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  • The Motion Menu Application (PG 3 of 3)
  • This page will offer the practical application of Motion Menus in Reel DVD 2.5. It is highly recommended that you read The Basics before trying this tutorial.

Now you're ready to adjust the colors (home stretch)
14. Earlier I mentioned that the dots were made in pure blue. This was, of course so Reel would see them when we imported them as an overlay. We will now change the color for the three stages of a button: Display, Selection, and Action. The first stage on the toolbar is Original. This will show you the actual colors contained within the .psd file. These stages can be displayed using the buttons to the right side of the preview window toolbar.

15. We will first adjust the display color. We want this display color to be white (transparent.) To do this we click on the display color mode button on the right side of the toolbar. We then adjust the blue contrast. The four colors ReelDVD sees in the overlays are adjustable across the very bottom of the toolbar. The buttons were drawn in pure blue. Click the (-) button next to the blue setting until is shows zero. You will notice that all of the dots have gradually disappeared... They will now display transparent.


16. We will now adjust the selection color. This will be the color of the dots when they are selected by the end user. For this application we want them to be black. Select the selection color button at the right of the toolbar. This would be the third button highlighted in Fig. 13. We go back to the same color adjustment location we were in the step above. We are still adjusting the selection color of pure blue, so we stay in the same location. If the color displayed in that spot is not already black, we can change the color we want displayed by clicking on the color in-between the (-) and (+) signs. This will bring up the 16 color palette shown to the right. These are the available choices for our selection color.

You can add colors to this palette by using Edit>Project Settings>Color Palette. This can be done at any time during the building of your project, but you can never exceed 16 total color choices.
17. Now that Black is selected, we will leave the contrast at 100, because for this project, we're not looking for translucent buttons.  
18. Finally, we will select the action color. This is the color the dots will be for the second or so after the user has hit the SELECT button on their remote, as the video clip loads. Select the Action color button, the far right button highlighted in Fig. 13. If the action color is not already red, click the "100" between the (-) and (+) buttons and select the bright red. Leave the contrast at 100.
19. You can now enter simulation mode. Once pressing play, you should be able to have your black dot jump downward or upward next to the five different menu selections. When a button is selected, it will turn the action color of red. Congratulations your done!  
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