Maestro Menu help needed

andy

HI,  I am trying to create custom menus/chapters in Maestro. Does anyone know of a guide or can give me a few pointers??

//Bodman

Well if you tell me what you actually mean by quot;custom menusquot; - i.e. what effects you wish to achieve, I'll be more than happy to assist you...Arky  ;o)

Sorry...what I meant was just plain and simple menus like Play button and scene selections.

I have played around with maestro but just cant get the hang of the menus and chapters.

Thanks

Bodman

Arky,

I'm with Bodman. I've gone through the Maestro guide several times and still get confused. I'm just wanted two movies on a disc with a main menu linking to either movie. I don't want an exact copy like the guide.

I can import all media assets and chapters fine but get befuddled on this menu stuff. I'm sure it's easy for most but I'm not getting it.

Ok, don't panic, help is at hand! Make sure you are using Maestro in quot;workbookquot; mode:

View gt; Workbook ModeNow look at the tree-hierarchy in the top left of the Maestro screen. Double click on quot;menu 1quot;

Now look at the bottom right of Maestro, to your assets bin, and find the image you wish to use as your background.

Drag and drop this image into the blank white screen you can see in the menu editor.

Maestro should take a moment and then display your image in the menu editor.

Good.

Now, if you don't have an additional subpicture image, you can cheat (this is the bit which usually confuses new users the most, so I am showing you a compromise which will help you get up and running, by which point you will begin to understand more clearly what is going on). To do this, simply use your left-mouse button and define button areas on your menu background, within the menu editing space.

You will find that Maestro automatically numbers your buttons.

Now I am assuming that you have already placed your video streams on your movie timelines (however many movies you have - it might be only one).

Now, look at the buttons you just created. hover over the first one with your mouse cursor, and RIGHT-click on it. You will see a drop-down-menu option, and you can choose where you want Maestro to quot;pointquot; the button to (this connecting process can also be achieved using the quot;connectionsquot; window, but this is not so intuitive). For example, you might wish to connect the button to a menu (if you need to create extra menus, then you will have to skip this connection, and come back to it later, when you've created the menu you wish the button to eventually point to), to a chapter you created on the movie timeline (not essential - it's up to you if you wish to create chapter points on your timelines, or not bother). You will notice that this is exactly how SpruceUp works, too.

When you have finished making all your buttons, and connecting them to all your targets, you can look to the bottom of the menu editor and select the quot;connectionsquot; tab. When you have opened this connections window, look back to the tree-hierarchy in the top left of Maestro, and SINGLE left-click on the uppermost item ( if you haven't saved your project yet, it will be called quot;Untitled1 Projectquot;, and i should add that if you haven't saved it yet, you should do so right now or all your work may be wasted if things go pear-shaped!!). Having single-clicked on the uppermost tree-item, you will notice that more items appear on the connections window.

Within the connections window, there are three main areas:

top left - this is a list of potential events.

bottom left - this is a list of potential targets, which may be linked to the events in the top left.

top RIGHT - this is where you will take items from the bottom left, and ASSIGN them to the labels in the top left - SIMPLE!YOU WILL NOTICE THAT SOME OF THE BOXES ARE ALREADY FILLED IN, AND THIS IS BECAUSE YOU JUST DID THESE USING THE METHOD OF HOVERING AND RIGHT-CLICKING, IN THE MENU EDITOR.Please remember that while you are learning Maestro you do not NECESSARILY(!) need to worry about connecting ALL of these items. It is SOMETIMES ok to have empty boxes. I suggest that while you are learning Maestro, you begin with using the connections window in its most basic form. To do this, look to the very top left of the connections window, and you will see a label saying quot;All Sourcesquot;. Now, RIGHT-click on this, and select quot;Show Basic Sourcesquot; from the drop-down option menu. REMEMBER this little trick, because it will become very important when you get more adventurous with Maestro projects, when you will need to be more specific and thorough about what items link to each other.

when you have satisfied yourself, in the BASIC connections window, that you have connected all that you need to, or at least all those items that you can understand, you can attempt a preliminary check on the project. To do this, look to the very top of Maestro, and look for the icon which has a red dot in the middle, and 4 arrows, each pointing like the 4points of a compass. Press this button and a simulation window should pop up. Check that your project navigation works ok. If it doesn't, check the connections window again, and also check the settings boxes which you could see in the menu editor, beneath the background image (I deliberately glossed over these in the above description, to avoid complicating matters, but I will discuss them in more detail if you have problems - often, you can, gt;FOR VERY BASIC learning of Maestro Authoringlt;, ignore the majority of these settings boxes).

Anyway, if your project appear to work so far, look again to the icons at the top of the screen, and select the one which looks like a BarCode. This will ask you where you want to compile your project, so tell it what drive or partition you want it to go to (e.g.  D:\  ). Be aware that if you already have a Video_TS folder on the root of the same drive or directory, Maestro will NOT warn you - it will just delete it and write over it with your new project, so you have been warned!!.

When Maestro has finished compiling your project, it will flash up a box with warning messages. LEARN from what these messages say. To begin with, because I have taught you how to quot;cheatquot;, it will, quite correctly, say: quot;no subpicture found - default subpicture assigned!quot;.

Don't worry about this. If there are other errors, they are normally quite well explained, and all you need to do is go back into the authoring stage and correct these errors, and then recompile. when you are happy with your encoded project (which can work perfectly well with the:

quot;no subpicture found - default subpicture assigned!quot;

error), you can try playing the title with WinDVD or similar. Please don't write the project to disk until it definitely works from the harddrive when you play it with WinDVD or PowerDVD etc.IMPORTANT: the above instructions are a very slack method of just getting you into the swing of using Maestro - they are NOT intended to be an accurate tutorial!! the reason for this is that I believe that once you have gained the confidence and skills from completing the above, on a purely learning-basis, you will have the necessary foundations to understand the manual and to explore the remaining settings and features, so as to author a more professional project. Let me know if you have any problems, but please don't just ask me every little snagging point you come across - use the above in the context of the manual, and in the context of the existing guides you have read. Using proper subpictures, instead of cheating with default blank subpictures, is an entire post in itself, so get proficient withOUT them first, by cheating, (which WILL be functional), and then you'll be ready to move on to doing proper subs. I think many newcomers get too bogged-down with subpicture issues, and although these are of course extremely important in the longrun, this is a pity because the rest of the authoring process in Maestro is extremely simple and enjoyable.

All the best,Arky  ;o)

Arky,

You da man!!!!! Thanks for the quick guide. I have followed step by step and used the quot;cheatquot; button method first and it works!. I only have two questions left:

1. I assume adding text to the cheat buttons is not possible, that this can only be done beforehand in an image editor and then imported, right? I.E. Button 1- quot;Movie 1quot; and Button 2- quot;Movie 2quot;.

2. In my preview and build to hard drive, not all buttons are visible. Only the first button shows, I can navigate to and click the others, just can't see them. I set the First Play and Title connections to Menu 1, (No Button). How do I get all buttons to show? Is this because I used the quot;cheatquot; buttons and not imported?

Thanks Again!

Thanks Arky,  

Im well on my way now. 2 menu screens with chapter points and scene selections.(converted from DV Cam, I have Bullet cam strapped to my motorcycle helmet...now all I need is the cops not to get a hold of it

thanks again

Bodman

OK...Ive got it more or less worked out....

one thing when I press the MENU button on my DVD Remote it goes back to the start of the chapter that I am currently watching insead of the main menu screen....any idea what Ive done wrong.//Bodman

Arky: Got it worked out. Thanks again for your guide!

Bodman: When I press quot;Titlequot;, I get to the main menu. When I press quot;Menuquot;, the player thinks, then picks up playing right where it left off. So looks like you're a little further along than me.

Originally posted by Bodman
Thanks Arky,  
...have Bullet cam strapped to my motorcycle helmet...now all I need is the cops not to get a hold of it

Bodman  

LOL! COOOL!! Regarding the strange navigation you are both experiencing, just look at the various parameter control options you have in the menu editor. Don't freak out at the vast number of options - if you don't understand, then, for the time being leave well alone. Many of the option labels are actually quite self-explanatory, and you will also find that what you don't understand now, will gradually become clearer as your experience grows - besides, it's all in the help file and the manual if you really get stuck...

ANYWAY, if you open the quot;Advancedquot; tab (which can be seen just at the upper portion of the options, towards the right) and hit the quot;auto Assignquot; button you may find a marked improvement. Also, regarding hitting specific keys with a remote (as opposed to mouse navigation), you can assign what you what you want to happen when you hit (for example) the quot;Menuquot; button on your remote, by looking at the connections window and finding the relevant item in the top left portion. When you've found this, just do as you did previously, by looking to the bottom left of the connections window and finding what you want to 'happen', and dragging it to the item you identified in the above portion of the connections window - SIMPLE!  I only wish Scenarist was as easy to explain/use   ...oh, BTW, if you can't see the item you need to see in the connections window, then right-click at the top-left, on that quot;All Sourcesquot; label, and select a more complex view. Remember that just because more options are listed, does NOT mean that you are forced to complete all the empty fields.

In order to actually LABEL your menu buttons, yes, you would need to create a subpicture for this, I'm afraid, but now you've mostly-successfully authored a project with a blank subpicture, you're well-placed to learn the use of subpictures. Colour-mapping of subpictures is actually extremely simple, but most people (myself included) find them a difficult concept to get their minds around. This is strange, really, because once you HAVE succeeded in grasping them, they seem so flippin' simple! Read the manual for this topic, since it is EXCELLENTLY written. Any problems, get back to me.

I hope my *extremely* brief quot;Blagger's guidequot; to authoring in Maestro has given you both a little more confidence, so that you can now move on to learning more of the intricacies of doing the job more professionally (which, if you learn it step-by-step, really isn't anything to be frightened of).

As before, so long as you've made the effort to try to work things out a little, I am very happy to help out with any sticking-points you may have with the authoring process. To be honest, my best advice is to play around and see what happens, referring to the helpfile/manual if need be. The beauty of this, as I said before, is that it costs you nothing to use the navigation simulator, and/or to compile to hard disk and playback with a software DVD player, without writing a single coaster!  Remember that before you really start experimenting with different settings, you should save the project in its current (i.e. WORKING!) form, and then save it again under a different name, so that any mistakes you make, which you can't remember how to reverse, can simply be dumped, and the original version restored. Now that you have got as far as you have though, I am confident that there is very little for you to really trip up on.

All the best,Arky  ;o)

arky i've tried to recreate the menus of quot;starwars ep1quot;
i've created the main menu, the main movie and an intro to the main menu. (a short movie displaying the Starwars episode 1 logo).
i think i did it all ok but after compiling the files i get several errors but the only oneconcerning me is an error saying i don't have a timeout for the quot;intro to the main menuquot; but i did set the timeout to 0. when you want something else to play right after that you chose timeout zero, right??? i did that and when i tried to view the movie the only thing that is played is that intro do the main menu...
i think i have set every thing right in the conection menu..
first play - quot;intro to the main menuquot;
main menu - quot;main menuquot;

i think it works like that, right???

Arky... how stupid of me... didn't read all the error messages with enough attention...
just re-did the compiling again and read the message...
the problem was that the intro to main menu timeout didn't have a target...    i assigned the main menu as the target and now everything works as it should.