Hello to all
I am creating a promo DVD for our new company. I am in the middle of creating a DVD menu and I have a solid with a ramp added on. It is a radial ramp and I have the menu's fly in and the comp logo slide in as well. What I want to do is make the radial ramp i guess glow brighter then dimmer. Is there an expression I could use or do I have to key frame it. I just want to make it loop on the DVD and not have it be bright then all of a sudden be dim. Any ideas?
Re: Light Flux by david bogie on Apr 21, 2008 at 3:26:45 pm
Yes, you will keyframe the settings and render the movie.
I know you want this to be a cool DVD but creating movies behind menus and animating transitions and all that stuff gets to be very tedious for viewers.
If an effect isn't necessary to communicating your message, don't do it.
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: "For crying out loud, read the freakin' manual."
Re: Light Flux by Darby Edelen on Apr 21, 2008 at 3:36:42 pm
[david bogie]"I know you want this to be a cool DVD but creating movies behind menus and animating transitions and all that stuff gets to be very tedious for viewers."
In my work I usually try to make the menu loops fairly simple and elegant (i.e. floating bits of light, smoke drifting, etc.) but the most important thing is that it fits with whatever the feature is. If this is a reel then something understated and awesome (thank you www.thesaurus.com!) would work well.
However, I love making surprising and/or unique transitions that involve elements in both the source and destination media. The transition will likely only be seen once, so it isn't really over kill if it's something super fancy. The only thing to consider is that people don't want to wait for their menus, so try to keep transitions around 3-5 seconds.
Darby Edelen Lead Designer Left Coast Digital Santa Cruz, CA
Re: Light Flux by david bogie on Apr 21, 2008 at 8:56:55 pm
> However, I love making surprising and/or unique transitions that involve elements in both the source and destination media. The transition will likely only be seen once, so it isn't really over kill if it's something super fancy. The only thing to consider is that people don't want to wait for their menus, so try to keep transitions around 3-5 seconds.
Good points, all. There is hardly anything more rewarding than giving viewers unexpected treats.
Your design sensibilities are superior to 99% of our visitors, Darby. I had never considered doing a transiition that only gets seen once. Very cool.
I have, however, used a similar technique in glass art pieces. Only a certain viewpoint will align and refract all optical elements. I have designed these easter eggs so that a passing pedestrian might see the effect as a subtle but unexpected flash of something. If everything works out, the individual will retrace his/her steps to try to reconstruct the effect.
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: "For crying out loud, read the freakin' manual."
Re: Light Flux by Darby Edelen on Apr 21, 2008 at 3:30:03 pm
Your method will depend somewhat on how you are achieving the radial ramp to begin with. Is it a masked solid? The Ramp effect? A 3D light? Each of those will need a different approach.
In the case of the solid, animating the opacity should work fine.
In the case of the ramp, animating the opacity may work, but you might like the effect of animating the start/end points or a Levels effect's gamma property more.
In the case of the light, animating the intensity of the light works well.
Darby Edelen Lead Designer Left Coast Digital Santa Cruz, CA
Re: Light Flux by Chuck Obernesser on Apr 21, 2008 at 6:39:50 pm
Thanks. That does make sense. I just wanted to add a little something to make it look like it is not just a still shot. Nothing too hard. But from reading what you wrote I think I know exactly what to do. Thanks so much.
