DVD Studio Pro 3: In the Studio

Chapter 11. Transitions

In this chapter

Custom Video Transitions

Alpha Transitions

What's Next?

Smooth transitions from one menu to another (or from a menu to a video clip) are common in DVDs. With DVDSP 3, they're also easy to add. But DVDSP 2 didn't include transitions. And sometimes, even in DVDSP 3, you want more than the basics. This chapter includes two projects: one to create a transition completely from scratch that works with any version of DVDSP, and one to create a custom transition that works with the DVDSP 3 transition framework.

Custom Video Transitions

If you're still using DVDSP 2, you don't have access to the spiffy transitions we looked at back in Chapter 4. But fear not! We're going to look at using the End Jump property of video tracks a bit creatively to accomplish the same effect. For those of you using DVDSP 3, if the built-in transitions are enough, stick with those. They're much easier and allow flexibility that building your own transitions just doesn't afford. But if you need something special in the transitions, read on. This technique works just as well in DVDSP 3—all you need is time!

Getting started

The most difficult part about providing video transitions is building the actual transition. DVDSP 2 doesn't provide any animation tricks for you, so you have to create these transitions in a separate application. You could use iMovie and attach transitions, just as we did at the end of Chapter 3. We'll detour into Adobe After Effects for most of this ...