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APRIL 14, 2004 Motion Masks in DVD Studio Pro 2
Resaturating your buttons We're now entering into the most complex area of modifying DVD Studio Pro: button effects. The built-in template that we used as the basis for our custom masks contains button effects that we can't control unless we go in and do some of that surgery I was talking about earlier. By this I mean we have to modify the preferences for our individual buttons. But don't worry. This looks more scary than it really is.[an error occurred while processing this directive] In case you're not already aware of it, these special buttons that we're creating use something called a "patch shape." Patch shapes, essentially, are shapes that include extra capabilities, such as motion masks (which hopefully you've realized by now) and special effects, such as, in this case, desaturation of the button asset. These effects are sometimes handy for designing templates for distribution (although I don't think anybody outside of Apple is aware of how to implement them), but, at present, they're getting in our way because we don't want our buttons desaturated. Here's how you fix it. The process is identical for each of the individual buttons. I'll show you one as an example to get you on your way. 1. Once again, quit DVD Studio Pro. (You can save your project, if you wish. The changes we make will affect all projects using this particular custom template.) 2. Locate your custom template again (/Library/Application Support/DVD Studio Pro/Templates). 3. Right-click the template file, and choose "Show Package Contents," as before. 4. Navigate to /Contents/Resources/RectRightBlackAndWhite.pox/Contents. In there, you'll see a file called "Patch." Can you guess what this file is? It's the file containing all of the special properties of the right button in your template.  5. Open this file in Text Edit, a freebie text editing application located in your Applications directory. WHen you open it, you'll see something like this.  Stretch this window to the edge of your screen so that you'll be able to look at its contents more easily. 6. Do a search (Command-F) for the following text: <key>Loop Generator Basic</key>  7. Now, right beneath the text you found, you'll see two important entries: Max Value and Min Value. These are the maximum and minimum values for this particular effect, and they're currently both set to zero each. Zero, as you might guess, completely desaturates the contents of your button. A value of 0.5 is normal saturation. And a value of 1.0 is super-saturation. If you change the value to 0.5 for both of these, your button saturation in your DVD project will return to normal. If you like the color somewhat muted, like the center button, you can set the value to something like 0.34. That's up to you. Now that you know where to find this effect, you can play with it all you like. For my purposes, I'm going to set everything to 0.5 for all of my buttons.  8. Save the file, and repeat the process for your other two buttons. Now you can relaunch DVD Studio Pro and see your changes in effect. If you have any further questions, visit me in the DVD Studio Pro forum here. —Dave Nagel Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Related sites: Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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