4.0

block are also deleted. If you animate a menu block, all of the sets or buttons contained in that menu block
also animate.
Sets
Sets are visual layers of a menu block. Every menu block must have at least one set. A good way to think of
sets is as visual layers of your menu block that are stacked on top of each other. Each set contains its own
set of buttons (hence the name "set"), and each set can contain its own background image or it can be
transparent. Only one set can be visible at a time. A practical example is best to illustrate this concept:
Imagine you have a movie with 15 chapters and you would like to create a chapter menu that allows the
viewer to select any of the 15 chapters for viewing. Simple enough, right? One way to do this is to create a
menu block and add 15 buttons to it (we'll discuss buttons below).
But what if your graphic designer wants to include nice icons for each chapter and group the icons five at a
time on the menu block for the sake of visual appeal? This is where sets come in. You can create three sets
in your menu block, each with five buttons on it.
Sets can each have their own background image, or they can be transparent. Only one set in each menu
block can be visible on screen at a time.
Buttons
Buttons are a pretty straightforward concept if you have ever authored a DVD. A button is an area on a
menu block that is selectable and clickable with a remote control. Buttons are used to play video or to
display new menu items.
In Blu-ray Disc authoring and in DoStudio Authoring, buttons have three images associated with them.
Each image corresponds to a state that the button can have: normal, selected, and activated. The normal
state is what the button looks like when the viewer has not selected it with the remote control. The selected
state is what the button looks like when the viewer has navigated to that button using the remote control.
The activated state is what the button looks like when the viewer has clicked enter on the remote control.
The activated state is usually seen only for the brief amount of time after the viewer has pressed Enter and
before a video is played or another menu item appears.
A button is required to have an image for its normal state. The selected and activated states are optional. If
you do not add a graphic for the selected or activated state, the graphic for the normal state is displayed.
Attention DVD authors!
As described above, the method for creating buttons for Blu-ray Disc menus is quite different from
creating buttons for DVD menus. There is no "overlay" layer such as you are accustomed to using in
DVD authoring. You (or your menu designer) must create three separate images for a button. Each
image corresponds to an image state. Your menu designer will be pleased with this new capability,
because he or she will no longer be limited to a simple 8-bit graphic overlay. With DoStudio Authoring,
they can create full 32-bit graphics that appear for each image state. DoStudio Authoring can import
all of these graphics directly from a layered PSD file.
12CHAPTER 2