Animating Buttons

An animated button looks even cooler than the animated background because you can actually show a small preview of the scene related to that button. When you're using this effect, Liquid Edition automatically adds a 2D filter to this clip, which resizes it to the size of the button and repositions it to the button's location. You can do this yourself, but doing so takes much longer than the simple drag-and-drop method I describe here.

To add an animated button

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 is set automatically to the overall length of the DVD menu.
2.	Once you've prepared the clip, enter the DVD menu by clicking the DVD Editor button on the Toolbar .
3.	Make sure the Links tab displays, then drag the clip up into the button (Figure 12.56). Figure 12.56. Adding the animated button. At this stage, a separate track is created called DVD-number, where number is the button you select. The background of the button changes to a checkerboard pattern to indicate that it is now transparent (Figure 12.57). Figure 12.57. The DVD-1 track created by animating button number 1.
4.	Click the DVD preview button to see your button 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

• The animationsbackground and buttonsmust be the same length; otherwise, black shows on some areas when the menu plays back.

• You can add a filter to the clip on the DVD-number track as described in the "Saving a Customized Filter" section in Chapter 9.

• Warning: Animated buttons (and backgrounds) can also look corny and overstated when not used with care and restraint.

Adding Music to the Menu

You can add music to a DVD menu by simply dragging an audio clip down onto the Timeline below the DVD menu. This audio clip should be the same length as the DVD menu and any animated clips, but make sure you pay attention to how well the audio loops. At the end of the menu playback (10 or 20 seconds), the play starts again, so you may want to add Cross Fades at the start and end of the audio clip so that it doesn't begin or finish too abruptly, thus spoiling the overall animation of the menu.

If your DVD background contains audio, you need to mute it by clicking once on the DVD-B speaker icon (Figure 12.58).

Figure 12.58. Adding music to the menu.