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Creating and Designing DVD menus
Character and Object Looks
The first tab contains the palette of prepared looks. Click the text object to select it and then click
a look. Or first select a look and then write the text using the text tool.
These settings also apply to rectangular and round objects which, like the characters, can be
assigned a color, edge or shadow.
The second tab, which is the Custom tab, provides a slider by means of which you can conve-
niently control the Face (surface of the letters), Edge and Shadow properties.
In each case, you can select a color (blend or single color) or Transparency. Click the color box to
open the color dialog box.
The third tab (Favorites) is intended for customized looks. Click the suitcase button to add the look cur-
rently designed and selected with Custom.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds completely fill the edit window (full menu format). You can select a background
from the palette (single-click it) or create a color background (full tone or blend). If you don’t
want to use a background (for example, if you want to superimpose the menu buttons on a video),
click the Transparency option.
Click the Folder button to open a Windows dialog box for opening a file. This also lets you select
any graphics file as a background. Select the directory containing the graphics. The graphics are
then loaded in the palette as a miniature (along with any other images found in the directory). All
the usual graphics file formats are accepted, including TIFF, BMP and JPEG.
If necessary, make sure that the background graphics are scaled to the correct size while also maintaining
the aspect ratio. If you create the graphics yourself, select a square pixel format of 640*480 (NTSC) or
720*576 (PAL) to avoid scaling.
The background files that come with the product are stored in the.../Media/DVD/Backgrounds directory
of your Avid Liquid installation.
To insert a (animated) background in the DVD Editor, drag a (video) clip to the desktop and drop it
(drag and drop).
Inserting images
Unlike backgrounds, images are not scaled automatically. Use the handles on the image object to
resize it to your specifications and position the image wherever you want.
Click the Folder button to open a Windows dialog box and select the folder containing the
image(s). The images are loaded in the palette as miniatures. Drag an image to the desktop.