WS2: Create a 'Life On Mars' style DVD Menu

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WS2: Create a 'Life On Mars' style DVD Menu

Post by sjj1805 » Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:11 pm

My wife recently bought me Series one of 'Life On Mars.'
For those who haven't seen this series, without giving anything away, briefly a Detective Chief Inspector is involved in a Road Accident, when he 'awakes' he has travelled back in time to 1973 and is now a Detective Inspector.

The world then was a very different place to what it is now - No CCTV, No DNA, No Armed Response Units etc.

I was impressed by the DVD Menu employed with this boxed set, briefly you have a sheet of paper pinned to a wall with some boxes down the left and writing alongside those boxes. A red X signifies the chosen menu item.

I decided to try and recreate this menu and in fact found it was very simple and uses a combination of highlight images and hidden buttons.

Step 1: Start a Blank menu
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Step 2: On the Menu Tab drag your image onto the menu so that it forms the background
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Step 3: Drag a button onto the menu - any button will do because we will be hiding it later. Resize the button so that it is quite small - this is to prevent an overlapping button issue later.
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Step 4: Create an image of a letter X using PhotoImpact. The X should be on a transparent background and then saved as a UFO file.
Here is one ready made for anyone who wants to give this a try
http://www.steve-jones.pwp.blueyonder.c ... rial/x.ufo

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Step 5: Import the image into the DVD Workshop Highlight Images Library and then drag it onto the button created at step 3 above.
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This has now associated the highlight image with that button.

Step 6: Drag the highlight image into position. It is also recommended that you show the button boundaries by clicking the 3rd button along at the bottom right of the preview screen.
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Step 7: Use copy and Paste to duplicate the button the required number of times and then align the buttons and highlighted images into the required positions.
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Step 8: Set the Color mapping of each button to RED/RED
Values are R - 196: G - 0: B - 0:
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Step 9: Attach the required actions or playlists to each button
Such as chapter 1, chapter 2, Next, previous, Playall etc.
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Step 10: Make each button invisible. Doing this will not hide the highlight images associated with the buttons.
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Task completed now test your new DVD Menu.

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