
the system to create the illusion of image
| | 01:00 | subpictures or video subpictures.
| | 01:02 | Now I'm going to go, click on that Exit
here or Exit and return either one. I'm
| | 01:07 | going to right-click on the
Cocktail Menu. We looked at this little bit
| | 01:09 | earlier. I'm going to select Preview
from Here. I just want to point this out
| | 01:13 | to show you that some pictures don't
necessarily have to be little icons next
| | 01:18 | to the text. They can be like these
boxes here, they could be anything, they
| | 01:22 | could be anywhere, they could be any
color, they could be any shape, any size.
| | 01:25 | Also subpictures can have different
states. So there can be a normal states, so
| | 01:30 | what it looks like when the button is
not selected and also a selected state
| | 01:34 | and then also an activated state. So
when the user clicks on it, they can turn
| | 01:38 | like another color for every
second until the menu item loads up.
| | 01:42 | So what I'm going to do is just go
ahead and click and exit out of here one
| | 01:45 | more time, in the bottom of end corner
either one of these exit buttons will
| | 01:48 | do. Now every single button, of every
single menu that shifts with Encore also
| | 01:52 | have the subpicture highlight. You
could also create your own subpicture
| | 01:55 | highlight by going to the Shapes Area
and you can add one of these shapes to a
| | 01:59 | project and then with it selected, go
to the Object menu and select Create Subpicture.
| | 02:06 | Later on in this training series,
I'll show you how to create these from
| | 02:08 | scratch in Photoshop also. In the next
couple of movies around, look a little
| | 02:12 | bit deeper about some
other features of subpictures.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About subpicture states| 00:00 | We are now going to look at subpicture
states. Before I even explain what this
| | 00:04 | is, I'm going to go to the Corporate
set in the Library panel and double-click
| | 00:08 | the Blue Grid Menu to open that up and
as we open up our Menu Viewer here, let
| | 00:13 | me just resize my panels so
we can see this little better.
| | 00:16 | We have three little buttons down here
and these indicate the states of these
| | 00:20 | subpicture highlight. There are three
different states: the Normal subpicture
| | 00:23 | highlight which basically shows what
the button looks like when it's not
| | 00:27 | selected and then the Selected states
which shows what it looks like when it
| | 00:31 | selected and then an Activated state
once the user clicks on it you could
| | 00:35 | actually have it go to a different color.
| | 00:38 | So if we click on these buttons, like
right now this will show us what the
| | 00:41 | buttons look like normally, if we
click this button the middle one, it will
| | 00:44 | show us what these buttons look like
when they are selected. So you could see
| | 00:46 | all these subpicture highlights on the
right-hand side, just going to show up a
| | 00:50 | little bit there and then
finally we have the activated.
| | 00:53 | Usually the activated state is pretty
much the same thing as the selected state
| | 00:58 | because when you click the button to
select an option, let's say, for example,
| | 01:01 | play movie here if you click on play
movie to select play movie, you only have
| | 01:05 | a split second before the movie
actually starts playing. So really there is not
| | 01:08 | much of a point in changing
the color of the highlight.
| | 01:11 | Now what this all boils to is
basically that there is a different colors you
| | 01:15 | could have for each subpicture. So you
can actually change the subpicture, you
| | 01:19 | are just changing the state of the
subpicture by giving it different colors at
| | 01:22 | different times. Typically in the case
of a normal subpicture state like this,
| | 01:27 | you have just a completely
transparent subpicture highlight.
| | 01:30 | So the next thing we want to look at
is how to change those colors, so you
| | 01:35 | could change the different states of
your subpictures. Now we are going to get
| | 01:37 | to that next, but once you've been
previewing these subpictures don't forget
| | 01:42 | that once you've clicked on one of these buttons,
you got to click it again to release it.
| | 01:46 | If I had it, for example, set on the
selected state, then I'm going to get a
| | 01:50 | false sense of what my menu looks like.
So what I need to do is click that one
| | 01:54 | more time again so that I'm looking at
my menu in its default status. Now we
| | 01:59 | can talk about subpicture colors.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Changing subpicture colors| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to look at
one of the things that I consider to be
| | 00:03 | one of the most sophisticated kind of
challenging complex parts of Encore.
| | 00:08 | Specifically, we are going to be
looking at changing the color of subpicture
| | 00:11 | highlights. Now, on the surface that
sounds like probably the easiest thing you
| | 00:14 | could possibly do but it's actually
very complex. And before we get into this
| | 00:18 | just know that this is not Encore's
fault, this is the fault of the DVD spec.
| | 00:22 | So anyways what I have done is I have
opened up the Blue Grid Menu from the
| | 00:26 | Corporate, Set from the Library panel,
what we have looked at in the last movie
| | 00:29 | I'm going to use this as our example.
The way we changed the color for
| | 00:33 | subpicture highlight is by
going to change the menu color set.
| | 00:37 | Before I do that I'm going to open up
the Layers panel, which actually plays a
| | 00:40 | crucial role in the colors of
subpicture highlights. Let's actually move this
| | 00:45 | out of the way, we know the
subpicture highlights on the right side of this
| | 00:47 | text. I'm going to open up these
folders here, so we can see the text which
| | 00:53 | just has little letter T next to it,
and also this which is the subpicture
| | 00:57 | highlight this =1 that you'll see, if
you follow subpicture highlights for each
| | 01:02 | of these buttons, is really important
here and we are going to come back to
| | 01:06 | that in just a second.
| | 01:06 | So let's go up to the Menu at the top
of the interface and select Edit Menu
| | 01:12 | Color Set. This is where we are
going to change the color for subpicture
| | 01:15 | highlights. Now here is the confusing
part, each subpicture goes on one of
| | 01:21 | three different color tracks. It goes
on Normal Group 1, 2, or 3 and then it
| | 01:28 | goes to one of the two highlight groups.
This highlight group is determined by
| | 01:33 | the Properties panel. So in this case
the default is Highlight Group 1 and this
| | 01:39 | =1 let's say for the play movie button
for example, this =1 means that the play
| | 01:43 | movie button subpicture
highlight follows track one.
| | 01:48 | So whatever the Normal Group has for
color 1 that's what it's going to be in
| | 01:52 | its normal state. In this case it's
black, but the Opacity is 0% meaning that
| | 01:56 | it's completely transparent. So that's
why we can't see anything when it's not
| | 02:00 | selected and in its Selected State
it's blue and in its Activated state it's
| | 02:04 | blue. Now if this number was =2, it
would show up in the normal state still as
| | 02:11 | a completely transparent, you know the
color is grey here it's still completely
| | 02:15 | transparent. When it's selected, it
would be yellow and it was activated, it
| | 02:19 | would be the salmon color.
| | 02:20 | Now the way we get access to all this,
you notice all these dropdowns are
| | 02:23 | grayed out, the way we can change
that is by changing the Color Set from
| | 02:26 | Automatic which basically gets the
colors from the menu and it attempts to kind
| | 02:30 | of guess what you would want those
subpicture highlights to be or we can change
| | 02:35 | this to Menu Default and
customize them ourselves.
| | 02:39 | So even now just changing it from
Automatic to Menu Default added some colors
| | 02:43 | here. By default these were blue and
now they are orange and red. So if I move
| | 02:49 | this out of the way and select Preview
here, I can actually preview the states
| | 02:53 | just like we looked at in the last
movie, so I can see the Normal Subpicture
| | 02:56 | Highlight, which is still completely
transparent. I can see the Selected
| | 03:01 | Highlight, so this is what looks like
when the button is selected, and then
| | 03:03 | once it's pressed it will flash this red color.
| | 03:07 | The reason why it looks darker here
than it does here is because this little
| | 03:11 | dropdown indicates the transparency.
So if we click this dropdown and take it
| | 03:15 | to 100% it will be much more vibrant.
I'm going to click OK here and I'm going
| | 03:20 | to rearrange my panel so I could see
more of the Properties panel here. Now,
| | 03:23 | you notice that once I adjusted the
Menu Color Set from Automatic to Menu
| | 03:30 | Default, I now have the option to
change my Highlight from Group 1 to Group 2.
| | 03:35 | So again if I go back to the Menu
Color Set and I were to select Highlight
| | 03:39 | Group 2, the subpicture
highlights would then use these colors.
| | 03:43 | If you want to just use the same colors
for both selected and activated state,
| | 03:47 | you actually don't have to copy and
paste these colors or whatever, you can
| | 03:50 | just click Use Selected Colors for
Activated Colors. You don't have to worry
| | 03:53 | about changing them. But of course we
did want to change them, if you uncheck
| | 03:56 | this and click this little swatch to
get a Color Picker and pick a different color.
| | 04:01 | I know it's a little confusing, it's
a little bit complex for all the other
| | 04:04 | stuff that you normally see on Encore,
but just so you know, if that's what you
| | 04:07 | wanted to do, if you want to change
your Subpicture Highlights and customize
| | 04:10 | them to get more color in your
menus this is one way to do it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating subpictures from text| 00:00 | This movie is just going to be a little
quick trick to create subpictures from
| | 00:04 | text automatically. So let's say if
you are just trying to create something
| | 00:08 | very quickly and you don't have to
worry about going back to Photoshop making a
| | 00:11 | subpicture, this could be the trick for you.
| | 00:14 | So I'm going to double-click to create
a blank menu. I'm here in the Library
| | 00:17 | panel on the General set. Double-click
the regular Blank Menu, probably not the
| | 00:20 | HD or WIDE one for right now, and I'm
going to click on the Button icon so
| | 00:24 | I can see just buttons. I'm going to
scroll down here to the Pimento Button.
| | 00:29 | I'm going to double-click to add a
few of these to my menu. If you just
| | 00:33 | double-click and you keep double-
clicking it will keep adding them in a nice
| | 00:36 | little row like that which is pretty
convenient and I'm actually going to
| | 00:40 | zoom-in, let's see it at 150% okay,
that's good. And then what I'm going to do
| | 00:45 | is come down here to scrollbars and
move this over, so I could see this text a
| | 00:47 | little bit better.
| | 00:49 | Now if we click this selected button
there is a subpicture for this. It's kind
| | 00:53 | of small, this little asterisk, and
it's kind of weak. But what we can do also
| | 00:57 | is just automatically convert this text,
first chapter or whatever the text is
| | 01:02 | to a subpicture highlight. So if I
click this just to get rid of that
| | 01:05 | subpicture highlight, I can come over
here to the Properties panel with the
| | 01:10 | button selected, make sure it says
Button here and then click Create Text Subpicture.
| | 01:15 | What that does and actually you'll
see if I click on this Show Selected
| | 01:19 | Subpicture Highlight button, what
that does is it creates a text shape
| | 01:24 | subpicture highlight. That makes it
much more obvious that this button is
| | 01:28 | selected and also if go in and I select
the Type Tool and click in this button
| | 01:32 | and change this text. Let's click and
drag to highlight this and may be I might
| | 01:37 | change this to play movie. So I click
that button and now as you can see the
| | 01:43 | subpicture highlight is updated as well.
| | 01:46 | So it's a great, little trick for
creating subpicture highlights on the fly or
| | 01:49 | if you want to make it more obvious
that the user has selected a certain button
| | 01:53 | and that's all it is. Select the
button click Create Text Subpicture.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Timeline BasicsWhat is a timeline?| 00:00 | In this particular movie we are going
to looking at what is a timeline.
| | 00:03 | That way the rest of chapter makes sense to
you. I know I've kind of hit on this a
| | 00:06 | little bit before but we are going to
talk a little bit more in depth about it
| | 00:09 | in this movie.
| | 00:10 | First of all let's go ahead and create
a timeline. I'm going to double-click in
| | 00:13 | the Project panel to import. I'm going
to go to the Videos folder in the Media
| | 00:17 | folder of the Exercise Files and I'm
going to select ninja spinning face.
| | 00:20 | One of those great B movie clips we have
been using, and I'm going to select it.
| | 00:25 | I can make a timeline by going to this
icon down at the bottom and selecting
| | 00:29 | Timeline; that's the way we have been
doing it so far. My preferred way of
| | 00:33 | doing this is actually to select it in
Project panel and then use the keyboard
| | 00:36 | shortcut Command+T on the Mac or Ctrl+T
on the PC and now this video is in the timeline.
| | 00:43 | Essentially again, we have to put
videos into a timeline if we want to link to
| | 00:48 | them via a menu. That's because
movies can do all sorts of things
| | 00:52 | as a generic asset; you can use it as
the background for a motion menu. Again
| | 00:56 | you can link to it from a button
using a timeline. It can have multiple
| | 00:59 | purposes. Video that's contained in a
timeline again can be linked to from a
| | 01:04 | button. It also can be adjusted and edited.
| | 01:06 | Timelines, as you can see by this
little icon here, look very similar to the
| | 01:10 | sequences in Premiere Pro or even the
compositions in After Effects. We have a
| | 01:14 | timeline here with a current time
indicator. That's this marker here often
| | 01:18 | called the playhead. It has a yellow head
and a vertical red line, indicates where
| | 01:22 | you are in time.
| | 01:23 | In the left-hand side where it says
Timeline, this tells you where you are in
| | 01:27 | time with your current time indicator.
Right now we are looking at the frame
| | 01:30 | that is 1 second and 20 frames in.
Again that's read hours and then after the
| | 01:36 | semicolon, minutes and after a
semicolon, seconds and then finally frames.
| | 01:41 | Alternatively, you can click and
scrub this, click and hold down the mouse
| | 01:45 | button while scrubbing left and right
to move the movie around. Awesome ninjas.
| | 01:50 | And you could also just click to jump
your current time indicator to a certain
| | 01:54 | point in time and your movie also.
| | 01:57 | The timeline is not only a container
for movies though; it's a place where you
| | 02:01 | can edit, you can move around, you can
combine different movies into the same
| | 02:05 | timeline, you can add different audio
tracks, subtitles and more. So let's
| | 02:10 | continue on with the rest of this chapter
looking a little bit more in depth at timelines.
| | 02:14 | So in the next movie we are going to
look at this monitor used for viewing timelines.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Monitor| 00:00 | If you'd like to follow along with me
in this movie, I'm going to be using the
| | 00:02 | Timelines 01 project you will find in
the Chapter 06 folder. And what we are
| | 00:06 | going to look at here is the Monitor
panel. The Monitor panels what we use to
| | 00:10 | view timelines. First of, a couple of basic
rules you need to understand about the Monitor.
| | 00:16 | Number one the monitor is not the Menu
Viewer. This has the potential to drive
| | 00:21 | you absolutely crazy. If I add a menu
here, then the menus goes away and you
| | 00:27 | are all with your timeline and you
might be like, hey! What's going on? And
| | 00:30 | really what's going on is you are
looking at the Menu Viewer not the monitor,
| | 00:34 | which is used to view
timelines, that's rule number one.
| | 00:37 | Rule number two is that if you have
your interface collapsed too much, you
| | 00:42 | might have a very clean looking Monitor
panel but you might not be able to see
| | 00:46 | all the buttons here. So if I expand
this, even though this looks already like
| | 00:50 | it's complete, you'll see there are
many more buttons that we couldn't see
| | 00:53 | because of our interface limitations.
| | 00:56 | The third thing: it's kind of number one.
There is some features that are only
| | 01:00 | available in the Monitor panel and not
in any other panel. So if we are in the
| | 01:04 | Menu Viewer, this is what we would
find Button Routing. It's also where we
| | 01:08 | would find Guide and other features
that we don't see here in the Monitor.
| | 01:11 | Likewise here in the Monitor, we have
subtitle navigation controls here and
| | 01:16 | also frame by frame controls that
we don't see in the Menu Viewer.
| | 01:19 | So bottom line Menu Viewer for menus,
Monitor for timelines. Also one other
| | 01:25 | thing about the Monitor panel you
should be aware of. I don't know if this is a
| | 01:28 | bug or if this is just not designed
the way that I would like it, but usually
| | 01:32 | in most Adobe tools there is a Hand
Tool or you can hold the Spacebar down to
| | 01:36 | get the Hand Tool and you can move
something around where you want it. But in
| | 01:39 | Encore if you have a weird resize
issue, you can't move the menu over.
| | 01:45 | Let's say we go to this dropdown which
is basically our magnification dropdown.
| | 01:48 | Right now it's set to Fit, so then if
we resize our interface then the entire
| | 01:53 | content that we are looking at resizes
as well. Let me put that back to Normal
| | 01:56 | here. If I change this back to at 100%
or even like 200% where I'm zoomed in
| | 02:01 | really close I don't have the Hand
Tool to move this where I want. I have to
| | 02:06 | resort to the scrollbar, which is
really just not the coolest way to move
| | 02:09 | around the document, let's be honest.
| | 02:11 | So basically this is missing, the Hand
Tools you got to use the scrollbars if
| | 02:15 | you want to move around and zoom in.
You can also zoom in to something like 25%
| | 02:19 | zoom back out really far. For DVD
project you don't need to zoom out this far
| | 02:23 | but for HD project for Blu-ray stuff
this is got to come in real handy because
| | 02:28 | they are big, big projects.
| | 02:30 | Just keep that in the back of your
mind while you are working. Of course we
| | 02:32 | have already talked about the Safe
Areas they are here in the Monitor just like
| | 02:35 | they are in the Menu Viewer. I'm also
get to take magnification back to Fit.
| | 02:39 | That's usually that I like to keep it
on to make sure I see all of my menu.
| | 02:43 | You could also use these navigation
controls to Play and Pause the video.
| | 02:46 | (Music plays.)
| | 02:49 | You could also use these arrows to advance
one step forward. Basically advance is
| | 02:53 | one frame at a time or one frame
backwards and there is another time control
| | 02:57 | area here just like the timeline area
here we've previously looked at. You can
| | 03:01 | go over here and click and drag left
or right to scrub your footage, pretty
| | 03:05 | much again the exact same thing as what
we see over here in the left-hand side
| | 03:08 | of the Timeline Viewer. Except
that this one is a little bit bigger.
| | 03:10 | We will talk more about these subtitle
controls when we get to the section on
| | 03:14 | subtitles a little bit later on in the training,
but for now, that's how you use the Monitor.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating chapter markers| 00:00 | Now we are going to look at creating
chapter markers, we are going to be using
| | 00:04 | again the Timelines 01 project from the
Chapter 06 folder of the Exercise Files.
| | 00:07 | Now back in Chapter 04, when we
were looking at menus we talked about
| | 00:11 | submenus and submenus are basically a
place we can go to jump to different
| | 00:15 | places in a video. And basically chapter
markers are those points; they say where to jump to.
| | 00:21 | So as I move my current time indicator,
I might want to get to a point that
| | 00:25 | viewers might want to jump to. So
I'll go to my point of my current time
| | 00:28 | indicator and then click this button
in the Timeline Viewer that says Add
| | 00:31 | Chapter, click that and we've just
added a chapter to our video. We will move
| | 00:35 | in time, after he spins a couple of
times and then there is the front spin.
| | 00:40 | That is a cooler spin. So we want to
add a chapter marker there and I'm going
| | 00:44 | to move around some more. Now we see
his face, oh! That's definitely a chapter
| | 00:49 | marker right there.
| | 00:50 | Now what I'm going to do is I'm going
to add a chapter marker, but I'm going to
| | 00:53 | add it in a different way. This time
I'm going to use a keyboard shortcut. I'm
| | 00:57 | actually going to use the asterisk
key on the numeric keypad to add that
| | 01:01 | chapter marker. So hit that and there
it goes, and obviously we had to add one
| | 01:07 | at the end, another asterisk and there
we have it. Also be aware that these are
| | 01:12 | numbered, which is very helpful as well
for organizational purposes. We'll look
| | 01:15 | at that a little bit more later.
| | 01:17 | Now, you might have noticed that the
first chapter marker we added was actually
| | 01:20 | the second one and this is number
two and that's because Encore creates a
| | 01:24 | chapter marker at the very first frame
automatically for you. Now if you are
| | 01:28 | not happy with the placement of the
chapter marker, you can just click on it
| | 01:31 | and drag it to where you like it and
you notice that while you are dragging you
| | 01:34 | get an update in the Monitor
of where the new marker will be.
| | 01:37 | So if I set it right here, for example,
and I let go, as soon as I let go the
| | 01:42 | view goes back to where the current
time indicator is. Next we are going to
| | 01:45 | look at creating poster frames,
which is closely related to these chapter markers.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting poster frames| 00:00 | As promised we are now going to look
at poster frames. I'm going to be using
| | 00:03 | this Timelines 02 project, you can find
in the Chapter 06 folder of Exercise Files.
| | 00:08 | Poster frames are essentially frames
that represent chapter markers and the
| | 00:13 | reason why poster frames are
important is because sometimes frames that are
| | 00:17 | exactly where the chapter marker is
don't look quite right. So say for example,
| | 00:21 | we have frame 0 here; the very first
frame there's a chapter marker already
| | 00:25 | made for you and at the very first
frame there it doesn't really represent any
| | 00:30 | detail. It tells us
going on just a blank screen.
| | 00:33 | So what we want to do is create a new
poster frame for it. We still want the
| | 00:36 | link to be able to take users to the
first frame, but we want to be able to
| | 00:41 | give users a different
view of that first section.
| | 00:45 | So what we can do is come down here
to the Timeline Viewer and click on the
| | 00:49 | Chapter Marker that we've created
actually the first one we didn't create, but
| | 00:52 | click on this one and hold down the
Ctrl+Alt key on the PC or the Command and
| | 00:58 | the Option key on the Mac and drag
one of these chapter markers and it will
| | 01:03 | create another chapter marker looking
thing, but a square and you can see as
| | 01:07 | I'm moving this it's
changing what we are viewing here.
| | 01:12 | Now again the benefit of this is
that viewers can see a little bit better
| | 01:16 | what's going on in the scene, but they
will still -- when they click on this
| | 01:20 | button they will still be taken to the
first frame of the movie. Now if you are
| | 01:25 | not a keyboard shortcut person, let's
say we want to change this for Chapter
| | 01:28 | 02, you need to make sure and select
the Chapter Marker first, this is very
| | 01:32 | important because you can actually put
the poster frame anywhere you want to.
| | 01:36 | So we can put the poster frame for the
first chapter way in the middle of the
| | 01:41 | timeline if we want to, you can
create anywhere. So before you create a new
| | 01:45 | poster frame, you are going to
select the Timeline Marker that it will be
| | 01:48 | associated with. So I'm going to
select Chapter 02 and then I'm going to the
| | 01:52 | Timeline menu and then I'm going to
select Set Poster Frame. So again that's
| | 01:56 | another way to do it.
| | 01:57 | The third way to do this is to select
the Chapter Marker again and instead of
| | 02:01 | just hitting the asterisk key, which
will create a new chapter marker, hold
| | 02:05 | Shift and the asterisk key
to create a new poster frame.
| | 02:08 | So either or three different ways to
create a poster frame, so that way you
| | 02:12 | have a frame that better
represents a particular scene.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating chapter points automatically| 00:00 | This movie is just going to be a
quick tip for adding chapter points
| | 00:03 | automatically. The segment of video
that we have been working with is about 8
| | 00:06 | seconds long. Actually let's go ahead
and check in the Project panel. Yeah, 8
| | 00:09 | seconds and 4 frames long and most of
the video you will be working with in
| | 00:13 | Encore will probably be longer than 8
seconds. So in the previous movies, we
| | 00:17 | can go in and fine-tune every little
tiny chapter point and if you have a story
| | 00:21 | that you are telling then
you might want to do that.
| | 00:24 | But let's say that you are working on a
DVD that's may be just like some super
| | 00:27 | long, boring presentation, may be like
an hour-and-a-half long of some guy just
| | 00:31 | like talking or giving like sales
report or something like that where you
| | 00:34 | wouldn't want to go through and
highlight every single detail and watch the
| | 00:37 | whole thing to manually add chapter
points. You just want to add in every so often.
| | 00:42 | So thankfully Encore has a way for you
to do that, so that you don't have to
| | 00:45 | watch that entire thing and manually
make those chapter markers. So what I'm
| | 00:49 | going to do is have this Timeline
selected, go to the Timeline panel and select
| | 00:53 | the command Add Chapter Points at
Intervals from the Timeline menu.
| | 00:57 | Now if you already have a few
existing chapter points, you can select this
| | 01:00 | option to Remove Existing Chapter Points.
This will remove everything you have
| | 01:04 | done so far in the way of chapter
points and replace them with chapter points
| | 01:07 | at given intervals. Now the smallest
interval you can add between chapter
| | 01:11 | points is 2 seconds and since we only
got an 8 second clip, we are going to go
| | 01:14 | down to the minimum 2 seconds 2 frames here.
| | 01:16 | So I'm going to go ahead and click OK
and all of a sudden we have four chapter
| | 01:21 | markers added automatically 2 seconds
apart, actually 2 seconds and 2 frames
| | 01:25 | and so we don't have to go through
and laboriously figure out where to put
| | 01:28 | these chapter markers. It's
automatically done for us. Again with an 8 second
| | 01:33 | clip, no big deal. But with a 90 minute
clip, this could save you a lot of time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing video in the timeline| 00:00 | And now folks it is our privilege to
use the Timelines 03 projects from the
| | 00:05 | Chapter 06 folder to look at working
with video and editing in the timeline.
| | 00:10 | Now upon looking at this project you
might notice something pretty interesting.
| | 00:13 | We have one timeline and three movies.
| | 00:16 | Well one of the greatest parts about
this timeline thing is you could actually
| | 00:19 | add multiple video clips to the same
timeline. Now to really see what we are
| | 00:23 | doing here I'm going to adjust the zoom
level of our timelines. So I'm going to
| | 00:27 | come down here the lower left-hand
corner where our little mountains are and if
| | 00:30 | I drag it to the right, I'm going to
zoom into my timelines. So I can see
| | 00:33 | little details little bit better. By
going to the left I'm going to zoom out.
| | 00:37 | So basically everything gets small and
I can see more of my project, which in
| | 00:41 | this case is what we want to do.
| | 00:43 | So we already have ninja spinning face.
Now I want to add boys in formation
| | 00:47 | followed by fight scene. Now when you
add multiple clips to the timeline as you
| | 00:52 | probably notice, chapter markers are
created for you automatically. If you like
| | 00:56 | to customize your step don't let
that wear you. If I put my current time
| | 00:59 | indicator in between chapter markers
one and two and then click the Add Chapter
| | 01:03 | Marker button, it basically renumbers that.
| | 01:06 | So you don't need to worry about that.
Also if you want to navigate this little
| | 01:09 | bit better, you can use the Home key on
the keyboard to jump to the first frame
| | 01:14 | of the timeline. You could also use the
End key to jump to the end of the last
| | 01:18 | clip in your timeline.
| | 01:19 | The Page Up and Page Down keys work
like they do in Adobe Premiere Pro.
| | 01:23 | Basically you can navigate the cut
points or edit points by jumping Page Up and
| | 01:28 | Page Down. So the Page Down key will
jump you to the next cut or edit point
| | 01:32 | wherever you want to cut it, also the
next chapter marker. The Page Up key will
| | 01:36 | jump you to the previous ones.
| | 01:38 | Now once your video is here, you could
also click and drag to rearrange your
| | 01:42 | footage as well. So if we decided we
wanted a fight scene here first and then
| | 01:46 | boys in formation we just click and
drag to shuffle these around. I'm actually
| | 01:50 | going to hit Command+Z or Ctrl+Z on
the PC to undo the last few actions, so
| | 01:55 | that we have boys in
formation followed by the fight scene.
| | 01:59 | Also that just makes the most sense
because we have some ninja strutting in the
| | 02:02 | first clip and then we have the boys
getting in formation ready to fight and
| | 02:06 | then we have this super ninja fight scene there.
| | 02:08 | Now if we want to trim this down, we
could put our cursor at the beginning of a
| | 02:12 | clip or at the end of a clip and we
get this Trim icon. Again the same thing
| | 02:16 | you would see in Adobe Premiere Pro. So
I can click and drag to the right from
| | 02:21 | the beginning of the clip to
trim off parts of the beginning.
| | 02:24 | Also if the end runs too long, I can
go to the end and click and drag to the
| | 02:28 | left to trim off some of the end and
you want to be careful of this. There is
| | 02:32 | this gap right here, you might have
noticed that little bit earlier when I was
| | 02:34 | moving clips around, but that's
actually going to create blank video.
| | 02:37 | If I click my current Time Indicator
here towards the end of this clip and then
| | 02:41 | I hit the Spacebar to play this back,
you'll notice that once it gets to this
| | 02:44 | gap it just stops playing.
| | 02:46 | (Music plays.)
| | 02:48 | So there's this gap and then
the footage resumes. So if you
| | 02:52 | wanted to delete the gap you just click
and drag in the clip to move the clip around.
| | 02:57 | Also Encore remembers that we
actually clipped this initial part off of the
| | 03:01 | beginning of our clip. So we could
actually click and drag to the left to
| | 03:04 | restore back to the way it was again.
Also if there is a clip that we decide we
| | 03:08 | don't want, for example, this little
show-boaty pink clip doesn't really fit
| | 03:11 | with the other two fighting clips. What
I can do is select and right-click on it
| | 03:15 | and select Ripple Delete. That will
delete the clip and also shuffle all other
| | 03:19 | clips in to fill up the
space that would have been there.
| | 03:22 | Now Encore is no Adobe Premiere Pro to
be sure. Definitely doesn't have the
| | 03:27 | power when it comes to video editing.
But if you do need to trim things around,
| | 03:30 | add clips, remove clips, do a Ripple
Delete, very small minor edits, Encore does
| | 03:36 | have those capabilities.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Timeline Viewer vs. the Timeline panel| 00:00 | If you'd like to follow along, use the
Timeline 02 project from the Chapter 06
| | 00:04 | folder of Exercise Files and what we
are going to talking about here is similar
| | 00:06 | that we talked about in the chapter on
menus. As you remember those are panel
| | 00:10 | for viewing menus, the Menu Viewer and
there is also a panel called the Menus
| | 00:15 | panel. Well the timeline find itself
in this interesting dichotomy as well.
| | 00:19 | There is a Timeline Viewer, which is
what you have been playing right down
| | 00:22 | here. There is also a Timelines panel
by default group with the Project panel
| | 00:25 | on the upper left-hand corner of the interface.
| | 00:27 | When we select a Timeline here, we
actually see all of the chapter markers for
| | 00:32 | that Timeline below, as well as much
additional information including where the
| | 00:37 | Poster is and where the chapter marker
is. In this case, we haven't created any
| | 00:42 | special poster frame, so that Poster
is the same thing as the chapter marker.
| | 00:46 | If you've created links, it will also
tell you the Link. Another great benefit
| | 00:51 | of this is that when we select this,
you'll notice that in the Properties panel
| | 00:54 | the properties are for the Chapter.
So you can actually name the Chapter 1
| | 00:58 | marker, beginning, for example, I can
even put a Description: start of movie.
| | 01:04 | So that way when we come back to this
we know what happens at that chapter.
| | 01:08 | You can imagine if we did that for
every single chapter marker here, how much
| | 01:11 | more organized this timeline would be.
If you've got 12 chapter markers in a 90
| | 01:15 | minute movie, you are probably not
going to remember what marker 9 was. In this
| | 01:19 | way you can label them and
give them a description as well.
| | 01:22 | So then the Timelines panel
essentially gives you a glance of all the content
| | 01:27 | that you need as far as chapter
markers go for every timeline in your project
| | 01:31 | at a single glance.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exporting a frame as a file| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to be
looking at a useful feature that actually I
| | 00:03 | wish was in After Effects and Premiere.
Basically Encore allows you to very
| | 00:07 | quickly and easily save
out a frame from a timeline.
| | 00:11 | So here with this timeline 01 project
you'll find in Chapter 06 folder and I
| | 00:15 | know that there is a super cool
frame at 3 seconds and 28 frames. So I'm
| | 00:19 | actually going to click the hard text
here or here either way will be fine. I'm
| | 00:24 | going to type in 3:28 and hit Enter and
this is the frame that I want. Now what
| | 00:31 | I can do is export this as a frame as
an image file and then bring that back
| | 00:35 | into Encore may be use it as a menu or
something in a slideshow or what have
| | 00:40 | you. Very useful to be able
to take frames out of video.
| | 00:43 | Again After Effects and Premiere can
do this but it's a much more laborious
| | 00:47 | process. So to do this the first step
is I need to either select the Timeline
| | 00:51 | Viewer or the Monitor. If I have the
Project panel or the Properties panel or
| | 00:55 | something else selected it might not
work. You definitely need to get one of
| | 00:58 | these two panel selected.
| | 00:59 | So this is selected now, I'm good, so
I'm going to go to the Timeline menu and
| | 01:03 | I'm going to select Save Frame as File.
So then the Save Frame as File dialog
| | 01:08 | pops-up it basically asks you what you
want to name it and where you want to
| | 01:11 | save it to. So I'm actually going to
go into the Media folder of at Exercise
| | 01:14 | Files, I'm going to go into Photos
and I'm going to save the ninja spinning
| | 01:18 | face.psd file in the Save area.
| | 01:21 | The PSD file format is the only one
that let me save it in, so I'm going to go
| | 01:24 | ahead and accept that and click Save
and now if I use my computer navigational
| | 01:29 | system to go into the Exercise Files,
Media, Photos, there is my ninja spinning
| | 01:35 | face and I'm free to use it as I please.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Creating Links and NavigationCreating navigation with the Properties panel| 00:00 | So the last few chapters we've been
spending time creating stuff. We were
| | 00:04 | making menus and talking about buttons
and timelines and stuff. Now we finally
| | 00:08 | get to put it all together by talking about
navigation and basically linking things together.
| | 00:13 | This is perhaps the most crucial step
in the DVD altering process. If you have
| | 00:17 | great footage, great menus, great
timelines whatever in your project but they
| | 00:22 | are not linked, they are not connected
then quite possibly people will not be
| | 00:26 | able to see your content.
| | 00:27 | Now we will talk later on about how
to troubleshoot and make sure that that
| | 00:30 | doesn't happen. But essentially
bottom line is this you got stuff in your
| | 00:33 | Project panel and nothing links to it,
it's not going to be part of your DVD.
| | 00:36 | So specifically in this movie we are
going to talk about creating links with
| | 00:39 | the Properties panel, I know I have
talked about that briefly before. I'm going
| | 00:42 | to give you couple of
extra bells and whistles here.
| | 00:43 | I have here this menu this
Honeycomb Menu here and I have this PLAY
| | 00:47 | PRESENTATION button selected and I
want this button to link to the bench
| | 00:52 | timeline. So with this button selected,
I can click and drag the pick whip.
| | 00:56 | This curly looking thing next to
the word Link in the Properties panel.
| | 00:59 | I'll make sure again that Button is
selected, take the pick whip click and drag
| | 01:03 | the pick whip over to the Project panel
and then let it go on bench. Again not
| | 01:08 | the movie actually you can't even do
that, it gives us a no sign. We want to
| | 01:12 | use the timeline and then the link is created.
| | 01:15 | Well I'm actually going to hit Command+
Z on the Mac or a Ctrl+Z on the PC to
| | 01:19 | undo that. Let me show you another
way to do this. You actually come to the
| | 01:22 | flyout menu right here with this arrow
click that and then we could actually go
| | 01:27 | to bench and select Chapter 1.
| | 01:30 | If we had multiple chapters we could
actually pick which of the chapters to
| | 01:34 | navigate to with this button. We could
also select the menu navigate to. But in
| | 01:39 | this case I actually want
to go to Chapter 1 of bench.
| | 01:43 | So whether you do with the dropdown
list or whether you use the pick whip, the
| | 01:46 | end result is exactly the same, it's
going to link to the bench timeline in
| | 01:49 | Chapter 1 in that timeline.
| | 01:51 | Now another thing we have really
talked about here and we are going to talk
| | 01:54 | about this in greater detail towards
the end of the training series, but this
| | 01:56 | is also where you can Enable Web Link
for Flash. If you want to create a SWF
| | 02:01 | movie that will be output to the web,
may be you want to built a website in
| | 02:04 | Encore. You can actually
do that now on Encore CS4.
| | 02:07 | So you can actually select Enable Web
Link for Flash and then when this SWF
| | 02:12 | file -- if you all put to a SWF file,
you put that on a web and somebody
| | 02:14 | watches it and these buttons will look,
work just like website buttons and will
| | 02:18 | take you to a certain place on the Internet.
| | 02:20 | So instead of Language, may be I might
replace the text Language with adobe.com
| | 02:25 | and if I Enable Web Link for Flash I
could type in www.adobe.com in the URL and
| | 02:30 | when this is played on the web,
people click that and they are taken to
| | 02:33 | adobe.com as if this were a website.
Boy, if you ever used Flash before, you
| | 02:37 | will probably really excite right
about now because that's much, much more
| | 02:41 | difficult to do in Flash.
| | 02:43 | Now there of course is much more to
this Properties panel. But as far as
| | 02:46 | creating links goes that's all it takes.
It's a very simple procedure actually
| | 02:51 | using the Properties panel.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Linking chapter markers to submenu buttons| 00:00 | If you are following along for this
movie, you might want to open up the
| | 00:02 | Navigation 02 project in the Chapter 7
folder. What we are going to talk about
| | 00:06 | here is linking these chapter markers
to these submenu buttons. Now, this is
| | 00:12 | actually pretty easy. Just go ahead
and click on the chapter marker in the
| | 00:15 | timeline viewer, click and drag and drop
where you want that particular link to go.
| | 00:23 | Third goes into third, fourth goes
into fourth, fifth into fifth, and for the
| | 00:28 | sixth I'll show you a different way
to do this. I'm going to click on the
| | 00:30 | button and you could actually come
over here into the Properties panel, now
| | 00:35 | right now the menu is not selected, so
I'm going to select the menu. There we
| | 00:38 | go. Then select the button; there we go.
Then from here, what I can do is go to
| | 00:42 | this flyout and click this dropdown,
navigate to the timeline, to ninja
| | 00:47 | spinning face and select the correct
chapter marker from this dropdown list.
| | 00:52 | Now you can see the benefit of naming
your chapter marker as well as we talked
| | 00:57 | about in the last chapter. Now that
you have named these, you basically have
| | 01:00 | six anonymous chapter markers. This
would be much easier if I were to name
| | 01:04 | these appropriately. I'm actually
going to select Chapter 4 here; that's
| | 01:07 | intentionally the wrong marker, because
that's obviously the fourth spot and we
| | 01:11 | want the sixth marker here.
| | 01:12 | But if you do get yourself in a
pinch and you put the wrong linking, it's
| | 01:16 | really not that big of a deal. First of
all, what you can do is just highlight
| | 01:19 | this are and just hit the Delete key on
your keyboard, no big deal. Be careful
| | 01:23 | not to select the button in the menu
viewer, because then if you hit Delete you
| | 01:25 | will delete the entire button. I'm
going to undo that with Command+Z or Ctrl+Z
| | 01:29 | on the PC. If you do get the wrong
link, another way to fix it -- let's
| | 01:33 | actually get the wrong link again,
chapter 4. If you get the wrong link, just
| | 01:36 | link to the right thing that's all you
have to do. Once I link to this Chapter
| | 01:39 | 6, Encore will forget that
I ever linked to Chapter 4.
| | 01:42 | So you see two quick and easy ways to
link chapter markers to submenu buttons.
| | 01:48 | There is yet a third way using the
flowchart, which we will cover later in this
| | 01:51 | chapter. First let's talk about some
critical DVD concepts coming up in the
| | 01:55 | next few movies, where we are going
to be talking about creating first play
| | 01:58 | objects and setting end actions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting a "first play" object| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to look
at a simple but critical concept to
| | 00:03 | building a DVD and that is setting
the First Play Object. I'll be using the
| | 00:08 | Navigation 03 project that you could
find in the Chapter 07 folder, but it
| | 00:12 | really doesn't matter which project
you are using, this concept is just so
| | 00:14 | crucial. Basically, when you put in a DVD,
the disc needs to know what to go to first.
| | 00:20 | Now, with a simple project like this,
you may say, well, it would just
| | 00:23 | naturally go to the menu first, and I
would say not necessarily. Sometimes you
| | 00:27 | might want to have a movie that comes
in; that introduces the disc. So I may
| | 00:32 | actually start with a timeline and you
may have five or ten menus. Which menu
| | 00:35 | does it start with?
| | 00:37 | So it's of critical importance to
setup First Play Object. You do that by
| | 00:39 | right-clicking on it and selecting
Set as First Play. Then you will see a
| | 00:44 | circle with little arrow on it. That
indicates the First Play Object. Also when
| | 00:48 | that is selected, in the Project panel
you will see First Play, and also when
| | 00:52 | you click in a blank area in the
Project panel to deselect everything and to
| | 00:56 | select the disc and then go over to
the Properties panel to adjust the disc
| | 01:00 | properties, you can see that the
First Play area is actually a link here.
| | 01:03 | So if you are more comfortable with
using this dropdown or if you are more
| | 01:07 | comfortable using the pick whip, you
can create a First Play Object that way as
| | 01:11 | well. A couple of movies down the row
when we look at the flowchart, we will
| | 01:14 | also talk about how to create a First
Play Object using the flowchart as well.
| | 01:18 | Next we are going to look at an object
similar in importance and that is the
| | 01:22 | end action of an object.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About end actions| 00:00 | Similar to the importance of creating
First Play Object or setting a First Play
| | 00:04 | Object, we have also creating end
actions, which is what we are going to talk
| | 00:08 | about in this movie. I'm going to be
using this Navigation 04 projects from the
| | 00:11 | Chapter 07 folder, if you
would like to follow along.
| | 00:14 | End actions are just what they sound
like, basically when something plays out
| | 00:18 | like a timeline finishes, what happens
at the end of that timeline. You might
| | 00:22 | think that it just automatically goes
back to menu, but that's not the case. If
| | 00:26 | you don't take the time to setup your
end actions properly, you will probably
| | 00:29 | be very disappointed in the
final outcome of your disc.
| | 00:34 | So even though we have a simple
project like this, we have basically one menu
| | 00:37 | and one timeline, we still need to
create end actions. So I need to select this
| | 00:42 | timeline, go to the Properties panel
and notice that there is an area for End
| | 00:46 | Action. So basically what happens at
the end of this timeline. If you don't set
| | 00:50 | the end action for this timeline, when
you burn it to disc, it's just going to be blank.
| | 00:53 | Let's go ahead and do this, I'm going
to go ahead and click this Preview button
| | 00:57 | to preview my disc and let's watch the
first scene and the movie is only eight seconds long.
| | 01:02 | (Music plays.)
| | 01:10 | So at the end of that eight seconds,
nothing happens and we will sit here
| | 01:15 | looking at a blank screen forever,
because we didn't set an end action. So what
| | 01:18 | we need to do is click one the Exit
buttons, and go back to our authoring
| | 01:21 | environment here, and then with this
timeline selected, we need to go to End
| | 01:25 | Action, click the pick whip and set
this End Action to go back to the menu.
| | 01:30 | That way when our timeline is done
playing, it will go again back to the menu.
| | 01:35 | This is important for slideshows,
timelines anything linked to from the menu.
| | 01:40 | We will probably talk more and more
continually about end actions as we go
| | 01:43 | through this training series, but be
aware we will see it again when we are
| | 01:45 | troubleshooting and all over the place
because it's such a crucial aspect of DVD authoring.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating navigation with the Flowchart| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to look at
another way to do all the stuff we have
| | 00:03 | been doing throughout this chapter
except in the flowchart. For this I'm going
| | 00:06 | to be using the Navigation_01
project from the Chapter 07 folder.
| | 00:09 | I'm going to go over here to Flowchart.
This tab is typically docked with the
| | 00:13 | Monitor and Menu Viewer. If it's not
showing just like with all other panels in
| | 00:17 | Encore, you can go to the
Window menu and select Flowchart.
| | 00:21 | Now, again with the flowchart, we
have our disc here and basically this
| | 00:25 | represents the beginning of our disc.
Right now it's not connected to anything.
| | 00:29 | There is no first play object; there
is no links or navigation of any kind
| | 00:33 | whatsoever. But have no fear. We will
create that all right now. Before we talk
| | 00:37 | a little bit more about the flowchart,
I want to explain the orphanage; that's
| | 00:41 | this area down here at
the bottom of the flowchart.
| | 00:44 | Basically orphan objects are Encore
objects like timelines, menus, slideshows,
| | 00:49 | etcetera. They do not have a home;
they are not linked to at all in your
| | 00:53 | project. Now, notice that we are not
seeing all assets. There are two video
| | 00:57 | files here that we are not seeing the
orphanage. We are only seeing a menu and
| | 01:03 | a timeline, in other words, Encore
objects. So in this way, you can kind of
| | 01:07 | troubleshoot. You can come to the
flowchart and just add a quick glance to see
| | 01:10 | all this stuff that's not
being used in your project.
| | 01:13 | Now, let's create a first play object.
So I'm going to click on the right side
| | 01:17 | of my disc, click and drag down and
select the menu. Now, typically we would go
| | 01:22 | back to the Menu Viewer to pick which
button we linked to the timeline, but all
| | 01:25 | these buttons are right here. So we
actually want to use the Play Presentation
| | 01:29 | button. So I can click it, and now as
you see here in the Properties panel, we
| | 01:32 | are seeing the properties for this
button. I can click and drag from this
| | 01:36 | button to the timeline in the orphanage,
and now everything in my project is
| | 01:40 | linked up. But if you have been
following along throughout this chapter, then
| | 01:44 | you are probably wondering, hey there
is a problem here, what's the deal with
| | 01:48 | the end action.
| | 01:49 | Well, we can actually set those from
right here in the flowchart. What you do
| | 01:52 | that is we scroll over and come to the
end of the timeline as if what's going
| | 01:57 | to come next after the timeline and
actually wrap back around and select the
| | 02:01 | menu again and now we have a visual
representation after the timeline of our
| | 02:06 | end action, which is actually a faded
version of the menu. The fact that it's
| | 02:10 | faded out indicates that it
understands that this is an end action.
| | 02:14 | Now, if you are new to Encore, you
might want to stick to creating your
| | 02:17 | navigation in the Properties panel.
After you start getting a little bit more
| | 02:21 | experience, you may want to start
using the Flowchart. It's kind of like this
| | 02:24 | one stop shop to set all of your
navigations, whether it's to use a specific
| | 02:29 | buttons, whether it's to create your
first play object or your end actions or
| | 02:33 | what have you, it's a very
full feature at little panel here.
| | 02:35 | In the next movie, I'm going to show
you a couple of new tricks added in Encore
| | 02:38 | CS4 that help you as you are
working with the Flowchart.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using some new Flowchart tricks| 00:00 | In this super quick movie, I'm going to
give you a couple of new tips that are
| | 00:03 | added to the Flowchart in Encore CS4.
For this I'll be using the Navigation 05
| | 00:08 | project from the Chapter 07 folder.
| | 00:09 | The first is, you put a cursor over
something now and there is tool tips. So
| | 00:12 | that way if you have a button that's
cut off, you know what it is, or if there
| | 00:15 | is an asset and you don't know what
its full name is, you can just hover your
| | 00:19 | cursor over it and it tells you the
name of your disc, menus, timelines, etcetera.
| | 00:24 | The other feature is probably even
more useful, at least it is in my opinion
| | 00:27 | anyways. It's this little navigation
area down here towards the left-hand side
| | 00:31 | of the flowchart. I can actually click
and drag and scale down the flowchart,
| | 00:35 | instead of using these crummy old
scrollbars, which are kind of annoying to
| | 00:39 | use. Just use this little slider to
zoom in and out of your projects to see
| | 00:43 | more of it or to zoom in closer.
| | 00:45 | Like right now, we can't see the end
action; we can quickly and easily scale
| | 00:49 | this so we can get this centered, like
so, and all is right with the world. So
| | 00:55 | there you have it, two quick new
tips with the Flowchart in Encore CS4.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Auto-selecting button names from links| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to look at a
couple of different tricks dealing with
| | 00:02 | the naming of buttons. For this I'll
be using the Navigation 01 project from
| | 00:07 | the Chapter 07 folder. Now, if I select
a button here in the menu, I'm going to
| | 00:10 | select the PLAY PRESENTATION button here.
Now, by default, Sync Button Text and
| | 00:14 | Name is selected. So the name of
the button is the name of the text.
| | 00:18 | So if I came over here to the name of
the button and change this here, let's
| | 00:23 | say I change this to PLAY Movie and
then hit Enter, we would see that it
| | 00:28 | changed even the case. So I changed
the lower case '-ovie' of Movie to
| | 00:32 | lowercase and that even updated here. Now, I
actually think this is a very useful feature.
| | 00:37 | I can envision in an instance where you
may not want them to be the same thing,
| | 00:41 | may be for organizational purposes. So
you can just click this to unlink those
| | 00:45 | and then when you change the name of the button,
the text will not change and vice versa.
| | 00:49 | Now, similar to that is this Set Name
from Link option. By default, if we have
| | 00:54 | this button selected and we link the
Play Movie button to the bench timeline
| | 00:58 | for example. The link is created as
expected in the Properties panel and
| | 01:02 | nothing happens to the button. Probably
in most cases that is what you want. So
| | 01:06 | I'm going to actually undo that to
show you an alternative. I'm going to hit
| | 01:08 | Command+Z or Ctrl+Z to undo that. If we
select Set Name from Link, then when we
| | 01:13 | create a link like to the bench
timeline, then the name of the button, as you
| | 01:18 | will see here in the Properties panel,
changes to bench to match the timeline.
| | 01:21 | So the name of the button is the link.
| | 01:23 | So again, let me undo that one more
time. If I select both Set Name from Link
| | 01:27 | and Sync Button Text and Name, and
create a link, what that will do is it will
| | 01:32 | rename the button based on the name of
the link which is the bench timeline and
| | 01:36 | because we have Sync Button Text and
Name, then the actual text of the button
| | 01:41 | changes to match the name of the link.
| | 01:42 | So if you are good at naming your
movies, let's say you have Chad's Portfolio
| | 01:47 | or whatever and you want that to be
the name of the button, then just click
| | 01:51 | these two options to update that automatically.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating user permissions for a disc| 00:00 | In the next few movies, we are going to
be looking at setting user permissions.
| | 00:04 | For that we will be using the
Navigation 01 project from the Chapter 07 folder.
| | 00:08 | In this movie, we are going to be
looking at setting user permissions for the
| | 00:11 | entire disc. To do that click in a
blank area of the Project panel to deselect
| | 00:16 | everything. That way when you go to
the Properties panel, which is the next
| | 00:19 | step, then you will be changing
the properties of the entire disc.
| | 00:23 | Then come down to the bottom where
it says Operations All Permitted. By
| | 00:26 | default, all areas of permissions
for discs, timelines and menus are all
| | 00:33 | permitted. In case you want to change
that to have more control over what your
| | 00:37 | users can and can't do, click the
Set button. You can choose to allow all
| | 00:41 | options, none of the options or you
can customize it and change different options.
| | 00:47 | The Play Chapter button, for example,
will allow users to enter a number on
| | 00:50 | their remote just to jump to a
title or a chapter. To enable search for
| | 00:54 | chapter, you got to click on Play
Chapter. The Presentation mode is the aspect
| | 00:58 | ratio and this allows users to change
that on their own. The Play Timeline
| | 01:02 | option gives users the ability to
change timelines with the remote control.
| | 01:07 | Now, by default all these again are
enabled. So users have all of these
| | 01:12 | permissions. But you can imagine, if
they change the aspect ratio of the frame,
| | 01:17 | if that supposed to be wide screen
and made it full screen, basically that
| | 01:19 | would squish everything. You could
imagine what that would do the quality of
| | 01:23 | your presentation. So you may not want
to give users that ability. Now, I don't
| | 01:28 | know about you, but as a user when I
look at a DVD and there is like say for
| | 01:32 | example that FBI thing at the
beginning of most Hollywood DVDs and there is
| | 01:36 | nothing you do to get pass it, at
least on my remote control, all the buttons
| | 01:39 | nothing works. I hate that.
| | 01:41 | Now, you want to be careful with this.
You definitely want to give your users
| | 01:45 | the best experience possible. You want
to be able to give them control but at
| | 01:48 | the same that makes sense that you
want to be able to control how they are
| | 01:52 | viewing your work. So again, that's the
toss up. In the next couple of movies,
| | 01:56 | we are going to be looking at menu
permissions and timeline permissions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating user permissions for a menu| 00:00 | This movie is going to be similar to
the previous one, except that we are going
| | 00:02 | to be looking at setting menu
permissions. We are also going to be using the
| | 00:05 | Navigation 01 projects in the Chapter
07 folder of Exercise Files. Now, I'm
| | 00:09 | going to go to my Project panel and
select a menu and I'm going to come back
| | 00:12 | here to the Properties panel with the
menu selected and again just like with
| | 00:16 | the disc, by default all
operations are permitted.
| | 00:19 | So I'm going to click on the Set
button to adjust this. Again, let's click
| | 00:23 | Custom to be able to see all of these
options here. Essentially the buttons for
| | 00:28 | title remote, stop or zoom, arrow and
enter keys are basically enabled users
| | 00:34 | buttons. If they have these buttons
on their remote, in other words if they
| | 00:36 | have arrows, they have enter keys,
they have resume, they have stop, title
| | 00:39 | remote then all these things are
enabled on their remotes and just like with
| | 00:43 | the disc, they can change the
Presentation mode or the aspect ratio of their
| | 00:48 | menu by using the remote
if they have those features.
| | 00:51 | Just as like we looked at with disc
permissions, you will probably want to give
| | 00:54 | users as much control as possible
unless you have a specific reason not to. But
| | 00:59 | that's how you set user operations for
menus in Encore. Click OK and they are set.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating user permissions for a timeline| 00:00 | And finally in our trifecta of user
permissions setting movies, we are going
| | 00:05 | to look at setting user permissions for
timelines, again, using the Navigation
| | 00:09 | 01 project from the Chapter 07 folder.
| | 00:11 | As before let's select the object, in
this case the bench timeline and come
| | 00:15 | over here and again as before all
operations are permitted by default. So click
| | 00:19 | the Set button to open this up and
change it. As you can see here for the
| | 00:22 | timeline we have many more options.
Click Custom to reveal them and most of
| | 00:27 | these as we saw with the menu user
permissions, are just enabling these options
| | 00:32 | for timelines.
| | 00:34 | Now, the timeline user operations, in
my opinion, are a little bit different.
| | 00:37 | These are ones that users will
probably use most often and can be the most
| | 00:42 | frustrated at if they are changed. So
be very careful with this. But in the
| | 00:46 | same sense, this is probably where you
are going to want to exercise that heavy
| | 00:50 | DVD authoring hand if you need to
have more control over your DVD.
| | 00:53 | For example, if you do not want
people to rewind or fast forward pass
| | 00:57 | something, like again the FBI
warnings then this rewind and fast forward is
| | 01:01 | enabled by default, so you would
deselect that. Also many times, you will have
| | 01:06 | a menu with different languages that
people can select and instead of going to
| | 01:09 | that menu, people are going to just
use the audio buttons or the subtitles
| | 01:12 | buttons on their remotes to change the
subtitle tracks. In other words, change
| | 01:16 | the subtitle languages or change the
actual audio tracks or audio languages and
| | 01:21 | if you enable this, then they
can do that with their remote.
| | 01:24 | I was just talking to an employee the
other day of Lynda.com who was mentioning
| | 01:27 | and when he heard that I was doing
this title on authoring DVDs, he mentioned
| | 01:31 | that his biggest frustration with DVDs
is that when it's locked and you cannot
| | 01:34 | use the audio button to change tracks.
Many times when I'm watching a DVD, I
| | 01:39 | like to be able to hit the Menu
button to get back to the menu if I have
| | 01:43 | selected the wrong movie or in other
words the wrong timeline for Encore purposes.
| | 01:47 | Disabling that can be very annoying,
but again there might be some artistic
| | 01:51 | reasons or may be other reasons why you
would want to disable certain features
| | 01:56 | and this is where you
would do that for a timeline.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Text and Object BasicsCreating and using guides| 00:00 | In this chapter we are going to look
at dealing with text and objects. The
| | 00:03 | first I'm going to talk about how to
create these objects in an orderly way,
| | 00:08 | and one of the best ways to do that is
by using guides. To start this out, I'm
| | 00:11 | going to go to the Library panel
and I'm going to open a Blank Menu by
| | 00:14 | double-clicking it.
| | 00:15 | Next, I'm going to go ahead and click
this button third over from the left to
| | 00:18 | see images, basically little objects.
This cute little airplane will do just
| | 00:22 | fine. Just go ahead and drag a few of
those little guys out there. Now the
| | 00:27 | first step to creating guides is to
actually see the guides that already
| | 00:30 | exists, in other words, the safe areas.
So I'm going to come down here in the
| | 00:33 | Menu Viewer and click this
button, which is Show Guides.
| | 00:37 | For more information on these guides,
you can go back to Chapter 02 where we
| | 00:40 | talked about the safe areas. To
create a new guide, click on this New Guide
| | 00:45 | button. Now the way you create guides
in Encore may be a little bit different
| | 00:49 | than what you are used to
with other Adobe programs.
| | 00:51 | So you might look at this and say,
well okay well I know I want a horizontal
| | 00:55 | guide or a vertical guide, in this
case I'm going to select a Vertical guide.
| | 00:58 | But I'm not sure how many pixels I
want it away from the left edge. So may be
| | 01:02 | I'll guess a 100, I don't know and I
hit OK and I knew guide was created right
| | 01:07 | here and I don't have to worry about
exactly where I place, I can just click
| | 01:11 | and drag and then move this to an exact spot.
| | 01:14 | The number of reference while you are
creating it is helpful, but for me I
| | 01:17 | don't always know exactly where I want
it, but visually I can tell where I want
| | 01:21 | to place it. So sometimes you can just
go and create the guy, put it anywhere
| | 01:24 | and then just drag it to where you
want it and then I can click on these
| | 01:27 | objects, using the Direct Select tool,
click on these little objects and then I
| | 01:31 | could line them all up with this guide
along their left edge for example and I
| | 01:36 | know that they will be aligned and it
basically just gives you more order to
| | 01:39 | your creations.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and adjusting text| 00:00 | Folks, this is an important movie, we
are going to be talking about creating
| | 00:03 | and adjusting text. So to do that,
I'm going to go to Library panel, in the
| | 00:07 | general set and double-click Blank Menu
to open up a blank menu. We create text
| | 00:13 | of course by going to the Text tool up
in the toolbar. So go ahead and click it
| | 00:16 | to create some text.
| | 00:17 | Now, there are two different ways that
you can create text; you can click and
| | 00:22 | just start typing. This is referred to
as point text. To accept the text you
| | 00:28 | have created, click away from the text
in just some blank area of the menu. The
| | 00:34 | other way to create text is just by
clicking and dragging a box that you want
| | 00:38 | your text to be contained by. So if I
started typing here, blah, blah, blah, as
| | 00:42 | soon as I type pass the edge of the box
the text automatically wraps around to
| | 00:47 | the next line.
| | 00:49 | Now, I have typed more than we could
see, I'm still typing listen. Hear that,
| | 00:53 | but we don't see the type on screen.
This little white box indicates that we
| | 00:58 | have what's called over set text
meaning text that we can't see that's in this
| | 01:02 | box. That might seem annoying to you,
but basically what Encore is doing is
| | 01:07 | respecting the textbox that you made,
not allowing text to go outside of this limitation.
| | 01:13 | So what you need to do is go to one of
these corner edges or actually any of
| | 01:17 | these edges and expand the box. And
that way we could see the rest of our text.
| | 01:21 | Once that little white box is gone,
then you know that you're seeing all of
| | 01:25 | your text. Let me click away to accept that.
| | 01:28 | Now another important thing is to pay
attention to what your cursor looks like.
| | 01:32 | Right now my cursor has a little box
around it. That indicates that I'm going
| | 01:35 | to create new text if I click, but if I
put my cursor next to text that already
| | 01:40 | exists, you will see that outside
box disappear on my cursor. This cursor
| | 01:46 | indicates that I'll be editing text
that I have already created. So again,
| | 01:49 | click here and now if I hit the Delete
key or Backspace key on a PC, I'll be deleting text.
| | 01:56 | Now we adjust text and customize it
in the Character panel. By default the
| | 02:00 | Character panel is grouped with the
Properties panel on the right hand side of
| | 02:02 | the interface. So I can select text,
just click and drag like you would in
| | 02:06 | Microsoft Word or Notepad or any of
those other text editing programs and
| | 02:11 | adjust the font. Beneath that,
you could adjust the font style.
| | 02:16 | Font style is usually like Bold,
Italics that type of thing. You can come over
| | 02:20 | here to adjust the size of the text.
There are preset sizes but you could also
| | 02:25 | customize it. Just click in that field
and type your own, let's say, I type 50
| | 02:29 | and hit Enter, then it's 50 even
though 50 is not a choice from this dropdown list.
| | 02:33 | Now I mentioned that this dropdown is
for the font style like Bold and Italics
| | 02:38 | and there's only Regular for this
font. If we come down here towards the
| | 02:42 | bottom, there's two extra little
buttons here. There's kind of a fake Bold and
| | 02:46 | a fake Italics and both of those are
currently active. So if I click on full
| | 02:50 | italics again, then it's no longer
italicized text; it's just straight. If I
| | 02:54 | click it again, it will be no longer
bold. We can click this color swatch to
| | 02:58 | change the color of the text. Just
click and drag in this big square on the
| | 03:02 | left hand side of the interface to pick
a new color. You could also adjust the
| | 03:06 | colors using this bar right here.
| | 03:08 | Basically, the color on the top here
indicates what color you are changing it
| | 03:12 | to. The color on the bottom is the
previous color, so you can compare and
| | 03:15 | contrast them. If I click OK, my
text is now blue. Here we can change the
| | 03:21 | alignment left, center, right or
justified and we could also change the
| | 03:26 | anti-aliasing. Here's where we change
the leading. This controls the space
| | 03:31 | between lines of text. So if I come
over here to these lines of text, select
| | 03:36 | them all and then adjust the leading,
you can see that we could bring them
| | 03:41 | closer together or farther apart.
| | 03:45 | Tracking adjusts the spaces between all
selected characters. Kerning, which is
| | 03:50 | right here on the left, sets the
spaces between two letters. This is for
| | 03:55 | customizing the spaces. So let's say,
for example, these two Ks look pretty
| | 04:00 | good next to each other, but K and J
just appears like there is too much empty
| | 04:03 | space right here. So that's where we
would kern these two letters together.
| | 04:08 | Again, it's great for titles, but for
body text, for a lot of text like this,
| | 04:12 | don't waste your time on that. We
could also adjust the vertical size of the
| | 04:16 | text. We take this down to 50%. It
will look kind of squashed or let's take
| | 04:20 | that back up to 100. We could also
adjust the horizontal scale in the same way.
| | 04:25 | Now, here is a couple of extra
interesting bells and whistles about text.
| | 04:28 | Number one, Encore actually supports
text on a path from Photoshop but you
| | 04:33 | can't create it here. So if you want a
text to be all squiggly and editable,
| | 04:38 | set that up in Photoshop,
bring it in here, and it will work.
| | 04:42 | Another thing that's very important, if
I go ahead and click the Direct Select
| | 04:46 | tool, and click text like this. What I
can do is actually go to the Object menu
| | 04:50 | and select Convert to Button. This text
is now a button. If I go to the Layers
| | 04:56 | panel, I can see that this layer is,
this is now a button. So if you need to
| | 05:03 | make a quick and easy menu and you
want text to be your buttons, this is an
| | 05:07 | easy way to do it and I that's
how to work with text on Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding drop shadows to text and other objects| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to look at
adding drop shadows to text and other
| | 00:04 | objects as well. I have here this
Beauty menu, you will find in the Chapter 8
| | 00:07 | folder and I have got this text that
says Beauty and I have got these little
| | 00:11 | squiggles basically a shape that I
found in the Library panel, in the shapes
| | 00:16 | area in the Wedding set.
| | 00:17 | Now I'm kind of happy with the way
this looks but this is really faint, this
| | 00:20 | little squiggle and also the text
it's kind of hard to read because it's so
| | 00:24 | light. So drop shadow is going to add
little shadow to help this pop from its
| | 00:28 | back on little bit. So what we want
to do is select the Direct Select Tool
| | 00:32 | first, click on the text then go to
the Object menu and select Drop Shadow.
| | 00:38 | Now by default nothing happens, I'm
just going to click and drag the top of
| | 00:41 | this bar to move this window to the
side. I'm going to click Drop Shadow to
| | 00:45 | turn it on and as long as Preview is
checked, we should see Drop Shadow pop-up
| | 00:51 | in just a second. And for some reason
all of my settings had been reset to zero.
| | 00:56 | So what I'm going to do is I'm going
to increase Opacity just by clicking and
| | 00:59 | dragging to the right on Opacity.
Let's also increase the Angle a little bit
| | 01:05 | and a little bit from the Distance and
there is our Drop Shadow. Now the Drop
| | 01:10 | Shadow is coming along the left side
of the text, which will indicate the
| | 01:13 | lights coming from the right, we
don't want to do that. So let's adjust the
| | 01:17 | Angle to get it to where it's
basically a Drop Shadow. As if the light was
| | 01:23 | coming from the upper left. That
looks about right maybe a little bit lower
| | 01:27 | there, that's also a little bit far
away from the text. Let's reduce the
| | 01:31 | Distance that looks pretty good.
| | 01:34 | Let's also increase the Size, which
kind of blurs the shadow a little bit and
| | 01:39 | also the Spread. You can also change
the Color as well. For now I think black
| | 01:44 | is working quite well and it's still
faded, the Opacity is still little bit low
| | 01:49 | but it does make this text pop a lot.
| | 01:53 | If we take this all the way to 100%, I
think it's a little bit too stark for
| | 01:55 | this particular project. So if I take
this down really low some around 30 looks
| | 01:59 | pretty good. Now if I click OK and
click away from this text to deselect it,
| | 02:04 | we'll see that the Drop Shadow has
made this text much more legible.
| | 02:07 | But again this also works on objects as
well, so I'm going to click this little
| | 02:10 | squiggle, do the same thing, Object,
Drop Shadow, let's go ahead and click to
| | 02:16 | enable Drop Shadow and
there we have our Drop Shadow.
| | 02:19 | Again we could mimic the settings,
take this down little bit so as it's just
| | 02:23 | very soft. We increase the Distance
here because we don't really have any text
| | 02:26 | that needs to be super legible.
Basically while increasing the Distance, we
| | 02:31 | create the illusion that the object
is farther off the page. So with effect
| | 02:37 | that the shadow is so far away from
the original object, makes it seem like
| | 02:40 | this little squiggle really is very far
away, maybe like a half inch after the
| | 02:44 | menu, which is pretty cool.
| | 02:46 | And of course we can increase the Size,
and adjust the Opacity, maybe reduce
| | 02:50 | the Distance just a little bit and
there we have it. Click OK, again click away
| | 02:55 | to deselect and that's what we
have, a much more legible menu.
| | 02:59 | In the next movie, we'll be looking
at the Styles panel, talking about the
| | 03:02 | styles. There is a Drop Shadow here
as well but you don't have the adjust
| | 03:06 | ability that you have by going to the
Object menu to get that Drop Shadow.
| | 03:12 | Also be aware that if you've applied a
Drop Shadow via the Object menu and you
| | 03:16 | want to adjust it, simply select the
object that has the drop shadow, go back
| | 03:20 | to the Object menu and then select Drop
Shadow again and all those things would
| | 03:24 | be there. You could remove the
Drop Shadow or change it at will.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding styles to text and other objects| 00:00 | We are now going to talk about adding
styles to images, text and shapes. For
| | 00:06 | this I'll be using the Beauty Menu
embellished. Basically it's the Beauty menu
| | 00:10 | we looked at in the last movie and I added
this little curly Q from the Library
| | 00:14 | to actually Arabesque 2. But the
thing is this doesn't really fit. We can't
| | 00:18 | change the color as easily with images
as we can with shapes like we do with
| | 00:23 | this little squiggle here.
| | 00:25 | So what we need to do is add some
styles to this to tweak it, to make it look
| | 00:28 | like it belongs here. To do that
let's go over to the Styles panel and I'm
| | 00:32 | going to go ahead and click here to
resize my Styles panel so we could see more
| | 00:37 | of what's going on here. Now there is
actually three different types of styles:
| | 00:40 | the first one you might recognize
from the Library panel these are Image
| | 00:44 | Styles. Also note the icon here,
letting you know that these are the Image Styles.
| | 00:48 | There is also styles for Text and
styles for Shapes. So if I select the Direct
| | 00:54 | Select Tool to select the shape
down here, this little squiggle, I can
| | 00:58 | double-click it to add this style
to the shape. At any time I could
| | 01:01 | double-click and use other ones to
change it. So I could change it to Blue
| | 01:04 | Glass, Copper Tube, Plain Shape,
or Yellow with a gradient stroke.
| | 01:10 | There are also Text Styles. So I'm
going to again with the Direct Selection
| | 01:14 | Tool select our text and you could see
that there is Jiggly gel, Plain Text and
| | 01:19 | Swimming Pool, Blue
gradient with stroke etcetera.
| | 01:23 | For our image, there is also again
Image Styles, and what we could do is add
| | 01:27 | these different styles, the plus
indicates that it's actually going to add the
| | 01:31 | style not replace it. You see with the
other ones as we are looking at the text
| | 01:36 | 1, for example, if I double-click on
Jiggly gel it completely replaces whatever
| | 01:40 | was there. Take this back to Plain Text
here. Go back to the image, instead of
| | 01:46 | that when you have the plus it basically
keeps adding that style to whatever was there.
| | 01:50 | Now I want to start from scratch of
this image since I've messed up on it. So
| | 01:54 | what I'm going to do is, I'm
going to click Clear All Styles and
| | 01:56 | double-clicking Clear All Styles will
get it back to its default. So I can
| | 02:01 | double-click Drop shadow to add a drop
shadow. I could also double-click Emboss
| | 02:06 | to give it a 3D effect. Now when I do
that, you see that the Drop Shadow is
| | 02:11 | there and the Emboss is there, so we are not
replacing what's there, we are only adding to it.
| | 02:15 | Now keep in mind if you want to add
styles to text, you could also go to the
| | 02:18 | Library panel and look for different
Type Styles here. However, if you use
| | 02:22 | these Type Styles, like if I double-
click one of these, it's going to add ABC
| | 02:28 | with these Type Styles here, it's not
going to apply the text that already exists.
| | 02:31 | So as you can see the Styles panel is a
great way to give life to what you have
| | 02:36 | going on and again if you double-click
Clear All Styles with anything selected,
| | 02:40 | be it text, shapes, images what have
you, it removes all styles applied to it,
| | 02:44 | no harm done.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Automatically arranging objects| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to be using
the Arrows 01 project from the Chapter
| | 00:03 | 08 folder. Basically it's a blank menu
with a bunch of these little arrows from
| | 00:07 | the Library panel added in a crazy random way.
| | 00:09 | Now, what we are going to look at in
this movie is a really helpful way of
| | 00:13 | organizing these arrows. What I'm
going to do first is I'm going to click the
| | 00:17 | Direct Select Tool; you can just do
that by hitting the letter A on your
| | 00:20 | keyboard as well.
| | 00:21 | Now if I wanted to arrange these in a
straight line from top to bottom, you
| | 00:26 | might think that I have to click and
drag and move each single one of those and
| | 00:30 | that will be just a huge waste of time.
| | 00:32 | So we are going to have Encore do this
for us automatically. I'm going to hit
| | 00:35 | Command+A or Ctrl+A on the PC to select
all of these arrows. Next, I'm going to
| | 00:39 | go up to the Object menu and first I'm
going to select Align and I'm going to
| | 00:44 | Align Left. So now they are
all aligned on the left edge.
| | 00:49 | Now they may not be exactly where you
want them, but once they are all selected
| | 00:53 | and they are all lined up then I can
click and drag and move one and they all
| | 00:56 | go along for the right. So I could put
them wherever I want them. But the thing
| | 01:00 | is we still have some that are grouped
together really closely and then there
| | 01:03 | is a super huge gap between these. So
what we need to do now is distribute them
| | 01:07 | evenly from top to bottom.
| | 01:09 | So I'm going to back to the Object menu
and instead of going to Align I'm going
| | 01:13 | to go to Distribute and I want to
distribute these Vertically. I'll click
| | 01:17 | Vertically and there we go. A nice
orderly row from top to bottom, click away
| | 01:24 | from it to deselect and I
can see my organized glory.
| | 01:28 | This trick is especially handy for
aligning up buttons that you may have added
| | 01:31 | to a menu you've created. But as you
can see it also works great for decorative
| | 01:36 | elements as well.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Transforming objects| 00:00 | For this tutorial, we are going to be
continuing on where we left off in last
| | 00:03 | segment with these beautifully aligned
and distributed arrows and I'm going to
| | 00:07 | use the Arrows 02 project and what we
are going to talk about here is basically
| | 00:11 | transforming objects,
changing them around a little bit.
| | 00:15 | So with my Direct Select Tool selected
I'm going to click this top arrow and if
| | 00:19 | you want to perform some basics
transformations, we can just use this bounding
| | 00:23 | box to make adjustments. So we can
click on one of these corner points and
| | 00:27 | resize both horizontally and vertically.
| | 00:30 | It's going to hit Command+Z or
Ctrl+Z to undo that because we'll be
| | 00:33 | transforming objects, you might want
to get your hands on those keys because
| | 00:37 | we'll be undoing a lot, so I'm going to
Undo that and if I just want to resize
| | 00:41 | horizontally I can put my cursor on
one of these center points, on one of the
| | 00:45 | side edges left or right and drag to
resize, Undo that or just vertically I
| | 00:51 | could click on one of the center
buttons on the top or bottom edges. Okay, I'm
| | 00:54 | going to undo that.
| | 00:56 | Now if you put your cursor along the
corner and then you put out a little bit
| | 01:01 | you'll get this curved double-sided
arrow and what that indicates is that you
| | 01:05 | will actually rotate the object. So by
click and drag up and down, I'll again
| | 01:10 | rotate that object. I'm
going to undo that one more time.
| | 01:13 | I could also use the Rotate Tool, if
finding that little gizmo is hard for me,
| | 01:17 | just come and click this Rotate Tool in
the toolbar at the top of the interface
| | 01:20 | and then you can just click anywhere
in the object to rotate it around and
| | 01:24 | again I'm going to undo that.
| | 01:25 | Let me get back to the Direct
Selection Tool; let me show you a couple of
| | 01:28 | tricks here. If I'm clicking on one
of these corner points to resize, you
| | 01:32 | notice how easy it is to get this
thing all out of whack and distorted and
| | 01:36 | looking pretty horrible. If I hold
the Shift key, it's still going to look
| | 01:40 | pixelated when it's blown out past
its original size. However, it will
| | 01:45 | constrain their proportions as you
are scaling. So here is if I let go the
| | 01:49 | Shift key, it gets all out of whack
and skewed and stuff. But again if I hold
| | 01:53 | the Shift key, those relationships
between the horizontal and vertical sides
| | 01:57 | remain proportional.
Again I'm going to undo that.
| | 02:00 | Also we can actually go to the
Object menu to get some additional
| | 02:04 | transformation. For example, if I
wanted to flip this arrow, I could select
| | 02:08 | Flip Horizontal and that would flip
this arrow horizontally so I'm going to
| | 02:12 | create some kind of cool design element
there where the arrows are pointing at
| | 02:15 | each other or what have you.
| | 02:17 | Also with this object selected I can go
to the Object menu and if I know how I
| | 02:21 | want my Object to Rotate then I could
say let's say, for example, I rotate at
| | 02:25 | 90 degrees clockwise and then I don't
have to worry about trying to manually
| | 02:29 | get it exactly 90 degrees clockwise.
Now again I'm going to undo that. I'm
| | 02:34 | actually going to click Ctrl+Z or
Command+Z a couple of more times to get back
| | 02:37 | to its original look here.
| | 02:38 | Now I'm actually going to drag this
with the Direct Select Tool into this blank
| | 02:42 | area so we could see what's going on a
little bit more clearly. I want to share
| | 02:45 | with you one more keyboard shortcut.
Now, you notice as I click and drag on a
| | 02:49 | corner point that it's basically scaling
from the upper left-hand corner of the object.
| | 02:54 | That might not be super intuitive for
you it certainly isn't for me and doesn't
| | 02:58 | give me the effects I want all the time.
So what I'm going to do is hold the
| | 03:01 | Option key on the Mac or the Alt key
on the PC and then when I scale this up,
| | 03:06 | it will scale from the center.
| | 03:09 | So again here is with the Option key
hold down, scaling from the center, I let
| | 03:13 | go of the Option key and it goes
back to scaling from the upper left-hand
| | 03:16 | corner. So again it's one of those
toggle shortcuts that while I'm holding it,
| | 03:20 | it does it, when I let go
it changes the behavior.
| | 03:24 | Also it's not mutually exclusive with
the Shift key. So I can hold the Alt key
| | 03:29 | to scale it from the center or the
Option key on the Mac and I could also hold
| | 03:32 | the Shift key to constrain the
proportions and scale from the center.
| | 03:36 | So again I could hold the Shift and Alt
or Shift and Option down to do both of
| | 03:41 | those things at the same time. And once
you are done, you want to make sure and
| | 03:44 | let go of your mouse first because
again those keyboard shortcuts toggle. So as
| | 03:49 | soon you let go the keyboard shortcut
then it's going to go back to looking all
| | 03:52 | screwy and scaling from the wrong
angle and all that kind of stuff.
| | 03:56 | So that's how we make our
transformations using Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Using Audio and SubtitlesUsing audio in Encore| 00:01 | In this chapter we are going to look
at the important topic of using audio in
| | 00:03 | Encore. This movie will serve as an
introduction. What I'm going to do is
| | 00:08 | double-click in the Project panel to
import a couple of files. I'll go to the
| | 00:11 | Media folder in the Exercise Files
folder and in the Videos area, I open up
| | 00:16 | 0010MK.mov and click Open and I'm
going to double-click in the Project panel
| | 00:21 | one more time, go back up to the Media
folder and then in the Audio folder I'm
| | 00:26 | going to import Simple Melody.mp3.
| | 00:29 | I could tell what kind of assets I have
in my Project panel by this icon here.
| | 00:34 | This filmstrip indicates a movie;
speaker indicates an audio track. Next I'll
| | 00:37 | create a timeline by going to this
button down at the bottom of the Project panel.
| | 00:40 | Next I'm going to drag this video clip
down into the Timeline and as we preview
| | 00:47 | this video clip, you can see that's
just basically some leaves kind of moving
| | 00:49 | around and in the audio that
accompanies that is basically just the ambient
| | 00:53 | audio of the wind blowing stuff around.
| | 00:55 | Now to add this to my project what I'm
going to do is I'm going to hit the Home
| | 00:58 | key to get back to the first frame and
what we can do is add a new audio track.
| | 01:03 | So I'm going to right-click in Audio 1
and select Add Audio Track. Notice we
| | 01:08 | have an Audio 2 track and we can add
this MP3 clip to this Audio 2 track. But
| | 01:15 | be aware that this doesn't acts
like your video editing program.
| | 01:19 | In you video editing program, you can
just stack a bunch of audio tracks on top of
| | 01:22 | each other and just like instruments in
orchestra where they all kind of blend
| | 01:26 | together, not so in Encore.
| | 01:29 | In Encore, you can play one audio track
or another; they are mutually exclusive.
| | 01:33 | So if I turn on Audio Track 1, we will
no longer hear any of Audio 2 and vice
| | 01:38 | versa. So those are kind of the rules
of using audio. If you want to blend
| | 01:43 | audio tracks together, let's say you
have a soundtrack and you want to blend
| | 01:46 | it with the ambient audio of a video
clip, you need to do that either in your
| | 01:49 | video editing program or in an audio
editing program. Encore is not the place for that.
| | 01:55 | However, even though Encore is not an
audio mixing program. We still can use
| | 01:59 | audio here in the timeline, we could
have alternate audio tracks for different
| | 02:04 | languages, we can have audio as
backgrounds for menus, for slideshows as we
| | 02:09 | will see and a whole bunch of other stuff.
So audio definitely has its place in Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding 5.1 surround sound| 00:00 | Okay folks, this is the shortest video
in the entire training series. I'm going
| | 00:04 | to ask the question, can Encore use 5.1
Surround Sound audio? The answer is yes.
| | 00:12 | What you need to do when you import
audio is, when it says Enable, you go to
| | 00:17 | DTS Audio; this is the type of audio
that will enable 5.1 Surround Sound.
| | 00:22 | Now, there may be more audio files that
support Surround Sound but .dts is kind
| | 00:28 | of a big standard for Surround Sound.
In case you are not yet familiar with
| | 00:31 | what Surround Sound is, basically
it's when there are multiple speakers,
| | 00:36 | basically five speakers. Three in the
front and two in the back and one extra
| | 00:41 | sweetener that emits just low
frequencies, base tones, so when there is thunder
| | 00:46 | and lightning or something crashes or
whatever you have this really deep rumble
| | 00:51 | sound, and that's Surround Sound audio.
Definitely enhances the user experience.
| | 00:55 | But you can't create that in Encore
just like any other audio, it needs to be
| | 00:59 | created in another program, such as
Adobe Audition or what have you, and then
| | 01:04 | you could bring that here into Encore,
but you can definitely import and use
| | 01:09 | Surround Sound audio files in Encore.
| | 01:12 | Oh, one more thing, as of the time
that I'm recording this DTS files will not
| | 01:17 | preview in Encore, although they will
burn to disk. So again, that might change
| | 01:22 | by the time that you hear this, but as
of the time I'm doing this you cannot
| | 01:25 | preview these DTS files, just trust
that when you bring them in they will burn to disk.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding audio while a menu plays| 00:00 | In this tutorial we are going to look
at adding audio to a menu background.
| | 00:04 | You could use any type of menu; it
doesn't have to be a menu with a video
| | 00:08 | background. It could just be a still
image menu and that's actually what we
| | 00:11 | are going to use in this example here.
| | 00:12 | So what I want you to do is go over
to the Library panel and in the General
| | 00:15 | Set, go ahead and double-click the
Sunset Menu. Again, this is as you could
| | 00:23 | see here in the Project panel, this is
just a still image. Just a PSD file, no
| | 00:27 | movie in the background. Double-click
in the Project panel, go to the Audio
| | 00:31 | Folder, inside the Media of the Exercise
Files folder, and open up Simple Melody.mp3.
| | 00:39 | Now, all you have to do to add this
audio track as the background for the menu
| | 00:43 | while you are looking at the menu
options is just drag it and drop it.
| | 00:48 | Now, what's kind of frustrating about
this is there is no like cue, like, 'hey,
| | 00:52 | you did it, good job' or something.
There is no way to know that you did it
| | 00:55 | right. So just to double check, click
on the menu in the Project panel so that
| | 01:00 | you can see it in the Properties
panel. Then go to the Motion tab of all
| | 01:04 | places, and then under Audio it should
say the name of your audio track, which
| | 01:09 | it does. So it did work.
| | 01:10 | To preview this, let's go ahead and
right click on the menu in the Project
| | 01:13 | panel and select Preview From Here.
| | 01:16 | (Piano music plays.)
| | 01:21 | And it works. That's all it takes to
add audio to menus while menus play.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Allowing users to change the disc language| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to talk
about how to allow users to change the audio
| | 00:05 | track. Now, this is typically used for
changing the language of a Timeline. So
| | 00:10 | maybe if instead of listening to it
in English, they listen to the Spanish
| | 00:13 | version. But this could also be used
for things like Director's commentary,
| | 00:17 | where instead of listening to the
regular audio track, you listen to the audio
| | 00:20 | track with the Director talking over it.
| | 00:23 | This actually is one of the more
challenging things to do in Encore, so let me
| | 00:27 | begin by showing you this project.
I have created this Changing Language
| | 00:30 | project you will find in the Chapter
09 folder of the Exercise Files.
| | 00:33 | Let me show you what I have done so far.
| | 00:35 | I basically have set up a little
skeleton Encore project; that way we could
| | 00:39 | spend most of our time in this video
just setting the language changing stuff.
| | 00:43 | But just so you know what I have done
already, I'm going to click the Preview
| | 00:46 | button to preview this project.
| | 00:48 | I have a main menu and the main menu
has two buttons. One is the Timeline,
| | 00:53 | which actually plays the video. The
video has like these oceans waves; it lasts
| | 00:59 | for a few seconds there, they are kind
of in slow motion, and then it goes back
| | 01:03 | to the main menu. Or actually it should.
M aybe I didn't set that up quite right.
| | 01:07 | Then we also have the Languages
button here. That takes us to the Language
| | 01:12 | menu. That's really the core, that's
really why we are here. So we have three
| | 01:15 | languages: English, Spanish, and
Italian, and we have a button that takes us
| | 01:18 | back to the main menu.
| | 01:20 | So I'm just going to go ahead and exit
here and return. The first thing we need
| | 01:23 | to do is to create additional audio
tracks for each of our audio languages. So
| | 01:28 | we have English, Italian, and Spanish.
| | 01:32 | Now, the audio track here is really
just the background audio of the video
| | 01:37 | file, so even though this technically
isn't English track because we have this
| | 01:40 | dropdown here, it doesn't necessarily
count as an English track so I need to
| | 01:44 | right click and select Add Audio Track.
We will go ahead and add the English
| | 01:49 | track to this. I'm going to right click
again, select that audio track one more
| | 01:53 | time, and let's add a
fourth audio track as well.
| | 01:56 | Now, you might need to resize this
little divider in between the tracks or use
| | 02:01 | the Scrollbars on the right to be able
to see all four of these tracks. Now,
| | 02:05 | I'm going to drag Spanish down to the
Audio 3 track and Italian down to the
| | 02:12 | Audio 4 track.
| | 02:13 | Keep in mind that these are all
mutually exclusive. We cannot play more than
| | 02:17 | one audio track at a time.
| | 02:18 | Now, what I'm going to do is I'm
going to change this dropdown, which is
| | 02:22 | actually a language dropdown, to keep
this organized. So I know that this is
| | 02:26 | Spanish, so I'm going to scroll down
this list and go and select Spanish from
| | 02:29 | this huge dropdown, and on the
Italian track I'm going to select Italian or
| | 02:35 | I-talian as some members of my family would say.
| | 02:37 | Basically, this really doesn't do
anything; it doesn't convert the files to a
| | 02:41 | different language or whatever; it's
just so you can keep things organized.
| | 02:46 | Now, I strongly recommend keeping a
standard. So in other words, if right now
| | 02:51 | Spanish is on our Audio 3 track,
keep it on Audio 3 for all Timelines
| | 02:56 | throughout the entire project, because
realistically Encore doesn't care what
| | 03:00 | language is on Audio Track 3. All it
cares about is using Audio Track 3. So if
| | 03:05 | on one Timeline you have Spanish on
Track 3 and then in another Timeline you
| | 03:10 | have French on Audio Track 3, then as
viewers are watching your project, on one
| | 03:15 | Timeline they are going to hear Spanish
and another one they are going to hear
| | 03:17 | French. So all that matters is what
audio track you are using, so it's a good
| | 03:21 | idea to keep those organized.
| | 03:23 | So now we have all these different
tracks, we have selected the language here
| | 03:26 | to just kind of keep things orderly.
Now we need to change the Language menu.
| | 03:30 | So let's go ahead and double-click
the Language menu to open it up. Here is
| | 03:33 | where it gets a little bit challenging.
Let's go ahead and click the Italian
| | 03:36 | button. The way that we change the
language with this button is by going over
| | 03:40 | here to the Link area in the Properties
panel with the button selected. Now, we
| | 03:44 | don't use the Pick Whip to link to
anything, because that would be too easy.
| | 03:47 | What we have to do is click on this
right little arrow here to get this pop-up
| | 03:51 | menu and click Specify Link.
| | 03:54 | From Specify Link, because this is the
Italian button, we need to change the
| | 03:58 | audio to Track 4; that is the Italian
audio track. But we also need to set a
| | 04:04 | link for this button, so we can't click
OK until we have clicked a link for it.
| | 04:08 | So what I'm going to do is just in the
Language menu, link back to the Italian
| | 04:11 | button, so when users click this
button nothing will happen it seems like. We
| | 04:16 | do the same thing for Spanish. We
click Spanish, go over to the flyout menu,
| | 04:20 | click Specify Link, change the audio
to Track 3, the Spanish track, and then
| | 04:26 | link back to the Spanish button in the
Language menu. Same thing for English.
| | 04:30 | Click the English button flyout menu
of the Link button, Specify Link, change
| | 04:35 | the audio to Track 2, our English track,
and then under the Language menu we
| | 04:40 | click English, and click OK.
| | 04:43 | Now, we are good. Let's go ahead and
preview the project and see what we have
| | 04:46 | so far. Let's go to the Languages menu,
and let's go ahead and try Spanish. So
| | 04:54 | I'll click Spanish and then I can go
back to the main menu and click on the Timeline.
| | 04:58 | (Computer: I am the voice that speaks Spanish.)
| | 05:02 | Awesome, that worked. If we go back to
the menu and click Italian... Go back to
| | 05:06 | the main menu, click Timeline.
| | 05:08 | (Computer: Now I am speaking Italian.)
| | 05:11 | Yes, you are, very good. Now, I click on
| | 05:14 | English, and back to the main menu,
back to the Timeline.
| | 05:17 | (Computer: I am speaking English.)
| | 05:19 | There we go, cake.
| | 05:21 | Now, one thing that's kind of cool too,
and actually let me go back to the main
| | 05:24 | menu and play the Timeline.
| | 05:27 | (Computer: I am speaking English.)
| | 05:28 | Now, let me just go ahead
and pause this video here
| | 05:31 | real quick, with the Timeline playing.
If you don't change the permissions then
| | 05:36 | users can just hit the Audio button on
their remote control, if their remote
| | 05:39 | control has one, and cycle through the
various audio tracks. So we can simulate
| | 05:45 | that with this little dropdown here.
| | 05:47 | So I can click maybe the Track 3, the
Spanish track, and let's rewind it.
| | 05:52 | (Computer: I am the voice that speaks Spanish.)
| | 05:55 | Let me pause it, and I could change
the track to Italian, then rewind it.
| | 06:00 | (Computer: Now I am speaking Italian.)
| | 06:03 | So anyways, we can go through this
list the same way one would if they had an
| | 06:06 | audio button. So that's really all
there is to it. My bark was probably worse
| | 06:10 | than my bite; it's really not that
complicated. So we setup different audio
| | 06:13 | tracks, one for each language, and we
need to go with the button selected to
| | 06:17 | the Link flyout menu, select Specify
Link, and then specify the audio track
| | 06:22 | that's going to change to when this
button is clicked, and you are good to go.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating subtitle tracks| 00:00 | In this tutorial we are going to look at
creating subtitles. And what better way to
| | 00:04 | look at subtitles than by using an
old kung fu movie? If you'd like to follow
| | 00:08 | along, I'm using the Creating Subtitles Encore
project you could find in the Chapter 09 folder.
| | 00:13 | Now, I grouped audio and subtitles in
the same chapter, because they actually
| | 00:17 | work very similarly. The way that we
create subtitles by actually clicking this
| | 00:22 | Text Tool up at the top in the
Toolbar in the upper left hand corner of the
| | 00:25 | interface, then just clicking and typing.
But as you could see here we can't do
| | 00:29 | that until we create a subtitle track first.
| | 00:32 | So we need to come down here to the
Timeline, and this little divider now plays
| | 00:36 | a significant role. If we right
click above the divider it says Add Audio
| | 00:40 | Track. If we right click below the
divider then we will add a subtitle track.
| | 00:46 | So again, audio goes on top of
this divider, subtitles go below.
| | 00:50 | So I'm going to right click, select
Add Subtitle Track. Then once we do that
| | 00:54 | and we click the Type Tool, we can
come over here to our movie and click to
| | 00:59 | type in a subtitle. 'I want
to fight you now.' Very good.
| | 01:03 | Now, what we can do is come down here
to this clip, the subtitle clip, and we
| | 01:08 | can adjust it just like we would a
piece of video in a video editing program or
| | 01:12 | in Encore. We grab the end here and
extend it or shorten it. We could also
| | 01:18 | click in center of it to move it around.
| | 01:22 | We could also use these little
navigational arrows to jump around to the
| | 01:25 | beginning and end of the subtitle
tracks. So if you want to jump to the
| | 01:29 | beginning of the next subtitle track,
click on Next Clip here and we jump right to it.
| | 01:33 | Then if we want to create another
subtitle. Let's say we go out and look for
| | 01:38 | when the camera changes. I'm going to
say right here. Then we simply, with the
| | 01:42 | Text Tool again, just click
and just start typing again.
| | 01:50 | Again, afterwards, we can select the
Selection Tool and click and move these
| | 01:53 | around wherever we want. We could put
them up here if we want to; typically
| | 01:56 | subtitles go at the bottom of the
screen in the center. So you could see we
| | 02:00 | have a gap here. So we have one
subtitle that comes on, and then there is a
| | 02:05 | blank space, and then another one that comes on.
| | 02:09 | Now, we could create another subtitle
track. I can right click and select Add
| | 02:12 | Subtitle Track, but you will notice
when we do that, that this little area next
| | 02:16 | to Subtitle 1 becomes empty and it
become selected next to Subtitle Track 2.
| | 02:21 | This is because subtitles work like
audio tracks; you could only have one
| | 02:26 | selected at a time.
| | 02:26 | So I'm going to delete this by right
clicking on it and selecting Remove
| | 02:30 | Subtitle Track. That's
basically how to create subtitles.
| | 02:35 | Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going
to go to the File menu at the top and
| | 02:37 | select Save As. In the Chapter 09
folder I'm going to call this Coloring
| | 02:42 | Subtitles. So that way when we look at
colorizing subtitles a little bit later
| | 02:47 | on this chapter, we will basically
start from where we left off now.
| | 02:52 | In the meantime, in the next few
movies, we are going to look at some other
| | 02:56 | subtitle tips and tricks, such as
importing, exporting, and so on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using imported subtitles| 00:00 | We are now going to take a brief look
at how to import subtitles. For this
| | 00:04 | tutorial I have created a project
called Importing Subtitles, you will find
| | 00:07 | that in the Chapter 09
folder of the Exercise Files.
| | 00:10 | The way that we import a subtitle is by
going down to the Subtitle area in the
| | 00:14 | Timeline panel and right clicking, and
instead of selecting Add Subtitle Track,
| | 00:19 | which as we have seen previously
creates a blank subtitle track, we go to
| | 00:22 | Import Subtitles.
| | 00:24 | Now, there are three different ways
you could import subtitles: using a Text
| | 00:27 | Script, a FAB Images Script, or just a
regular Image Script. In this tutorial
| | 00:31 | we are only going to work on Text
Script. These other two are a little bit
| | 00:35 | complicated. For more information on
them you could look at Encore's Help and
| | 00:39 | it describes in detail
how to set one of those up.
| | 00:41 | Before we import this Text Script I
want to actually open up the script and
| | 00:45 | show you what it looks like. Now,
for the sake of the fact that we are
| | 00:48 | distributing these Exercise Files, we
are keeping them short and small; again,
| | 00:53 | making them easy to distribute. So
because of that, as we saw previously in
| | 00:57 | this chapter, it's really easy to create
subtitles manually; just type in your text.
| | 01:02 | However, if we had a feature length
film that was an hour-and-a-half or two
| | 01:06 | hours long, that would be extremely
tedious. So in most cases other companies
| | 01:11 | are hired to actually create these
subtitle files. They could then be imported
| | 01:16 | into Encore.
| | 01:17 | Now, let's go over to my Exercise Files.
Then I'm going to go down to my Media
| | 01:22 | Folder, Other Assets, and I'm going to
open up Subtitles. So here what's going
| | 01:27 | on. For the first subtitle labeled
number 1, the timecode is from 2 frames in
| | 01:34 | to 1 second and 20 frames, this is the
subtitle. So for the second subtitle,
| | 01:40 | this is the start point and the
endpoint and what it says. For the third piece
| | 01:44 | of subtitle, this is the start
point, endpoint, and what it says.
| | 01:48 | So now this is what it looks like
when you Import this into Encore. Right
| | 01:52 | click, Import Subtitles, Text Script.
Let's navigate to that spot again that's
| | 01:57 | in the Exercise Files, and there is a
folder called Media, and in the Media
| | 02:00 | folder there is Other Assets folder,
and that's where you will find the
| | 02:03 | Subtitles text file. Click Open to import that.
| | 02:06 | You actually get this nifty little
Import Subtitles dialog box. It allows you
| | 02:10 | to change the Font, the Font Style,
the Font Size, the Stroke Weight, where
| | 02:16 | it's Positioned, and a
whole bunch of other things.
| | 02:18 | We are going to leave these settings as
is for now and click OK. Now as you can
| | 02:22 | see, at 2 frames in our first subtitle
starts and then it stops, and there is
| | 02:29 | a little break there, second one, and third one.
| | 02:35 | So again, you could imagine if you
hired a company to create a feature length
| | 02:39 | film worth of subtitles for you how
easy that would be just to click Import and
| | 02:43 | bring them in that way.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exporting subtitles as a text file| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to look at
just a quick tip, continuing where we
| | 00:03 | left off in the last segment where we
looked at importing subtitles, here we
| | 00:07 | are going to look at how to export subtitles.
| | 00:10 | This can be really useful for
collaboration if there are other people on a team
| | 00:14 | working on this DVD project, or if
you want to send the subtitles out for
| | 00:17 | client review, that type of thing.
| | 00:19 | So what you do is you come to the
subtitle track, right click on it, select
| | 00:23 | Export Subtitles, and it creates a Text
Script. Essentially what it does is it
| | 00:27 | creates a .txt or in other words a
text file, and that allows you to save out
| | 00:31 | the subtitles as a text file,
similarly to what we imported in the last segment.
| | 00:36 | People in your team or may be your
clients can then open that text file, make
| | 00:40 | changes to the subtitles, and then
send it back to you, and you could just
| | 00:44 | re-import that and their corrected
subtitles come back in to the Timeline.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating subtitles with multiple colors| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to look at
colorizing subtitles. For this we will be
| | 00:03 | using the Coloring Subtitles project that we
created a little bit earlier on in this chapter.
| | 00:08 | Now, what we have in this project is
basically this one guy in the black
| | 00:12 | speaking to the one guy in the gold. So
first, the guy in the black speaks and
| | 00:16 | the subtitle says, "I want to fight you
now." Then the camera angle changes, and
| | 00:20 | we see the gold guy and gold
guy says, "That hurts my feelings."
| | 00:24 | So what we want to do is change the
color of these subtitles. Now, we could
| | 00:29 | change the color of the subtitles for
artistic reasons, because maybe we want
| | 00:32 | the yellow to match the gold of his
outfit, I don't know, whatever, but
| | 00:36 | typically, more often than not, we want
to change the subtitles to indicate who
| | 00:39 | is speaking. This is particularly
helpful for those that are watching that have
| | 00:43 | maybe auditory impairments and they
can't hear and they are watching the
| | 00:47 | subtitles to see the dialog. It might
not be that obvious, especially while you
| | 00:51 | are trying to read the screen, who
is talking, and so if you give each
| | 00:55 | character their own distinctive color,
then it's easier just to tell just by
| | 00:59 | looking at the screen who is speaking.
| | 01:02 | Now, before we change this let's look
at something really quick. Let's go to
| | 01:05 | the Timeline menu at the top and then
select Edit Timeline Color Set. Now,
| | 01:10 | there is a Menu Color Set, which is
completely different that we will be
| | 01:13 | talking about later on in this training
series. For now we are going to look at
| | 01:16 | Edit Timeline Color Set.
| | 01:18 | The Timeline Color Set controls only
the colors of subtitles. Essentially, we
| | 01:23 | have three colors to choose from, three
color groups: Subtitle Group 1, 2, and
| | 01:28 | 3, where 1 is the default. For each
color, in other words each Subtitle Group,
| | 01:34 | we have a Fill Color, which is the
actual color of the text. We have a Stroke
| | 01:38 | Color, which is the color of the
outline. Now, again keep in mind as we see
| | 01:42 | here the Fill Color is almost always a
light color; the Stroke Color is almost
| | 01:47 | always black. That way your subtitles
are visible on any background, even if we
| | 01:52 | were going to get a close-up of that
gold dude, we would still be able to see
| | 01:55 | this text because of the black outline.
Likewise, if the shot was to go black,
| | 01:59 | then the Light Fill would still show
up even thought the stroke is black.
| | 02:03 | This third color, Anti-alias, is a
color that goes between the Fill and Stroke
| | 02:08 | to kind of soften the transition
between them. We could also change the Opacity
| | 02:12 | for each of the Fill
Stroke or Anti-alias colors.
| | 02:16 | Now, as I mentioned, the Anti-alias is
kind of like a middle color between the
| | 02:19 | Fill and Stroke; that's what it's
supposed to be anyways, to kind of soften
| | 02:22 | this transition between the Fill and
the Stroke to make it look a little bit
| | 02:25 | smoother. But if you get the Fill Color
you like and the Stroke Color you like,
| | 02:29 | you can select this box, Create Anti-
alias Color from Fill and Stroke, and it
| | 02:33 | will automatically just kind of guess
a color that's perfectly in between the
| | 02:36 | Fill and Stroke that will
probably look the smoothest between them.
| | 02:39 | So now that we know this, we know
that the Fill Group 1 is a yellow color.
| | 02:44 | Again, we could just click this Color
Swatch and change these colors. I'm just
| | 02:46 | going to hit Cancel there because I'm
happy with them now. Subtitle Group 2 is
| | 02:50 | pink, Group 3 is this kind of faded
lavender color. I'm just going to go ahead
| | 02:55 | and hit Cancel here.
| | 02:56 | I'm going to select the second subtitle
where it says "That hurts my feelings."
| | 03:01 | So what we could do with this selected,
we go to the Properties panel, we could
| | 03:04 | see the subtitle clip. We could
actually change the text of the subtitle clip
| | 03:08 | from here in this Text field and also
the Duration, In Point, Out Point, and
| | 03:11 | all that stuff, but what we want
to do here is change the Highlight.
| | 03:14 | So if we change this from Group 1 to
Group 2, we could see that it changes to
| | 03:19 | that pink color, and it will probably
change that lavender color if we select
| | 03:22 | Group 3, and there it goes.
| | 03:25 | So this way we can have the guy in the
black, his text is yellow, and the guy
| | 03:31 | in the gold, his text is lavender. And
that way when they are speaking, even
| | 03:37 | when the camera is not on them and it
might be confusing who is speaking,
| | 03:40 | we know who is talking.
| | 03:42 | Again, this is great for impairments,
but it's also great for foreign films,
| | 03:45 | where there is a lot of different
people speaking a different language that the
| | 03:48 | viewer may not understand.
| | 03:50 | Also, finally, just one last thing I
want to point out is that there is a lot
| | 03:52 | of limitations as we deal with
subtitles and audio tracks and stuff, that audio
| | 03:57 | track can't play at more than one at a
time and that subtitles can't have more
| | 04:02 | than three colors or whatever, but a
lot of these limitations are because of
| | 04:06 | the DVD standard. It has nothing to
do with Encore; that's just the way the
| | 04:09 | DVDs were setup. DVDs and Blu-ray discs
can't play more than one audio track at
| | 04:14 | the same time. DVDs and Blu-ray discs
just have a limit on how many colors they
| | 04:19 | will allow for subtitles. That's just
the nature of the beast; it has nothing
| | 04:22 | to do with Encore.
| | 04:24 | So that concludes our
look at audio and subtitles.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Creating SlideshowsIntroducing slideshows| 00:00 | All right, in this chapter we get to
look at slideshows; probably my favorite
| | 00:04 | part of Encore. The slideshows in
Encore are dynamic, they are engaging, there
| | 00:09 | are tons of parameters and things you
can control and change. They are great
| | 00:13 | for presentations, as we will talk
about later on in this training series, and
| | 00:16 | they are just generally fun and quick and
easy to setup as well. So let's make one.
| | 00:20 | I'm going to double-click on my Project
panel to import some images. I'm going
| | 00:23 | to go to the Media folder of Exercise
Files and I'm going to go to the Photos
| | 00:26 | folder, in the Surfing folder. I'm
going to click on the top image, scroll
| | 00:31 | down, Shift click the bottom image to
select everything here, and then I'm
| | 00:35 | going to click on the Open button to
import these into my Project panel.
| | 00:38 | We have all these images here as
assets in our Project panel. We could add
| | 00:43 | these to a slideshow by clicking the
top one, and just as we imported them,
| | 00:47 | Shift click the bottom one, and then
going to this new icon and clicking
| | 00:51 | Slideshow; the same way
we add stuff to a Timeline.
| | 00:54 | Also, we can right click and select
Import As Slideshow, and import the images
| | 01:00 | as a slideshow already created that
way. But if we already have a slideshow
| | 01:04 | created; I'm just going to create a
blank slideshow. You do that by having
| | 01:08 | nothing selected and then coming
down here to this new icon and clicking
| | 01:11 | Slideshow. We could just click and
drag images into the slideshow, or I can
| | 01:18 | click many images. I'm just going to
again Shift click the bottom image to
| | 01:22 | select many images, and then just drag
and drop to import multiple images at
| | 01:25 | once into your slideshow.
| | 01:28 | Like Timelines, slideshow also show
up in the Monitor panel. The timecode
| | 01:32 | where each slide exists or begins, I
should say, is right below each slide. So
| | 01:38 | at 30 seconds into my slideshow I'm
going to be looking at this slide here.
| | 01:42 | We could also add audio to our
slideshows. I'm going to go into the Project
| | 01:45 | panel and double-click in a blank
area somewhere in here, there we go. I'm
| | 01:51 | going to go back to my Media folder in
the Exercise Files, I'm going to go to
| | 01:54 | Audio, and I'm going to import
chadperkins surfalicious longer, and click Open.
| | 02:00 | Then from here in my Slideshow Viewer,
I can go to the Audio area, and I can
| | 02:05 | just use the Pick Whip to click and
drag to the Project panel to select the
| | 02:09 | piece of audio to use as the
soundtrack for my slideshow. Later on in this
| | 02:12 | chapter we will talk a little bit more
about how to customize our slideshows
| | 02:16 | with audio for a classier presentation.
| | 02:19 | You can also preview the slideshow
from right here in the Monitor panel. I'll
| | 02:22 | click the first slide and
click the Play button here.
| | 02:24 | (Music plays.)
| | 02:33 | So after the first six seconds,
it switches over to the next slide. I don't know
| | 02:37 | about you, but six seconds is a little
long to be looking at one image that's
| | 02:42 | just may be a simple photo. In the
next movie I'll show you how to adjust and
| | 02:46 | customize your slideshows
using the Properties panel.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting slideshow properties| 00:00 | We are now going to dig a little bit
deeper into slideshow theory and talk
| | 00:04 | about adjusting the properties of our
slideshows. First, I'll be using the Surf
| | 00:09 | Slideshow project you will find in the
Chapter 10 folder; it's essentially the
| | 00:12 | last project we looked at in the last
movie. Let me say that's a project and I
| | 00:16 | also organized it a little
bit more in the Project panel.
| | 00:18 | Now, the first thing you want to get
very clear when you are talking about
| | 00:22 | slideshows and adjusting them, that
there is a difference in the Properties
| | 00:25 | panel between a slide and a slideshow.
So if I click a slide in the Slideshow
| | 00:30 | Viewer, you could see in the Properties
panel that we are adjusting the slide.
| | 00:33 | In other words, we are adjusting the
properties just for this one image in a
| | 00:36 | slideshow. Notice that there is a
Transition Tab, there is an Effects Tab,
| | 00:40 | there is a Name, there is Duration,
and we see a lot of those same properties
| | 00:43 | when we select the entire slideshow.
| | 00:45 | We can do that by going to the
Project panel and clicking a slideshow. Now
| | 00:49 | notice that we are adjusting the
properties of the slideshow. Here we also find
| | 00:53 | a Transition Tab, although there is
not an Effects Tab, but there is an Audio
| | 00:56 | tab, and there is also a Name and a
Description. There is also a Slide
| | 01:00 | Duration. So it can get a little
confusing, so make sure when you are making
| | 01:04 | adjustments here and you are wanting
to adjust slides or the slideshow, that
| | 01:07 | you are aware, which one you are adjusting.
| | 01:09 | Let's go ahead and go back and select
the first slide again, and we are going
| | 01:13 | to be talking about this slide's
properties. The first thing we come to is the
| | 01:16 | Name of the slide. Now, that may not
seem that important to you, but it can
| | 01:20 | play a little role in
customizing your slideshow.
| | 01:23 | Let's say for example that I rename
this slide, cool surfer guy, I don't know.
| | 01:28 | Let's say I also added a Description.
So I tab down to the next field and I
| | 01:32 | type, some guy w/ surfboard, etc. What
I can use that for is if I come down to
| | 01:40 | the bottom of the Properties panel, I
can select this option, Create Subtitle.
| | 01:44 | When I do that then it has the Name up
here as a Subtitle on the slide. I could
| | 01:50 | also check the Description field so
that the Description also shows up.
| | 01:54 | So again, this is another great help
when you are using this as a Presentation
| | 01:58 | tool, because basically you can then
go in and may be make a chart or a graph
| | 02:02 | and then label the graph with
the Name and Description fields.
| | 02:05 | As we talked about in the last chapter
we can adjust the Highlight Group of the
| | 02:08 | Subtitles to change the color of the
Subtitles if you want to. For now I'm just
| | 02:12 | going to uncheck Create Subtitle or
remove that, but just be aware that that's
| | 02:15 | there if you need it.
| | 02:16 | Now, the next thing we want to talk
about here is the Duration. By default each
| | 02:20 | slide lasts for 6 seconds. As I
mentioned in the last movie, 6 seconds is an
| | 02:25 | awful long time for me to just sit
and stare at the same thing. In this
| | 02:27 | photograph, for example, not too
much going on, just some dude with the
| | 02:30 | surfboard, 6 seconds is a
long time to stare at that.
| | 02:33 | So I do want to adjust the duration
of this slide, but before I do realize
| | 02:38 | this, it says Match Slideshow.
Whenever something says Match Slideshow. That
| | 02:43 | means that it's basically using the
Master Settings for the entire slideshow.
| | 02:49 | So if 6 seconds is too long for every
slide, then instead of going through and
| | 02:53 | selecting every single slide and
changing the duration to maybe 3 seconds,
| | 02:56 | instead I could go to the slideshow,
click on the slideshow on the Project
| | 03:00 | panel here, and then change the Slide
Duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds. Now
| | 03:06 | all I have to do is make sure that
each individual slide has Match Slideshow
| | 03:10 | checked and then everything goes for 3
seconds. Match Slideshow, as we will see
| | 03:14 | as we go throughout this chapter, is a
very helpful feature of slideshows in Encore.
| | 03:19 | The last thing I want to talk about is
the Scaling of images. Some images that
| | 03:23 | you use in your slideshows, such as
number 6 here in my slideshow are very high
| | 03:28 | resolution images. They are much bigger
than what can fit in the Monitor panel.
| | 03:32 | Some slides, such as my current number
1 slide here, are actually much smaller
| | 03:37 | than the Monitor panel, or in
other words, your DVD presentation.
| | 03:40 | So how do you handle mismatched slides
or slides of different sizes? We do that
| | 03:46 | with this dropdown here, the Scale
dropdown. By default, we Scale and Apply a
| | 03:51 | Matte. In other words, Encore makes
sure that we can see all of our images and
| | 03:55 | in order to do that it might have to add these
black bars, this Matte all along the edges.
| | 04:00 | Now, that looks kind of cool and kind
of movie like for this slide, but the
| | 04:04 | problem is that each slide, as you
kind of glance down the list of our slides
| | 04:08 | here in our slideshow, they will
all have different Matting. If this is
| | 04:13 | changing for every frame,
it might not look that great.
| | 04:16 | So I can also change this to Scale and
Crop Edges; that will make sure that the
| | 04:21 | entire screen is filled even if Encore has
to crop some of the edges off of your photo.
| | 04:26 | Now finally, we have the Do Nothing
option. This seems like it would be good,
| | 04:31 | but in actuality it can be a really bad
move. If I said Do Nothing, we see our
| | 04:35 | photo at actual size here.
| | 04:37 | Now, that's probably the best setting
as far as the quality of the image goes,
| | 04:41 | but that's probably not the best
setting for the quality of the slideshow.
| | 04:46 | Going back to my slide number 6, for
example, if I said Do Nothing, it actually
| | 04:50 | gets significantly larger,
because it's a really high res image.
| | 04:53 | So those are some basics for adjusting
properties for slides and slideshows.
| | 04:58 | Next we are going to look at
creating transitions between slides.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding transitions to slides| 00:00 | In this tutorial we are going to take
a look at creating animated transitions
| | 00:03 | in between slides. These transitions
are similar to what you might see in a
| | 00:07 | video editing program like Premiere Pro.
| | 00:09 | If I select a slide in my slideshow,
and by the way, I'm using the Surf
| | 00:12 | Slideshow project we looked at in the
last movie. You will find that in the
| | 00:15 | Chapter 10 folder of the Exercise Files.
Basically what I'm going to do is go
| | 00:19 | over here to the Properties panel with
the slide selected, and go over to the
| | 00:22 | Transition tab.
| | 00:23 | Now, you notice that there is an
option. The default is to Match Slideshow.
| | 00:28 | What that means basically is if we go
back over here to our Project panel and
| | 00:31 | select our slideshow. I just selected it
here on the Project panel so it's active,
| | 00:35 | we could actually go over to the
Transition tab of the Slideshow and then set a
| | 00:40 | transition for the entire slideshow,
which will automatically make every single
| | 00:44 | slide in the entire
slideshow have a given transition.
| | 00:48 | But then we can go to a particular
slide, and instead of having it match the
| | 00:52 | slideshow, we could make a custom
transition just for one slide or however many
| | 00:57 | slides we want.
| | 00:58 | Now, some of these are kind of simple.
Let's say for example, Cross Dissolve,
| | 00:59 | that's a real common one. Let's
see if we have a nice kind of softer,
| | 01:03 | emotional, touching type slideshow;
basically it's just fading in and out, good
| | 01:07 | for weddings and stuff. You can
actually preview the transition by clicking the
| | 01:10 | Preview button here.
| | 01:11 | (Music plays.)
| | 01:14 | It's kind of nice.
| | 01:15 | Also, when a slide has a transition
applied to it, you can see this little icon
| | 01:19 | next to it in the Slideshow Viewer.
| | 01:21 | Now, there is again a lot to choose
from here. Gradient Wipe is kind of cool,
| | 01:25 | and actually pretty appropriate for
what we want to do here with this Surf Slideshow.
| | 01:29 | (Music plays.)
| | 01:32 | Not too shabby.
| | 01:33 | I could also change the duration of
the transition itself. It doesn't affect
| | 01:37 | the slide transition; it changes how
long it's Gradient Wiping. So let's go
| | 01:42 | ahead and change this to 3 seconds
and then preview what this looks like.
| | 01:45 | (Music plays.)
| | 01:48 | So basically, increasing the duration
of the transition slows down the transition.
| | 01:54 | Now, one of the things that you want
to be careful of is that you are using
| | 01:58 | these transitions tactfully. Kind of
like with video editing, you don't want to
| | 02:01 | go super crazy all the time.
| | 02:03 | So if we had, for example, Cube Spin,
which looks really cool. Let's preview it.
| | 02:07 | (Music plays.)
| | 02:11 | It's pretty cool. But you
could imagine how that would be really
| | 02:15 | ostentatious and overdone and kind of gaudy
and icky if that was done on every single slide.
| | 02:21 | Now, if the Cube Spin matched what
you were doing as far as what you are
| | 02:25 | showing with your slide, so maybe
you had like a -- you went to a Cube
| | 02:28 | Festival and everything is all
about cubes or you are doing like a Lego
| | 02:32 | convention or something, where you are
wanting to have things kind of be blocky
| | 02:36 | or whatever, then it would match and be okay.
| | 02:38 | But don't make every single slide a
different transition just because you can.
| | 02:42 | You want to make it kind
of fit with what's going on.
| | 02:44 | So again, the Gradient Wipe would be
probably a little bit overdone for most
| | 02:48 | projects, but because it has that kind
of like surfy look to it, with kind of
| | 02:52 | like a wave wiping the images away,
then it would be appropriate here. It would
| | 02:57 | fit with the theme.
| | 02:59 | In most cases if you wanted to use
transitions, you would probably just go to
| | 03:02 | the entire slideshow and set something
soft like Cross Dissolve for the entire slideshow.
| | 03:07 | Next, we are going to look at effects,
adding movement to each individual slide.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding motion to slides| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to look at
one of the things that really set apart
| | 00:04 | Encore slideshows and makes this such
as a great tool for this. I'm going to be
| | 00:08 | using the Surf Slideshow project
again from the Chapter 10 folder.
| | 00:11 | Now, what I'm going to do is select a
slide here in my Slideshow Viewer, and go
| | 00:14 | over here to the Properties panel, and
go to the Effects Tab. Now typically, if
| | 00:18 | you are in the video world you think
of effects, you think of maybe lightning
| | 00:21 | or whatever. But when we talk about
effects in terms of Encore slideshows, it
| | 00:26 | refers to Pan and Zoom.
| | 00:28 | Pan is basically when you move
something left, right, and in this case also up,
| | 00:33 | down. Zoom is when you
scale an object up or down.
| | 00:37 | So in order to adjust the Pan and
Zoom Size, we need to first click Pan and
| | 00:40 | Zoom. The Pan Size we could use, let's
say North to South. Then if we preview this.
| | 00:46 | (Music plays.)
| | 00:52 | So essentially as you could see, the
Pan is going from North to South. So it's
| | 00:55 | starting North, or in other words at
the top, and then it's going down.
| | 00:59 | You also probably noticed that it's
zooming in; the Zoom is set to Zoom In.
| | 01:02 | We could also Zoom Out instead. So we
start big and then kind of fade away.
| | 01:08 | (Music plays.)
| | 01:12 | And by fade away I just mean gets smaller.
Basically we could play around with
| | 01:15 | these settings so that we could have
this Pan go exactly from where we want it
| | 01:19 | to wherever we want it, and we could have
the Zoom get bigger or smaller for every slide.
| | 01:24 | But as you can imagine with
slideshows you only have a 99 photo limit with
| | 01:29 | slideshows; you can only have 99
images per slideshow. So if you want to do a
| | 01:33 | slideshow with 300 images you have got
to do three slideshows. You can imagine
| | 01:37 | all the work you have to do on all those
images just to give your slideshow a little life.
| | 01:42 | So there is actually a much easier way
to do this. I'm going to uncheck Pan and
| | 01:45 | Zoom here, and I'm going to select my
slideshow in the Project panel. So with
| | 01:49 | the slideshow selected in the Project
panel, coming here to the Properties
| | 01:51 | panel; again, make sure it says
Slideshow, not the Slide. Then go over here to
| | 01:56 | the bottom, and we have Random Pan & Zoom.
| | 01:59 | What that does when its selected is it
will automatically apply Pan and/or Zoom
| | 02:05 | to every single slide automatically. It
will make your audience think that you
| | 02:10 | went into every single slide and
manually adjusted the settings for every
| | 02:13 | single one of them, but you didn't.
You just hit this little checkbox.
| | 02:16 | Slides that have effects applied have
this little Fx icon, so you notice
| | 02:20 | that once we hit this, once we
selected Random Pan & Zoom, then every single
| | 02:23 | slide had that Fx icon.
| | 02:25 | So you see now the power of using the
Master Controls to adjust things in the
| | 02:30 | Slideshow panel rather
than in each individual slide.
| | 02:33 | So now with Random Pan & Zoom selected,
let's Preview our project and see how
| | 02:37 | much more interesting and
engaging it is with this selected.
| | 02:41 | (Music plays.)
| | 02:51 | So you see that with just a little bit
of random movement on each slide, it not
| | 02:55 | only makes it look like we put way
more effort into this project than we
| | 02:59 | actually did, but it also is a much
more engaging presentation for the user.
| | 03:05 | I almost never create a
slideshow without Random Pan & Zoom.
| | 03:08 | Next, we are going to look at another
favorite trick of mine, syncing your
| | 03:11 | slideshow to an audio track.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Syncing slideshows to audio| 00:00 | All right, I got another cool
slideshow trick here for you. I'm going to be
| | 00:03 | using again the Surf Slideshow project
from the Chapter 10 folder. Basically,
| | 00:07 | audio with slideshows doesn't work by
default like you might expect it to.
| | 00:12 | So there are couple of
options you should be aware of.
| | 00:14 | If I scroll down to the bottom of my
slideshow, I see the last slide starts at
| | 00:18 | 1 minute and 18 seconds into it. This
actually goes about a minute-and-a-half.
| | 00:24 | My audio track as you can see here by
the duration is not quite a minute. By
| | 00:28 | default, the last 24 seconds or so
would not have any audio at all. So if you
| | 00:33 | want to add extra audio, we
would need to loop the audio here.
| | 00:37 | But an even better trick is this option,
Fit Slideshow to Audio Duration. So
| | 00:41 | instead of basically repeating the
audio to go along with the video, it's going
| | 00:47 | to condense the slide automatically, so
that it automatically ends up when the
| | 00:52 | audio is done. As you scroll up to
the top, you can see that it even has to
| | 00:56 | divide up the frames; each slide's
basically 4 seconds and eight frames long.
| | 01:01 | Think about the math that would have taken up.
That would have been super annoying.
| | 01:05 | But it's all automatically done for
us by Encore by selecting this option.
| | 01:09 | So we don't want to watch this
entire slideshow for a minute long in this
| | 01:12 | tutorial. But let's say for example we'll
watch the last two slides and see how this works.
| | 01:19 | (Music plays.)
| | 01:26 | So the audio ended and by the time it
faded out, the last slide was over and
| | 01:31 | the slideshow is done. Again, this is
another one of those great Encore tricks
| | 01:34 | that really makes you look like you
know what you're doing, but you don't have
| | 01:38 | to put any effort into it at all.
You just click the checkbox.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Slideshows and bit budgeting| 00:00 | In this brief movie, we're going to
take a look at the technical aspects of the
| | 00:04 | slideshow as basically how much space
it takes up on your DVD. And it's kind of
| | 00:09 | interesting with slideshows because it
completely depends. If you just have a
| | 00:12 | simple, straight slideshow, no transition, no
effects, then the effects on bit budgeting is negligible.
| | 00:18 | Basically photos, the photos in the
slideshow take a very little room on a DVD.
| | 00:24 | So if you have a full length high-
quality movie and you want to smush a
| | 00:27 | slideshow in there, it's not really
going to take that much effort if you don't
| | 00:30 | have any effects or transitions.
| | 00:32 | However, if you have transitions
between clips, so you had a cross dissolve or
| | 00:37 | something like that going from this
clip to this clip, basically what that's
| | 00:40 | going to do is it's going to force
Encore to have to render a movie between
| | 00:45 | these two and that will start adding to
your file size a little bit. Let's say
| | 00:48 | for example this image was on for 5
seconds and then had 2 second transition to
| | 00:53 | this movie, which was on for another 5 seconds.
| | 00:56 | Basically the 2 second transition
between them would have to be rendered as a
| | 00:59 | movie, but the other 5 seconds of
these two slides going to remain as really
| | 01:04 | low file size images. However, if
you add Random Pan and Zoom to your
| | 01:10 | slideshow, it will essentially as far
as bit budgeting goes, turn it into a movie.
| | 01:16 | So if you have a slideshow that's 10
minutes long and you add Random Pan and
| | 01:21 | Zoom to it, it's basically going to
be like you're adding a 10 minute movie
| | 01:24 | into your DVD. So make sure when
you're planning out your DVDs, you also
| | 01:29 | realize what kind of slideshow
you are going to have with your DVD.
| | 01:33 | So again, just a recap, regular
slideshows without any effects or transitions,
| | 01:37 | it's basically treated like a series of
images, very, very small file size. Add
| | 01:41 | transitions and basically it's a same
thing except that where the transitions
| | 01:45 | are Encore will have to make movies
and that will start adding to your file
| | 01:49 | size a little bit. And again, if you
have Random Pan and Zoom selected, it's
| | 01:52 | going to turn the entire slideshow into a video.
| | 01:56 | So realize these sort of details
and plan your DVDs accordingly.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
11. Using PlaylistsWhat is a playlist?| 00:00 | In this chapter we are going to look
at playlists, both regular playlists and
| | 00:03 | chapter playlists. And essentially a
playlist, the purpose of a playlist is to
| | 00:08 | give viewers more control over
the content that they want to watch.
| | 00:12 | Most of the times when you are
watching a DVD, you just sit through this
| | 00:15 | presentation and it's whatever they
want you to sit through, whoever made the
| | 00:18 | DVD, playlist allow us to empower our
viewers a little bit more, so they can
| | 00:23 | watch the stuff that they want to watch.
| | 00:25 | Now the best way to describe playlist
is probably with iTunes interestingly
| | 00:30 | enough. In iTunes, I might have a huge
music catalog with tons of songs, maybe
| | 00:35 | thousands and thousands of songs, but I
can organize those songs into playlist,
| | 00:40 | into little groups. So if I want to
just play out of thousands and thousands of
| | 00:45 | songs, if I want to just play my top
25 most played, I can just click on this
| | 00:49 | little playlist and jump right to
those custom songs, just the 25 that I like
| | 00:54 | the most or just 1990s music
or the top rated or whatever.
| | 00:58 | Well, playlist in Encore work the
same way. Basically, it allows us to have
| | 01:02 | more choices over the content that
we're looking at. I have set up a project
| | 01:06 | here for you called Playlists. You will
find this in the Chapter 11 folder and
| | 01:10 | basically the way this works is that
there is this Play All button and this is
| | 01:14 | the only thing that set up so far and
with this Play All button, it goes to the
| | 01:18 | Leaves timelines, you could see here in
the Properties panel. And it plays the
| | 01:22 | Leaves timeline, which contains
this movie that has Leaves in it.
| | 01:25 | As you could see over here, with that
timeline selected, its End Action is the
| | 01:28 | crazy bird in motion. When I select
that timeline, you can see that the end
| | 01:31 | action of that is the Water and the end
action of that is the Komodo dragon and
| | 01:36 | then after the Komodo dragon, it goes
back to the menu. So basically we have
| | 01:40 | one super huge movie made up of several
timelines. It goes Leaves, crazy bird,
| | 01:46 | Komodo dragon, Water, all out of order
but still within the general nature theme.
| | 01:51 | Well, what I want to be able to do is
give the viewers the power to watch just
| | 01:56 | the movies on the animals or watch just
the movies with the landscape, with the
| | 02:00 | Leaves and the Water. So to do this, we
create playlist. We do that by going to
| | 02:04 | the bottom of the Project panel and
select a Playlist, not a Chapter Playlist,
| | 02:08 | which we'll talk about in the next movie,
just a regular playlist for now. And
| | 02:12 | I'm going to call these animal movies.
And you can see it here in our Project
| | 02:18 | panel. Sorry this is a little bit messy
here but it's important that we can see
| | 02:21 | all these things to be
able to make links to them.
| | 02:24 | So it already has this Water Chapter 1
in there. So I'm going to select that. I
| | 02:28 | actually want to remove this, so I'm
going to come down here and hit the Trash
| | 02:33 | Can to get rid of that. And let's go
ahead and pick the two animal timelines
| | 02:37 | here using the pick whip and in the
Properties panel with the playlist
| | 02:40 | selected. I'm going to click and drag
the pick whip over to the Komodo dragon.
| | 02:43 | Then, I'm going to pick whip
again to the crazy bird in motion.
| | 02:48 | Now keep in mind that both of these
timelines have end actions that result in
| | 02:54 | going to other timelines that aren't
animals, but that's okay. The beauty of
| | 02:58 | playlist is that the end actions are
kind of overwritten temporarily for the
| | 03:04 | sake of the playlist. So when people
click on animal movies, they can go just
| | 03:09 | to these two timelines and they don't
have to worry about seeing all of the
| | 03:12 | other stuff the Leaves and the Water as well.
| | 03:14 | Now let's create another playlist. Go
to the New icon again at the bottom of
| | 03:19 | the Project panel and select
Playlist and this time let's call this one
| | 03:23 | landscape. So now we could select the
landscape playlist and use the pick whip
| | 03:29 | to select the Leaves and use
the pick whip to select water.
| | 03:35 | That's important with both of these
playlists that we set the end action, which
| | 03:39 | is actually the menu in this case. So
I'm going to click the pick whip, click
| | 03:42 | the menu here, select the animal
movies, Playlist and use the end action or
| | 03:46 | choose the end action of
the menu for that as well.
| | 03:49 | And let's create some navigation;
we've already with this Play All button
| | 03:52 | selected, as you can see I mentioned
we're already navigating to the Leaves
| | 03:55 | timeline. Let's select the play animal
movies button and make a link that goes
| | 04:00 | over to the animal movies playlist and
select the landscape movies button and
| | 04:05 | select the link to go to the landscape playlist.
| | 04:09 | So again, I know it's a little bit
confusing because there are so many
| | 04:11 | timelines and stuff that's going on.
But essentially we are giving the users
| | 04:16 | this DVD more control over what they
want to watch. Instead of just having a
| | 04:19 | Play All button, and picking random
timelines, we say okay, you know what, we
| | 04:23 | have this presentation we want you to
watch, but we are going to give you the
| | 04:26 | ability to watch just what you want
to watch whether it's just the animal
| | 04:29 | movies or just the landscape movies.
| | 04:31 | Now let's preview this and see what
we have. So we click Play All and I can
| | 04:36 | fast forward to these. So we have the
leaves, the bird, then we have the water
| | 04:43 | and finally we have the Komodo dragon,
click Next again and we go back to the
| | 04:50 | main menu. Now if we click on the play
animal movies, we see the Komodo dragon,
| | 04:59 | the bird and then it goes back to
the main menu and we say just play the
| | 05:03 | landscape movies, we see the leaves,
then next we see the water, next again
| | 05:11 | takes us back to the menu.
| | 05:13 | So we give people the choices that
what they want to watch. We don't have to
| | 05:15 | create separate timelines for it, we
just create a playlist and the playlist
| | 05:19 | lets people choose what they want to watch.
| | 05:22 | Next, we'll look at a similar
feature in Encore, the Chapter Playlist.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using chapter playlists| 00:00 | Chapter Playlists are actually very
similar to regular playlists except they
| | 00:04 | happen only within a certain timeline.
So I have created this project Chapter
| | 00:08 | Playlist if you like to follow along.
I basically have a timeline here, the
| | 00:12 | Ninja Timeline and it has basically a
several of these video clips with this
| | 00:16 | Ninja movie all in a row here.
| | 00:18 | Now obviously the key to Chapter
Playlists is chapter markers in a timeline.
| | 00:23 | Thankfully when you drag separate
video clips to a timeline, Encore
| | 00:27 | automatically creates these markers for
you and so those are the ones we'll be
| | 00:31 | using here, but of course you
can create your own and use those.
| | 00:34 | So I'm going to just come here to
this New button down at the bottom of the
| | 00:36 | Project panel and I'm going to select
New, Chapter Playlist and then the Ninja
| | 00:42 | Timeline Chapter Playlist pops up.
If you have multiple timelines in your
| | 00:46 | project, Encore probably ask you, which
timeline you would like to use for that
| | 00:51 | Chapter Playlist.
| | 00:52 | So here on the left-hand side, we have
all of the different chapter markers in
| | 00:56 | the selected timeline. On the right-
hand side, we have the Chapter Playlist
| | 01:00 | that we're creating. So essentially
we are creating a separate movie, a
| | 01:04 | separate presentation based on these
different chapter markers. So we might
| | 01:08 | start with chapter marker number 2,
which is the Fight Scene and then we might
| | 01:13 | go to Ninja Spinning Face, the 4th
chapter marker and just leave it at that and
| | 01:17 | now if we have a button that links to
the Chapter Playlist, it's going to play
| | 01:21 | just the Fight Scene and then skip to
Ninja Spinning Face and then be done with it.
| | 01:25 | Now this is really helpful. Let's say
for example you had a full length movie
| | 01:29 | and you wanted the users of the DVD to
be able to watch just scenes of their
| | 01:32 | favorite character and so you could use
Chapter Playlist for that, or let's say
| | 01:36 | you are making a sports DVD and you
just wanted people to be able to watch like
| | 01:39 | a highlights reel, you can make a
Chapter Playlist for that as well, or maybe
| | 01:43 | for a wedding, and you wanted
people to be able to watch just certain
| | 01:46 | festivities, maybe just the cake
cutting or just maybe family members or
| | 01:50 | something like that.
| | 01:50 | Whatever it is that, highlights from
the video, you want people to be able to
| | 01:54 | access just very quickly, Chapter
Playlists are a great tool for that.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
12. Advanced Authoring ConceptsThe power of end-action overrides| 00:00 | To kickoff this chapter on advanced
concepts in Encore, we're going to start by
| | 00:04 | talking about end action overrides. If
you'd like to follow along, you can use
| | 00:09 | this End Action Overrides project, you could
find in the Chapter 12 folder, the Exercise Files.
| | 00:13 | Essentially end action overrides, the
point of them is to give you control kind
| | 00:18 | of like playlists. So you don't have to
follow with the disc, what have you, do,
| | 00:21 | users are allowed to
choose what they want to watch.
| | 00:25 | The way that we do this is by
overriding the end action. We've talked before
| | 00:29 | about how every object has an action.
In other words, once it's done playing,
| | 00:33 | what happens. Well, we can override
end actions so that certain things happen
| | 00:38 | under different circumstances.
Let's take a look at how this works.
| | 00:42 | I have got this menu set up here and
basically we have three slideshows that's
| | 00:46 | what's in this project, a menu with
three slideshows. And when you click on
| | 00:49 | Play Slideshows, this top button, it
starts out with the animal slideshow and
| | 00:54 | then the end action of the animal
slideshow is the Flowers Slideshow and the
| | 00:59 | end action of the Flowers Slideshow
is the Kids Slideshow. Once the Kids
| | 01:03 | Slideshow is done, it goes back to the
menu. So when it says Play Slideshows,
| | 01:06 | it plays them all in a row.
| | 01:08 | But let's say somebody wants to just
watch a slideshow of the animals only.
| | 01:13 | I've created this button that is a
link to just the Animals Slideshow as you
| | 01:17 | can see over here in the Properties
panel with this button selected. It just
| | 01:20 | plays the Animals Slideshow. The
problem is, is that this is the same thing as
| | 01:25 | playing all slideshows because the end
action of the Animals Slideshow is the
| | 01:28 | Flowers Slideshow followed by
the Kids Slideshow etcetera.
| | 01:31 | So how do we set up this project in
Encore so that people can watch just the
| | 01:35 | Animals slideshow and then return to
the menu once it's done? This is where the
| | 01:39 | End Action Override comes in handy.
Remember that End Action Overrides are a
| | 01:44 | function of buttons. So what we need
to do is select this Animals Slideshow
| | 01:48 | button and then select an Override.
In other words, when people click this
| | 01:53 | button, it will override the end
action of the thing that's playing.
| | 01:58 | So again, if we were to play this
Animals Slideshow as is now, it would follow
| | 02:02 | the regular course of its end action,
which would go to the next slideshow. If
| | 02:05 | we select an override, let's say of
the menu, we make a pick whip here to
| | 02:09 | select this menu in the Project panel.
Then, once this slideshow is done,
| | 02:14 | instead of going to the next slideshow,
which is its end action, it overrides
| | 02:18 | that end action and takes you back to the menu.
| | 02:21 | So again, End Action Overrides are a
function of the button as you could see
| | 02:25 | here in the Properties panel. So
let's go and see what this looks like. I'm
| | 02:28 | going to preview my project by clicking
this button in the Tools panel here and
| | 02:32 | let's first Play All Slideshows. They
go pretty quick and there's only a few
| | 02:37 | images so it's not that much to set through it.
| | 02:39 | So we have this, we have the monkey and
then it's done and then it goes to the
| | 02:43 | Flowers Slideshow, which again we can
skip using these arrows and then as you
| | 02:49 | would expect, once we're done with the
Flowers Slideshow, we go off to the Kids Slideshow.
| | 02:54 | Let's hit the Menu button and get back
the beginning. Now remember that we set
| | 02:59 | up an end action override for this
Animals Slideshow button. So when we click
| | 03:04 | and play this, the Animals Slideshow,
as we saw just moments ago when the
| | 03:10 | Animals Slideshow finishes, by default
it goes to the Flowers Slideshow, that's
| | 03:14 | its end action. But because the override,
once it's done, it comes back here to
| | 03:18 | the menu. If we were to play the
Flowers Slideshow as is, its end action is the
| | 03:23 | Kids Slideshow. So if we want to
change that, we need to set up an end action
| | 03:26 | override for this button.
| | 03:28 | The Kids Slideshow already comes last
and its end action is already the menu,
| | 03:32 | so we don't need to make any changes
there. If we want to finish off this
| | 03:34 | project, we can select the Flowers
Slideshow button and then set an override
| | 03:39 | link to the menu. And now
we have a nice, orderly menu.
| | 03:44 | Users can watch the presentation that
we have created for them or they can
| | 03:48 | watch content as they please.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using replacement layers| 00:01 | In this movie we're going to look at
something called replacement layers.
| | 00:03 | You'll find these in menus often times
in some of the stock menus that come with
| | 00:08 | Encore, especially the Wedding
category of Menus. I'm actually using a menu
| | 00:12 | from that set called Rustic Menu.
| | 00:15 | Replacement layers are denoted by
this little sign. It looks kind of like a
| | 00:18 | ball with an arrow in it. Replacement
layers basically allow you to design a
| | 00:23 | menu, say in Photoshop, and put some
kind of like styles in it and that kind of
| | 00:27 | stuff and just knowing that
you're going to replace it later.
| | 00:32 | Later on towards the end of this
training series, we're going to have a chapter
| | 00:34 | just on the Photoshop codes and I'll
show you in that chapter how to create
| | 00:38 | your own replacement layers from
Photoshop. So here we are just going to take a
| | 00:42 | look at how to take advantage
of these replacement layers.
| | 00:46 | Now I'm looking at this menu here and
this is again in the Wedding category and
| | 00:51 | I'm not feeling wedding too much with
this menu. It's just a bunch of rocks and
| | 00:55 | stuff and I guess there's a picture
frame, which makes it more lovey-dovey, but
| | 00:58 | they're still just rocks.
| | 01:00 | So I'm going to select the Type tool in
the toolbar and I'm going to come down
| | 01:04 | here and once I put my cursor close
enough to the text that that bracket goes
| | 01:07 | away like so, then I can click and
highlight this text and change it to
| | 01:13 | something more appropriate. I'm going
to say 'IN THE WILD.' Oh yeah! I'm going to
| | 01:20 | click this little Selection tool
arrow in the upper left-hand corner of the
| | 01:24 | toolbar to accept the text. And now
I'm going to select this little monkey
| | 01:28 | image and all you have to do to take
advantage of these replacement layers is just
| | 01:32 | grab a photo, just drag and drop.
Badda bing! There you go.
| | 01:37 | I'm going to click outside to deselect
that and you can see that not only does
| | 01:42 | this monkey image fit inside of this
frame but we're also getting some of the
| | 01:47 | effects set up in Photoshop such as
this little drop shadow along the edge.
| | 01:51 | That creates more of a sense of realism
like this monkey image actually belongs in
| | 01:56 | this shot. That's really all
there is to using replacement layers.
| | 02:00 | Again, for good ideas of how to use a
replacement layer, try scrolling through
| | 02:05 | some of these other menus here in the
Library panel. For example, this one the
| | 02:10 | Bride menu in the Wedding set. This is
a replacement layer. So obviously for
| | 02:14 | making a DVD for a wedding, you
wouldn't want a picture of this lady whoever
| | 02:18 | that is. You want a picture of the
couple or the bride or whatever, the wedding
| | 02:23 | that you are creating a DVD for.
| | 02:25 | So you just drag and drop an image
there and this sepia tone and all the
| | 02:29 | coloration will continue, will be there.
| | 02:31 | So even if you drag and drop a color
photo, it will still colorize it and it
| | 02:35 | will fit with the overall scheme of
this DVD. And again this really helps when
| | 02:39 | you're designing the menu in Photoshop.
Let's say that you design it and it
| | 02:42 | looks beautiful with this sepia tone
image but you don't really have a sepia
| | 02:46 | tone image or know which
image will look the best there.
| | 02:49 | So you just keep dragging and dropping
different images here in Encore until
| | 02:53 | you get the one that fits best for this menu.
And that's what replacement layers are for.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Looping menus| 00:01 | In this tutorial we're going to look at
a very powerful feature of Encore to be
| | 00:04 | able to loop menus. I realize it doesn't
sound very powerful but this is a very
| | 00:09 | cool trick. So what I have done is I
have taken this NTSC Scientific Menu.
| | 00:14 | You could see this here in the Library,
in the Corporate set, looks like this. And
| | 00:19 | I did a few tricks for it, I'll
explain these tricks in the next chapter when
| | 00:22 | we look at how to use videos as a menu,
but essentially I took this into After
| | 00:26 | Effects and I did a few cool tricks with it.
| | 00:28 | What we're going to do is, we're
going to take these cool tricks I did with
| | 00:31 | that. I rendered out as a movie file.
We're going to use this movie as the
| | 00:34 | background of the menu. Now the way we
do that is we hold the Alt key or the
| | 00:39 | Option key on the Mac and drag
that to the menu's background.
| | 00:44 | Now let's preview what we have so far.
We could see the problem and talk about
| | 00:49 | a little bit. So I'm going to right-
click on the menu and select Preview from
| | 00:52 | here. So when we do that, the video
that I made in After Effects plays based on
| | 00:57 | the movie and you saw that there is a
subpicture highlight though just kind of
| | 01:00 | sitting there waiting for us with
nothing going on there until these buttons
| | 01:05 | kind of flew into place. So that's a problem.
| | 01:08 | And then, it loops all over again.
Here's the subpicture highlights, the
| | 01:12 | buttons come on again, we don't want
that. So what we're going to do with one
| | 01:16 | very quick simple move, we're going to
fix all those problems. The way that we
| | 01:20 | do this is have the menu selected, go
over to the Motion tab in the Properties
| | 01:25 | panel again with the menu selected and
then come down here to the loop point.
| | 01:29 | This tells Encore where to start looping.
| | 01:32 | You see in this movie that we have.
Maybe I can just select it here and play
| | 01:36 | for you in the Project panel. These
little elements animate on for the first 5
| | 01:40 | seconds of the 15 seconds and then for
the remaining 10 seconds, it plays like
| | 01:45 | this cool animation. So we want this
to loop, but we don't want the first 5
| | 01:50 | seconds to loop, only the last 10
seconds to loop. So with this menu selected,
| | 01:54 | I can say the loop point is 10 seconds.
| | 01:58 | So this will cause Encore to play the
entire 15 second video opening for the
| | 02:03 | menu and then when it loops back at the
end of the 15 seconds, it won't go back
| | 02:06 | to the beginning, it will go back 5
seconds end or in other words the last 10
| | 02:11 | seconds of the video.
| | 02:14 | So let's see what that looks like and
see all the stuff that got fixed by just
| | 02:17 | changing the loop point. Right-click
on the Menu in the Project panel, select
| | 02:21 | Preview from here and notice there is
no subpicture highlight hanging out here.
| | 02:27 | So what this is going to do now, it's
going to let this video play out for the
| | 02:30 | first 15 seconds and then at the
end of that 15 seconds, the subpicture
| | 02:34 | highlight will come back and our menu
will function and work just like normal.
| | 02:39 | You see there we have the subpicture
highlight now, it works as normal and then
| | 02:43 | after this place for another 10 seconds,
it's going to just keep looping. And
| | 02:46 | so we have this seamlessly looped menu.
The subpicture highlight doesn't come
| | 02:50 | on until it's time;
everything works out perfectly.
| | 02:53 | Again, in the next chapter we'll talk a
little bit more about how to use video
| | 02:57 | as a menu background. But for
now, that's how to loop menus.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Replacing a menu| 00:00 | In this quick movie we are going to
look at a very simple tip that might really
| | 00:05 | save you some time. We are going to
talk about how to replace a menu. Let's go
| | 00:10 | ahead and go over the Library panel
and the Government Set and I'm going to
| | 00:14 | double-click the Nova Menu and the Pro Menu.
| | 00:18 | Now, let's say the Nova Menu and double-
click this in the Project panel to open
| | 00:22 | it up. We have the Play button, the
Scenes button and the Extras button. And
| | 00:27 | let's say that we love these buttons,
we have already created our navigation,
| | 00:30 | everything is already set up but we
need to change the theme of the menu. We
| | 00:35 | don't what the buttons to change, we
don't want the names of the buttons to
| | 00:37 | change or the links to change, we
just want the background, the theme to
| | 00:41 | change, and let's say we want to
replace it with this Pro Menu. But notice that
| | 00:46 | the buttons on the Pro Menu; there
are five buttons as opposed to our three
| | 00:50 | buttons that we want and the buttons
are Businesses, Schools, Non-Profit,
| | 00:54 | Consumers and Investors. Nothing
to do whatsoever with the Nova Menu.
| | 00:58 | But what I can do is with the Nova
Menu selected, I can come over here to the
| | 01:03 | Pro Menu and instead of double-clicking
it to add it to my project, I can click
| | 01:07 | this button right here, which is Replace.
If I do that, then this Nova Menu is
| | 01:14 | replaced by this theme, the Pro Menu
theme. The colors are all different to
| | 01:19 | going on with the Pro Menu and there
is now only three buttons and that three
| | 01:22 | buttons have been changed to Play,
Scenes and Extras. The same buttons that we
| | 01:26 | had before with the Nova Menu. So if
you want to quickly replace a menu, you
| | 01:31 | don't want to start from scratch. You
can just use this little Replace button
| | 01:34 | down at the bottom of the Library panel.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a chapter index| 00:00 | Often times when people are watching a DVD,
they would like to use these chapter
| | 00:03 | selection menus. They can just see
where they want to jump to in the DVD. May
| | 00:07 | be they don't want to sit through an
hour of material they have already seen,
| | 00:11 | just to see the last half hour,
or the last hour of the movie.
| | 00:13 | But for you and me as DVD authors that
can be kind of tedious. We are going to
| | 00:17 | create all the chapter selection
menus and then link up every single one of
| | 00:21 | these buttons. Well, if we create a
chapter index, Encore will do all of that
| | 00:26 | work for us. Now in order to do this,
we need a few ingredients. Number one we
| | 00:31 | need, of course, a timeline with a
video in it and we need bunch of chapter
| | 00:35 | markers here. If you only have like
two or three chapter markers, it might be
| | 00:38 | easier just to drag and drop and
create the links yourself. But this trick is
| | 00:42 | really helpful when you have got
tons of chapter markers like this here.
| | 00:45 | Now remember that you can just hit the
Spacebar and play a video and hit the
| | 00:50 | Asterisk key on the numeric keypad to
add chapter markers in real time while
| | 00:55 | you are playing the video. So again I
just hit the Spacebar to play it and hit
| | 00:59 | the Asterisk key on the numeric keypad
to add these chapter markers. The other
| | 01:03 | thing that we will need is a chapter
selection menu. In the Library panel these
| | 01:09 | are called submenus. So you can see
here we have a regular menu, the submenu,
| | 01:13 | regular menu, submenu. So you need a
submenu and finally you need to have at
| | 01:18 | least one link in this menu, linking
it to a timeline. So we can just drag on
| | 01:24 | of these chapter markers, just drag and
drop it into the chapter 1 button here.
| | 01:29 | Now once you have done all that, you
can go to the menu. Actually I'll probably
| | 01:32 | select our submenu here, then go to
the Menu menu at the top of the interface
| | 01:36 | and select Create Chapter Index. Now
give that just a minute and what it will
| | 01:44 | do, as it will create Submenus and
links for every single one of our chapter
| | 01:50 | markers automatically. Now the downside
of this here is that it's not renaming
| | 01:55 | the chapter numbers based on our
chapter markers. We have to go back in and
| | 02:00 | rename those. But all the same all the
Submenus are automatically bought into
| | 02:05 | the projects, they automatically
duplicate those. These links work back and
| | 02:10 | forth and all of our thumbnails are
already linked up there automatically
| | 02:13 | because we created a chapter index.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using photos and video as subpictures| 00:00 | This tutorial is quite possibly going
to be the most advanced of all of the
| | 00:04 | movies in this entire training series.
We are going to cover a trick that will
| | 00:08 | allow you to use video and regular
still images as subpictures. Now as you
| | 00:12 | know, usually you could only use the
silhouette of objects as subpictures and
| | 00:16 | it creates these kind of pixilated
outlines that are sometimes cheesy looking.
| | 00:22 | Well here we are going to kind of hack
this system, so that it will allow us to
| | 00:26 | use whatever we want as subpictures.
Now we are not actually going to be using
| | 00:32 | subpictures per se, but we are going
to be changing our menus to make it look
| | 00:37 | like there are subpictures there when
they are not. And I have four menus that
| | 00:41 | I have created. This one is called
the Upper Left Menu, because I'm playing
| | 00:44 | towards the upper left, and then we
also have the Lower Left Menu and we have
| | 00:50 | the Upper Right Menu and we
have the Lower Right Menu.
| | 00:55 | In this menu we have little regular
subpictures, but essentially I am the
| | 01:00 | subpictures and the switching off the
menu will be automatic. So let's say I go
| | 01:05 | back to this Upper Left hand Menu.
Click on this button and this is like our
| | 01:10 | button that we selected by default
and let's say, for example, this button number 2.
| | 01:14 | When users click and selected this
button what we want to have happened
| | 01:19 | actually behind the scene is for the
entire menu to switch over to the Upper
| | 01:24 | Right Menu. The way that we do this is
by clicking the Auto Activate button. So
| | 01:28 | with this button selected I'm going
to click Auto Activate. That means that
| | 01:32 | when user select this button, the
link that it links to will automatically
| | 01:37 | play. Let me just link it to a timeline,
the timeline will automatically play.
| | 01:42 | In our case we are going to link it to
a menu and then menu will automatically play.
| | 01:46 | Now I could just click the pick whip
and drag and drop over to the Upper Right
| | 01:50 | Menu in the Project panel, but there is
a better and more intelligent way to do
| | 01:53 | this and that's another little trick in
this video. In this link area, instead
| | 01:57 | of using a pick whip, I'm going to use
this arrow dropdown. I'm going to select
| | 02:01 | the Upper Right Menu as the link, but
I want to select the number two button,
| | 02:06 | the upper right this, abbreviated by
UR here. I want to use this button as a
| | 02:10 | link. That way when people select this
button, it will select the new menu with
| | 02:15 | this button activated and it will
appear to them, our users, as if the
| | 02:21 | subpicture, in other words me, I
changed and everything else is just normal.
| | 02:25 | So we will do the same thing. I'm
going to click the 4 button, in other words
| | 02:29 | that's the lower right. So I'm going to select
and lower right and 4, lower right. I'm going
| | 02:35 | to click the 3 button, or in other
words it's in the lower left, so that will
| | 02:39 | activate the Lower Left Menu and the
lower left button on the Lower Left Menu.
| | 02:44 | I want to make sure and select Auto
Activate for all of these as well;
| | 02:50 | otherwise the trick won't work.
| | 02:53 | Now, of course, you would want to go
through all of these menus instead of all
| | 02:55 | of these links. We are not going to
take the time to do that; we will do it
| | 02:57 | with one more menu here, let's say, the
Upper Right Menu. So I'll double-click
| | 03:01 | the Upper Right Menu to open that up.
That's just a goofy old face, isn't it?
| | 03:07 | Okay, so what we are going to do is
select this button here and we are going to
| | 03:11 | make the link the Upper Left Menu
with the upper left button, select this
| | 03:15 | button, and we will make the link,
the Lower Right Menu, the lower right
| | 03:20 | button, and the lower left button here,
the Lower Left Menu, lower left button.
| | 03:28 | Again, we want to make sure we have
Auto Activate selected for all of these and
| | 03:34 | now let's right-click on the Upper
Left Menu and select Preview from Here.
| | 03:40 | So with the Preview window open we can
see our DVD here and instead of using my
| | 03:45 | mouse, which kind of get crazy in
these menus when you have things
| | 03:49 | automatically activating, I'm going
to use these buttons down here at the
| | 03:51 | bottom of the Preview panel and you
will notice when I use these navigation
| | 03:56 | button to select another button that
the menu is automatically selected. The
| | 04:01 | menu being again the link that we
have set these buttons to, they are
| | 04:05 | automatically activated, and so the
menu entirely switches. Because we have set
| | 04:09 | up all our links to Auto Activate, we
can go back and forth here, jumping for
| | 04:13 | menu back to menu again. Because the
entire menu is switching, it has the
| | 04:19 | appearance that the actual menu is a
subpicture, the image in the background is
| | 04:24 | a subpicture, but it's not.
| | 04:25 | We are really just swapping out menus
on the fly. So using this Auto Activate
| | 04:30 | technique, you could use images or even
video as subpictures. So again it might
| | 04:37 | be a little confusing, you might need
to watch this movie a few times to really
| | 04:39 | get the hang of what we are doing here,
but it opens up a whole new door of
| | 04:43 | creative possibility. That's worthy
effort in time to get this technique down.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
13. Advanced Creative TricksCreating "Easter eggs"| 00:00 | Okay ladies and gentleman, the stuff
in this chapter is the reason why I get
| | 00:04 | out of the bed in the morning. Playing
with Encore is great. I love it. Most of
| | 00:09 | the time when I'm in Encore, it's for
a utilitarian purpose. I need to create
| | 00:12 | something for a client, need to create
a DVD. I need to create a slideshow or
| | 00:16 | whatever, but when it comes to the
stuff in this chapter these advanced
| | 00:20 | creative tricks, this is where
Encore gets very interesting.
| | 00:25 | First of we are going to look at
something called an Easter egg. Now if you are
| | 00:29 | not familiar with the holiday Easter,
it's a religious one, so you might not
| | 00:32 | know its tradition. Forgive me if you
do. But basically there is a tradition
| | 00:36 | where you hide little Easter eggs all
over like a park or whatever at backyard
| | 00:41 | and then kids go running out, may to
try to find these Easter eggs. Well often
| | 00:45 | times on DVDs you can kind of hide
content or at least make it tougher to find
| | 00:50 | and it's kind of like these Easter eggs.
So it might be extra special features
| | 00:54 | or may be extra commentary or something
that may be not everyone will suppose to watch.
| | 00:59 | So for example, on the extended
edition of the "Lord of the Rings" and the
| | 01:03 | "Fellowship of the Ring", if you go
to the scene selection menus there is a
| | 01:07 | secret spot you can navigate to, then
if play it, there will be like an extra
| | 01:10 | video, like the cast goofing around
and doing this or that on 'The Ring', the
| | 01:16 | American version of 'The Ring', the
scary movie. If you navigate to a certain
| | 01:19 | spot, there is like a hidden button and
then you play the Easter egg and there
| | 01:24 | is like a phone rings and
it's all scary and stuff.
| | 01:27 | So what we are going to do is I'm going
to show you how to create a DVD Easter
| | 01:30 | egg. First step I have gone to the
Library panel and I have opened up this
| | 01:34 | Technology Set and open up the Robotic
Menu here and added it to my project.
| | 01:39 | Next what I'm going to do is select
the menu and click this Edit Menu in
| | 01:42 | Photoshop button. Now I have already
gone into Photoshop and played with it
| | 01:46 | just a little bit here and set this menu
up for you. Let me show you what I did?
| | 01:52 | This menu has four buttons.
Contingency plan 1, 2, 3, and 4. Now I have done
| | 01:57 | some rearranging here. Each button
had these decorative elements; these are
| | 02:01 | lines and squares. They were getting in
my way; they were creating an overlap.
| | 02:05 | What I want to do is create a secret
little button right here in this area,
| | 02:09 | right across the street from this
contingency plan 3 area. That's where I want
| | 02:14 | to hide my secret button. So in order
to do that, I basically just took all
| | 02:18 | those secret elements out of the
button sets and made them their own separate
| | 02:21 | category. They really didn't need
to be part of the button, and then I
| | 02:24 | duplicate one of the buttons
contingency plan 4, duplicated that and I made
| | 02:29 | this Easter egg.
| | 02:30 | Now Easter eggs take advantage of two
concepts in Encore. The first one is
| | 02:37 | Button Routing. This is because you
need to be able to have a path for people
| | 02:42 | to be able to find your Easter egg.
| | 02:44 | In our case the buttons are going to
be off to the right side of the plan 3
| | 02:48 | button. Now, when you open up this
menu it looks like you would only give the
| | 02:52 | up and down controls to navigate
through these buttons. You probably wouldn't
| | 02:57 | naturally be on plan 3 and hit the
right arrow, because it doesn't seem there
| | 03:01 | is anything there, but when we set up
our Button Routing correctly, hitting the
| | 03:04 | right arrow on button 3 will take
you to this secret button over here.
| | 03:08 | Now I have seen some Easter eggs that
have this super elaborate code. So you
| | 03:13 | can basically make a right and then get
to this button and then go up and then
| | 03:17 | left and go to all these different
buttons because of Button Routing and not
| | 03:20 | even see what you are doing. So it
feels like you are typing in a code on the
| | 03:24 | remote and actually you are going
through a series of the invisible buttons to
| | 03:28 | get to the real button.
| | 03:29 | So again there are these two things
that you need for Easter egg: The first one
| | 03:33 | is Button Routing; the second one is
Subpicture Highlight. This is the only
| | 03:38 | thing really in this button is this
Subpicture Highlight. We turn that on here
| | 03:41 | and here is our secret button. So
that's really all we need to create a
| | 03:45 | button. We have button group and
the only thing in it again is this one
| | 03:49 | Subpicture Highlight.
| | 03:50 | So let's see how this DVD works by
going back to Encore and loading this sucker
| | 03:54 | up. So back here in Encore, I'm going
to right-click in the Project panel,
| | 03:57 | Select Import As > Menu. Actually I'm
going to navigate to the PSDs folder and
| | 04:02 | the media folder. I'm going to open
up Easter Egg Menu, click Open. Let's
| | 04:08 | double-click that Easter Egg Menu.
| | 04:10 | Now to make sure we have our Easter
Eggs here at the Subpicture Highlight for
| | 04:14 | our Easter Egg, I'm going to click
this Show Selected Subpicture Highlight
| | 04:17 | button, so we could see what all of
our buttons look like when they are
| | 04:20 | selected and sure enough over there on
the right there is our secret button.
| | 04:24 | You notice that if I click on it
selected, this tiny little square is a button
| | 04:29 | that I can create links with or whatever.
| | 04:31 | The next thing I wanted to see is I
want to turn on Button Routing down to the
| | 04:35 | bottom of the Menu Viewer to see the
Button Routing. Basically if you hit the
| | 04:41 | right Ctrl on each of these buttons,
it will take you to the next button as
| | 04:45 | expected. However, if you are on button
3 and hit the right arrow, it will take
| | 04:50 | you to this mysterious random button
number 5. And it's actually exactly the
| | 04:55 | way we wanted it to work. If it's not
the way we wanted it to work, we can
| | 04:58 | uncheck Automatically Route Buttons and
we can go in there and manually control
| | 05:03 | and drag and drop these numbers as we
talked about earlier in this training to
| | 05:06 | get the routing that we want.
| | 05:07 | Essentially, that's how we create
Easter eggs. We can use this again to hide
| | 05:11 | secret content for our viewers.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making games| 00:00 | Now it's our privilege to look at how
to create games in Encore with DVDs.
| | 00:05 | Now, you are not going to be able to create
'Super Monkey Ball' or some super exciting
| | 00:09 | crazy games with live action or whatever,
but you can't create puzzle games and
| | 00:13 | other types of things. One of the best
DVD games I have seen was the special
| | 00:17 | edition of Disney's Snow White. It was
just cool little mine cart game on one of
| | 00:21 | the DVDs and it played this video of
the Disney characters going in this mine
| | 00:26 | cart, then you would get to spot, and
there would be a game, and so you would go
| | 00:30 | to a menu and you would play the game,
and depending on how you did with the
| | 00:33 | game, you went back in the video in the
mine car and I went on different paths --
| | 00:38 | I don't know. I thought it that was pretty cool.
| | 00:40 | So basically what we have here is we
have a Question menu with the question and
| | 00:43 | there are some answers, which are
actually buttons that we are going to set
| | 00:45 | links to it just a second, and then
there is a right answer and a wrong
| | 00:49 | answers. So let's set up the links.
| | 00:51 | The correct answer is C for this one,
so for A, I'm going to select A, I'm
| | 00:55 | going to select the Link and that's a
wrong answer. B it's also a wrong answer.
| | 01:02 | C is a correct answer and D is a
wrong answer. So there is more to do with
| | 01:13 | this, but let's go ahead
and see what we have so far.
| | 01:14 | I'm going to click the Preview button,
and so we have our question here, WHAT
| | 01:18 | IS THE AIRSPEED VELOCITY OF AN UNLADEN
SWALLOW? Those of you who are fans of
| | 01:21 | Monty Python, you might get that. So we
have a few answers here. We know that A
| | 01:25 | is an incorrect answer. So I can click
a and that is the wrong answer. So, so
| | 01:30 | far, so good. What we need to do is
click Exit here and then click on the Try
| | 01:34 | Again button. So what we are going to
do is to make sure that this Try Again
| | 01:38 | button is selected and then Link it
back to the Question menu to give people
| | 01:42 | another chance.
| | 01:42 | Now let's go ahead and Preview that
again. So we will try D for example,
| | 01:47 | another wrong answer, and then we fail
and if you click the Try Again button
| | 01:51 | and we try it again, fail, and then
let's click the correct answers. Correct!
| | 01:57 | Good Job! Now we have a Next Question button.
| | 02:00 | So what we are doing is going through a
series of menus. So what we could do is
| | 02:04 | select this Correct menu and then once
the question is answered correctly we
| | 02:07 | could set a new link for the next
question. I would go on to another menu and
| | 02:12 | so on and so forth. However, that's a
cool idea and I actually got this from
| | 02:15 | that Disney mine cart game I was
talking about, is that there is a special
| | 02:19 | reward if you get all the questions
correct. The way that the DVD player knows
| | 02:23 | that you got the questions correct is
because you went down the correct path of menus.
| | 02:28 | So really DVD games are series of
menus and what you could do is instead of
| | 02:33 | having next question, you can click a
Proceed button or something like that and
| | 02:36 | the user click the proceed button and
then there is a video presentation. They
| | 02:40 | learn some more or whatever or may be
there is another section of information
| | 02:45 | and then there is text after that.
| | 02:48 | So there is this one way to create
games on a DVD. Now you could also use
| | 02:52 | slideshows for this using the Manual
Advance feature and we will talk a little
| | 02:56 | bit about that in the next chapter.
| | 02:58 | Next we are going to look at another
great technique creating menu transitions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using menu transitions| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to look at
menu transitions. Doesn't sound that
| | 00:03 | cool, but it really, really, really is.
| | 00:06 | For this movie I have created the Menu
Transitions project. This essentially
| | 00:09 | has the complete project, but the real
hard work here is going to be done in
| | 00:14 | After Effects and not in Encore, so
I really haven't spoiled anything.
| | 00:18 | Let me show you what menu transitions
do. Basically here we have a menu, and
| | 00:24 | this Play Movie button links to a
Timeline. The only thing that's different
| | 00:29 | about this project is we have made
another movie, and this movie will play once
| | 00:35 | I click this button. So I have a menu
and then I click Play Movie, and there is
| | 00:39 | a little intermediate movie that
plays before the Timeline plays.
| | 00:43 | Let's look at this. Click the Preview
button and I have a regular old movie
| | 00:47 | with buttons, but when I click this
button, it doesn't just go to this
| | 00:51 | Timeline, it plays another movie
first, boom, and then the Timeline.
| | 00:58 | So I'm going to show you how to make
that boom in After Effects. Even if you
| | 01:02 | don't have too much skill in After
Effects I think this should work for you. Of
| | 01:06 | course, if you don't have After Effects
you won't be able to follow along. But
| | 01:10 | the concept about making menu
transitions still holds true. You bring a movie
| | 01:15 | and link it in a same way
that I'll show you in just a bit.
| | 01:19 | So what I did is I imported the
Gold Texture Menu you could find in the
| | 01:22 | Government set in the Library panel,
and with this menu selected I went to the
| | 01:27 | menu and selected Create after Effects
Composition. This will create an After
| | 01:33 | Effects project and launch After
Effects, and the After Effects project will
| | 01:37 | essentially be the layered
Photoshop file that makes up this menu.
| | 01:40 | So let's go check out After Effects.
Here is this After Effects Composition
| | 01:48 | with all the layers of our menu. Now,
you might see this view first, the Render
| | 01:52 | Queue. If you do see that you can go
to the Project panel, and then this NTSC
| | 01:57 | little icon right here, just double
click this file right here to open the
| | 02:01 | Composition that has all the layers.
| | 02:03 | Now, we are going to make this easy.
Just go ahead and right click in this
| | 02:07 | blank area at the bottom of the
Timeline panel, and select New Adjustment
| | 02:13 | Layer. Next, do a search in the
Effects and Presets panel in the right hand
| | 02:16 | side, do a search for Shatter.
| | 02:19 | Once you find the Shatter Effect here
in this panel, drag and drop it to onto
| | 02:23 | the adjustment layer. Now, this isn't
what we are looking for, so let's go on
| | 02:27 | the left hand side to the Effect
Controls panel, change the View from
| | 02:32 | Wireframe-Forces to
Rendered. Looking better already.
| | 02:38 | Next, open up the Shape category and
change the Pattern View from Bricks to
| | 02:43 | Glass. Now, as we start to move in time
we will notice that everything explodes
| | 02:50 | and looks great already, automatically
for us, except that we have these jagged
| | 02:54 | edges. To get rid of those, open up
Force 1 and increase the Radius Value until
| | 03:00 | those all go away. A value
of 1 is more than enough.
| | 03:05 | Now finally, the last thing we need to
do is select the Composition panel until
| | 03:09 | it has like this little orange outline
around it, just to make sure here, and
| | 03:13 | then hit Command+K or Ctrl+K on the
PC to get the Composition Settings, and
| | 03:19 | then change the Duration to 3 seconds.
| | 03:21 | Now, you could also do that; this
is a little secret trick here, select
| | 03:27 | everything and then just type 3. And
that's it. 3. That will get you 3 seconds
| | 03:33 | and then click OK. So that will make it
so that we have a 3 second animation of
| | 03:39 | our entire menu exploding.
| | 03:43 | Then we go to the Render Queue and
render this. Click where it says Output To,
| | 03:49 | click that to determine where to save
this file, and then where it says Output
| | 03:53 | Module, click the text with the
dotted underline across from that.
| | 03:58 | I selected QuickTime Movie as my Format
from this dropdown here. Then click on
| | 04:04 | the Format options button, and with the
Animation Compression selected take the
| | 04:08 | quality to Medium. The Animation
Compression type is very high quality, so even
| | 04:14 | Medium quality down here with the
Animation Compression System selected is very
| | 04:19 | high quality. So click OK and click OK here.
| | 04:23 | Then when you are all done click the
Render button to render out your movie.
| | 04:26 | Once you are done with that let's go
back to Encore and import your video, not
| | 04:32 | as a Timeline but as a Regular Asset,
and then select the button that you want
| | 04:37 | to have the Transition.
| | 04:39 | What's cool about this is that
Transitions are a feature of buttons; they are
| | 04:44 | not functions of menus. What that means
really is that you can actually create
| | 04:50 | different Transitions for different buttons.
| | 04:53 | It's also a good idea to check out
commercial DVDs to see what kind of
| | 04:57 | Transitions they use. For example, on
the TV show 'Lost', if you watch those
| | 05:01 | DVDs, when you click on a menu option,
there is like this cool like erosion
| | 05:06 | thing that happens on most of the
seasons when you click an option to play one
| | 05:10 | of the episodes. Little things like
that can stimulate you creatively and give
| | 05:15 | you some cool ideas of things
you could do from menu transitions.
| | 05:18 | So the way that we set this up is we
have a button selected. We have already
| | 05:21 | created the link in the Basic Tab.
Then we go over to the Transition Tab, and
| | 05:25 | where it says Asset we use the Pick
Whip to select a link to link up for the
| | 05:31 | Asset. Then essentially, again, once
you click the button it plays that movie,
| | 05:35 | then it goes to the Timeline.
| | 05:37 | Now, as you can tell the majority of
the coolness of this trick is because of
| | 05:41 | what we did in After Effects. However,
this is not an After Effects training
| | 05:45 | series. Luckily, lynda.com has dozen
of hours of After Effects training;
| | 05:50 | ranging from very simple and
essential training, to extremely advance and
| | 05:55 | everything in between. Later on in
this chapter we will come back to After
| | 05:58 | Effects for even more advanced features.
| | 06:01 | Next, we are going to turn our
attention to Subpictures and using them as art.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using subpictures as art| 00:00 | Folks, sometimes as a trainer you do
things just because you love them, because
| | 00:05 | you think they are the coolest things
in the world. So this movie out of all
| | 00:09 | the movies in this title is the thing
that just gets me going. I love this
| | 00:14 | trick. I have never seen this used very
well, may be people think it's cheesy,
| | 00:19 | I don't know, but I think it's awesome.
| | 00:20 | Now, what we are going to look at here
is using subpictures in an artistic way.
| | 00:25 | Usually they are used in a very
utilitarian way, just to let you know what
| | 00:29 | button is selected. But there are
so many cool things you could do with
| | 00:32 | subpictures, because of the rules of
subpictures. So let me show you the end
| | 00:35 | result here, and I'll show you what
I did in Photoshop to set this up.
| | 00:39 | I'm going to right click in the
Project panel, Import As > Menu. Then in the
| | 00:43 | PSD's folder, in the Media folder, of
the Exercise Files, I'm going to select
| | 00:47 | this Subpictures highlights art and click Open.
| | 00:50 | Here we have a menu that has a wizard,
and there are two buttons: Stars and
| | 00:54 | Lightning. Now, you might think
that when we preview this we will see a
| | 00:59 | subpicture highlight next to Stars
when Stars is selected, and we will see a
| | 01:02 | subpicture highlight next to Lightning
when Lightning is selected. But look at
| | 01:06 | the difference here. Watch what we set up.
| | 01:07 | I'm going to select this object and
hit the Preview button or you could right
| | 01:11 | click on it and select Preview from here;
either one works. Look at that. When
| | 01:15 | Lightning is selected we have a
subpicture highlight next to Lightning, but we
| | 01:18 | also have Lightning. Now, I guess it's
a little blocky, but it's still kind of
| | 01:23 | cool, and if you think about it, there
are actually three subpicture highlights
| | 01:27 | going on here at the same time.
There is a white next to the subpicture
| | 01:31 | highlight, and there is a yellow
and an orange for the Lightning.
| | 01:34 | When we go to Stars we see a big group
of stars. Lightning, Stars, Lightning, Stars.
| | 01:41 | So you could imagine the possibilities
here. Again, because of the aliasing we
| | 01:46 | are a little bit limited on how
beautiful we can make this, and actually later
| | 01:50 | on in this chapter I'll show you
another trick about how to get better looks
| | 01:54 | with the subpicture; you could kind of
fake it. Long story, we will talk about
| | 01:57 | it later in this chapter.
| | 01:58 | But this trick uses just regular old
subpicture highlights. Look at that.
| | 02:03 | Multicolors, multiobjects.
| | 02:06 | Again, if this doesn't turn you on,
forgive me as an instructor; I love these
| | 02:09 | kinds of secret little
tricks that never get used.
| | 02:12 | Let's go into Photoshop and let me show
you what I did here to set this up. So
| | 02:18 | here is the project. In the Button
Group, say for the Stars for example, look
| | 02:22 | at all of these =3. That =3 refers to
the subpicture highlight color group. You
| | 02:31 | could have up to three per medium. So
we essentially have three colors going on
| | 02:36 | here: white, yellow, and orange.
| | 02:38 | Now, as you could see here, in this
Button Group, we have many, many, many
| | 02:44 | Stars, and you could have many
subpicture highlights. We have one here next to
| | 02:49 | Stars and then many, many, many Stars.
So there is not really a limit to the
| | 02:53 | subpicture highlights.
| | 02:54 | Same thing with Lightning down here
as we scroll down. We have multiple
| | 02:58 | Lightning objects. What look like a
bolt of lightning is actually just two
| | 03:01 | different colors on top of each
other here: a yellow and an orange, two
| | 03:06 | different shapes. You could see the
subpicture highlight group that I have
| | 03:09 | called out here. So =1 is yellow,
=2 is orange, and =3 is white.
| | 03:16 | Now, the aliasing, the blockiness that
we saw in Encore is made worse by these
| | 03:21 | diagonal lines. If you have little
squares, they would look perfect.
| | 03:26 | Now, you may not want to go crazy with
your subpicture highlights on every DVD,
| | 03:30 | but just realize that this is an
option, to be able to have a really
| | 03:34 | interesting artistic experience by
playing around with these subpicture highlights.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a video menu| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to look at
how to use video as a menu. One of the
| | 00:05 | cool things about buttons is that all
they really need to exist is a subpicture
| | 00:09 | highlight. So if you had subpicture
highlights alone, just by themselves, on
| | 00:15 | top of a video background, you can
create video that looks like buttons that
| | 00:20 | really isn't buttons at all.
So that's what we have done.
| | 00:22 | So in the Library, in the Corporate set,
I have used the Scientific Menu again,
| | 00:27 | and I have exported this over to After
Effects and I have created this Video as
| | 00:31 | Menu movie file, which looks
very much like this menu here.
| | 00:36 | Let me quickly go back to After Effects
and show you what I have done. If I go
| | 00:39 | back to the menu here, I have
these blocks that move around. I have also
| | 00:42 | animated the color of the buttons, so
there is actually video for the buttons
| | 00:46 | and the text is actually video as well.
There is this little light sheen that
| | 00:51 | continues to go over the text randomly.
| | 00:54 | So this is totally video. You could
not do this with a static menu at all.
| | 00:59 | It's not just the background; the
buttons are actually moving as well.
| | 01:03 | So let's go back over to Encore and
let's add this video as the background,
| | 01:08 | that's step one. We hold the Alt or
Option key while we drag this video to the
| | 01:12 | background. By the way, you will find
this Video as Menu movie file in the
| | 01:17 | Video's folder in the Media folder.
| | 01:20 | Let's go over to the Layers panel. Make
sure that Menu is selected in the Menu Viewer.
| | 01:23 | Come over here to the Layers panel.
We have all the stuff that we need to turn off.
| | 01:28 | Now, right now we have this background
and this is the video, so we need this on.
| | 01:32 | We open up the layers here. The
only thing we need is this subpicture
| | 01:36 | highlight. We don't need the volume and
we don't need the button background. So
| | 01:41 | let's open up Volume 2 and 3, turn off
Volume 2 and the button background for
| | 01:45 | each of the buttons. You could even
turn off the Corporate Inc. logo because it
| | 01:49 | was in our movie file.
| | 01:51 | Now, if we preview from here, right-
click on the menu in the Project panel,
| | 01:56 | select Preview from here, we could see
our menu with our subpicture highlights.
| | 02:01 | So let's go ahead and render this
motion menu by clicking this button, the
| | 02:04 | bottom left hand corner of the Preview window.
| | 02:10 | So here we have a motion menu with
complete video, even the buttons are video,
| | 02:15 | the text of the buttons are video. The
only thing that's not purely video about
| | 02:20 | this are the subpicture highlights. The
subpicture highlights allow these to be
| | 02:23 | fully functioning buttons.
| | 02:26 | So think of the things that you can do
with video as a menu. Basically, I mean
| | 02:32 | you could have buttons that were just
blobs moving around, and you could have
| | 02:35 | subpicture highlights as just simple
dots somewhere in the blob. Of course,
| | 02:39 | your subpicture highlights can't animate,
but everything else can. So be aware
| | 02:43 | that the sky is the limit with these menus,
because we can use video as a background.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
14. Using Encore as a Presentation ToolWhy use Encore as a presentation tool?| 00:00 | In this chapter we are going to talk
about using Encore as a professional
| | 00:03 | presentation tool. Now, I have been a
big fan of this for a long time, but
| | 00:07 | there have been times where I have
been either sitting through meetings or I
| | 00:10 | have had to create my own presentations,
and I just really haven't been super
| | 00:13 | satisfied with the tools that I used
or that other people were using. So what
| | 00:17 | we are going to do is we are going to
take a chapter and talk about why use
| | 00:21 | Encore as a presentation tool.
| | 00:23 | Now, first let's talk about your other
options. You do have other choices when
| | 00:27 | you are creating presentations. You
have obviously PowerPoint, the big
| | 00:30 | presentation tool that everybody uses.
Also, video is becoming more popular,
| | 00:34 | and Flash for web-based
presentations and interactivity.
| | 00:37 | Well, let me show you how Encore
stacks up. First of all, it's more
| | 00:40 | professional than PowerPoint, it
could create much more high-end video, and
| | 00:46 | because it can be played on a set-top
DVD player you don't have any stutters or
| | 00:50 | problems with playback.
| | 00:52 | Also, more often than not from my
experience, people have a really hard time
| | 00:55 | setting up their laptop with a
presentation screen when they are trying to get
| | 00:59 | PowerPoint to work; there are just a
lot of things that could go wrong. Now, as
| | 01:03 | I mentioned before, video is also
becoming an increasingly popular way to give
| | 01:07 | presentations.
| | 01:08 | The problem with video is that there is
no interactivity. With Encore, when you
| | 01:12 | are using DVDs, there is a great amount
of interactivity; with slideshows, and
| | 01:17 | even the disc navigation and other
things that we will look at in this chapter.
| | 01:20 | Now, as far as Flash goes, creating
a project in Encore is much easier to
| | 01:24 | create and distribute than Flash. With
Flash you have to worry about who has
| | 01:28 | the Flash Player, and whether they can
view video, whether the computer is fast
| | 01:31 | enough, and all that kind of stuff.
Sometimes for big corporations, they don't
| | 01:35 | have the ability to get on their
locked machines, they have to call the IT
| | 01:38 | department and get the Flash upgrade,
which is sometimes more trouble than its
| | 01:41 | worth. Also, too, if you have ever
tried to use Flash, it can be a very
| | 01:45 | complicated animal, it's a very
difficult program to just jump in and start
| | 01:49 | using it. Encore takes away all of
that stuff and also allows you to create
| | 01:53 | Flash movies on top of that.
| | 01:55 | So with Encore we can create engaging
presentations and we could create them on
| | 02:00 | disc, in a disc format, whether DVD or
a Blu-ray, and we could also create them
| | 02:04 | on the web using Flash.
| | 02:06 | We still have some of the challenges
as you would if you were to create the
| | 02:08 | entire thing in Flash, but it's
so much easier to set up in Encore.
| | 02:13 | Another great advantage of using
Encore for presentations is that you can
| | 02:17 | distribute these presentations on discs.
Let's say you are making a big sales
| | 02:22 | pitch. You can make that sales pitch
and then distribute that same sales pitch
| | 02:26 | on DVDs and give them out to
everybody in the audience. Because of the
| | 02:29 | popularity of DVDs these people can
take those discs home and play them in
| | 02:33 | their dining room or maybe in their
car if they have a DVD player or on their
| | 02:36 | computer even. So it's good not only
for the presentation but you could use
| | 02:39 | them as little mini business cards.
| | 02:41 | Also, as we will look at in this
chapter, data can be added to DVD discs. So
| | 02:45 | you could make a presentation and then
pass off certain files; maybe you have
| | 02:49 | PDF files with a bunch of extra
information about it; contact information and
| | 02:52 | what not, you could include that on
the DVD that you pass out to people.
| | 02:56 | Also, as we talked about in the last
chapter, we can create Easter eggs; making
| | 03:01 | content that is difficult to find.
This is great for private information that
| | 03:06 | maybe you don't want everyone to find,
or perhaps there is a coupon that you
| | 03:09 | place, somewhere hidden on your DVD,
and for certain clients or customers you
| | 03:13 | could tell them how to access the
coupon on the DVD, which might have some kind
| | 03:17 | of code for discount or what have you.
| | 03:19 | So let's go ahead and jump into it and
look at some of the ways that we can use
| | 03:22 | Encore as a presentation tool.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using subtitles with slideshows| 00:00 | As we talked about in the last movie,
Encore has some amazing potential to be a
| | 00:04 | great presentation tool. Most of the
features that you will use when you are
| | 00:09 | using Encore as a presentation tool
are just the regular Encore features, but
| | 00:12 | in this chapter we are going to look
at some things that have the best use as
| | 00:17 | presentation tools. One of those
is using subtitles with slideshows.
| | 00:21 | I have here just a couple of slides.
Let's say you are doing your presentation
| | 00:24 | and we have like this cool stock photo
of people meditating, and then we have
| | 00:28 | like this bar graph.
| | 00:30 | Let's go ahead and select this first
slide. If you would like to follow along,
| | 00:32 | I'm using the Subtitles and
Slideshows project from the Chapter 14 folder.
| | 00:37 | Basically, we have got a
slideshow with two images and that's it.
| | 00:39 | So what I can do is select one of
these images, and if I'm using this in a
| | 00:44 | presentation where I have a couple of
slides, it might help if I have some key
| | 00:48 | text on screen with these slides. I
could do that by adding subtitles to these
| | 00:53 | slides. The way I do that is by coming
over here to the Properties panel with
| | 00:56 | the slide selected, and
selecting Create Subtitle.
| | 01:00 | Now, by default, we just have the name,
which in this case Meditation.tiff is
| | 01:04 | the name of the file, so we see
mediation here. That doesn't really help us too
| | 01:07 | much if we are trying to present something.
| | 01:09 | So instead what we can do is uncheck
Name, because when we create a subtitle
| | 01:15 | for a slide, we can either have the
Name or Description. So you come here to
| | 01:19 | the top of the Properties panel and
change the Description to something that we
| | 01:23 | want to say. Maybe if we are making a
presentation on Smoothies, you could say,
| | 01:26 | Smoothies are popular. Then we turn on
Description for the subtitle, and then here we go.
| | 01:33 | Then we go over to the bar graph and we
create a subtitle, and we also take off
| | 01:39 | the Name and change it to Description,
and we could say, Smoothies make money.
| | 01:46 | So anyways, I click away from that, and
we can have our subtitle on the screen,
| | 01:50 | overlaid on top of our graphics.
| | 01:52 | Now, in the chapter on audio in
subtitles, we talked about changing the
| | 01:55 | Highlight Group, so I won't go into
that here, but just be aware that we can do
| | 01:58 | that. If you want to change the
colors so that they blend better with the
| | 02:02 | background, you can of course do that as well.
| | 02:04 | Next we are going to look at another
great feature of slideshows that you can
| | 02:08 | use in presentations called Manual Advance.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating slideshows with manual advance| 00:00 | In this movie we are going to continue
where we left off in the last movie. I
| | 00:02 | have created a project because I just
want to start here, called Manual Advance.
| | 00:06 | When you create a slideshow every
slide has its own duration. As we have a
| | 00:11 | slide selected here and we look in the
Properties panel, the duration for this
| | 00:14 | is 6 seconds, and that's
because it matches the slideshow.
| | 00:17 | If we go over here to the Project panel
and select the slideshow and then come
| | 00:21 | back to the Properties panel, we
could see that the slide duration is 6
| | 00:25 | seconds, so that's the default for all slides.
| | 00:28 | But if you are giving a presentation,
may be somebody has a question or
| | 00:31 | something like that, someone in the
audience that you are talking to has a
| | 00:33 | question, so you don't want it to keep
going without you. So what you can do is
| | 00:37 | select this slide duration to be
something ridiculously long like 20 minutes or
| | 00:41 | 30 minutes, and then you could
set something called Manual Advance.
| | 00:45 | Manual Advance allows you to use the
Forward button in your remote control for
| | 00:50 | a DVD player to advance the next slide.
By default this is off, so you kind of
| | 00:55 | have to wait for the next slide to go
on its own. But if you select Manual
| | 01:00 | Advance, then you can control that on
your remote control. So you move to the
| | 01:03 | next slide when you are
ready to move to the next slide.
| | 01:05 | Now, if you are just going to talk and
have beautiful images in the background
| | 01:09 | that kind of just support what you
are saying but don't really give out any
| | 01:11 | information, I recommend maybe
leaving Manual Advance off. That way you can
| | 01:15 | turn on Random Pen and Zoom, and the
Transition Effects could go to the top of
| | 01:19 | the Properties panel here, click on
Transition, you could add Transition
| | 01:22 | between all Effects. Now, these aren't
as cool with Manual Advance on if you
| | 01:26 | are actually changing each slide.
| | 01:29 | Now remember, as with most properties
when it comes to slideshows, when you
| | 01:32 | have the slideshow selected; and we
selected Manual Advance here, that's going
| | 01:36 | to change all slides, so all slides
are Manual Advance. If you want to change
| | 01:40 | that Property for individual slides,
then you could come to the individual
| | 01:43 | slide and then select the Manual
Advance down here at the bottom of the
| | 01:47 | Properties panel for a specific slide.
| | 01:49 | So there you have it, Manual Advance,
making your slideshows more resemble
| | 01:54 | traditional presentations with
PowerPoint and what not, where you control when
| | 01:57 | the slide goes to the next one.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding data content to discs| 00:00 | Continuing with the Manual Advance
project, I got one last tip for you when you
| | 00:03 | are using Encore as a presentation tool,
and actually this doesn't pertain to
| | 00:06 | you using Encore during your
presentation, but afterwards if you want to
| | 00:10 | distribute content to the people that
are listening to your presentation, this
| | 00:13 | is invaluable, and this is where
PowerPoint fails where Encore really shines.
| | 00:18 | What we can do is go to the Build
panel with any project, and we could add
| | 00:22 | something called DVD-ROM Content. If
you are not seeing that then you can
| | 00:26 | scroll down with a Scrollbar in the
right hand side. You also need to make sure
| | 00:29 | that DVD is selected under the Format.
| | 00:32 | So we scroll down here, and assuming
that you have room on the Disc Info, that
| | 00:36 | your DVD project isn't too big, you
come down here to DVD-ROM Content and click
| | 00:41 | on the Browse button, and you could
navigate to a folder full of stuff. May be
| | 00:46 | you have Microsoft Word documents or
PDF files or whatever that you can't view
| | 00:51 | on a DVD player, but it stores these
on the data side of the DVD. So that way
| | 00:56 | when people that have this DVD put this
disc in their computers they can access
| | 01:00 | all this other content
that they can't view on a DVD.
| | 01:03 | Or maybe for example, if you were
pitching software, if you had like a
| | 01:06 | presentation trying to sell a company
on software, may be if they put the DVD
| | 01:10 | in their computers, there would be a
demo version or a trial of that piece of software.
| | 01:15 | Just remember when you are doing this
that you can't add individual files; you
| | 01:18 | have to navigate to a folder and then
just use that one folder. But it's just
| | 01:23 | that easy to add data content to your discs.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
15. Creating Menus from Scratch in PhotoshopAbout this chapter| 00:00 | Earlier in this training series we
briefly mentioned about how Encore menus are
| | 00:04 | nothing more or less than Photoshop
documents. So what we are going to do in
| | 00:08 | this chapter is look at the anatomy of a menu, and
we are going to create these things from scratch.
| | 00:14 | Now, what I have here is this menu,
this Entertainment Menu from the general set.
| | 00:18 | With this selected in the Project
panel, I'm going to click the Edit Menu
| | 00:22 | In Photoshop button. This will
automatically take this menu, open up Photoshop,
| | 00:26 | if it's not open already, and bring
this. I'm just going to click OK on this
| | 00:30 | little warning here. Here is this
menu in Photoshop as it was created.
| | 00:36 | Now, there is a lot of stuff going on
here in the Layers panel and if you
| | 00:39 | really want to take advantage of
Encore, you are going to need to know
| | 00:43 | Photoshop. Now, people often get
frustrated when as a trainer I bring in
| | 00:47 | another program or I mention another
program that people aren't familiar with,
| | 00:51 | but no program operates in a bubble.
If you want to get really good at Encore
| | 00:55 | you are going to want to know
Photoshop and After Effects and Premiere, other
| | 00:59 | video and image editing programs.
| | 01:01 | So I guess what I'm trying to say is
that in order to get the most out of this
| | 01:04 | chapter you are going to need to know
a little bit about Adobe Photoshop. But
| | 01:07 | this chapter is going to be an exciting
one, it's going to be full of a lot of
| | 01:10 | information that has not been
previously had on lynda.com. This is a first.
| | 01:14 | So let's go ahead and jump into all
this exciting stuff, as we look at creating
| | 01:20 | menus from scratch in Photoshop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introduction to the Photoshop layer codes| 00:00 | We talked in the last movie about how
we are going to in this chapter look at
| | 00:04 | creating menus from scratch in Photoshop.
Well, probably the most important and
| | 00:07 | the biggest part of that, aside from
just the artistic knowing how to set up a
| | 00:12 | document in Photoshop and make things
look pretty and all that stuff, we deal
| | 00:16 | primarily with codes, these layer codes.
| | 00:19 | Here is a menu here. This is the NTSC_
Blossom Submenu WIDE that you could find
| | 00:25 | in the Wedding category,
the Wedding Set of Encore.
| | 00:28 | Basically, I have brought this here
into Photoshop. As we look at all these
| | 00:31 | different buttons -- I mean in
Encore it's very simple, it's just a video
| | 00:35 | button and then the name, but here we
have a lot of crazy buttons. Look at all
| | 00:40 | these little weird symbols, these codes.
| | 00:42 | Well, when we name things in
Photoshop in a certain way, when we bring that
| | 00:47 | Photoshop document over into Encore,
these little codes are what tell Encore
| | 00:53 | what type of object this is.
| | 00:54 | So when we looked at replacement
layers for example, and we saw that little
| | 00:58 | half circle with the arrow in it, the
reason why it had that half circle with
| | 01:02 | an arrow in it is because it was set up
that way in Photoshop by the way it was named.
| | 01:07 | So that's what we are going to do in
this chapter primarily, is that we are
| | 01:10 | going to be looking at these
different codes; how to set them up, what they
| | 01:14 | mean, how to use them to create a
cool menu from scratch in Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The button set codes| 00:00 | The first code that we are going to
look at is perhaps the most foundational
| | 00:03 | and important of all the codes,
because it is the actual code that creates a
| | 00:08 | button. So the other codes we will be
looking at in this chapter, such as the
| | 00:11 | one for Video Thumbnails or Subpicture
Highlights have to be part of a Button
| | 00:15 | Group, and that's what we
are going to be creating here.
| | 00:17 | So I'm actually going to start here
in Encore. Again, the menu we have seen
| | 00:20 | before in the Wedding Set, the Blossoms
Submenu WIDE, double-click that to add
| | 00:24 | that to your project. Click it to
select in the Project panel, and then click
| | 00:28 | this button in the Edit Menu in
Photoshop button to have it launch Photoshop,
| | 00:31 | and jump in there. If you get a little warning
pop-up just go ahead and click OK on that.
| | 00:36 | Now again, as we look out through here
we could see all these different groups,
| | 00:39 | every single one of these is a
separate button. Now, they all have different
| | 00:44 | codes, they are all variations on
the prefix of just having plus in
| | 00:48 | parentheses, and that's really all it
takes to create a button. These extra
| | 00:52 | little doo-hickies, these little
arrows, and the Pound sign, aren't really
| | 00:56 | necessary to just create a plane old button.
| | 00:59 | Now, one of the things I really want to
draw your attention to is that buttons
| | 01:03 | are not just a layer; buttons are a
group of layers. These little folders here
| | 01:08 | are called Groups in Photoshop, and
that's exactly what they are. As we click
| | 01:11 | this little Disclosure triangle to open
up its content, we could see that there
| | 01:14 | are actually several layers here.
| | 01:17 | Some of these layers within the Button
Group have little prefixes, little codes
| | 01:21 | of their own. This one has a percent
sign in parentheses and this one has the
| | 01:25 | equals one in parentheses; we will talk
about both of those codes coming up in
| | 01:28 | this chapter a little bit later on.
| | 01:30 | But notice that there are a couple of
layers here in this group that don't have
| | 01:35 | any codes, and that's perfectly fine.
Encore understands that you need to do
| | 01:38 | your artistic thing, you got to be
able to have some layers that don't
| | 01:41 | necessarily have a purpose when it comes
to DVD, just an artistic, pretty thing there.
| | 01:46 | So basically we have the Button Frame.
If we turn off the Visibility of the
| | 01:49 | Button Frame that really serve no
purpose other than just a cosmetic one, and
| | 01:53 | same thing with the Text Chapter 1. It
really doesn't have anything to do with
| | 01:56 | the button; the button would function
perfectly without either of these things.
| | 01:59 | But again, they are just cosmetic, they
are just there to make it look a little
| | 02:02 | better, and that's fine.
| | 02:03 | So let's go ahead and create our very
first button from scratch. I'm going to
| | 02:07 | go to File, New, to create a new
Photoshop document. I'm going to change the
| | 02:11 | Preset to Film and Video, and then
change the size to NTSC DV. Then I'm going
| | 02:17 | to click OK, and I can make a new layer;
maybe just something that looks like a
| | 02:23 | button, I'll just click and drag,
just a little box with the Rectangular
| | 02:26 | Marquee Tool from the Tools panel.
I'll hit the letter D on the keyboard to
| | 02:30 | make sure that the colors are at
their default, and then I'll hit the
| | 02:33 | Option+Delete key on the Mac or the Alt+
Backspace key on the PC, that will fill
| | 02:38 | this little rectangular selection with
black. Then I can also hit Command+D or
| | 02:42 | Ctrl+D on the PC to deselect that.
| | 02:46 | Now, I'll click the Type Tool here in
the Tools panel; just click and type,
| | 02:52 | button, something generic, and then we
will hit Enter on the numeric keypad to
| | 02:56 | accept that. Select the Move Tool to
move the button text into place. There we have it.
| | 03:02 | We really haven't created any DVD
elements; we have just created layers that
| | 03:06 | look like buttons. But again, in order
for Encore to recognize this we have got
| | 03:10 | to use some codes.
| | 03:11 | So I'm going to come down here to the
bottom of the Layers panel and I'm going
| | 03:13 | to click this little Folder icon, this
will create a new group; again, this is
| | 03:17 | essential to creating buttons. Buttons
are not layers. Buttons are groups of layers.
| | 03:22 | So we need to drag these into this
layer group. Sometimes your layer order
| | 03:27 | might get rearranged depending on how
you drag layers into the group, so just
| | 03:31 | be aware of that. You might
need to shuffle these around.
| | 03:33 | So we need to rename the name of the
group so that Encore knows it's a button.
| | 03:36 | So double-click the name of the group,
and again, these have to be prefixes,
| | 03:39 | they have to go before the name of the
layer or group. So before the name of
| | 03:44 | the group I'm just going to put
beginning parentheses, and then a plus sign,
| | 03:49 | and then a closed parentheses, and
hit Enter to accept it. Then that's it,
| | 03:53 | that's all it takes to create a
button in Photoshop for Encore.
| | 03:57 | Now, I realize this is a very
simplistic project, but we just created this from
| | 04:01 | scratch, which is pretty cool.
| | 04:03 | In the next movie we are going to take
this to another level and build a little
| | 04:06 | bit more complicated menu
using subpicture highlights.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The subpicture highlight codes| 00:00 | In this tutorial, we are going to look
at the subpicture highlight codes and we
| | 00:04 | are also going to make a more
complete button group from scratch. So if you
| | 00:08 | would like to follow along, I'll be
using this Menu From Scratch.psd file I
| | 00:13 | created for this, you could find it
in the Other Assets folder of the Media
| | 00:16 | folder of Exercise Files.
| | 00:18 | Basically let me walk you through
what I have done so for, it looks like a
| | 00:21 | pretty complete menu, but it's nothing
of the sort, it's only a skeleton, it's
| | 00:25 | only basically decoration. Encore
would not recognize any of this. So I have
| | 00:30 | this group here that's Title Stuff.
It's just this menu title treatment and
| | 00:34 | then I have the Text and then I have
the button background that's all I have done so far.
| | 00:39 | So what we need to do first is
create a subpicture highlight. Now as we
| | 00:42 | mentioned earlier when we discussed
subpicture highlights, beginning of this
| | 00:45 | training series. Subpicture highlight
are just a silhouette, an outline of a
| | 00:50 | shape and no matter what you set up as
your subpicture highlight in Photoshop,
| | 00:54 | Encore will only see its outline. So
if we brought in a little picture of the
| | 00:59 | Mona Lisa, as our subpicture highlight,
we brought over into Encore, it would
| | 01:03 | be just be a box or a rectangle.
| | 01:05 | So because of that, it's best not to
use feathered edges or any type of images
| | 01:10 | whatsoever and actually what I
think works best for creating subpicture
| | 01:13 | highlights are the Shape Tools. So I'm
going to go down here to the Shape Tools
| | 01:18 | and I'm going to select the Custom
Shape Tool and once we select the Custom
| | 01:21 | Shape Tool that will give us access up
here to the top in the Options bar to
| | 01:25 | all of these super sweet shapes here
and there's this flyout menu here and all
| | 01:29 | sorts of different
libraries of shapes we can use.
| | 01:31 | Now I'm actually going to use this
star burst image that kind of looks like a
| | 01:35 | little explosion and I'm going to just
click and drag little explosion there.
| | 01:41 | If you want, you can hold the Shift
key to constrain the proportion, so the
| | 01:44 | width and height remain proportional to
each other and you could also hold the
| | 01:47 | Spacebar down if you want to move that
shape while you are creating it as well.
| | 01:52 | If I let go, and there you have it.
| | 01:54 | Also, if you don't like where it is,
you can select the Move Tool and then move
| | 01:57 | it around. But I think that looks
good for now. So now let's go ahead and
| | 02:00 | create a button group, click the Group
button down at the bottom of the Layers
| | 02:03 | panel. Let's double-click this and name
this right and that's done by creating
| | 02:09 | a plus sign in parentheses, click
away to accept it and then dump all the
| | 02:14 | elements of this button into Group 1.
| | 02:18 | Again you want to make sure that
everything is in order here. You don't want
| | 02:21 | the Text to be underneath the button
background or the Shape to be underneath
| | 02:24 | the button background and so forth.
| | 02:26 | Now we need to create a subpicture
highlight out of this ordinary shape. The
| | 02:30 | way that we do that is again double-
clicking the name of the layer and then
| | 02:33 | clicking before it again always prefixes,
never want to have any of these like
| | 02:38 | sticker little codes after the name
of the layer, this won't do any good.
| | 02:41 | So what we need to do is create
parentheses and then equals 1 or 2 or 3 and
| | 02:48 | then the end parentheses and hit Return.
The reason why I said 1, 2, or 3 is
| | 02:53 | because that tells Encore, which
color system, in other words the highlight
| | 02:57 | group, the subpicture highlight group,
which of those groups or colors to use
| | 03:01 | for this particular subpicture
| | 03:03 | And again that's just another
reminder that you don't have to have just one
| | 03:06 | subpicture, you can actually have
multiple subpictures for the same button. So
| | 03:11 | this is again pretty good, we got
the subpicture highlight and the button
| | 03:13 | group. I can actually close up this
group now and drag the entire group down to
| | 03:19 | the New Layer icon and create a New Layer icon.
| | 03:21 | Now, we actually duplicate the group.
So we can select the Move Tool and move
| | 03:26 | this entire group. So if you want to
make a series of buttons, that's the way
| | 03:30 | to do it. Also if I hold the Shift key
while I'm dragging this, this will be
| | 03:33 | directly underneath that other text
files we can actually have them line up or
| | 03:37 | they duplicated in that way.
| | 03:38 | That saves you a lot of time from
having to go in and reenter all those codes
| | 03:42 | in and all those different layers and
stuff like that. So that's typically the
| | 03:45 | way it's done. And after renaming this
from Group1 copy to the much better name
| | 03:50 | to Group2, I'm going to go ahead and go
to File, Save As and then in the Other
| | 03:57 | Assets folder, I'm going to rename
this Menu From Scratch_02.psd making sure
| | 04:01 | that layers is checked, I'm
going to click Save, click OK here.
| | 04:07 | Now, let's go to Encore, and give
this new menu a test drive. Let's go to
| | 04:14 | Project panel, right-click, select
Import as > Menu. Navigate to the Other Assets
| | 04:20 | folder and immediate folder, the
Exercise Files and open up Menu From
| | 04:24 | Scratch_02, click Open.
| | 04:26 | Now as we look at this, our subpicture
highlights are missing. That's actually
| | 04:32 | a good thing. Most of the time, when
you bring over a menu or some other
| | 04:36 | objects from Photoshop into Encore, if
it doesn't look the exact same that's
| | 04:41 | usually a good sign believe it or not.
Now, we are getting this red overlap and
| | 04:45 | this is because the buttons
are too close to each other.
| | 04:47 | So I need to select the bottom one,
just hit this down arrow key a few times,
| | 04:52 | separate these two buttons, give them
little space and then that red outline
| | 04:55 | goes away. Now we can go back down to
the Menu Viewer here and let's look at
| | 04:59 | the selected subpicture highlights or
the subpictures what they would look like
| | 05:02 | if they were selected and we
see our little explosions here.
| | 05:06 | They do look a little blocky and
aliased I realize, that's just the nature of
| | 05:09 | the base when we are talking about
subpicture highlights, they go on a pixel
| | 05:12 | basis and they don't anti-alias and it
does look a little choppy. So I might
| | 05:16 | want to be careful about diagonal lines
and the circles and that type of thing.
| | 05:20 | But these are just regular old buttons
as we click one of these. You could see
| | 05:24 | if we go in the Properties panel, it's
just a regular old button that we can
| | 05:26 | create links for and all of that.
So we just created a regular menu and
| | 05:31 | complete with subpicture
highlights from scratch using Photoshop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The replacement layer code| 00:00 | We are now going to look at how to
create the codes for a replacement layer.
| | 00:03 | For this I'll be using the Replacement
Layer.psd from the Other Assets folder
| | 00:07 | of the Media folder of the Exercise
Files. Now, replacement layer is a little
| | 00:10 | bit different from what we have seen
so far and for most of what we will see
| | 00:14 | for the remaining of this chapter as well.
| | 00:16 | Replacement layers you see, they
don't need to be part of a button set.
| | 00:20 | They can be, but they don't have to be.
So, basically what I have here in this layer
| | 00:24 | is this image of a boat, of a Seattle
Ferry. So, I can Shift+Click the layer
| | 00:29 | mask to temporarily hide it, I can
also click the I icon next to Effects to
| | 00:33 | hide those and that way we
could see our original image here.
| | 00:36 | So, basically what I have done again,
I added effects, added a layer mask and
| | 00:40 | that's the end result of the layer. So,
when we set this up is a layer mask,
| | 00:44 | when we take this over into Encore,
we can replace this layer and the layer
| | 00:49 | mask and the layer styles within --
pretty colors that we added here, those
| | 00:53 | will be maintained with
whatever image we replace it with.
| | 00:56 | Now, this is an easy one. So, I can
double-click the name of the layer and
| | 00:59 | again, these all codes have to go
before the name of the layer. So, in
| | 01:03 | parentheses, I'm just going to put an
exclamation point and close parentheses
| | 01:06 | and hit Enter and return to accept it
and that's all it takes. So, what I'm
| | 01:10 | going to do is Save As, that's Command+
Shift+S or Ctrl+Shift+S on the PC and
| | 01:15 | I'm going to call this Replacement
Layer FINAL, because we are done with this.
| | 01:19 | Click OK there, now let's go back over
into Encore and I'm going to right click
| | 01:25 | in the Project panel, Import as > Menu.
I'm going to select Replacement Layer
| | 01:30 | FINAL from the Other Assets folder of
the Media folder of the Exercise Files.
| | 01:34 | I'm going to click OK. And you might be
wondering "Why did you import as a menu
| | 01:38 | if there are no menu items,
there is no buttons, nothing?"
| | 01:41 | Well, if we would have imported this
as an asset, it would have flattened all
| | 01:45 | of our layers and we would not have had
the Replacement layer. So, if you want
| | 01:48 | to get advantage of that, then it's
good to import this as a menu. Now, if I
| | 01:52 | select this menu or click on the Menu
Viewer, then I could see in the Layers
| | 01:55 | panel here that there is the
Replacement layer icon next to Layer 1.
| | 01:59 | It already knows, even though we can't
see the icon right now, that this is the
| | 02:03 | replacement layer. So, now what we
need to do is double-click in the Project
| | 02:05 | panel to get the Import As Asset dialog
box, because we need a layer to replace
| | 02:09 | this with and navigate to the Media
folder and then inside the Media folder, go
| | 02:13 | to the Photos folder and inside the
Photos folder, you will find the Flowers
| | 02:16 | folder and at the bottom of the
list, you will see MG_3140.jpg.
| | 02:21 | Go ahead and click on Open. Now, as I
click this image here in the Project
| | 02:25 | panel, we get a preview here and it's
definitely a very bright image and it
| | 02:30 | definitely does not have this pinkish
tint to it. However, when we click and
| | 02:33 | drag and drop, you could see that the
ship image has been replaced by this sea
| | 02:39 | of daffodils here.
| | 02:41 | Also, as you could tell from looking at
the original in the Project panel, it's
| | 02:44 | a very different looking image now. The
layer mask was preserved and the layer
| | 02:48 | style was preserved. Again, this is
just a great concept for designing. If you
| | 02:52 | know that you want a certain color of
image here or certain effect or maybe you
| | 02:56 | wanted a drop shadow around it or just
again for design sake, we know that we
| | 03:00 | wanted this to be masked out because
maybe we will put our buttons on this side
| | 03:03 | or whatever, we are not exactly sure,
which image we want to use, Replacement
| | 03:07 | layers are the key.
| | 03:08 | Again, all you have to do is put an
exclamation point in parentheses at the
| | 03:12 | beginning of the name of the layer in Photoshop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The video button code| 00:00 | In this movie we are look at creating
the code for a video button, you can see
| | 00:04 | here I have the a Video Button.psd file
open you will find in the Other Assets
| | 00:07 | folder of the Media folder in the
Exercise Files. Essentially, it couldn't be
| | 00:12 | any simpler. We basically have the text
that says Video Button and a little bar
| | 00:16 | underneath that and then
spot for the Video Button.
| | 00:19 | Basically, what we are going to do is
add a code here to enable us to dump a
| | 00:22 | chapter marker into this and have
either a poster frame, a thumbnail from the
| | 00:27 | video just as a still image or to
actually have video playback in this window.
| | 00:32 | Now, this right here, this big rounded
rectangle, this is the area in, which we
| | 00:35 | want the video to playback in.
| | 00:37 | So, we are going to add a special
code to this one. So, I'm going to double
| | 00:40 | click the name of the layer and I'm
going to add the special prefix and the
| | 00:43 | prefix for a video thumbnail button
is in parentheses, a % sign. So, open
| | 00:50 | parentheses, % sign and then close the
parentheses and hit Return. So, that's
| | 00:55 | what we need to do to turn this area
into a video area. But, we're not done yet
| | 00:59 | because you have to actually
have this code as part of a button.
| | 01:04 | So, we have got to create a layer
group here, I'm going to double-click the
| | 01:07 | name to rename this, in the parentheses,
I'll put the + sign, so that Photoshop
| | 01:12 | and Encore know it's a button and
then I'll put that at the top. Put these
| | 01:17 | layers in that group and there we
have it. Now, we are ready to go, so I'm
| | 01:21 | going to save this, Ctr+Shift+S or
Command+Shift+S on the Mac as Video Button
| | 01:26 | FINAL, hit OK there.
| | 01:28 | Let's go back over to Encore and in
Encore, I have already taken a liberty of
| | 01:34 | importing this Bench.mov you will find
in the Videos folder of the Media folder
| | 01:39 | of the Exercise Files. Just to save us
some time, made it into a timeline, no
| | 01:42 | big deal, so I'm going to right click
and select Import As Menu. Open up Video
| | 01:48 | Button FINAL.
| | 01:50 | Once we bring that in, this turns
gray and so that indicates that Encore
| | 01:55 | recognizes this is a video button area.
Now, all we have to do to dump video in
| | 01:59 | there is to take a chapter marker,
there is one right here, but just to make it
| | 02:02 | little bit more clear, I'll just kind
of move out little bit midway in the
| | 02:05 | timeline, click this button to add a
new chapter marker. I'll just drag and
| | 02:09 | drop it right there in the
spot, let go and there it is.
| | 02:13 | Notice also, that this is not a
perfectly rectangular button, it's oddly
| | 02:17 | shaped, so you can use different
shapes other than like pure square as a spot
| | 02:22 | for your video button, that might mean
it might crop your thumbnail a little
| | 02:25 | bit, but you can allow for more
artistic expression as you have different
| | 02:30 | shapes than just a plain old square.
So remember, all that it takes back in
| | 02:34 | Photoshop is just as % sign at the
front of the name of the layer, then it has
| | 02:38 | to be as part of the button group and
there you go, that's your video button.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The submenu navigation codes| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to take a
look at a couple of other codes you might
| | 00:02 | bump into as your working with Encore
in Photoshop. To do so, I have gone into
| | 00:06 | the Library panel open up the
Corporate Set, I have this Arrows1 Submenu open
| | 00:11 | here and when you are looking at these
submenus, there is actually a lot going
| | 00:15 | on. There are the video thumbnails,
there is this button that link to different
| | 00:18 | scenes. You have these other little
navigation buttons that go back to the main
| | 00:22 | menu or back to the previous submenu
and to the next submenu and then back to
| | 00:27 | the main menu.
| | 00:28 | Well what's cool about this is you
actually don't have to set up all these
| | 00:31 | links yourself; you can create these
links in Photoshop. So what I'm going to
| | 00:36 | do is select this menu and click the
Edit menu in Photoshop button and here is
| | 00:42 | the menu in Photoshop and you see
these little icons here, for the Previous
| | 00:47 | button, which I take up the visibility
its over here, this left little arrow.
| | 00:50 | This arrow is the Next button and then
of course we have the Main Menu button.
| | 00:55 | Well, you notice these are not just
regular buttons with the + sign, these have
| | 00:58 | the + and a little arrow indicator.
Also notice that the previous button points
| | 01:03 | to the left, the arrow for the next
button points to the right and the main
| | 01:07 | menu points up. They are all
different little icons here; they are all
| | 01:10 | different button prefixes.
| | 01:12 | So when we set up a button that has
this prefix and Encore automatically knows
| | 01:16 | that when this button is clicked to go
back to the previous chapter selection
| | 01:20 | menu and when we create a prefix with
the right facing arrow, it says when this
| | 01:24 | arrow is clicked automatically go to
the next chapter selection menu, same
| | 01:28 | thing with the main menu. We just have
to put this prefix before the button and
| | 01:32 | when this button is clicked,
automatically it goes back to the main menu.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using pre-built menus as templates| 00:00 | This movie here is basically it is
going to be a tip more than an actual
| | 00:04 | training movie. Now that we know the
codes, it's really cool to be able to do
| | 00:08 | things from scratch and often times as
a designer whenever you can make things
| | 00:12 | from the scratch, it always just feels
so much better to just do things on your
| | 00:16 | own and not use prebuilt stuff, but
hey look, don't reinvent the wheel.
| | 00:20 | Look at this menu right here for example,
this Extreme Submenu HD Menu found in
| | 00:25 | the Sports category of the Library
panel. There is so much going on here as I
| | 00:29 | go over to Photoshop, to this menu
into Photoshop, we can see that there is
| | 00:33 | just loads going on. As we select this
and see the Layers panel, look at all
| | 00:38 | these subpicture, highlights, the
buttons and there is replacement layer, there
| | 00:42 | are video thumbnails that are shaped all cool.
| | 00:44 | There is Previous buttons and Next
buttons and Main Menu buttons, so much stuff
| | 00:49 | going on here, even multiple
subpicture highlights with different colors and
| | 00:53 | multiple subpicture highlights with
different colors and multiple subpicture
| | 00:54 | highlights of the same color for the
same button. My point is rather than
| | 00:58 | building a really complex submenu, or
even a regular menu from the scratch, why
| | 01:03 | not use the prebuilt menus as a template?
| | 01:06 | So in other words you can go in here
and just replace some of these Background
| | 01:10 | art and have a completely different
menu where all these codes and odd stuff is
| | 01:13 | already set up for you. Now definitely
it pays to know the codes I think it is
| | 01:17 | definitely advantageous to be able to
look at a button, click on a layer and
| | 01:21 | know exactly what that button is
going to do based on the codes here in Photoshop.
| | 01:25 | Also the ability to make your own from
the scratch if you want to but so many
| | 01:30 | these menus are so complete, you just
bring them into Photoshop and use those
| | 01:34 | as a template, as a starting
ground for a menu of your own creation.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
16. Creating Flash Movies with EncoreAbout Flash and Encore| 00:00 | Adobe Flash is one of the most powerful
and popular technologies around today,
| | 00:04 | not used primarily on the web but
it's known for its interactivity and its
| | 00:08 | ability to add audio, animation and
video to websites. So you might be asking
| | 00:13 | what does this have to do with Encore
and what does this have to do with the
| | 00:17 | Encore menus that I'm
seeing right now on screen?
| | 00:20 | Well actually this is not an Encore menu;
this is a Flash-based website. So if
| | 00:26 | I click on OUR STORY, I get a video,
At any time I could pause the video,
| | 00:33 | go backwards or forwards. I could adjust
the volume and I could click up to go to
| | 00:38 | the top level, which in this case is
the main menu and all of this as you'll
| | 00:42 | notice as I'm in Firefox, I am on the web.
| | 00:45 | As you would ever try to create a
Flash-based website, which is exactly what
| | 00:48 | this is, if you have ever tried to
create one of those in Flash, you know that
| | 00:51 | Flash is a tough nut to crack, I mean
that's a really confusing application.
| | 00:56 | If we were to set this up, we have to know
a bunch of coding and a bunch of other
| | 00:59 | stuff in order to get this to work out properly.
| | 01:02 | You see the relationship between
Encore and Flash is growing and powerful and
| | 01:08 | so we can create stuff like this,
this Flash based website from Encore. CS4
| | 01:14 | adds a revolutionary new feature here
in dealing with Encore and Flash and
| | 01:18 | that's the ability to create web links.
So as I click this Menu button, the
| | 01:22 | LOCATIONS button, I setup a hyperlink
and it takes me to lynda.com. Absolutely phenomenal.
| | 01:29 | Even if you knew Flash and Flash is
easy for you, it's so much more time
| | 01:33 | consuming setting up a big project like
this in Flash than it is in Encore. So
| | 01:38 | throughout this chapter, I'm going to
show you how I set up this project and
| | 01:41 | it's amazingly easy. All you have to do
is essentially click a button and send
| | 01:45 | this out to Flash and post it on the web.
| | 01:48 | Now there are a few tricks to this.
There are the few options that we'll be
| | 01:51 | covering but all that stuff we will
get through in this chapter on creating
| | 01:55 | Flash movies with Encore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating buttons that link to websites| 00:00 | As I mentioned in the last movie one
of the most exciting new features in
| | 00:03 | Encore CS4 is the ability to create
web links. Two versions ago Encore was
| | 00:08 | called Encore DVD and it was just
unthinkable that in this DVD authoring
| | 00:13 | program you could actually create
web links, but now Encore has made the
| | 00:17 | impossible possible.
| | 00:18 | So what we are going to do is click on
this Locations button, by the way I'm
| | 00:21 | using the For Flash START project that
you will find in the chapter 16 folder
| | 00:26 | and so I have this button this
Locations button selected and so we do with this
| | 00:30 | button selected in the Properties panel.
We come down to the bottom and select
| | 00:33 | Enable WebLink for Flash. That
opens up the URL area and we can type in
| | 00:39 | www.lynda.com and just hit Enter to accept that.
| | 00:45 | Now obviously if you are on a DVD
player this doesn't work, this only works
| | 00:50 | when you are outputting the Flash, but
when we do output this to Flash as we
| | 00:54 | covered in the last movie and we
click this Locations button in our web
| | 00:57 | browser, we will be taken to lynda.com.
In the next movie we will continue on
| | 01:01 | and actually export this to Flash.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exporting a SWF file| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to
continue where we left of in a last segment,
| | 00:03 | this time I have created a project
called For Flash 01. Basically, this Encore
| | 00:07 | project with the LOCATIONS button set to
lynda.com, and that we did in the last movie.
| | 00:13 | Here, we are going to talk about
exporting this to Flash, the way that we do
| | 00:18 | this just couldn't be any easier. We go
to the Build panel and the Build panel,
| | 00:24 | we see this Format dropdown. We just
change it from DVD to Flash and that's it.
| | 00:31 | So, you could actually author one time
-- you author one project and you could
| | 00:35 | spit that out to DVD and Blu-ray
and Flash from the same project.
| | 00:40 | So, you don't have to start all over
again just to make a Flash project, you
| | 00:43 | could take your regular old DVD project,
the way it was and then spit it out to
| | 00:47 | Flash. As you could see here, under
Output, this is going to output a SWF file,
| | 00:52 | a .swf file. That's also called the
Flash format sometimes and this is not
| | 00:58 | going to output just a SWF file, but
it's going to output a whole bunch of
| | 01:01 | files as we will see momentarily.
| | 01:03 | The video is going to have to be
transcoded into some video formats we will
| | 01:07 | talk about later on in this chapter
and Encore also creates a few other files
| | 01:11 | like HTML and that type of thing to go
along with the SWF file as well, as we
| | 01:17 | will see. Now, the rest of this chapter,
we are going to spend sometime looking
| | 01:20 | at a lot of these options, which they
have added tons of new options for CS4.
| | 01:24 | One thing I want you to be aware of is
in a Settings area, we could actually
| | 01:27 | name this project, which can be a good
idea to kind of personalize things, and
| | 01:32 | then when you are done, you could also
check your project for errors, which we
| | 01:34 | will talk about little
bit later on this chapter.
| | 01:36 | Then when you are all done, click Build,
now this process doesn't take as long
| | 01:40 | as it does for a DVD as I mentioned
before, the transcoding process takes for
| | 01:44 | hour in a day. But it doesn't take that
long to create this Flash project, but
| | 01:48 | it does take a little while.
| | 01:50 | This is a pretty small project and it
still took about ten minutes. But when
| | 01:55 | it's all done, this is what you have
to look forward to. In the Other Assets
| | 01:59 | folder of the Media folder in your
Exercise Files, there is a folder called
| | 02:03 | Flash Project, double-click that to
open it up and this is what was made for us
| | 02:07 | by clicking the Build button.
| | 02:09 | We have the Flash DVD, that's what they
are calling it, if it's a SWF file. We
| | 02:13 | have an XML file that contains some
data, then we also have the Index.html,
| | 02:19 | this is the one you want to open up
with your web browser and then we have
| | 02:22 | sources, we have a bunch of FLV files
and PNGs and a whole bunch of stuff that
| | 02:26 | go along with this to help it
run right and look correctly.
| | 02:30 | That seriously all it takes to output
to Flash. Just change this dropdown from
| | 02:34 | DVD or Blu-ray to Flash and you are
good to go. So, let's go on to the next few
| | 02:39 | movies where we are going to look at
some of these other options for outputting to Flash.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Changing the SWF output size| 00:00 | In this movie, we're going to be still
using this For Flash 01 project. We are
| | 00:04 | going to look briefly at these presets.
You will find theses in the Build
| | 00:07 | panel, under Settings and these presets
are basically the different sizes, that
| | 00:11 | you could output to, when you are outputting to Flash.
| | 00:13 | Now, this menu was setup to NTSC
Standard 720x480. As you could see here,
| | 00:19 | the setting is 640X480, that really
isn't a 720x480 setting, but as I go back to
| | 00:25 | the Web, and you can see what this looks
like here. You could see that we are
| | 00:29 | not getting of our image cut-off, and
when we go back and forth between the Web
| | 00:34 | and our DVD menu, you can see that they look the same.
| | 00:38 | Nothing got cut off, nothing got lost.
Encore does a little magic behind the
| | 00:42 | scenes to make sure that what we are
seeing as far as getting stuff ready for
| | 00:46 | video, looks great when we send it to the web.
| | 00:48 | Now, let's get back to looking at some
of these presets. Go and click the
| | 00:51 | Preset dropdown again. Now on the
left hand side, we will see different pixel
| | 00:55 | dimensions. In the center, you could
see that we can choose Standard on top or
| | 01:00 | from the Widescreen presets, down at
the bottom. And on the right hand side,
| | 01:04 | for every single pixel dimensions, there
is a High, a medium and a Low quality setting.
| | 01:09 | Note that size is different than quality,
and typically it's not a good idea to
| | 01:15 | select a preset, larger than your
original footage. So, if this is an NTSC menu
| | 01:20 | setup to 720x480, I would want to pick
one of these 1280 pixels by 960 or
| | 01:26 | 1280x720 presets, or even the 960x540.
| | 01:30 | And again, because this, a fullscreen
menu, I would choose one of the Standard
| | 01:34 | presets. Next, we will look at HTML templates
that Encore uses to display the Flash file.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using HTML templates as backgrounds| 00:00 | You might have noticed earlier in
this chapter, when I was showing off this
| | 00:03 | Flash movie that Encore made, that
there is this awesome background back here.
| | 00:07 | Well, this is actually an HTML template
that I had Encore use to house my SWF movie.
| | 00:15 | If we go back to Encore, and then we
go to the Build panel, we can see as we
| | 00:20 | scroll down, that there are several
templates that ship with Encore. For the
| | 00:24 | example I just showed you, I used the
Corporate2 template. You can also choose
| | 00:27 | to have no template, if you want.
| | 00:29 | But let's say, for example, we weren't
sure if we were going to have that cool
| | 00:32 | black theme, or maybe a Wedding theme.
So, we can select it from the templates
| | 00:36 | list here, and then we can click,
Preview template. And this background is
| | 00:41 | basically, what would house our Flash movie.
| | 00:45 | And so, as you can see, there are
several different templates to choose from,
| | 00:48 | next we will talk about how to
bring in other HTML templates.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing other HTML templates| 00:00 | Now, in my lists of templates-- keep
in mind that I'm recording this months
| | 00:03 | before Encore is even going to be
announced, Encore CS4 anyways. I have all
| | 00:08 | this list of templates, but I
only have like five of them.
| | 00:11 | It's very conceivable that there
will be a much longer list, when it gets
| | 00:14 | released. Or that, there will be
other packs, maybe through the Resource
| | 00:17 | Central panel, other ways to get new
templates. If and when that day ever
| | 00:22 | arises, you can simply click the
Import Template button, and navigate to a
| | 00:26 | folder, which has all of the PNG
files or whatever it is, that will be the
| | 00:31 | source for a new template.
| | 00:32 | So, you are not just stuck with these
few templates, you can import new ones.
| | 00:37 | Next, we are going to look at the two
different video formats in Encore, f4v and flv.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using FLV vs. F4V video| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to look
at the difference between these two
| | 00:03 | options, as far as format goes, between
F4V and FLV. Now of course, I'm here in
| | 00:08 | the Build panel using the
For Flash 01 project again.
| | 00:12 | And what it refers to when it's
talking about format is the video conversion.
| | 00:16 | When you have video in your project
and it has to be convert it, usually when
| | 00:20 | you are going to DVD or even Blu-ray,
you have to convert it to MPEG-2 or H.264.
| | 00:26 | But Flash goes on the web and MPEG-2 is
way too big to put on the Internet. So
| | 00:33 | it has to use one of these formats,
and F4V and FLV are two of the best means
| | 00:37 | for compressing video out there
right now, as far as the web goes.
| | 00:40 | Now, FLV has been around for quite
some time, several years, and After Effects
| | 00:45 | and Premiere both output to this
format and have for a while. But F4V is kind
| | 00:49 | like the new kid on the block. The
latest version of Flash Player that was just
| | 00:54 | released a few months ago introduced
support for F4V for the first time but
| | 00:59 | it is a much better means of compression.
You can get a lot more video at the
| | 01:04 | same size by using F4V, with great quality.
| | 01:08 | Problems with F4V is that it's not
totally supported just yet. Seeing as how
| | 01:13 | support for it only came out on the
Flash Player around mid-2008, which means
| | 01:18 | that if you are going to be putting
this up on the web for everyone to view it,
| | 01:21 | depending on your audience, many
people might not be able to view it.
| | 01:25 | I'm told that by the big wigs at
Adobe that this will be the standard for a
| | 01:29 | video on the Internet within a couple
of years, but I don't think that's the
| | 01:32 | case just yet. So it's up to you
whether you want to have a bigger audience
| | 01:36 | with FLV, or if you want to have higher
quality video at lower file sizes with
| | 01:41 | F4V, knowing that you'll alienate
a little bit of your audience if you
| | 01:44 | don't have a super tech savvy audience.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Checking a Flash project for errors| 00:00 | In this brief movie, we are going to
use this For Flash 01 project, again with
| | 00:04 | the Build panel here. Talking about
this little button right here, called Check
| | 00:07 | Project. We are going to talk more
about this button, a little bit later on in
| | 00:10 | this training series when we talk
about outputting and stuff like that.
| | 00:12 | But I just want to give you a brief
heads up about checking projects that are
| | 00:16 | going to be output to Flash. It's
a little bit different. If I click Check
| | 00:19 | Project, then there is all these cool
things that I can have Encore do a
| | 00:24 | search for me, make sure
that everything is okay.
| | 00:27 | Again, we will talk more about this a
little bit later, but WebLink for Flash
| | 00:31 | is one of these options. So, when you
are outputting to Flash, you want to make
| | 00:35 | sure, that all the buttons you have
enabled for a weblink actually have
| | 00:38 | weblinks. And, Encore can
do that search for you here.
| | 00:41 | It's also a good ides if you are
outputting to Flash, to make sure this is
| | 00:44 | selected, just because if you have a
button that is not linked to an asset,
| | 00:49 | it's going to get a warning, when you
are checking your projects for errors, it
| | 00:51 | can say, "Hey, you have a button,
it's not linked to another asset."
| | 00:54 | But if you have WebLink for Flash
enabled, then it going to give you an OK, if
| | 00:59 | you have that link set up to a weblink.
So, again this will make a little bit
| | 01:03 | of more sense later on when we talk
about checking your project for errors.
| | 01:07 | Just remember that if you do that,
then make sure that this WebLink for Flash
| | 01:11 | is checked so you don't get any false
errors, and also if you have any links
| | 01:15 | that don't have URLs attached to
them, that Encore lets you know.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a SWF file with streaming video| 00:00 | Again using the For Flash 01 project,
we are going to look at our final aspect
| | 00:04 | of outputting to Flash, and that is
about streaming video. In this Build panel
| | 00:10 | here, scroll down to the very bottom,
we have two options, Progressive Download
| | 00:14 | or Flash Media Server Streaming.
| | 00:16 | Now, as you could imagine, if you are
creating a project for DVD, let's say,
| | 00:19 | you have a movie that's like an hour
long. You put that up on the Internet,
| | 00:23 | that's going to be a big
download for people to watch.
| | 00:26 | So, you do have the option, so it
doesn't actually store on the user's hard
| | 00:28 | drive, to stream the video using the
Flash Media Server. I'm told by the folks
| | 00:34 | at Adobe that this also allows
for you content to more secure.
| | 00:38 | Now, if you don't have a Flash Media
Server, you can still select the Flash
| | 00:41 | Media Server, and you could change the
server. There are two options. You can
| | 00:46 | have a local Flash Media Server, but
even if you don't have that, you can still
| | 00:50 | take advantage of this streaming technology
by choosing another option called PlayStream.
| | 00:54 | Now, I haven't heard too much about
PlayStream before. This is something that
| | 00:57 | Adobe recommended, so if I go over to
playstream.com, it's a website and you
| | 01:02 | can get an account and there is On
Demand Streaming. So, you basically sign up
| | 01:06 | for an account and then you could
upload it here, to PlayStream, and then
| | 01:10 | streams from PlayStream
to the user's web browser.
| | 01:14 | So, there's just a couple of options.
In case, you are outputting video to
| | 01:17 | Flash, that's really big. Keep in mind
this is going to be over the Internet
| | 01:21 | and you are going to lose a lot of
viewers if you are trying to get people to
| | 01:23 | watch a big video. Or even if you have
clients, it would might be techy to say,
| | 01:27 | "Okay, we will sit around for three
hours and wait for this to download, so you
| | 01:30 | could watch this little movie."
| | 01:31 | So, if you could stream it, and you
have some high-end clients, all the better.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
17. Integrating with Other Adobe ApplicationsUsing Adobe Bridge to browse for assets| 00:00 | In this chapter, we are going to look
at integrating Encore with other Adobe
| | 00:04 | applications, specifically those other
applications in Production Premium CS4.
| | 00:08 | First, we are going to look at Adobe
Bridge, and we can get there by going to
| | 00:13 | the File menu in Encore and
selecting Browse in Bridge.
| | 00:16 | Now, we don't have to do this to
launch Bridge; we could also just go to your
| | 00:19 | Applications Folder on a Mac or Program
Files on Windows and get to Bridge that
| | 00:24 | way, and open up Bridge as a standalone
application. I want to click Browse in
| | 00:27 | Bridge. If it's open, it will switch
to it. If it's not open, just give it a
| | 00:30 | couple of minutes to open up. Bridge
is notorious for taking a long time to
| | 00:34 | open. So, once you click Browse in
Bridge, just kind of kick back and let it do
| | 00:37 | its thing for a while.
| | 00:39 | So, the purpose of Adobe Bridge is to
browse through media. So here I'm in the
| | 00:44 | Media folder of the Exercise Files.
Let's say, we go to Photos, for example. We
| | 00:47 | could see all these photos, folders,
and maybe these great thumbnails here. We
| | 00:51 | can click these things once, and we
get a bigger preview over here in the
| | 00:55 | Preview panel on the right-hand side.
We can actually resize these panels here
| | 00:59 | and get even bigger thumbnail and also,
we can click to get a really close
| | 01:05 | zoom, called a Loupe tool, so we could
actually zoom in the pieces of our image,
| | 01:08 | and look at the quality up close
without having to open it in Photoshop. Just
| | 01:12 | click again to make it go away.
| | 01:14 | Also, you could look at additional
metadata or in other words, additional
| | 01:17 | information about this file when
selected. For example, I could see all of the
| | 01:21 | camera settings I used and this is
actually a little embarrassing for me
| | 01:25 | because I took this with a lens that
wasn't super awesome. I got an f-stop of
| | 01:28 | 6.3, which is not super impressive as
far as photography goes. But as we scroll
| | 01:32 | ahead, we can see other document
properties, the pixel dimensions, the file
| | 01:35 | size, the bit depth, the resolution all
that kind of stuff. You can even put in
| | 01:38 | other information too under Creator,
I could click here and type in Chad
| | 01:42 | Perkins and hit OK and now, whenever
somebody else gets this JPEG, they will
| | 01:46 | know that I'm the one who created this
image. Also, if we were to go to Edit > Find
| | 01:51 | or Command+F or Ctrl+F, if you want
to do that way, you can search for
| | 01:55 | Chad Perkins and this image would
come up in those search results.
| | 01:58 | Now, Bridge was just for browsing
photos that wouldn't be all that impressive,
| | 02:03 | but if we go back to Media and let's say,
we open up Videos, you could see that
| | 02:06 | we see thumbnails of all of these
videos and if we click once on a video, we
| | 02:11 | get a video preview on the right-hand
side; we can actually play that video preview.
| | 02:14 | (Water crashing over rocks.)
| | 02:17 | We can set it to loop here. We
can change its volume by clicking the
| | 02:20 | Speaker icon here. We can actually
scrub in the Timeline to go forward or
| | 02:24 | backwards in this video.
| | 02:25 | And so I do love Adobe Bridge but it
works much better for browsing video than
| | 02:30 | just images. So, it works great for
Encore. If I go back to Media, go back to
| | 02:34 | Other Assets, you could see that I can
even preview PSD files, Photoshop documents.
| | 02:39 | If I go into the Flash Project folder,
click once on flashdvd.swf, you can see
| | 02:44 | that we have get little controls and
these are actually changeable, even though
| | 02:48 | we can't play the video here. This is
the Flash project we were doing in the
| | 02:50 | last chapter. We will go in to
Sources and we can preview theses PNG files,
| | 02:54 | JPEGs. We can also preview the
FLV files, which are pretty cool.
| | 02:58 | (Music plays.)
| | 03:01 | So, with most file formats you can toss at it,
it can preview them. You could quickly do a
| | 03:05 | Spotlight type search in this little
bar right here if you are looking for
| | 03:09 | something. You change the layout here
at the top. I'm just going to leave on
| | 03:11 | the Essentials workspace for now. And
that's all you need to know about Bridge
| | 03:16 | as far as using Bridge with Encore;
great to browse for assets that you are
| | 03:19 | going to import.
| | 03:20 | Also, I should point out that Bridge
remembers the application it's opened
| | 03:24 | from. So because I launched Bridge
from Encore, when I double-click this JPEG
| | 03:29 | image, and then go back over into
Encore, you can see that this image is now
| | 03:33 | imported into my Project panel. So,
same thing with videos; if I want to bring
| | 03:37 | in a video, all I have to do is go over,
for example, into Media, Videos and I
| | 03:42 | can double-click, let's say, for example,
fight scene. Double-click that and it
| | 03:46 | pops into the Project panel. So,
Bridge is a great file browsing tool, and
| | 03:50 | again that's all we are going to cover
of it in this movie, but just be aware
| | 03:53 | that there are so much power here.
| | 03:55 | If you want to take your study of
Bridge even deeper, there's more Bridge
| | 03:58 | training on lynda.com but there's
things like a Photo Downloader, for example,
| | 04:02 | where if you stick your camera into
your computer, Bridge can pop up and it
| | 04:06 | actually can download those photos to
your computer. Oh! And one last tip with Bridge.
| | 04:10 | Down here at the bottom, there is a
little slider. This controls the size of
| | 04:13 | the thumbnails. So, maybe these
thumbnails are a little bit too small for you.
| | 04:16 | I can drag this to the right to
increase that, so all of my thumbnails are
| | 04:21 | really big. So, I can browse that way
if I want it to or if I have too many
| | 04:24 | files, I can drag this to the left,
so I can see more files at once.
| | 04:29 | It's totally up to you; as you could
see it's very dynamic as I'm moving this
| | 04:32 | around. And in a nutshell, that's Adobe Bridge.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing sequences from Premiere Pro via Dynamic Link| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to startup
by looking at Adobe Premiere Pro, which
| | 00:04 | you will probably have if you are on
Encore CS4. Adobe Premiere Pro is a
| | 00:08 | high-end video editing program and the
integration between Premiere and Encore
| | 00:13 | has greatly increased in CS4. We
talked in the Encore CS3 Essential Training
| | 00:18 | about dynamic link, the ability to
bring in After Effects files without
| | 00:21 | rendering them first.
| | 00:22 | Well, now that same behavior has been
implemented between Premiere Pro and
| | 00:26 | Encore. So, I'm here in Premiere and
I have created this Timeline with some
| | 00:31 | ninja clips and what not and I
saved it in the Chapter 17 folder of the
| | 00:35 | Exercise Files as Premiere Pro.
| | 00:37 | Now, one of the most time consuming
things that you will face while you are
| | 00:40 | dealing with view editing and rendering
and spinning out to Encore is the time
| | 00:44 | involved. Let's say, for example, you
are working in Premiere Pro and you have
| | 00:48 | got this huge video sequence, it's
like 90 minutes long or what have you.
| | 00:52 | In times past, if you wanted to use
that video from Premiere in Encore, you
| | 00:56 | would have to do this time consuming
render. Well those days are no longer,
| | 01:00 | watch this; I'm going to go back
over to Encore and if I want to use the
| | 01:03 | sequence we were just looking at in
Premiere Pro here in Encore, this is all I have to do.
| | 01:09 | Go to File, Adobe Dynamic Link,
Import Premiere Pro Sequence. I can then
| | 01:14 | navigate to the Chapter 17 folder of
the Exercise Files, that I complete in
| | 01:17 | this training. Once I have selected
the project on the left-hand side of this
| | 01:21 | interface, all of the sequences in that
project will show up on the right-hand side.
| | 01:25 | So, now I can select the sequence to
import, hit OK and after a little while,
| | 01:31 | we will see our sequence from Premiere
here in Encore with this icon, letting
| | 01:35 | us know that this is dynamically linked
to the sequence in Premiere. So, if we
| | 01:38 | were to make changes in Premiere, they
would automatically be reflected here in
| | 01:42 | Encore. From here, we could use this
as if this were a piece of regular old video.
| | 01:47 | So, I could select it and make a
Timeline out of it. Once this new Timeline
| | 01:53 | opens in the Timeline Viewer, you look
down here and it's basically this pink,
| | 01:57 | magenta color, Encore makes it
like that to remind you that this is a
| | 02:01 | dynamically linked project we are looking at.
| | 02:03 | I want to point out something else.
Here in Encore when we bring in a
| | 02:06 | dynamically linked project, it comes in
as one huge chunk, but as we saw before
| | 02:11 | in Premiere, this is actually three
separate movie clips. So, what I did is I
| | 02:15 | created these Encore chapter markers.
You could do that by clicking this button
| | 02:18 | here in the Timeline panel in Premiere
and that creates these Encore chapter
| | 02:22 | markers where these video clips start.
| | 02:25 | As you can see, by doing that in
Premiere, it shows up in my dynamically linked
| | 02:30 | Premiere Pro sequence in Encore. So, as
you can imagine, CS4 is hugely forward
| | 02:35 | in productivity when using Premiere Pro
and Encore together, and not only it is
| | 02:39 | a time saver but it also saves on compression.
| | 02:42 | Every time you split out video to
something unless you are using uncompressed
| | 02:45 | video, which is so huge, you are going
to have to correct that video at least a
| | 02:48 | little bit and now you don't even
have to do that; you could simply import
| | 02:51 | dynamically linked
sequence and you are on your way.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Updating markers from Dynamic Link video| 00:00 | We are going to pick up where we left
off in the last segment, talking about
| | 00:03 | dynamic link. We have the same project
open here. As you remember, we set up
| | 00:06 | these two chapter markers in Premiere.
Take a look at that real quick; here is
| | 00:10 | one Encore chapter marker, here is
another Encore chapter marker. We can create
| | 00:14 | these by clicking this button here in
the Timeline panel. You could see that
| | 00:17 | when we add this to our project via
dynamic link, those chapter marker show up.
| | 00:21 | But what if you want to
update the chapter markers?
| | 00:23 | If you update content in Premiere Pro,
using that will update automatically via
| | 00:27 | dynamic link here in Encore. But
chapter markers can be a little bit different.
| | 00:31 | So, I'm going to go back over to
Premiere, and let's fiddle with these chapter
| | 00:34 | markers and I'm going to select them
and drag. By the way, you select and click
| | 00:38 | and drag on the actual icon itself of
the marker to move it around and then I'm
| | 00:43 | going to create a few more of these
by moving my current time indicator and
| | 00:46 | clicking the Encore Chapter Marker button.
| | 00:48 | I'm just going to make a bunch of them,
so it's really obvious what I'm doing
| | 00:52 | here. It looks pretty good. And one of
the coolest parts about dynamic link? I
| | 00:56 | don't need even have to save this. So,
let's go back over to Encore, don't even
| | 01:00 | need to save it. Then with this clip
selected in the Timeline Viewer, go to the
| | 01:05 | Edit menu and select the option Update
Markers from Source. Now, remember this,
| | 01:10 | it's not enough just to have the
objects selected in the Project panel or the
| | 01:13 | Timeline selected; we actually have to
have the clips selected in the Timeline Viewer.
| | 01:17 | When that's done, select Update Markers
from Source, a little pop-up indicates
| | 01:21 | that Update Markers would like to
delete all the existing chapter markers in
| | 01:24 | that selected clip and replace them
with the ones we made in Premiere. Do you
| | 01:27 | want to proceed? Yes, wipe out all the
chapter markers and replace them with
| | 01:31 | the ones that we made in Premiere.
There are all the chapter markers that we
| | 01:35 | made in Premiere, without
having to save in either application.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Speech Search in Premiere to help create subtitles| 00:00 | Without a doubt, one of the most
impressive features in the entire CS4
| | 00:04 | Production Premium suite is Speech
Search in Premiere Pro. Basically, what this
| | 00:09 | allows you do is bring in a video
file that has dialog and Premiere will
| | 00:14 | attempt to guess what the words are in
the dialog. The benefit of that to you
| | 00:18 | as an Encore user is the ability to
copy and paste that to help you with subtitles.
| | 00:24 | Now, this may or may not be more
helpful to you than just typing it out, but it
| | 00:28 | might be. So, I want to show it to you.
In the Project panel, just double-click
| | 00:31 | to Import. Now, what we are going to
do is go to the Media folder of the
| | 00:34 | Exercise Files folder then to Audio,
then to Languages and then we are going to
| | 00:38 | select Spanish and import the Spanish
track. We have looked at the same audio
| | 00:42 | file earlier when we were talking about
change in the languages of a DVD. This
| | 00:46 | is what it sounds like.
| | 00:47 | (Computer: I am the voice that speaks Spanish.)
| | 00:50 | Basically, a computer reader that says,
"I am the voice that speaks Spanish." So,
| | 00:54 | what we are going to transcribe this or
in other words, change it into text is
| | 00:58 | go to the Window menu and open up the
Metadata panel. And all you have to do to
| | 01:03 | transcribe it is click the Transcribe
button at the bottom. This will open the
| | 01:06 | Adobe Media Encoder and show your job
at the top here in this area and then
| | 01:09 | when you are all ready to go, just hit
Start Queue and it will render out and
| | 01:12 | transcribe your text.
| | 01:13 | As you can see, I've already
transcribed this audio clip and Premiere actually
| | 01:17 | remembered what that transcription
was. Now, as you could see, it's not
| | 01:21 | perfect. It really says, "I am the voice
that speaks Spanish," but it's translated
| | 01:25 | here as Ali am the voice that speaks
Spanish. But we can just change that by
| | 01:28 | just double-clicking on that text, selecting
it all and replacing it with I and hit Enter.
| | 01:34 | What's really cool about this feature
too as you are creating your subtitles is
| | 01:37 | that it actually has the exact timecode
of when each word is said. So, as I
| | 01:42 | hit each word or as I hit the Tab key
to advance to the next word, you could
| | 01:45 | see where these words were being
spoken. And you might have noticed, there
| | 01:49 | seems to be a whole lot of frames in
this timecode. As you remember, a time
| | 01:52 | code reads left to right as hours,
minutes, seconds and then frames, but in
| | 01:57 | this case, because when you speak, you
speak so quickly that you don't really
| | 02:01 | speak in terms of frames;
you speak quicker than that.
| | 02:03 | So, these are measured in audio units.
As you could see here, we have 48,000
| | 02:08 | Hertz or in other words 48,000 audio
units before we go up to the next second.
| | 02:13 | But still, this could be used as a
good general reference for when certain
| | 02:17 | words were said. And if you want to
copy and paste this text to use as a
| | 02:20 | subtitle, just right-click on one of
the words and select Copy All. Then as we
| | 02:25 | go to a text editor, we can just
paste that hitting Ctrl+V or Command+V,
| | 02:29 | depending on your
operating system and there you go.
| | 02:31 | Now, as I said, this might not be the
most convenient way to create subtitles
| | 02:35 | but it's an option if you make your own
subtitle, so it's just something to be aware of.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating motion menus in After Effects| 00:00 | In this tutorial, we are going to look
at how to create a dynamically linked
| | 00:03 | motion menu background in After Effects.
We are going to do this from scratch
| | 00:07 | so it's going to be pretty fun. Over in
the Library panel, let's start out by
| | 00:10 | going to the Corporate Set and double-
clicking the Medical Menu, so it shows up
| | 00:14 | in your Project panel here. Then let's
go to the File menu. Under Adobe Dynamic
| | 00:18 | Link, select New After Effects Composition.
| | 00:20 | We'll save this in Chapter 17 folder
and we will call it, Medical Menu.
| | 00:24 | And so once you select that option, it
automatically opens After Effects if it's not
| | 00:29 | open already and opens up the project
that you just saved. It also creates a
| | 00:33 | composition for you called Untitled
Linked Comp and basically, if we go back to
| | 00:38 | Encore, we'll see a dynamic link right
here to an After Effects composition and
| | 00:42 | that's the one that it's created for us.
| | 00:44 | So, whatever changes we make will show
up here in this Untitled Comp here. So,
| | 00:48 | let's go back to After Effects and
let's right-click in the Composition panel,
| | 00:52 | select New > Solid. Click the Make
Comp Size button and click OK. It doesn't
| | 00:58 | matter what color it is. So basically,
what we've done is created a solid area
| | 01:02 | of color, no big deal so far. So,
in the Effects & Presets panel on the
| | 01:05 | right-hand side, do a search for 'cell'
and one of the things that will pop up is
| | 01:09 | Cell Pattern. So, in this Effects &
Presets panel, drag and drop Cell Pattern
| | 01:13 | onto our solid layer.
| | 01:15 | We've got some cool, cellular looking
stuff here. Let's make it even cooler
| | 01:19 | though. In the Effect Controls panel
on the left-hand side here, go ahead and
| | 01:22 | check Invert, increase the Contrast,
maybe to about 250 or so, somewhere around
| | 01:27 | there looks good. Increase the Disperse
value and let's go ahead and decrease
| | 01:33 | the Size. So now we got a little more of
those little buggers. And now we want to
| | 01:37 | animate this, but before we do it, as
we look at our Timeline here, it goes up
| | 01:40 | to 30 seconds, the default length for a
composition. It's a little bit too long
| | 01:44 | for a motion menu to repeat. So, what
I'm going to do is with this composition
| | 01:48 | selected, I'm going to hit Command+K
on the Mac or Ctrl+K on the PC to open up
| | 01:52 | the Composition Settings and I'm
going to go down to the bottom here for
| | 01:55 | Duration and I'm going to change that
3 to 1. So, that way my duration is 10
| | 02:01 | seconds instead of 30 seconds and click OK.
| | 02:03 | Now, with my Current Time Indicator at
the first frame, I'm going to click the
| | 02:06 | stopwatch for the Evolution property.
Then I'm going to click the End button on
| | 02:11 | my keyboard to jump to the end of my
composition here. Now, let's go ahead and
| | 02:16 | make two complete evolutions. We do
that by clicking this first number on the
| | 02:20 | left, not this one on the right. Click
that number and type 2. And now as we
| | 02:24 | play this back with the spacebar, you
can see our cells animating. Okay, so I'm
| | 02:28 | going to hit the Home key again.
| | 02:29 | In most cases, we would go to the
Evolution options and cycle this, so we have
| | 02:34 | a seamless loop but due to the nature of DVDs,
after a few seconds, when it goes back
| | 02:38 | and repeats, there's kind of a little
hiccup anyway. So, it doesn't really
| | 02:41 | matter if it's a seamless loop or not.
Now, we're going to add a little bit of
| | 02:44 | color here. In the Effects & Presets
panel, go ahead and hit the X to clear out
| | 02:47 | our search results from before and do
a search now on 'color balance.' There we
| | 02:52 | go, just 'color ba' little work.
And so, let's select the Color Balance
| | 02:56 | effect and again, as before,
drag and drop into the Composition panel.
| | 02:59 | Now, let's go ahead and increase some
of the Red Balances. So, I'm going to
| | 03:03 | increase Shadow Red Balance and
Midtone Red Balance, maybe a little bit of
| | 03:07 | Highlight Red Balance. I think Shadow
Red Balance looks the best. And that
| | 03:12 | looks pretty good right about there.
Now, as we go back to Encore and I have to
| | 03:15 | save this here in After Effects,
as I go back to Encore and select this
| | 03:19 | dynamically linked composition in the
Project panel, we could see a preview of
| | 03:24 | the cells we made in After Effects here
in Encore. So now what you need to do is hold
| | 03:28 | the Alt key on the PC or the Option
key on the Mac and drag this dynamically
| | 03:31 | linked composition while holding
the Alt or Option key onto our menu.
| | 03:36 | And then our cool cellular animation
becomes the new background for this menu.
| | 03:41 | To preview how this looks, let's right-
click on the Medical Menu in the Project
| | 03:44 | panel and select Preview from here.
Now, we will talk later about rendering
| | 03:49 | objects for menus. For now though, go
ahead and click this button in the bottom
| | 03:52 | left-hand corner of the Project
Preview window. And then after a little while
| | 03:58 | of rendering, it begins to play back
as the background of our menu. How cool
| | 04:04 | does that look? That's awesome, these
cells going around. After few seconds, that
| | 04:08 | will go back and repeat again. So
since what we have is this motion menu
| | 04:11 | background created from After Effects,
although launched from Encore and using
| | 04:15 | them together with dynamic link, we have a
very simple, quick, and easy motion menu background.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making buttons and subpictures in After Effects| 00:00 | In this tutorial, we are going to look
at a relatively unknown feature in After
| | 00:04 | Effects that allows you to create
buttons and subpictures for Encore from right
| | 00:08 | here in After Effects. If you have
After Effects and you would like to follow,
| | 00:11 | I have created this Encore Objects.
aep project, you will find in Chapter 17
| | 00:15 | folder of the Exercise Files.
| | 00:16 | Basically, we have a few layers here;
we have a background and then we have
| | 00:20 | decorative line and menu text and then
we have our button elements. We have the
| | 00:24 | actual button itself, we have the text
on the button and we have a subpicture
| | 00:28 | highlight. Now, none of these things
are DVD objects yet; they are just shape
| | 00:32 | layers, After Effects shape layers
and text and that's pretty much it. So,
| | 00:36 | remember that buttons are a group of
layers. So, what I'm going to do is, I'm
| | 00:40 | going to select the button and I'm
going to hold the Ctrl or Command key and
| | 00:43 | click the text, because I want the
text as part of this and I also want the
| | 00:46 | subpicture highlight as well.
| | 00:48 | Now, we are going to use this to make
a button. Do that, go to the Layer menu
| | 00:51 | and go to the Adobe Encore sub-menu
and select Create Button. Now, from this
| | 00:56 | dialog, once I click this, we are going
to be able to assign a subpicture. So,
| | 01:00 | we are going to spend all of our time
in this little dialog box, but just be
| | 01:03 | aware that we could change the
assignment of subpictures, not as we could
| | 01:06 | assign it to =1, =2 or =3, using one
of these three options here or we can
| | 01:12 | create an area and assign it
to a Video Thumbnail as well.
| | 01:15 | So, once I create button here, open up
this Create Adobe Encore Button dialog
| | 01:19 | box. For the button name, I'm going
to call it something slightly more
| | 01:22 | creative, Play Button. And also I
could pick what I want to choose for
| | 01:26 | Subpicture 1, 2 or 3 or the Video
Thumbnail layer. Here I just want to assign
| | 01:30 | Subpicture 1, so click the
Subpicture 1 dropdown and I'm going to select
| | 01:35 | highlight and once I do that, I'm going
to click OK and now, we have created a
| | 01:40 | pre-composition. Pre-compositions are
essentially layer groups in Photoshop.
| | 01:44 | So, if you have ever imported a
Photoshop document that has a layer group and
| | 01:48 | to After Effects, it will come in as a
pre-comp, and also you could tell by the
| | 01:52 | naming conventions, this little
prefix that has been added, that this is an
| | 01:55 | Encore button. If we double-click this
pre-comp to open it up, you'll see that
| | 01:58 | it's also labeled the highlight
appropriately as well; it's put in that =1 for
| | 02:02 | us. So now what I'm going to do is I'm
going to go and select the Encore Menu
| | 02:05 | Composition. Again, I'm going to go
the Composition menu at the top of the screen.
| | 02:09 | Then I'm going to select Save Frame
As because we don't have any animation
| | 02:13 | here; we just want to save this
composition out as a document. We want to save
| | 02:16 | this out as Photoshop layers. It's
basically will create a layered Photoshop
| | 02:20 | document essentially on Encore menu. So,
I'm going to click Photoshop Layers
| | 02:24 | and we decide, where we want to save it.
I have already actually saved it out
| | 02:26 | in Chapter 17 folder called Encore Menu.
So, once you click Save, it's there.
| | 02:30 | Now, let's go back over to Encore
and let's check this out. I'm going to
| | 02:34 | right-click on our Project panel,
select Import As > Menu. Navigate to the
| | 02:39 | Chapter 17 folder in Exercise Files,
select Encore Menu, and click Open and
| | 02:45 | there is our menu. Now, if I adjust
my interface where I could see the
| | 02:49 | properties kind of a little bit better,
I click on the Play button. As you can
| | 02:51 | see, it is a button. As I mentioned
before, when things don't look quite right,
| | 02:56 | sometimes that's a good thing in Encore.
| | 02:58 | So, our subpicture highlight has gone
that means it was recognized. So, if we
| | 03:01 | click on this selected button, we can
see that this is what it looks like when
| | 03:04 | selected. Now, the color didn't come
across right. Remember that it was like
| | 03:07 | dark maroon, kind of like this bar
right here underneath MENU. But Encore
| | 03:11 | doesn't care about that; it only
cares about the outline. And if we were to
| | 03:15 | right-click and preview this from here,
you can see that we have the subpicture
| | 03:20 | highlight on our button. It doesn't go
away, because there is no other button.
| | 03:23 | So essentially, that's the only button
that could be selected, but we've just
| | 03:26 | created a working menu
from scratch in After Effects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
18. About Blu-ray Discs and HD VideoWhat are Blu-ray discs?| 00:00 | In this chapter, we are going to look
at the increasingly popular Blu-ray disc
| | 00:03 | format; kind of a new format on the
scene and Encore is actually one of the few
| | 00:08 | software applications that can burn
Blu-ray discs. So, in this movie, we are
| | 00:12 | going to talk about what are
Blu-ray discs. Essentially, Blu-ray is a
| | 00:16 | high-definition disc format.
Basically, it's like DVD on steroids.
| | 00:20 | Now you may have heard that there was a
high-definition format war, that HD DVD
| | 00:27 | and Blu-ray were released right
about the same time and so you often saw
| | 00:32 | commercials for movies coming out saying,
it's going to be released on DVD and
| | 00:35 | HD DVD or it's going to be released on
DVD and Blu-ray. Blu-ray was the winner.
| | 00:41 | So, Encore actually has been
supporting Blu-ray for a little while now since
| | 00:45 | Encore CS3 when the format war was
still going on. So, they were kind of
| | 00:49 | gambling that Blu-ray would come out
the victor and it did. So, lucky for us;
| | 00:54 | we now have support for a high-
definition format that actually still exist.
| | 00:58 | Now, the name Blu-ray actually comes
from the blue laser used to burn the disc
| | 01:03 | and that little small laser allows what
looks like a DVD to actually store much
| | 01:09 | more information. A Blu-ray disc can
actually hold 25 Gigabytes on a single
| | 01:14 | layer disc or up to 50 Gigabytes on a
dual layer Blu-ray disc. Compare this
| | 01:19 | with DVD, which has about 4.5
Gigabytes for a single layer and about 8.5
| | 01:24 | Gigabytes for a dual layer.
| | 01:26 | Now, as we move through this chapter
and talk about all of the cool things that
| | 01:30 | Blu-ray discs can do, it's not
just that they hold more information.
| | 01:33 | They canactually perform a few extra tricks,
such as pop-up menus; it's just something
| | 01:37 | that DVDs are not capable of doing. So,
we will talk about that later in this
| | 01:40 | chapter. An Encore can actually burn
Blu-ray discs. However, this is a hardware
| | 01:45 | thing; you must have the hardware. You
must have a Blu-ray disc burner, either
| | 01:51 | in your computer or attached to your
computer. So, now that we gotten a little
| | 01:54 | acquainted with Blu-ray, let's jump
back into Encore and see how we can take
| | 01:59 | advantage of these Blu-ray
authoring features there.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up Blu-ray projects| 00:00 | First up in the Blu-ray department, we
are going to be looking at how to create
| | 00:03 | a new Blu-ray project. To do that, you
can click the New Project button from
| | 00:08 | the welcome screen or go to the File
menu and select New Project to get here.
| | 00:12 | Now, of course, we can name our
project and choose a location to save it in.
| | 00:16 | But I really want to get two of
these project settings down here.
| | 00:20 | The authoring mode is really what
opens up all the options. By default, the
| | 00:23 | authoring mode is just DVD and
basically we have one choice; we can choose NTSC
| | 00:29 | or PAL for a television standard.
However, when you select Blu-ray, the whole
| | 00:33 | world is your oyster; all these
options open up and they are selectable, the
| | 00:37 | Frame Rate of the project can change;
it can be the standard of video, 29.97,
| | 00:42 | but it could also become film, the film
frame rate of 23.976 or High Definition TV of 59.94.
| | 00:50 | We could also change the codec. We
have two options here: MPEG-2 or H.264,
| | 00:56 | which we will look at in the next movie.
Of course, we could also still change
| | 00:59 | the television standard. We could also
change the dimensions. We can even go up
| | 01:03 | to 1920x1080, which is Full HD. So,
once you have finished selecting your pixel
| | 01:09 | dimensions for your project and the
frame rate and the codec, then go ahead and
| | 01:14 | click OK and as it says here, a
project's authoring mode can be change anytime
| | 01:18 | you want by going to the
Project Settings dialog.
| | 01:21 | In the next movie, we are going to
look at this codec thing and what that
| | 01:24 | means, what MPEG-2 and H.264 are.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About the Blu-ray codecs| 00:00 | We are now going to look at the two
codecs you can choose from when authoring a
| | 00:03 | Blu-ray project in Encore. And we are
going to continue where we left off in
| | 00:07 | the New Project dialog box with the
Blu-ray Authoring Mode selected, and again
| | 00:11 | with DVD you don't have a choice, it's
always MPEG-2. With Blu-ray you could
| | 00:15 | select MPEG-2 or H.264.
| | 00:18 | Now if you are new to video editing or
DVD authoring, this probably sounds like
| | 00:22 | just so much gibber so you can
probably care less about. This is kind of
| | 00:25 | important though.
| | 00:26 | MPEG-2 as we saw was a standard for DVD
video. That means that it's old, and so
| | 00:32 | H.264 is kind of like this new kid on
the block, and it basically allows you to
| | 00:37 | compress video more.
| | 00:39 | Say for example we had an hour of MPEG-
2 video. That would basically take up
| | 00:45 | as much space on a Blu-ray disc as
would two hours of H.264. So basically with
| | 00:51 | H.264 will allow you to get about
twice as much video at the same quality,
| | 00:56 | because it's a better compression method.
| | 00:59 | Now the reason why MPEG-2 was the
default here and not H.264 is because the very
| | 01:04 | first Blu-ray players that came out
only supported MPEG-2. Now there was just a
| | 01:08 | handful of them made, but they still have
this here as an option in case you want
| | 01:12 | to make sure that you hit every single
person in your audience possible. But
| | 01:16 | the overwhelming majority of Blu-ray
disc players do support H.264, which again
| | 01:21 | allows you to put twice as much video
at the same quality as opposed to MPEG-2.
| | 01:26 | Now there is one other video standard
currently. I mean they are constantly
| | 01:30 | evolving the Blu-ray standard, so
may be by the time you hear this, this will
| | 01:33 | be outdated. But there is another
video standard called VC-1 and it's a codec
| | 01:37 | developed by Microsoft. And in
typical Microsoft fashion, VC-1 is not as
| | 01:43 | accessible as our MPEG-2 and H.264.
And thus MPEG-2 and H.264 are the only
| | 01:48 | suitable options for codecs inside of Encore.
| | 01:51 | Next we are going to look at another feature
that is exclusive to Blu-ray discs, pop-up menus.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating Blu-ray popup menus| 00:00 | In this tutorial I'm going to look at
one of the new features in Encore CS4, and
| | 00:03 | that is the ability to
create Blu-ray pop-up menus.
| | 00:07 | Blu-ray discs will allow you to have
something called a pop-up menu. This is so
| | 00:11 | that when you are watching a video,
there is a little kind of menu that can
| | 00:15 | pop-up, it can be semi-transparent and
there could be options there and you can
| | 00:19 | switch the options or watch something
else on the disc without having to stop
| | 00:22 | the video playback and go back to the
main menu. So I have created this pop-up
| | 00:26 | menu for you to use. It's called Pop Up
Menu.psd. You'll find this in the PSDs
| | 00:30 | folder in the Media folder in Exercise Files.
| | 00:33 | Notice they are not connected. Now I
didn't create a background for these, I
| | 00:36 | wanted to, and from a design point
of view I'd like to, but you can't.
| | 00:40 | When you create a pop up menu
everything goes away except for the buttons. So
| | 00:46 | that's why we have a plain white
background that really doesn't fit here,
| | 00:49 | because it doesn't matter what the
background is, everything is going to be
| | 00:51 | invisible except for these buttons
once we converted it to a pop up menu.
| | 00:54 | So now that we know what this looks like,
let's go back into Encore, and I have
| | 00:57 | already imported this 0014GX.movie
clip from the Videos folder of the Media
| | 01:03 | folder in the Exercise Files. And I
have converted it into a Timeline, and what
| | 01:06 | I'm going to do now is right
-click to Import As a Menu.
| | 01:09 | Now once you know what you are doing
you can just import as a pop up menu
| | 01:12 | straight away, but since we haven't
done this before we are going to import as
| | 01:15 | a regular menu and then change this
into a pop up menu in just a bit. So Import As >
| | 01:21 | Menu, and I'm going to navigate
again to the PSDs folder and the Media
| | 01:24 | folder and I select Pop Up Menu and click Open.
| | 01:26 | As you can see here it looks just like
a regular menu, so what we are going to
| | 01:29 | need to do is select the pop up menu in
the Project panel, then come over here
| | 01:33 | to the Pop Up Tab in the Properties
panel. Then to change this into a pop up
| | 01:38 | menu we are going to select Set as
Blu-ray Pop Up Menu. Instantly the
| | 01:42 | background and everything else that is
in the button goes away and disappears.
| | 01:45 | And also now you can see the semi-
transparency that we created in the
| | 01:49 | Photoshop, that's another cool aspect
of these pop up menus in Blu-ray. This
| | 01:52 | menu pops up and you could
have some transparency there.
| | 01:54 | Now it's all funny and good, we set
this up as a pop up menu, but remember that
| | 01:58 | pop up menus pop up over video, so
they have to be associated with the
| | 02:03 | Timeline. These are not regular menus.
So when you go to the Timeline, select
| | 02:06 | the Timeline in the Project panel, and
then go to the Properties panel and make
| | 02:10 | sure the Timeline is selected. You
will have this option Set Pop Up Menu. So
| | 02:13 | the pop up menu we want to use with
this Timeline is just simply called Pop Up Menu.
| | 02:19 | And that's all there is to creating a
pop up menu in Encore. Now you might be
| | 02:22 | wondering, why can't we see anything?
Well, there is little bit of a trick to
| | 02:26 | previewing pop up menus. You can't
preview them in their regular way. So in the
| | 02:30 | next Movie we are going to look at
how to preview this pop up menu over our video.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Previewing pop-up menus over a timeline| 00:00 | We are now going to finish our
discussion that we started in the last movie on
| | 00:03 | pop up menus by looking here at how to
preview pop up menus. Just see you don't
| | 00:07 | have to start from scratch, I have
saved that where we ended off in the last
| | 00:10 | movie as Pop Up Menus.ncor,
you'll find in the Chapter 18 folder.
| | 00:14 | Now here is the way to preview this.
I'm going to select the pop up menu, and
| | 00:18 | then go to the Pop Up tab in the
Properties panel with the menu selected. Then
| | 00:21 | we have to associate a background
Timeline to preview this over. So I'm going
| | 00:25 | to select the 0014GX Timeline, and
there is our pop up menu over that Timeline.
| | 00:31 | Now the first thing about this is that
you can't preview this using the Disc
| | 00:36 | Preview. The only way to preview this
is with this little area here. So we
| | 00:40 | can't preview the video and then
click a button and have it like pop up. It
| | 00:43 | will look all cool and stuff-- we can't do that.
| | 00:45 | The one thing you can do though is
you can change the background frame. So
| | 00:48 | let's say you want to see what this pop
up menu looks at may be 5 seconds into
| | 00:52 | the video, so I can type 5 seconds here,
hit Enter and that's what the pop up
| | 00:55 | menu looks 5 seconds into this video.
| | 00:58 | Now couple of other things to know,
one is that you can have the same pop up
| | 01:02 | menu associated with many Timelines in
your project, and the other thing to be
| | 01:06 | aware off is that this does not work
with DVDs, this is only a Blu-ray feature.
| | 01:13 | And as annoying as it is that you can't
preview this, in demo, the coolness of
| | 01:17 | this pop up menu, it is pretty cool
that users can have this ability to jump
| | 01:21 | anywhere they want without having to
stop playback of their video, also the
| | 01:24 | semi-transparency, kind of dig that as
well. Been able to see the water in the
| | 01:28 | rocks in the video through my pop up
menu here is a pretty great feature.
| | 01:31 | Artistically as you could imagine,
there is a lot of room for possibilities and
| | 01:35 | cool tricks using semi-
transparency and pop up menus.
| | 01:39 | And that concludes our look at Blu-ray.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
19. Testing and ExportingEncore's Automatic Letterbox| 00:00 | Now previously in this title we talked
about pixel aspect ratio, the aspect of
| | 00:04 | the width and height of different
pixels. But now I want to talk about the
| | 00:08 | width and height of the entire frame.
In other words, the frame aspect ratio.
| | 00:12 | The reason why I'm talking about it
here is because it plays a significant role
| | 00:17 | in how your final product
will look in its output.
| | 00:20 | There are two important ratios to keep
in mind as you are working in Encore,
| | 00:23 | one is often called 4:3 or 4-3 or 4x3
and that is full-screen video. The other
| | 00:30 | one is called 16x9 and also this is
called Wide Screen, and Wide Screen is
| | 00:36 | gaining increasing popularity
especially with the new big wide screen high-def
| | 00:40 | TVs and all that. And because of
the popularity of wide screen TVs,
| | 00:44 | more-and-more DVDs are being authored
in a wide screen format. However, what
| | 00:49 | happens when a wide screen video
plays on a standard full-screen TV?
| | 00:53 | Well, here's the deal when wide-screen
video plays on a standard full-screen TV
| | 00:59 | there are two options. You can either
pan and scan this, which means basically
| | 01:04 | that whatever doesn't fit in the wide
screen gets cropped, it gets chopped off.
| | 01:09 | Or you can do something called Letterbox;
this will shrink the entire video and
| | 01:14 | put black bars at the top and the
bottom of the display. So that way you still
| | 01:18 | see the entire movie, but just shrunk
down a little bit with black bars at the
| | 01:22 | top and the bottom.
| | 01:23 | Here's the deal, when you output are
wide screen presentation onto a DVD and
| | 01:29 | the DVD is played back on a 4/3 TV,
that DVD will always Playback with a
| | 01:35 | Letterbox. It will never
playback with pan and scan.
| | 01:38 | Artistically a lot of people are
opposed to this Pan and Scan thing because it
| | 01:42 | actually chops off the video, up to 45
% of the shot can be chopped off and a
| | 01:49 | lot of directors and people that make
movies are like, hey, half of my idea, my
| | 01:53 | dream, my vision is being cut off
by this Pan and Scan thing. So Encore
| | 01:57 | apparently feels the same way. Even
if your DVD Player is set to do Pan and
| | 02:02 | Scan or it crops off the edges Encore
overrides it, it puts something in the
| | 02:06 | DVD that will not allow it to do Pan
and Scan instead it will create letterbox
| | 02:10 | for you, it will shrink down the
video a little bit so it all fits on the
| | 02:14 | full-screen when it plays back.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Previewing your disc| 00:00 | In the next couple of movies we are
going to look a little bit more closely at
| | 00:03 | previewing your projects in Encore,
and for this I'll be using this Final
| | 00:07 | Output project we have been
seeing throughout this training.
| | 00:10 | Now we know that if we want to preview
our disc, we can click this button right
| | 00:13 | here in the Toolbar, the Preview.
And what this actually does is that it
| | 00:17 | previews the entire disc
starting from the first play object.
| | 00:21 | Now there are a lot of times when you
want to preview stuff and you don't want
| | 00:24 | to go through the entire DVD to get
there. So let's say for example we are
| | 00:27 | working on the slideshow. Now we want
to just preview only the slideshow. So
| | 00:31 | what we can do is right-click on it
and select Preview from here. That will
| | 00:36 | open up the Preview window, and
it will preview just that object.
| | 00:40 | So in this way you could quickly
preview any slideshow, Timeline, menu or
| | 00:45 | anything else you've got in Encore
just by right-clicking on it and selecting
| | 00:48 | Preview from Here.
| | 00:49 | Now this preview area is actually
very powerful. The thing that we are
| | 00:54 | previewing right here, we have our
chapter markers, we have the current time,
| | 00:58 | it's like a little Current Time
Indicator here, and we have a bunch of
| | 01:02 | Navigation controls and other features.
| | 01:05 | Another thing I want to point out
about this is that there is this Exit Here
| | 01:08 | and Exit and Return. Exit and Return
takes you back to where you were; Exit
| | 01:13 | Here stops and exits the preview and takes
you back to where you are currently previewing.
| | 01:19 | This button right here is really handy
as well. This simulates what will happen
| | 01:22 | when the users click their Menu button
on the remote control. So if users were
| | 01:27 | previewing this slideshow and they
click the Menu button, they will be taken
| | 01:30 | back here to this menu.
| | 01:32 | Now there are certain objects in
Encore such as motion menus, they need to
| | 01:36 | rendered before you can actually
preview them. So in the next movie we will
| | 01:40 | look at rendering things for preview.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Rendering for previews| 00:00 | In this tutorial we are going to look
at rendering stuff for previews, and I'm
| | 00:04 | go going to be using the Motion
Menus project in the Chapter 19 folder.
| | 00:08 | Sometimes when you are working with
projects, let's say for example slideshows
| | 00:13 | or motion menus, they don't always
preview as they ought to. And the reason why
| | 00:19 | they need to be rendered. If I right-
click on this menu, which has a motion
| | 00:23 | menu background here. If we select
Preview from Here, we open this up. This one
| | 00:27 | actually works okay. But, this little
button here indicates that we can render this.
| | 00:33 | Sometimes when you preview a motion
menu all you see is a static background,
| | 00:37 | and that's not good. So by clicking
this button you will actually render the
| | 00:42 | current motion menu or the slideshow
that you are watching in the Preview here.
| | 00:45 | It's supposed to have motion and it doesn't.
| | 00:47 | I'm going to click Exit and return here.
Now if we go over to the File menu and
| | 00:51 | go towards the bottom here, there was
like a Render sub-category, and we see
| | 00:55 | different options here. We could
actually render the entire project, in other
| | 00:59 | words, all motion menus and slideshows,
or all motion menus or all slideshows from here.
| | 01:05 | Now I typically only do this if you
had a problem. So if you had a menu and
| | 01:10 | there is supposed to be a video
background that wasn't playing, then you'd want
| | 01:13 | to render that motion menu
or maybe all motion menus.
| | 01:17 | For slideshows you typically don't
render every slideshow. You'd render if it
| | 01:20 | had effects or transitions where they
was stuff moving around, maybe the stuff
| | 01:24 | wasn't moving around quite right, or
maybe it was a little bit glitchy, you
| | 01:28 | could render the slideshows
and they would playback smoothly.
| | 01:31 | So again from the File menu we can
render globally because under the entire
| | 01:35 | project or all motion menus or all
slideshows you just want to render one thing
| | 01:40 | because it can be a time-consuming
process depending on what you are rendering,
| | 01:43 | then you would do the preview from
here. Let me right-click on this, select
| | 01:46 | Preview from Here. Click this button to
render only the current motion menu or slideshow.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Checking your project for errors| 00:00 | Now we are going to look at how to
check your project for errors, which is a
| | 00:03 | really important step
when you are creating a DVD.
| | 00:07 | For this I have created a project in
the Chapter 19 folder of the Exercise
| | 00:10 | Files called Messed Up, and that is a very
appropriate name for this extremely messed up project.
| | 00:17 | So I have got a whole bunch of problems
here, and I rather than describe them,
| | 00:21 | I'm going to show you how to have
Encore find the problems for you.
| | 00:24 | So the way we do this is go to the
Build panel, now you could also do this
| | 00:28 | through the File menu, but what we
are going to do here is go to the Build
| | 00:31 | panel to do this, and simply click the
Check Project button. This will pop up
| | 00:35 | the Check Project panel, and
essentially in this Check Project area these are
| | 00:39 | all the common problems that you might
encounter as you go to burn your DVD.
| | 00:44 | It's kind of like a checklist to make
sure that you've got these things right.
| | 00:47 | And let's say for example Button Links,
it's now just a reminder where I have
| | 00:51 | to go now and do the homework, I click
on Start and Encore does the homework
| | 00:55 | for me. It tells me all the
problems that are in my project.
| | 01:00 | Now that's assuming that I have this
little check mark next to all these
| | 01:03 | options selected. May be I just want
to make sure that I have all the Button
| | 01:07 | Links set right. So I could uncheck
everything except for Button Links and have
| | 01:11 | it just look for Button Links for me.
| | 01:12 | Now typically you would want to check
for all problems, but may be you have a
| | 01:16 | really big project that you are working
on, you just want to check on problems
| | 01:19 | as you go, then you can just check for
one thing at a time. But these are the
| | 01:22 | type of things that cause problems.
| | 01:24 | Let's say for example here, there is a
little icon that represents a button,
| | 01:27 | and there is a button called 30 year
plan on Menu, and it doesn't have a link
| | 01:31 | set to it. So that's going to cause an error.
| | 01:33 | And next we have a Timeline here, and
this little disclosure triangle indicates
| | 01:37 | that we have more than one problem
with this one asset. The problem is that
| | 01:41 | it's an orphan timeline, in other words
nothing sinks to it. So you've created
| | 01:44 | this timeline in order for it to be
used in our Encore project, and it's
| | 01:49 | orphan, it's not linked to by anything.
| | 01:51 | We also not set an End Action for this
timeline and that will also return an error.
| | 01:56 | Now one of the things before moving on
I want to point out is that this orphan
| | 02:00 | timeline is an error, it let's you know
that there is a DVD object that is not
| | 02:05 | being linked to. But orphan objects are
only for DVD elements such as timelines
| | 02:11 | and slideshows. If you have a photo
that you have brought in or a piece of
| | 02:15 | video that you brought in, and it's
not in a timeline or in a slideshow, it
| | 02:20 | will not generate this error. So it's a
good idea right after you import video
| | 02:24 | that you put it into a timeline right away.
| | 02:27 | Encore just assumes you are going to
import all kinds of assets and try out
| | 02:31 | different videos here and there or try
out different images here and there, and
| | 02:34 | so it's not going to return errors for
every little jot until you don't use it
| | 02:38 | in your project. Again, only DVD
objects are considered orphans.
| | 02:42 | So we have a few other buttons that
have Link Not Set errors and then we also
| | 02:45 | have under a menu, we have overlapping
buttons and as we mentioned before this
| | 02:50 | little red indicates that these buttons
are overlapping and that's a no-no as well.
| | 02:54 | And we have a few problems to our
playlist, meaning that it's empty, and it's
| | 02:58 | not linked to by anything, and there is
no end action, there are actually a lot
| | 03:00 | of problems with this playlist.
| | 03:02 | And then also this disc icon
represents the entire project, and for this
| | 03:06 | project the first play is broken, so
there is no first play, which also again
| | 03:10 | is a big problem when outputting to DVD.
| | 03:13 | And so now what we would do, and we're
not going to do because you know these
| | 03:16 | problems, now we have dealt with
these issues before. But what we can do is
| | 03:19 | close Check Project, go fix these
things and then run Check Project again, just
| | 03:23 | a double-check and make sure
that we have fixed all the problems.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fixing broken projects using the cache| 00:00 | In this movie, I'm going to give you
a quick trick for problem solving.
| | 00:03 | When I first started getting into Encore
back when it was Encore DVD, I often ran into
| | 00:08 | problems, weird problems like the
project wouldn't open right or certain files
| | 00:13 | just for black for some reason, and
like menus or whatever that I brought in
| | 00:16 | from Photoshop would just be pure black in
Encore. I just couldn't figure out what was wrong.
| | 00:20 | After trying everything, pulling my
hair out, I finally went into where I saved
| | 00:25 | the project and you see when Encore
saves a project it saves the project file,
| | 00:29 | the .NCOR, then it also creates a
folder with a whole bunch of stuff in it. Now
| | 00:34 | to have Encore works faster it
creates this cache, but sometimes, from my
| | 00:39 | experience, this cache has gotten
messed up. So what I have to do is just
| | 00:43 | delete this folder. Now that's okay.
You are not going to lose any work or
| | 00:46 | anything; Encore will just go ahead and
create a new folder. It might take just
| | 00:49 | a minute to do that, but then I found
that problems just are solved magically.
| | 00:54 | Now again this won't fix all your
problems. It's not going to make every bad
| | 00:57 | thing with Encore go away. In the past,
as such with CS3, Encore had a bad
| | 01:02 | habit of crashing often and this will
not fix that. But if you have assets that
| | 01:07 | are not behaving correctly
sometime deleting the cache can help.
| | 01:11 | There is also another option here. As
you go back in the Encore and go into the
| | 01:15 | Preferences for Apple users that's
under the Encore menu; for Windows users
| | 01:19 | it's under the Edit menu. I'll go to
Preferences and then Media, and then
| | 01:23 | basically we have this Media Cache.
Essentially, when you import assets into
| | 01:29 | pretty much any of the Adobe video or
audio programs, it attempts to cache the
| | 01:33 | files so that you can
work more quickly with them.
| | 01:36 | And better yet they also create a
database so if you open a file on Encore, for
| | 01:40 | example, and it creates a cache, then
you open that same file in Premiere, it
| | 01:45 | can use the same cache that Encore
created. Sometimes though that Media Cache
| | 01:49 | can get a little funky as well as you
have files that you may have deleted and
| | 01:53 | they might have still be stored in the database.
| | 01:55 | So it might help as well. If you are
experiencing problems, then come here in
| | 01:58 | the Media Cache and click Clean Database.
That gets rid of all the stuff that's
| | 02:02 | not currently being used anymore.
| | 02:04 | Now again that might not solve any
problems but it's worked for me in the past,
| | 02:07 | so there we go.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About copy protection| 00:00 | In this tutorial, we are going to look
at setting up copy protection for your
| | 00:03 | discs. So go to the Build panel, and
I have nothing open right now, so it
| | 00:07 | doesn't matter if you have anything
open or not. In the Build panel, make sure
| | 00:10 | that the format is DVD; copy
protection is not available for Blu-ray discs or
| | 00:15 | Flash. I'm going to go ahead and
close that, scroll down all the way to the
| | 00:20 | bottom and we have some Copy Protection options.
| | 00:23 | First we have CGMS. We can specify
that one copy is allowed, unlimited copies
| | 00:28 | are allowed or no copies are allowed.
Only if the CGMS dropdown is set to No
| | 00:34 | copies are allowed, will CSS
and Macrovision be turned on.
| | 00:38 | So essentially we have three different
ways to copy protect our discs, so that
| | 00:43 | other people can't copy it. However, be
aware that all three of these settings
| | 00:47 | are only available for replicated discs.
We'll talk later in this Chapter about
| | 00:51 | the difference between duplication and
replication, but if you burn this DVDs
| | 00:55 | yourself on your home computer, you
will not have this copy protection. Again
| | 00:59 | these are only for
professionally replicated DVDs.
| | 01:03 | So CGMS basically determines how many
copies are allowed, CSS is a form of copy
| | 01:09 | protection, and Macrovision is what
the big boys use, but the thing is with
| | 01:13 | Macrovision, you've got to pay a
royalty rate for every single disc that you
| | 01:17 | produce that has Macrovision Copy
Protection on it. Now just how much does that
| | 01:21 | cost? I don't know. You'll have to talk
to the company that is replicating your
| | 01:26 | discs. You ask them what
the royalty rate is on those.
| | 01:29 | So this is how you copy protect the
content on your disc. If you are creating
| | 01:32 | something for a high profile client
that wants something secured, so that
| | 01:36 | whatever disc you are making for them
cannot be copied then you definitely want
| | 01:40 | to look into Copy Protection.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About region encoding| 00:00 | Now we're going to look briefly at
encoding DVDs for a particular region. Let's
| | 00:04 | go to the Build panel, scroll down now
all the way to Copy Protection. The area
| | 00:09 | right above that is Region Codes. So let me
just expand this so we have little bit more room.
| | 00:13 | Basically what region encoding refers
to is that each region has its own code
| | 00:19 | and many DVD players works so that they
only play DVDs that are coded for that
| | 00:24 | particular region. So let's say you
live in United States, may those DVD
| | 00:28 | players you have at United States are
coded, so that if you have a region 1
| | 00:32 | DVD, it will play but if you have
region 2 DVD, something you got from Japan,
| | 00:36 | it will not play.
| | 00:38 | If you don't want all regions to be
able to watch your DVD, then select the
| | 00:41 | Custom option. Once Custom is
selected, it will enable you to go back and
| | 00:45 | deselect the regions that you do not
want to be able to play your disc in.
| | 00:49 | Now I should say that this is not
like a 100% guaranteed, because sometimes
| | 00:54 | they sell DVD players that will play
all regions. Also be aware that if this is
| | 00:58 | really important to you, then
you'll want to have your disc replicated.
| | 01:02 | Sometimes if you are burning a DVD-R
on your home computer, region encoding
| | 01:06 | will work; other times it won't work.
So if you want to have some degree of
| | 01:11 | reliability with your region
encoding, then you will need to get it
| | 01:14 | professionally replicated.
| | 01:15 | Also be aware that, like Copy
Protection, this is only a DVD option. The
| | 01:19 | Blu-ray setting encodes for all regions
and there obviously isn't anything for
| | 01:24 | Flash as far as region encoding.
| | 01:26 | If you need additional information on
region encoding you could also consult
| | 01:29 | Encore's help, which has little bit
more detail as far as what regions have,
| | 01:34 | which code and that type of thing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| About output options| 00:00 | Hoo! So we are all done with our DVD
authoring project and now we are ready to
| | 00:06 | output finally. So I have this Final
Output project opened but it really
| | 00:09 | doesn't matter what you have opened.
Hop on over to the Build panel and make
| | 00:13 | sure the format is set to DVD. With the
format set to DVD and also Blu-ray, we
| | 00:18 | have some of these similar options here,
but we have more for DVD, so I'm going
| | 00:21 | to stick to DVD for now.
| | 00:23 | When the format is set to DVD, we have
a few different output options. Now, of
| | 00:28 | course, we could select DVD Disc.
What that will do is that it will start
| | 00:32 | transcoding the assets if they are not
transcoded yet, and then it will burn
| | 00:36 | the disc straight away. As you can see
down here in the Destination area, you
| | 00:39 | can make multiple copies, you can change
the write speed and you are good to go.
| | 00:43 | However, you can also choose to create
a DVD Folder. Now a DVD folder doesn't
| | 00:50 | burn a DVD at all; it just makes some
folders on your hard drive. Now if have
| | 00:54 | ever put a commercial DVD into your
computer and looked at the contents,
| | 00:57 | basically it's just a bunch of folders.
Now obviously there's video files in
| | 01:01 | those folders but it's broken up into
a series of folders. This will create
| | 01:04 | that series of folders and you could
burn those things later. So the downside
| | 01:09 | of creating a DVD folder is that it
doesn't bring your disc right away but
| | 01:12 | that's also the plus side. So if you
want to go in and hack into the DVD
| | 01:16 | folders then maybe make some
changes manually, you can do that.
| | 01:21 | DVD Image creates a disc image and
basically a file on the hard drive that's
| | 01:25 | kind of like the source image for the
DVD. So you could burn those later at any
| | 01:29 | time. You can also burn those with
Encore. So where it says Source, Create
| | 01:33 | Using, you can also select DVD Volume
and navigate to a DVD image or folder on
| | 01:38 | your hard drive.
| | 01:39 | And finally we have DVD Master. Now
this DVD Master is typically only used if
| | 01:44 | you are going to have your disc
replicated, which we will talk about in the
| | 01:47 | next movie. It used to be a few years
ago that you had to have a digital linear
| | 01:51 | tape if you want to get your disc
replicated. But now, I think most replication
| | 01:55 | houses will accept just a master
copy of the DVD. As you can tell in my
| | 01:59 | recorder dropdown, I do not currently have
a digital linear tape hooked up to my machine.
| | 02:05 | But if you do have one or more, you can
select it from this dropdown here. Once
| | 02:08 | you are all done and you are ready to
burn your master, your image or your
| | 02:12 | folder or your disc, then you
click the Build button and you are set.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Duplication vs. replication| 00:00 | In this movie, we are going to talk
about the difference between duplication
| | 00:02 | and replication. Now both
are ways of creating DVDs.
| | 00:07 | Duplication is typically the process
of duplicating discs at home. So like if
| | 00:12 | you have a burner and you set it to
burn for 20 copies, that's typically
| | 00:16 | referred to as duplication. The
benefit of this is that you do it at home and
| | 00:21 | also it's a very low cost comparatively.
| | 00:24 | Now replication taken from the word
replica is typically done at a studio that
| | 00:29 | does this, often called a replication
house or a replication facility, and it
| | 00:33 | definitely costs a lot more
money to get a disc replicated.
| | 00:36 | But one of the benefits is that, it
allows for more features on your DVD, such
| | 00:40 | as copy protection and reliable region
encoding. Often times also when you are
| | 00:45 | getting a disc replicated, those
facilities will have great cost-effective
| | 00:49 | packages for your DVDs, maybe in
terms of packaging or they might do a
| | 00:54 | silk-screening on the disc, the thing
like that, that would be kind of tough to
| | 00:58 | do on your own at home.
| | 00:59 | One of the things that I should also
point out is because replication is
| | 01:02 | typically a more professional avenue
to take when you are creating a bunch of
| | 01:05 | DVDs, usually you don't have a lot of
compatibility problems. So in a nutshell,
| | 01:11 | duplication is a cheap way of doing at
home, replication is the high powered
| | 01:15 | expensive way of getting it done professionally.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fixing the audio_TS problem| 00:00 | In this movie, I'm going to show you
another problem that people have with
| | 00:03 | Encore sometimes that you might run
into. It's a very small problem but if it
| | 00:08 | affects you, it can ruin your life.
| | 00:10 | So I know a lot of you out there too
are professionally do this on the site
| | 00:14 | where you make DVDs for weddings or
funerals or bar mitzvahs or whatever, and
| | 00:18 | you need things to be able to function
properly. Now this problem only affects
| | 00:23 | really old DVD players like the first
generation DVD players that came out, but
| | 00:28 | it does affect them nonetheless.
| | 00:30 | When Encore burns a disc, it creates a
folder called VIDEO_TS. Now it was the
| | 00:36 | requirement of the original DVDs to
have both an AUDIO_TS and a VIDEO_TS
| | 00:42 | folder. So some DVDs would not play
this DVD correctly. This by the way being a
| | 00:49 | DVD project that I built from Encore
using the DVD Folder option. So really
| | 00:54 | that what we are looking at is what you
would see on a disc. So all you have to
| | 00:57 | do to fix this problem, if you run
into this where Encore created disc that's
| | 01:01 | not readable by your player, if you
have an old player, you can just create a
| | 01:04 | new folder in this folder here, and
just title it AUDIO_TS. It can be a blank
| | 01:10 | folder, that's fine. It just needs to
see it there, and then the disc will
| | 01:14 | function properly.
| | 01:15 | And also this is one of the benefits of
outputting to a DVD folder, because you
| | 01:20 | have the option to go in there and make
these changes like this and fix little
| | 01:24 | problems. Now again with most DVD
players, you should be fine just bring it
| | 01:28 | straight to disc but if you do run
into problems especially in older players,
| | 01:32 | this could be a lifesaver.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
20. Project: Putting It All TogetherSetting up a project| 00:00 | One of the things that happens when you
are watching a big training series like
| | 00:04 | this, that's like several hours long,
it's easy to miss the bird's-eye view of
[00:00:08.9 1]
how to get things done. So often times
after watching several hours of training
| | 00:13 | and knowing what every little button does,
I often have people from lynda.com email me
| | 00:17 | and say, I don't understand how to take
a project from start to finish and get it done.
| | 00:21 | So what we did in the beginning of this
training series is kind of have like an
| | 00:24 | intro project to get you familiar with
things but we didn't really dig too deeply.
| | 00:28 | So what we are going to do is we're
going to take this Groundswell project
| | 00:30 | we have been using like we looked at it in
the Flash chapter, for example, as like
| | 00:34 | a completed project. We are going to
recreate this entire project from scratch.
| | 00:39 | Now if you are really comfortable with
the workflow and really comfortable with
| | 00:42 | what everything does, then there might
not be too much new information here in
| | 00:46 | this chapter with the exception of the
next movie, where we are going to look
| | 00:51 | at how to create this menu in
Photoshop. And I don't know how that will be
| | 00:55 | useful to you but we are going to show
you how to actually design the menu not
| | 00:58 | necessarily the buttons, but how to
actually create the design of the menu.
| | 01:04 | We'll then import video, we'll create a
slideshow, we'll organize our Project
| | 01:08 | panel, we'll get everything set up and
linked together, we'll check the project
| | 01:12 | for errors, and then we will output it.
| | 01:15 | So let's jump in and
get this project started.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a menu in Photoshop| 00:00 | In this movie, I'm going to show you
how I created this menu in Photoshop.
| | 00:03 | It's going to be kind of an artsy type movie;
more about designing in Photoshop than
| | 00:09 | anything else. This Groundswell Menu
MASTER, you could find in the PSDs folder
| | 00:14 | in the Media folder of the Exercise
Files if you care to follow along. We will
| | 00:18 | make one of these buttons but most of
the time when you are designing assets
| | 00:23 | like this, what really makes the
difference is your artistic style, your sense
| | 00:27 | of design and how well you use
Photoshop and other design programs, and not
| | 00:32 | necessarily your skills in Encore.
| | 00:34 | Most of the time in Encore, it's just
a knowledge thing. Knowing how to click
| | 00:38 | this button or that button; not too
much art goes on in Encore. The art of
| | 00:43 | Encore really takes place behind the
scenes in other design programs such as
| | 00:47 | Photoshop or After Effects.
| | 00:49 | So again, this is not going to be
really a walk-through tutorials; it's going
| | 00:52 | to be just kind of a breakdown, a
demo of what I did to design this and
| | 00:56 | hopefully, that will help you out. What
I'm going to do is, I'm going to Alt or
| | 00:59 | Option-click the Eye icon for
this original layer. This is actually the
| | 01:04 | original photograph this menu was
based off of. I saw this photo, I like it.
| | 01:09 | This is a really cool shot; the wave
looks good. I like this horizon line just
| | 01:14 | straight as a razor right there, very cool.
| | 01:17 | I also like the green and the waves.
I figured I could exploit that little bit
| | 01:20 | with Photoshop, but one of the things
with photos is that there is so much of
| | 01:24 | the extra room here. There is these
people hanging out and there is like all of
| | 01:28 | this junk in the water and somebody
is flying or something and it really
| | 01:31 | doesn't help emphasize the surfer at all.
As a matter of fact, it detracts from
| | 01:36 | his coolness having all of this blank space.
| | 01:38 | So, I have this digital photo, it was
much, much bigger than the menu size in
| | 01:44 | Encore. It's actually one of the
benefits of digital photography is that
| | 01:47 | digital photos even if you are taken
them with like your iPhone or something,
| | 01:51 | they are way bigger than the most
DVD menus, especially for a Standard
| | 01:55 | Definition Television. So, if you have
a photo that's extra super big then you
| | 02:00 | can crop it down and get this, which is
what I did. I basically just re-cropped it.
| | 02:05 | I didn't blow it up. I didn't make
it bigger even though that's kind of
| | 02:08 | what it looks like here. I did not
do that because that would lower the quality.
| | 02:13 | So, what I actually did is I just kind
of move the image around, which is super
| | 02:16 | big and then centered it so that I'm
seeing this surfer. And now he is right up
| | 02:20 | in your face, you could see these
splashes right in front of you. It just seems
| | 02:23 | all the more intense. Again, I also
like this horizon line cutting our image in
| | 02:28 | half, almost not quite but close to
cutting our image in half and I like the
| | 02:31 | way that looks too.
| | 02:32 | So, then I add another layer here and
basically, this is kind of a weird layer.
| | 02:37 | I'm going to take this back into Normal
mode and bring up the Opacity, you can
| | 02:40 | see what I did. I basically added a
smart filter here called Dry Brush, which
| | 02:44 | kind of makes this artistic looking
image out of the photograph and then to
| | 02:49 | blend it a little bit better, I took
the Opacity down really low to about 16%
| | 02:55 | and then I took the Blend
mode down to Soft Light.
| | 02:57 | It's a very soft effect. Again, here
is the before and the after but it just
| | 03:02 | helps things to look a little bit more
colorful. And then I added a layer of
| | 03:07 | noise. You see this often times in
designs, as a matter of fact, if you look at
| | 03:11 | almost any Hollywood movie poster, you
will see a degree of this noise if you
| | 03:16 | look close enough. I worked for a
couple of years on Hollywood movie posters
| | 03:20 | and I got to see the layered Photoshop
documents that they would send over and
| | 03:23 | I don't think there was one single
exception that didn't have a layer of noise.
| | 03:28 | It just makes things look a little bit
more gritty and rough and real and it
| | 03:32 | just looks cool.
| | 03:33 | So basically, I added some noise to
this and if I take the Blend mode for this
| | 03:37 | back to Normal and the Opacity up, you
can see basically what that is. So, we
| | 03:41 | took the Opacity down to 3%, you could
barely see it and then I took it into
| | 03:47 | the Overlay blend mode, which blend it
even more into the background but still
| | 03:52 | the detail is there. If I zoom in a
little bit more closer here, you will be
| | 03:56 | able to see the difference better
between the before and the after.
| | 04:00 | Now, I realize that this probably
doesn't seem too obvious what I'm doing here
| | 04:05 | but again, this is part of designing;
you got to be able to see the end from
| | 04:09 | the beginning. Now, let's skip these
next few layers here. Now, what I'm going
| | 04:13 | to do is I'm going to go up top here
and I'm going to turn on the logo group.
| | 04:17 | This is the original Groundswell logo
but as I looked at this, it seemed a
| | 04:21 | little bit too empty. There is just not
a lot going on, especially with all of
| | 04:25 | this action, movement, and motion
coming from the surfer as implied motion
| | 04:29 | anyways. There needs to be
more going on with this logo.
| | 04:31 | So, what I did is I duplicated the
logo and put it behind the logo. In other
| | 04:35 | words, a lower than in the layer stack
and I rotated it and scaled it down, so
| | 04:41 | it's basically a lowered opacity and
that still looked a little hallow. So, I
| | 04:45 | did that a couple of more times. So,
there is another copy that's rotated and
| | 04:49 | increased in size and there is another
copy back there and that kind of gave me
| | 04:52 | some extra texture all throughout the document.
| | 04:54 | Next, we come to the buttons. As we
click on the visibility of locations and
| | 04:59 | products, you could see our button
set consists of text and a subpicture
| | 05:04 | highlight and that's it. There is a
subpicture highlight there. So, I have two
| | 05:07 | layers here; the our story layer and
then its highlight. I haven't made this a
| | 05:12 | button yet so we can make it a button
together just because this chapter is
| | 05:16 | essentially a workflow of creating this
from scratch. So, what I'm going to do
| | 05:19 | first is go to the highlight and add
the prefix, in parenthesis equals one
| | 05:24 | (=1), to make that a subpicture
highlight. Actually close the parenthesis there
| | 05:28 | and then I'm also going to take these
two layers and select them by using the
| | 05:31 | Shift key or the Ctrl or the Command
key and drag both of these down to the New
| | 05:36 | Layer Group icon, looks like a folder
down at the bottom of the Layers panel.
| | 05:39 | I'm going to open up group one, make
sure everything looks good here, I got my
| | 05:43 | highlight with the prefix and our story
and let's go ahead and name this right.
| | 05:47 | So, I'm going to double-click on
the Name group and I'm going to put in
| | 05:50 | parenthesis a plus sign and then
I'm going to call this Our Story. And now
| | 05:55 | our buttons are complete. Now,
scrolling to the top, we only have one layer
| | 05:59 | left to talk about but it's an
important one. It's a Curves adjustment layer.
| | 06:04 | Adjustment layers are basically
color adjustments usually that affect
| | 06:07 | everything beneath them. So, putting
this on top is going to affect all the
| | 06:11 | pixels below it, which is essentially
the entire document. Now, I'm going to
| | 06:15 | double-click on this half-black half-
white circle to open these options to show
| | 06:18 | you what I did. Basically, this
histogram represents the dark side of the
| | 06:22 | image, the darker tones of the image on
the left side and the brighter tones on
| | 06:26 | the right-hand side.
| | 06:28 | So, what I did is I just clicked on
this line and I drag the right-hand side up
| | 06:31 | a little bit, which made the brights
brighter, and then on the left-hand side
| | 06:35 | with the shadows I drag this down,
which made the darks darker. So, if I turn
| | 06:41 | this on, you could see the difference
that it makes. Another thing that really
| | 06:44 | made a difference here is putting this
in the Overlay blend mode. If I put this
| | 06:47 | in the Normal blend mode, it doesn't
look too intense. There is the Before and
| | 06:51 | the After, little more intense but
not as radical as taking this into the
| | 06:55 | Overlay blend mode, which increases
the effect and now that noise pops even more.
| | 07:00 | The reason why I did that is because
usually when you are doing things that are
| | 07:03 | very dramatic and passionate something
like surfing or something like extreme
| | 07:07 | sports or something like a Hollywood
movie, an epic movie or something, there
| | 07:12 | is usually a lot of contrast; the
brights are really bright and darks are
| | 07:15 | really dark and that's just to
symbolize intensity. Usually with love stories
| | 07:20 | and sappy stuff like that, there is not
so much contrast; things are softer and
| | 07:24 | smoother because again, the colors
reflect the emotional state of what's going on.
| | 07:29 | So, because our surfer is going crazy
here, we want our colors to be intense as
| | 07:33 | well. A cool side benefit of that is
that it really made this green pop and
| | 07:37 | that blue pop. So, it really
increases the contrast as far as the colors go
| | 07:41 | between these two. When we first
started out, this green and this blue, they
| | 07:45 | look quite similar and now because of
our color adjustments, they really pop
| | 07:49 | and come out as these big areas of
flatter color. So, that's a little bit about
| | 07:53 | how I created this menu.
| | 07:55 | Now, we are going to actually go back
to Encore and talk about bringing in our
| | 07:59 | footage and setting up this project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing and organizing content| 00:00 | So now we are back in Encore and the
next step is to import and organize our
| | 00:04 | project. Now, typically when we import
stuff, we double-click in the Project
| | 00:08 | panel, bring in the asset and then
convert it to put it into a Timeline if it's
| | 00:12 | a video or if it's an image, we put
into a slideshow or whatever. But now that
| | 00:15 | we are a little bit more advanced here,
we could actually create these DVD
| | 00:19 | entities, these objects upon import,
so we don't have to have two steps.
| | 00:23 | So, what I'm going to do is right-click,
Import As > Menu. I'm going to go to the
| | 00:28 | PSDs folder in the Media folder and I'm
going to select Groundswell Menu Final,
| | 00:33 | not MASTER. MASTER is the layered
Photoshop file that has a bunch of extra
| | 00:37 | dozen whistles that we don't need. So,
select the Groundswell Menu Final and click Open.
| | 00:43 | Now right-click Import As > Timeline,
and so we are going to go into the Videos
| | 00:48 | folder and we are going to scroll down
to SlowMo Surfing 03 and click Open. So
| | 00:55 | now, not only do we have our video
in our project but it's already in a
| | 00:58 | Timeline. Finally, let's right-click,
select Import As > Slideshow and navigate
| | 01:05 | in the Media folder to the Photos
folder and then inside the Photos folder, the
| | 01:09 | surfing folder, click the top image,
Shift-click the bottom image and click Open.
| | 01:17 | Now, one last thing I want to do is
actually double-click in the Project panel
| | 01:21 | to import an asset and I'm actually
going to go back to Media, go to Audio and
| | 01:26 | let's bring in this chadperkines
surfalicious longer.aif file, click Open.
| | 01:32 | That will be the soundtrack to our slideshow.
But look how easy that was to import
| | 01:37 | these objects. Our DVD is essentially
already made, at least the objects are.
| | 01:41 | We have a slideshow, a menu and a timeline.
| | 01:45 | Now, because I imported the menu first,
it became my first play object, but
| | 01:50 | before we go any further, make sure
that you right-click on this menu if you
| | 01:54 | didn't import it first and select Set
As First Play. I'm not going to Clear
| | 01:58 | First Play, actually I want this
to be my first play. We want this DVD to
| | 02:01 | start with this menu. Now, things are
looking up and up for us but this is just
| | 02:05 | a mess, this is not going to help anybody.
| | 02:07 | So, what we need to do is organize
this project. So, I'm going to come down
| | 02:11 | here to this New Item icon and I'm
going to select Folder to create a brand new
| | 02:14 | folder here and I'll call this folder
Images. Those are the biggest offenders
| | 02:19 | to our Project panel organization here.
So, I'm just going to click on one
| | 02:23 | image, Shift+click on the bottom one
here just like the whole row of images,
| | 02:27 | just drag and drop those into the Images folder.
| | 02:30 | So, just keep selecting these,
dragging and dropping them into the Images
| | 02:33 | folder and that's looking pretty good.
I'm also going to right-click on the
| | 02:36 | slideshow, it takes the name of the
first image by default and I don't want
| | 02:41 | that. So, I'm going to right-click on
it and select Rename and I'm going to
| | 02:43 | call this Slideshow for
lack of a more original name.
| | 02:47 | Now, this were a more complex
project, I would definitely, definitely,
| | 02:50 | definitely create more folders and
maybe put the video in one folder and maybe
| | 02:56 | put timelines in another folder,
menus in another folder, audio in another
| | 02:59 | folder, but since this is a fairly
simplistic project, we can keep it like this
| | 03:04 | and all will be well. In the next movie,
we are going to increase the coolness
| | 03:09 | of our slideshow and customize it and adjust it.
[00:03:4.28]
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a slideshow| 00:00 | Okay, we are continuing on from the
last movie exactly what where we left off.
| | 00:04 | If you want to start here, I have
created a project ready for slideshow.
| | 00:07 | Basically it's all of our work in
importing and organizing already to go here.
| | 00:12 | So, let's go ahead and
fiddle with this a little bit.
| | 00:14 | We have our slideshow down here at
the Slideshow Viewer, we have all these
| | 00:18 | different slides and it starts out
with this one with this guy looking out.
| | 00:23 | This isn't of my favorite image not
because this guy isn't the epitome of
| | 00:27 | coolness but it's not my favorite
because that it was taken with a lower
| | 00:30 | resolution camera or at least it's a
lower resolution shot. So, it's not super
| | 00:35 | clean, the colors aren't super great.
| | 00:37 | I would actually want to start with
something a little bit more iconic that
| | 00:40 | will help my viewers get emotionally
involved in my project and want to watch
| | 00:44 | the slideshow to its completion. So,
I'm going to click maybe slide 3 and drag
| | 00:49 | that over here. This also looks like a
pixelated image, but we are going to go
| | 00:53 | ahead and use this anyway just
because it better represents the entire slideshow.
| | 00:57 | Next, we want to bring in some audio.
So, in Slideshow Options, I'm going to
| | 01:00 | click the pick whip here and drag that up
to this audio file, that surfalicious clip,
| | 01:06 | and there we go.
| | 01:07 | Now, if I click on the Slideshow in the
Project panel, this little Preview pops
| | 01:11 | up at the top, lets me know that the
slideshow is currently 1 minute 24 seconds
| | 01:15 | and 2 frames. The default slideshow
lengths are always way too long for me.
| | 01:19 | Think about it, I mean the six
seconds is the default time for every slide.
| | 01:23 | That's a little long time to sit
and look at every single picture.
| | 01:27 | This audio clip is only 59 seconds long,
almost one minute. So, what I'm going
| | 01:32 | to do is, I'm going to select Fit
Slideshow to Audio Duration. That's going to
| | 01:36 | force my slideshow to shorten down to
the length of my audio clip, which is
| | 01:40 | about one minute. That results in each
slide being 4 seconds and 8 frames long;
| | 01:45 | it's like 33% shorter.
| | 01:48 | So now what we are going to do is add
some pizzazz by selecting the slideshow
| | 01:52 | and we are going to go over to the
Transition, I want to change the transition.
| | 01:55 | I'm going to select Cross Dissolve, but
you are welcome to select any of these transitions.
| | 02:01 | By selecting the slideshow and not
individual slides, it will force this
| | 02:05 | transition to apply to all slides at once.
So, you notice all of them have the Transition
| | 02:10 | icon here now after
selecting it for the slideshow.
| | 02:13 | Also under the Basic tab, I'm going
select Random Pan & Zoom, so that all of
| | 02:17 | these slides will automatically just
move and scale up and down independently
| | 02:22 | just to give our project some life here.
With that, our slideshow is done. In
| | 02:27 | the next movie, we are going to
link all of these objects together.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Linking objects| 00:00 | Okay again continuing where we left off,
I have created this project Ready for
| | 00:03 | Linking, which is what we are going
to be doing in this movie, linking all
| | 00:06 | these objects together.
| | 00:07 | Now most of the time we have been
using the Properties panel to create links
| | 00:11 | throughout this training series and
when I usually have one link to make,
| | 00:14 | that's probably the best way. I like to use
the Properties panel because just this one
| | 00:17 | quick little thing. Just drag and drop
the pick whip over to the Project panel,
| | 00:21 | badda bing! You're done.
| | 00:22 | But when I have many links to make,
perhaps the most efficient place to do that
| | 00:27 | is in the Flowchart. So over here at
the top I'm going to select Flowchart and
| | 00:31 | maybe resize my panels a little bit, so
we can see what's going on. Now we have
| | 00:35 | the disc, which represents the
beginning of our project and the very first
| | 00:39 | thing that happens when our disc is
played is that it goes to the menu.
| | 00:43 | That's good, that's our first
play item, that's what we want.
| | 00:46 | Now from here we could link the buttons.
Now these buttons were actually
| | 00:49 | inverted to what we see when we are
looking at the menu. So Our Story is
| | 00:53 | actually on top then Products then
Locations. Locations we are going to skip
| | 00:57 | for a minute. We are going to start
with Our Story. Our Story we are going to
| | 01:00 | have be the main timeline.
| | 01:01 | So I'm going to click and drag on the
right side of Our Story and drag this to
| | 01:06 | the orphanage, which basically this
little area down here towards the bottom of
| | 01:10 | our Flowchart, which contains assets
or DVD objects that don't have a link currently.
| | 01:15 | So I'm going to select the timeline.
As you can tell us the timeline by this
| | 01:19 | icon right here in the upper left,
drag and drop and let go and badda bing!
| | 01:23 | This link is now been set. The Our
Story button will take you to the timeline.
| | 01:28 | Before we link anything to the
slideshow, we need to create an end action for
| | 01:32 | this timeline. So at the end of the
timeline, in other words by grabbing this
| | 01:36 | end part here, let's take it back to
the menu and as you could see here we have
| | 01:42 | this Groundswell Menu Final being selected.
| | 01:45 | Now one of the things that we could
also do is select which button is selected
| | 01:50 | once this end action is performed. So
when we select the end action, I dragged it
| | 01:55 | to just like the root of the menu here,
then what happens when the timeline is
| | 01:58 | done playing is it goes back to the
menu and the default button is selected.
| | 02:04 | But maybe once people are done with
this timeline, we want users to go back to
| | 02:09 | the menu and have the Next button
selected. In that case, we can grab the end
| | 02:14 | of this link and select Products, which
is the second button and now instead of
| | 02:19 | saying B1 our end action link says B2.
| | 02:23 | So it's still going to go back to the
menu. As you can see, this icon right
| | 02:26 | here, this is the menu; it's going to
be the end action. So if the timeline is
| | 02:29 | done playing, goes back to the menu,
except that the Products button will be
| | 02:33 | selected instead of the default Our Story
button is selected again. And that makes
| | 02:36 | sense, right? I mean if people have
already seen it then why should that button
| | 02:39 | be selected again?
| | 02:40 | Now let's click on the end of Products
and drag to the slideshow and let go and
| | 02:47 | again our slideshow needs an end
action as well. So grab the end of the
| | 02:50 | slideshow and instead of just
dragging and dropping on the menu again
| | 02:54 | let's make the Next button active. So
basically we are creating a flow here.
| | 02:59 | So people start at the top, which is the
default button Our Story. They watch the
| | 03:02 | timeline, they go back to the menu
with the Products button, highlighted and
| | 03:06 | activated. In other words, hint-hint
this is what you to watch next.
| | 03:09 | They watch Products, the slideshow. At
the end of the slideshow they are taken
| | 03:12 | back to the menu with Locations active.
And then from Locations-- well we haven't
| | 03:18 | set up Locations yet. So what I can do
is click Locations here and then we get
| | 03:23 | options for that button in the
Properties panel and so what I'm going to do
| | 03:26 | with the button active in the
Properties panel is come down at the bottom,
| | 03:29 | Enable Web link for Flash, and we could say
www.adobe.com and hit Enter and now this
| | 03:36 | Locations button will take people
to adobe.com for more information.
| | 03:40 | And now if I want to see my whole
project a glance, I'm going to this little
| | 03:42 | Navigation slider and drag this to the
left so I can see everything a little
| | 03:46 | bit better. But look at that! That's
our entire project at a glance, set up all
| | 03:50 | the links in just minutes and they
are not just any old links. They are very
| | 03:54 | intelligent links. So it's not only
just going back to this menu but it's going
| | 03:58 | to back to this menu with a
particular button selected.
| | 04:01 | So we have created a great project,
next we are going to test and export it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Testing and exporting a project| 00:00 | If you like to follow along this movie,
I have created this Ready for Export
| | 00:03 | project basically. It picks up where we
left off at the end of the last movie.
| | 00:06 | So our project is essentially done. All
that's left now is to preview, test and
| | 00:11 | export it. So what I'm going to do is
to make sure everything works, I'm going
| | 00:14 | click this Preview button to preview
the entire disc. There is our menu as
| | 00:18 | expected, which is good. I'm going to
click OUR STORY and there is the video.
| | 00:24 | I'll click the Menu button get back to the
menu. PRODUCTS should play the slideshow.
| | 00:28 | (Music plays.)
| | 00:34 | Very cool and then LOCATIONS is the web
link. Another thing that I would like to
| | 00:38 | do when I'm really going through our
project is when I'm playing an asset I like
| | 00:42 | to hit this End button, just to jump
to the end of the object, just to make
| | 00:45 | sure the end action is functioning as expected.
| | 00:48 | Okay, so the preview went well. I'll
click Exit and Return and now we can test
| | 00:53 | our project before we export it. So I'm
going to go over to the Build panel and
| | 00:57 | I'm going to click the Check Project
button. Now all these things are checked.
| | 01:01 | That's good. I want to check for all
of these problems and errors and so I'm
| | 01:04 | going to click Start.
| | 01:05 | Now the only problem that came up is
that for the Locations button. I know it's
| | 01:09 | a button because of this icon here. It
says there is not a link set; it doesn't
| | 01:13 | link to anything. But as it says here
it can be ignored for Flash. Well that's
| | 01:19 | great because that's what we did here.
We set it up as a Flash link, so we
| | 01:23 | don't need to worry about that.
| | 01:24 | So our project is good to go and now we
just change the format to Flash in this
| | 01:28 | case and then we Browse for a place to
save it and select a format, select a
| | 01:33 | name, select the template, select a
preset size and then once we are done with
| | 01:39 | that click Build and we are done.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | All right, folks. That's the end of
the Encore CS4 Essential Training. Thank
| | 00:03 | you so much for watching. Again I'm
your host Chad Perkins. Or I have been your
| | 00:07 | host Chad Perkins. And it's been a
pleasure on behalf of www.lynda.com. I love
| | 00:11 | Encore. I think it's going in some
great and interesting directions as opposed
| | 00:15 | to just being a plain old boring DVD
tool. We're now seeing it venture off into
| | 00:19 | strange and inviting path.
| | 00:20 | So it's very exciting, can't wait to see
what CS5 has. Again, thanks for watching.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
