Great! Need a little advice to modify the classic template

[skoenig1]

Thanks to the team for changing the thumbnail clip logic.

Attached is what a typical cartoon disk now look like. Rename from .log to .m2ts to view.

Classic Template
Note: I understand it's not supported to modify the templates so I'm not expecting any support but just in case you feel generous I thought I'd post anyway as I just have one or two things left to modify.

What I've done so far (all fairly straight forward):
- Set the font to verdana
- Change BG to a dark blue gradient via the png
- Modified some of the transitions to try to cut down the time for each page to visually complete

Transitions
I reduced the transitions time because once you start going through a few pages the player makes you wait until the intro transitions per page are complete before you can move the prompt on to the next page. I did it by changing intro_duration and outro_duration to 1 and increasing the main_duration to 28 so it's still a 30 sec clip. I haven't burnt a disc yet because I think this only deals with the video for the menu not the underlying code.

How can I remove some/all of the other transitions?
I think I can set tx_type=TX_SCENE_OUTRO => tx_type=TX_NONE but I'm not sure. I don't think that will stop the title animation from running on every page either.

Ideally I just want to menu page to change and play the video clips with no transition animation on the non-thumbnail items at all...

Title Centering
I also noticed the title is not centered though Align=MIDDLE_CENTER is set (I haven't changed this). You can see in the video attached. Maybe it's being thrown by the LeftMargin=4?

I've attached my current efforts for your enjoyment. Of you have any kind of simple docs on the template system I'm a pretty good coder of sorts and happy to share templates I build back with you if I ever manage to finish one!

Regards

Steph

ps. Is there a good blu-ray menu emulator out there? I haven't found a decent one yet - most crash or don't render the menu - and I don't like wasting discs.

[Claire]

Hello,

I am not familiar with these guides but they do exist and might have the answers you need:
http://forums.vso-software.fr/guide-how ... t6260.html
http://forums.vso-software.fr/guide-inc ... t6230.html
http://forums.vso-software.fr/notes-on- ... 10713.html

[ckhouston]

The most comprehensive menu template editing guide is http://forums.vso-software.fr/tattoo-s- ... 15694.html

If you want to eliminate the menu intro and outro completely,

1. Delete the intro_duration and outro_duration lines.

2. Delete all sections containing \Anim\ but not those ending with \Anim].

3. The lines below those ending in \Anim] specify the number of Anim items, change that to Count=0

4. Delete the tx_type=TX_SCENE_OUTRO lines in the \buttons\ sections.

Notes:

1. Step 2 is probably not necessary unless you want to clean the code up, but all other steps should be done.

2. The tx_type=TX_SCENE_OUTRO statements cause the program to write instructions to direct play to an outro segment which doesn't exist now, so they should be eliminated.

3. You can compare the cx2_8ch.ini and cx2_8ch_noanim.ini files for an example of what you need to do in case the instructions are not clear. I just noticed though that the tx_type=TX_SCENE_OUTRO lines have been removed in the cx2_8ch.ini file and need to be put back in, I will report.

PS: In lieu of a menu emulator, why not play your converted files on your computer before burning in order to save your discs?

[skoenig1]

Thanks for the advice and links claire and ckhouston.

I'll give it a shot, look like it's certainly been done before!

@ck.. I would like a decent emulator because I'm burning blu-rays. Dvd menus work just fine in MPC-HC and other players but it seems proper blu-ray menus don't work or are very very poorly supported. Most players just play the file one after another. I've been changing some of the sprites too so that I can overlay on top of the selected elements etc. but can't see these working without a burning a disc or using totalmediaplayer which sort of works but crashes frequently.

Thanks a lot for the help... I'm gogi to give that a shot towards the end of my day here.

Regards

Steph

[skoenig1]

Just posting back that worked perfectly..

Very snappy pages now.

~Steph

[ckhouston]

Glad it worked, thanks for letting us know.

Title Centering
I also noticed the title is not centered though Align=MIDDLE_CENTER is set (I haven't changed this). You can see in the video attached. Maybe it's being thrown by the LeftMargin=4?

Menus are laid out on a 720x576 pixel canvas with all dimensions in pixels.

That text alignment statement is for alignment within a text box that is defined for each menu text item. So the text box must be centered if you want the title centered. For example, change

[CXT\pages\Item0\blocks\Item1]
name=Title zone
Left=125
Top=32
Width=535
Height=78

[CXT\pages\Item0\blocks\Item1\Gfx\Item0]
name=page title
value=Classic menu title
customizable=TRUE
Location=ML_PAGE_TITLE
Height=78
Width=535
Style=title

to

[CXT\pages\Item0\blocks\Item1]
name=Title zone
Left=93
Top=32
Width=534
Height=78

[CXT\pages\Item0\blocks\Item1\Gfx\Item0]
name=page title
value=Classic menu title
customizable=TRUE
Location=ML_PAGE_TITLE
Height=78
Width=534
Style=title

[skoenig1]

Even better, much appreciated, ckhouston. It was kind of making me twitch begin offset from center by only a few px.

The menus seem really snappy now and cedirc's 2 Minute offset for the clips mean every title has a different looking clip.... kids can navigate visually now..

I'll make the changes, test the result then post the completed ini here for anyone to try out.

~Steph