Development > Artwork
Intro animation
Mattn:
could you please retry with latest revision?
Destructavator:
Success! ;D ...Mostly, at least, just one issue: I ran the game on my laptop with a widescreen display and the video was stretched out horizontally - The rest of the game displays fine though, with the right full-screen resolution and the 4:3 stretch video option turned off.
...But the intro.ogm in the SVN plays, video and sound just fine otherwise.
One other note: I did this on a clean install of Windows, fresh SVN copy and codeblocks package, and when I first ran ufo.exe it complained about a missing intl.dll file. I fixed this by copying the dll from the radiant .zip package and it then ran just fine.
Sometime this weekend I'll do tests with different free video conversion tools to see which ones can make OGM videos that play OK in the game. Right now I'm looking at WinFF/FFMPEG, AviDemux, and VLC, as well as a few other free and open-source tools that anyone who wants to make a cinematic can use. (The three I mentioned are also cross-platform BTW.)
Destructavator:
OK, two updates:
I realized I had actually compiled the game with Muton's version of codeblocks. I tried to re-build the game with the latest one you put together, Mattn, and found that your version would not compile it without errors (I'll try to generate and attach a log of the errors later).
I also found that VLC generates buggy OGM video clips, ones that mostly work but not completely, so I wouldn't recommend transcoding video to OGM with VLC. I also tried AviDemux, which doesn't create compatible OGM files at all (only the audio works), so that leaves FFMPEG. Sometime soon I'll try to put together a preset for WinFF, which is a free Open-Source GUI for FFMPEG that makes FFMPEG much easier to use, and runs on Windows and Linux just like FFMPEG does. (Heck, on Ubuntu WinFF is even in the repositories, so it's easy to get.)
Titan:
Well, this is probably WAY too long, but here's my take on a good intro movie:
The screen is black. It fades into view of a huge city. Camera is raised, so you're looking down slightly at it, from moderate distance (The FOV is big enough to encompass the entire city)
Camera cuts to a 'birds-eye-view', almost like looking down from a helicopter, scrolling across streets and buildings. On the bottom left, green letters type up, accompanied by a small sound as every letter appears. It reads:
Mumbai
(Month) (Date)th 2084
XXXX Hours
The text stays for a couple seconds as the camera continues to float around, giving us an idea of the scale and diversity of the city. The letters them fade away.
The camera changes to a human-level view shopping district. People are everywhere. Again, letters come up. This time it says:
The most densely populated city in the world.
After a couple of seconds, that fades away too.
Camera cuts to a crowded, darkened control room. Again, words appear.
(Name) Radar Installation
Couple seconds, fade.
Camera switches to one of the seats with a radar console, y'know, with the round screen and the sweeping line. The operator is leaning so that his head is offscreen, you can here him and another guy talking in... uhm, Mumbain?
Camera cuts again, now the radar display fills the whole screen. This view stays on enough for the viewer to watch the sweeper do a couple complete rotations. Nothing appears on the screen. (You could add a couple of blips with little words labelling them as civilian flights, but for this, effect>realism, probably)
Cut to a view of the sky. Couple small clouds. Sun is centered in at the top of the screen. Lens flare aims at the bottom left of the screen. The camera moves slightly, and the flare moves from that side to the right. As it points directly at the camera, so that theres a big flashed, the ships appear. 6 small ones. they swoop down, just barely allowing for a good enough view to allow the viewer to see they're not man-made.
Cut back to the radar display. Couple sweeps, nothing.
Cut to the crowded street. One of the ships lands, as people scream. One stays, curious. The ramp lowers. You can't see inside. A bright flash, and a plasma ball rips out, killing the lone person. Fade to black.
About 5 seconds of blackness, then an abrupt flash view of the fighting, followed by an abrupt fade to black. This repeats several times, before it goes back to black. The words type up again:
Bonn, Germany
The words fade into the black. Abrupt flash, a SAM launcher firing at the UFOs, as men scream. Fade to black.
Bangkok, (uhm... wherever it is)
Abrupt flash to combat there, fade to black, then the same sort of thing for the last city.
Scene inside the UN, people arguing, then the head person declares war.
The final scene is told through the eyes of the player character. It starts with you entering an office (Yours). Several people are inside. One is a UN rep. He says
"Ah, commander. Good to see you found your office. I'd like you to meet some people" He motions to the side, where the remainder are standing. The rep introduces you to Dr. Connor, Cdr. Navarre, all the people from the mailclient letters. You then go ans sit down at you desk. The people all nod, etc, and begin to file out. You pick up a manila folder on your desk. It has a top secret stamp on it, and the word Phalanx along with the phalanx logo. The screen fades to black, and only the Phalanx and the logo remain. They stay for several seconds, then they fade too. The name of the game fades in, UFO: Alien Invasion. That fades out after about ten seconds. End of intro.
Destructavator:
The problem with including language is localization - If I'm not mistaken text can be put in an overlay or below video in the game engine, but with spoken language we would need voice actors with pro-recording equipment for every one of the over-a-dozen-or-so languages this game is available in.
I've actually thought about cinematic cut-scenes that have language just as text below or over video, which could vary for every language the game supports (much like sub-titles).
As far as actually getting something together beyond just dreaming up intro movies, one thing that could really get us moving in that direction is a 3D model of a city, or at least a city block. Other than that, we've already got models of just about everything we would need to make an introduction video for a number of proposed script ideas.
Please keep in mind that Winter would need to approve any script ideas or drafts.
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