Adding Animation on a DVD Menu

One of the coolest things you can do with a DVD menu is add animation to the buttons and the backgrounds. This is probably the killer feature for DVD menus, one that elevates them and gives your productions an immediate WOW factor. In Liquid Edition 6.0, adding animation is also easy to accomplish and a lot of fun to play around with.

To create an animated background, you first must have a suitable clip in the Project Browser. Before you start adding this clip to the background, carefully consider which clip will work best. You can also create a color animation in any Photoshop-type program.

Tip

• To complete the next taks, you should already have a DVD menu on the Timeline and a basic understanding of how the DVD Editor can be accessed and operated. If you don't, please read this chapter from the beginning.

To add an animated background

1.	First prepare a clip in the Source Viewer by adding a mark-in point where you want the animation to begin. Don't worry about the mark-out point; it's automatically set as the overall length of the DVD menu.
2.	Once you've prepared your clip, enter the DVD menu by clicking the DVD Editor button on the Toolbar .
3.	Make sure the Links tab is displayed, then drag the clip up into the background area of the menu (Figure 12.54). Figure 12.54. Adding the animated background. As a result, a separate track called DVD-B is created and the background of the menu changes to a checkerboard pattern to indicate that it is now transparent (Figure 12.55). Figure 12.55. The DVD-B track containing the animated background.
4.	Click the DVD preview button to see your background motion in action. The preview function always displays the first DVD menu in a loop. To preview a nested menu, click the link that leads to that menu.

Tips

• You can add a filter to the track on DVD-B. See the instructions found in the "Saving a Customized Filter" section in Chapter 9.

• If the DVD menu isn't quite long enough to show what you want on the animated background, drag it out to the required length instead of trimming the clip. This is another advantage of DVD authoring on the Timeline.