Button subpictures

A DVD or Blu‑ray Disc player uses button subpictures to highlight buttons. A button subpicture defines the appearance of a button when it’s selected, activated, or in its normal (unselected) state. All the predesigned buttons included with Encore come with button subpictures. Encore can create subpictures for a button and update the text in the button subpictures automatically any time you change the text on the button. For full control over the design of button subpictures, you can create them in Photoshop. (See Create subpictures in Photoshop.)

You can create button subpictures from predesigned buttons in the Library panel, the Object > Create Subpicture command, or by designing new in Photoshop. Regardless of how you create your button subpictures, you set the colors used for button subpictures in the Color Set dialog box.

The easiest way to create a button subpicture is to use the Object > Create Subpicture command. This command creates a single-color image of the button. It bases the shape of the created subpicture on the text and image layers that are set as visible within the button layer set. Before you use the command, you can hide layers in the button set using the Layers panel. You can then control which elements Encore uses to create the button subpictures.

The colors displayed for each button state come from the color definitions in the color set, not from the button itself. By default, Encore uses the Automatic color set, which is based on the colors of the subpicture layers of the button. You can design more complex, three-color button subpictures in Photoshop. (See Create subpictures in Photoshop.)

Encore assigns the selected Color Group to the button.

The Paste As Subpicture command lets you quickly create a single-color subpicture from a layer in the menu.

Encore supports 8-bit color in subpictures for Blu-ray disc menus. You can export 256-color menu subpictures for Blu-ray. In addition, you can export full original colors for menu button highlights in Flash.

To export subpictures in full original colors, select Export Highlights in Rich Color in the Menu Properties pane. Encore displays menu highlights with full colors in Menu Editor.

However, Encore only displays two-bit DVD colors in the Preview panel. If you do not enable this feature, Encore exports menu highlights in two-bit colors for Blu-ray and Flash.

Encore also lets you import colors for various states of button highlights for blu-ray and web DVD. You can use numeric prefixes to distinguish states, such as normal, selected, and activated and import colors individually for these states. For example, use (=1)prefix for the normal state. Use (=2)prefix for the selected state and (=3)prefix for the activated state.

Encore assigns the selected Color Group to the button. 

The button property Create Text Subpicture can automatically generate a subpicture for button text. Any time you change the text, it regenerates the subpicture for you—you don’t have to manually update the subpicture layers. This option is very useful as you develop the menus in a project or if you create menus to be customized by others.

Subpictures can be difficult to understand, especially if you are accustomed to creating rollovers for web pages. Although on the surface subpictures and web-page rollovers appear alike—they both indicate button status—the DVD requirements make subpictures very different.

The first concepts you need to understand are as follows:

• The subpicture is like a transparent overlay that sits on top of the menu.

• The DVD or Blu‑ray Disc player uses the same overlay for all three button states. (Even the normal state uses the same subpicture.)

• The color set, not the colors in your original image, ultimately control the colors displayed in the subpicture. (Technically, the subpicture overlay is a two‑bit indexed image.)

• The subpicture is limited to three colors (each represented by a layer in the button set), but you can change those three colors and their visibility for each state in the color set. (DVD regulations allow only a limited bandwidth for button subpictures and subtitles.)

  Think of the subpicture as a paint-by-number image, with areas designated for colors 1, 2, or 3. The color set is the color key that determines what colors (if any) are used for colors 1, 2, and 3. In addition, all three colors can have different definitions and opacity settings in each button state. By varying the color definitions for each state, you can change the colors of each area; by varying the opacity of the colors in each state, you control whether or not that area is even visible in a particular state.

  You build the image used for the subpicture by creating separate layers for each color. The layer names must include the following prefixes: (=1) for areas using color 1, (=2) for areas using color 2, and (=3) for areas using color 3.

  
  
  Relationship between subpicture layers in button set and color set definitions

Keep in mind the following guidelines as you create the subpicture layers:

You can view the subpictures in the Menu Viewer in each of the button states. These views show the subpictures of all the buttons at the same time using the menu’s assigned color set and each button’s Highlight group. To preview the subpictures with the mouse or a simulated remote control, see Preview a project.