Apple DVD Studio Pro 4 - Manual (Page 97)

• For a description of creating layered menus, see Creating a Layered Menu .
An easy source for menu backgrounds are frames grabbed from a track’s video. By setting
a marker on the frame you want, you can choose to save that frame as a TIFF file that can
then be imported and used as a menu background. You can also open the file in a graphics
program and add effects and text before using it as your menu’s background. See
Grabbing
a Still Image from Your Movie for more information.
Creating Graphics to Use in Menus
When creating graphics for menus, you need to be aware of several considerations. Some
of these apply to all menu types, and some are specific to certain menu types, such as
layered menus, menus with a still background, or menus using an overlay.
Using Your Graphics Program
DVD Studio Pro is designed to import a wide variety of graphics formats, allowing you to
use almost any graphics program to create the menus and overlays.
Supported formats include:
• Adobe Photoshop PSD files
• PICT format files
• BMP format files
• JPEG format files
• QuickTime image files
• Targa (TGA) format files
• TIFF (TIF) format files
Additional support is also included for files that conform to the Adobe Photoshop (PSD)
format. DVD Studio Pro can recognize individual layers and allows you to assign them to
separate functions in a menu. You can even use the same file for several menus by
selecting the appropriate layers to use for each menu.
• Layers for standard overlay menus: When creating graphics for standard overlay menus,
you can select the layer (or layers, as is often the case) to use as the background and
the overlay. In this way, a single file can be used in several menus, even sharing elements
(such as a background image). To avoid confusion, assign clear names to each of the
layers.
• Layers for layered menus: When creating graphics for use as layered menus, in addition
to the layer (or layers) that make up the background, you must create at least two layers
for each button, one showing the selected state and the other showing the activated
state. To show the normal state of each button, you can either build it into the
background layer or create a third layer.
97 Chapter 6 Preparing Menu Assets