Custom Cover Art Thread

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by sivartk

I had to stare about both about 3 minutes until I noticed the difference.

I added a bit of noise and a couple subtle light sources to the solid background, then placing a grid on top of that. Makes it look a bit more interesting, but I still sort of like the plain look. Decisions, decisions.

[SpazeBlue]

Originally Posted by AmishParadise

OT: I'm looking for some feedback regarding the Blu-ray menu backgrounds I created for this TV series. I tried making the area to the right of the cover art a bit more interested just to spice things up. I still sort of like the plain look though. Well, I could go either way. What does everyone think?

They both work well, but I'm kinda liking the second.

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by SpazeBlue

They both work well, but I'm kinda liking the second.

Yeah, the version with the gird is started to grow on me. Maybe I'll go with that since most of the time I just stick with a solid background color. Thanks for chiming in.

And for anyone curious, each of my menu backgrounds is a 60 second video of the given image, a version of the image where the menu buttons for episode selection show their "Not Selected" states only. To create the videos I use FFMPEG in conjunction with some other free tools. When authoring to Blu-ray I add hundreds of PlayItems to the Playlist used for the Top Menu. Each PlayItem plays the same 60 second video making it appear as if the video is playing on an endless loop.

[AmishParadise]

I just finished working up the spine and front portion for this title.



Once I complete the back portion I'll make the full size image available to download.

[TripleHBK]

So I have a long way to go before I'm remotely close to what most of you all share here in this thread but I've been doing what I can for some time now with Blu Rays that I pick up from Red Box and/or that arrive with Damaged covers from online purchases and what not.

Recently I've begun also toying around with Topaz upscaling after seeing a few others post their results online, to see what I can do with some older forever stuck on DVD/VHS films. Some of the results have been quite good and so this then has lead me to needing to design covers for some of the projects that I otherwise had no other useable art for. This was my first attempted cover today. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. There are still some formatting issues and other items I need to address, but I figured I'd share it all the same in the off chance anyone else, like me, has been looking for BD covers to films that really don't have a ton of available resources out there.

[thelwig14]

Originally Posted by AmishParadise

I just finished working up the spine and front portion for this title.


Once I complete the back portion I'll make the full size image available to download.

Fantastic. I desperately need this. Much appreciated.

[AmishParadise]

Well, I'm making progress on "Must Love Dogs". For the back portion I'm working from a scan of the DVD cover art. See below.



Somehow I was able to fit a square peg in a round hole. It was quite the challenge. I managed to shift items around and blend things together quite nicely I think. See below.


(Click on the preview image above to view the full size image.)

So I do have quite a few items left to knock out, but it should go very quickly from here now that I've got a good foundation to work with. I plan to replace most of the textual elements that were part of the DVD cover art and other source images I was working from with my own text. I'll also be replacing the images on the back portion within the polaroids. Wish me luck!
__________________________________

I've since completed my work on the above cover art. To view the full size image just click on the preview image above.

And here's a couple alternate versions of the cover art for those interested. Each preview image is linked to the full size image.


(Originally I had just lifted the title treatment from some key art. This limited what I could do with the front portion. Eventually I put my foot down and decided to create the title treatment from scratch. This gave me greater flexibility when going to save and position the artwork for the front portion. No longer limited by the original title treatment I was able to create more vertical space adding the billing text across the top.)


(And the trifecta! With this version the artwork for the front portion doesn't carry over into the spine. This provided me even more vertical space to work with, hence the addition of the review text across the bottom just as seen on the retail DVD cover art. Gotta love it!)

[thelwig14]

Originally Posted by AmishParadise

Well, I'm making progress on "Must Love Dogs". For the back portion I'm working from a scan of the DVD cover art. See below.


Somehow I was able to fit a square peg in a round hole. It was quite the challenge. I managed to shift items around and blend things together quite nicely I think. See below.


So I only have a few items left to address before I make the full size image available. The title treatment for the spine leaves much to be desired when viewing the full size image so I'll be addressing that. I'm also going to try my hand at recreating the review text and polaroids on the back portion. Wish me luck!

Awesome work so far. I gave up on Sabrina (which you did amazing job on) and now I’ve given up on this underrated rom com. Going to make a dvd set.

[Heartbreaksoup]

Originally Posted by TripleHBK

So I have a long way to go before I'm remotely close to what most of you all share here in this thread but I've been doing what I can for some time now with Blu Rays that I pick up from Red Box and/or that arrive with Damaged covers from online purchases and what not...

I'm not sure what Frankenstein Unbound is, but that's really good, especially for a first effort! You've got every reason to be pretty happy with it.

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by thelwig14

Awesome work so far. I gave up on Sabrina (which you did amazing job on) and now I’ve given up on this underrated rom com. Going to make a dvd set.

I've since completed my work on "Must Love Dogs". The preview image in my prior post is now linked to the full size image. Enjoy!

[AmishParadise]

Doh! I had to fix my "Must Love Dogs" cover art just now. I found a typo on the back portion within the "Widescreen Version" disclaimer. It's "EXHIBITION" not "EXHIBTION" dummy! Took the opportunity to improve the spacing of the text as well. There was barely any space between the words. Looks much better now. I tweaked a few other things for good measure while I was at it. In any event, just a heads up for those who may have downloaded the cover art already. Feel free to grab a fresh copy if you like.

[jlyon1515]

Originally Posted by AmishParadise

And for anyone curious, each of my menu backgrounds is a 60 second video of the given image, a version of the image where the menu buttons for episode selection show their "Not Selected" states only. To create the videos I use FFMPEG in conjunction with some other free tools. When authoring to Blu-ray I add hundreds of PlayItems to the Playlist used for the Top Menu. Each PlayItem plays the same 60 second video making it appear as if the video is playing on an endless loop.

What tool do you use to make the menus though?

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by jlyon1515

What tool do you use to make the menus though?

I use a tool called BDedit. Well, for everything except the graphics. All my graphics work is done in Photoshop. I create a mock-up of the given Blu-ray menu in Photoshop saving the various menu elements as PNG's. Using the transform tool in Photoshop I determine the X and Y coordinates (...upper left corner) to be used for each image when going to position the image (object) within the Blu-ray menu.

Once exporting all my assets from Photoshop I process a given set of images through a command-line tool called PNG Quantizer. PNG Quantizer analyzes the images creating a single 256-color palette to be used with each, copies of the images being saved as 8-bit indexed PNG's, a requirement of HDMV (High Definition MoVie) based Blu-rays which also limit you to one color palette per menu page. From there I import the images (objects) to the Blu-ray I'm working on in BDedit assigning the objects to menu buttons.

So BDedit is my core authoring tool. It's used to create the Blu-ray including any menus. Photoshop in conjunction with PNG Quantizer is used to generate the menu graphics. The last thing I do is integrate the actual videos to the Blu-ray I'm working on, i.e. one or more movies or TV episodes, bonus features, menu backgrounds, etc. Each title (including the Top Menu) consists of a M2TS (Clip AV Stream), CLPI (Clip Information) and MPLS (PlayList) file.

To create the M2TS/CLPI/MPLS set for a given title I author my source files (video/audio/subtitles) to Blu-ray (with no menu) using multiAVCHD. Once authoring to Blu-ray using multiAVCHD I move the M2TS/CLPI/MPLS set for a given title over to the Blu-ray I'm creating with BDedit renaming the files accordingly if needed per the numbering structure I'm using. Lastly I edit the MPLS (PlayList) file for each title added ensuring the PlayItem within each PlayList is referencing the correct M2TS file. If the given title includes an Interactive Graphics (IG) Stream (Top Menu or PopUp Menu) that reference is added to the STN (STream Number) table (IG\SubPath) of the title's PlayList. Are we having fun yet!

(If you'd like to learn more feel free to engage me over at the Doom9 forums, here. Feel free to PM me as well of course if you'd prefer.)

[AmishParadise]

I created an alternate version of my "Must Love Dogs" cover art just now where the title treatment and tagline on the front portion have been shifted to the left and down a bit, the title treatment centered. I didn't do this originally as it would have required I recreate the title treatment and tagline from scratch. Rather than do that I allowed the source images I was working with to determine the positioning.

That being said, during the process of creating the cover art I decided to replace the review and overview text on the back portion which required three different fonts, two within the same font family. The free fonts I acquired to do this were very close to the original ones used. I didn't think at that point to try my hand at replacing the title treatment and tagline on the front portion. Well, until now.

The "Must" and "Love" in "Must Love Dogs" in addition to the tagline utilize the same font I used for the overview text on the back portion, the letter "t" where present modified after the fact as only the bold version of the font (used for the review text) included the curvature at the top of the "t". I also had to add the curvature to the bottom left leg of the "M" in "Must". The "Dogs" in "Must Love Dogs" was lifted from the original front portion. There's probably a font out there for that. I just haven't bothered looking. Instead I cleaned up the graphic doing a better job of removing the original background it sat on also removing all the dithering within the body of each letter making sure to color within the lines.

In any event, just thought I'd share. I'm quite pleased with the end result. The title treatment looks much cleaner now I think, especially the tagline. And an added benefit, I was able to properly apply my own drop shadow to the text. The drop shadow is more subtle now which I like better. Also, I carried over the improved title treatment to the spine. Figured I might as well go for broke. The "Dog" in "Must Love Dogs" on the spine looks so much better now. Okay, I'm done rambling on. To check out the latest and greatest hit up my prior post, here. Enjoy!

[gregmasciola]

Originally Posted by AmishParadise

I created an alternate version of my "Must Love Dogs" cover art just now where the title treatment and tagline on the front portion have been shifted to the left and down a bit, the title treatment centered. I didn't do this originally as it would have required I recreate the title treatment and tagline from scratch. Rather than do that I allowed the source images I was working with to determine the positioning.

That being said, during the process of creating the cover art I decided to replace the review and overview text on the back portion which required three different fonts, two within the same font family. The free fonts I acquired to do this were very close to the original ones used. I didn't think at that point to try my hand at replacing the title treatment and tagline on the front portion. Well, until now.

The "Must" and "Love" in "Must Love Dogs" in addition to the tagline utilize the same font I used for the overview text on the back portion, the letter "t" where present modified after the fact as only the bold version of the font (used for the review text) included the curvature at the top of the "t". I also had to add the curvature to the bottom left leg of the "M" in "Must". The "Dogs" in "Must Love Dogs" was lifted from the original front portion. There's probably a font out there for that. I just haven't bothered looking. Instead I cleaned up the graphic doing a better job of removing the original background it sat on also removing all the dithering within the body of each letter making sure to color within the lines.

In any event, just thought I'd share. I'm quite pleased with the end result. The title treatment looks much cleaner now I think, especially the tagline. And an added benefit, I was able to properly apply my own drop shadow to the text. The drop shadow is more subtle now which I like better. Also, I carried over the improved title treatment to the spine. Figured I might as well go for broke. The "Dog" in "Must Love Dogs" on the spine looks so much better now. Okay, I'm done rambling on. End result shown below which I uploaded to my FTP just after my most recent edit of this post. Download one. Download both. Whatever tickles your fancy.

Before:

[Show spoiler]
(Click on the preview image above to view the full size image.)

After:

[Show spoiler]
(Click on the preview image above to view the full size image.)

Very nice! I've had to do that for a few movies to make the back of the DVD cover fit a Blu-Ray. I always hate if there's no easy way to make the front poster fit without cropping it.

[Sowhatwhocaresyo]

There Can Be Only One... or two, or three

a.jpg

aa.jpg

aaa.jpg

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by Sowhatwhocaresyo

There Can Be Only One... or two, or three.

Very witty. Nice!

[Mikezilla3k]

Originally Posted by Sowhatwhocaresyo

There Can Be Only One... or two, or three

Attachment 293298

Attachment 293299

Attachment 293300

These work for the US 4K as well?

[Trekkie313]

Got a link for the middle one?

[Mikezilla3k]

Originally Posted by Trekkie313

Got a link for the middle one?

SoWhatWhoCares uploads them to Uncovered.Name. It's also free unlike other cover sites: http://uncovered.name/coverart/displ....php?pid=53629