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Creating motion buttons

A motion button is an image button that shows a clip of the movie it links to.

If you add a movie to an iDVD menu that has image buttons, a motion button is created automatically. The new button displays the first frame of the movie as a preview, and the video clip that plays in the button starts from this frame. You can, however, change this preview image to any frame in the movie. You can also choose to stop the motion so the button simply displays a still image.

If you add a movie to a menu and a text button appears, you can easily change it to a motion button.

To create a motion button:

Step 1

Drag a movie to your iDVD menu. If the resulting button shows an image from your movie (instead of just text), go to step 3.

Step 2

If the resulting movie button is a text button (which says either the name of your movie or Play Movie), click the button once to highlight it. Then click the Buttons button and select a button shape.

Step 3

Click the button you just created. If the clip is playing in the button, select the Still Image checkbox that appears above the button (shown below).

This stops the motion on the button.

Image of movie slider to control movie clips in image buttons
Step 4

If you want to select a different starting frame for the movie, drag the Movie slider.

Step 5

With your pointer over the menu, press Command-I to open the Menu Info window.

Step 6

Drag the Loop Duration slider to the number of seconds you want the movie to loop (up to the length of the video clip or a maximum of 15 minutes if the clip is longer).

Step 7

Click the Movie checkbox to turn motion back on for the button, and then click outside the button to deselect it.

The loop duration you select applies to all media you have added to the menu, including all motion buttons and any background movie (a movie that serves only as background for a menu) and background audio you’ve added. The maximum duration shown on the slider matches the media with the longest duration.

To make editing easier, you can turn off all motion on a menu by clicking the Motion button (shown below) at the bottom of the iDVD window.

Image of the Play button

Related Topics

Changing the image displayed on an image button

Changing a motion button to a still image

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