Renders

[sitters]

Yea I know, I work myself with adobe premiere pro, for montage and creating home videos.

We will waiting for the comment and then i can make more scenes, you can mix.


Willem

[Winter]

Before making any new video clips, I'd wait to see what Winter, Mattn, and the others think of this latest intro video

I think it's brilliant, practically done. The music now fits very well. However, we should definitely try to splice in some more short clips during the dragging bits, like what you suggested.

I have a few ideas for additional, short clips (no longer than a few seconds) that the intro could jump to and then back to the main video:

- A shot of an alien hand pushing buttons/controls on a console with a display screen showing a picture of the approaching Earth (A view from inside one of the alien ships, in other words)

- A close-up shot of a single carrier opening its doors to deploy some ships toward the Earth

- A brief view of an alien face (mostly just the eyes) as an alien inside one of the ships stares at the instruments and controls in front of them and the Earth on their display screen.

There are, of course, many other possible shots that would look good, these are just off the top of my head - I will say that if the final intro had more than just the same camera view continuously, it would make the intro movie look a lot more interesting.

All of these are solid ideas, and I'd certainly like to see at least some of them in the vid. Another possibility would be my earlier suggestion, a shakycam shot between two UFOs gradually entering the atmosphere, with sound effects slowly fading in as the atmosphere around the UFOs/camera becomes more dense.

Regards,
Winter

[BTAxis]

I had a thought for a couple of cuts that may or may not work. These cuts are to Earth rather than to the aliens.

- A large dark room on Earth, with a large display in the background. The display shows a wireframe Earth and four red blinking dots. Warnings flashing on and off here and there, people running to and fro.

- A PHALANX base hangar, its roof opening up and a Stiletto interceptor appearing from within as the lift raises it up. The Stiletto lifts off and disappears towards the horizon.

Also, I imagined these cuts to be smaller than the rest of the movie, displayed in a corner or to the side, so you never really lose track of the Carriers as they move in on Earth.

[Destructavator]

Sitters, I forgot to mention this before:

Before you start putting together more short clips, would it be possible for you to render them in a lossless codec instead of lossy Xvid, to make the editing easier?

My personal favorite that my software can work with is one called Lagarith - it's open-source, clean, and it is at:

http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html

I can also edit Huffyuv files (I think, I might have to double-check).

EDIT: BTW, the final result will still be in Xvid like the last versions, until the final version of the intro is made, which will be in ROQ (unless anyone has any objections).

[sitters]

Sitters, I forgot to mention this before:

Before you start putting together more short clips, would it be possible for you to render them in a lossless codec instead of lossy Xvid, to make the editing easier?

My personal favorite that my software can work with is one called Lagarith - it's open-source, clean, and it is at:

http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html

I can also edit Huffyuv files (I think, I might have to double-check).

EDIT: BTW, the final result will still be in Xvid like the last versions, until the final version of the intro is made, which will be in ROQ (unless anyone has any objections).

No problem for me, I have installed the codec ( works fine ).

Willem

[Destructavator]

Until some of us who post here regularly get back from whatever holiday vacation they're on, I'll see if I can record some game sessions for a new promo trailer - the old one for 2.1 (that ended up on YouTube) seems a bit dated now (as well as the 2.1 version).

As for the intro animation, as soon as some of the short clips mentioned in the last few posts are put together, I will gladly work on integrating them to complete the game introduction.

Speaking of the game intro, can anyone tell me where I can get an up-to-date ROQ converter/maker?  I have the free one that is old, from 2003 or something, and I know there are more current ones, but when I look them up I find that every site that has a download for one asks for registration on their site.

...And by the way, happy holidays!

[sitters]

Happy holidays everybody.


Mattn, can you export the .bip character animation file to .bvh format ?
I can import the .bvh format in cinema 4D for animating characters.

makes life much easier for making movie clips.


Willem

[Mattn]

i will try to - but right now i can't

i've exported a fbx file, can you import that one, too? you can find it at http://mattn.ninex.info/download/soldier.fbx

[sitters]

i will try to - but right now i can't

i've exported a fbx file, can you import that one, too? you can find it at http://mattn.ninex.info/download/soldier.fbx

Thanks Mattn,

I can import the file without any problem.
Now I can easily bind the skeleton to any character.

Willem

[Destructavator]

Speaking of the game intro, can anyone tell me where I can get an up-to-date ROQ converter/maker?  I have the free one that is old, from 2003 or something, and I know there are more current ones, but when I look them up I find that every site that has a download for one asks for registration on their site.

Sorry for repeating myself, but does anyone happen to have any info that could help me with this?  I attempted to use the old ROQ Quake video maker to convert test files, but it keeps locking up, crashing, or making a blank video with only blackness.  I tried various combinations of codecs, resolution dimensions, and framerates.

Also, in the interest of getting 2.2 out the door quicker (as 2.3 is underway and 2.1 is rather outdated), should we use the latest version in this thread temporarily (for 2.2) until the additional short clips are made and integrated, and save the next video version for 2.3?  I say this because I've noticed some newcomers who don't know about 2.2 and grab the old 2.1 version because that is what is still available from sourceforge.  Sorry if I sound pushy or impatient, but what does everyone else think?

Also, next week Spring classes where I attend start, so it will become more difficult to set aside spare time for UFO: AI and other things (regarding myself).

[Mattn]

i've added some links and info to our wiki: http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Artwork

if you find other encoders, or have other information, please add them

[Destructavator]

I finally got switchblade to work, although it took two hours to convert the latest intro vid I made into an ROQ, and I didn't use the best settings - If the most recent version I posted in this thread would work for the 2.2 release, I can try to re-render it on my other computer overnight and upload the ROQ early Saturday morning.  (I hope it wouldn't be too late...)

When sitters has time to make the short clips, I could then work later on building an intro for the 2.3 release.

Does this sound like a good plan?

EDIT:  If the most recent intro vid is workable for 2.2, anyone else who can get switchblade (or any other ROQ encoder) to work is welcome to grab it from the last link I posted (It should still be up there) and make the ROQ them self if they can do it sooner.

[Mattn]

i have to say that it's already too late - sorry. but i will of course offer the roq file for download, too

and it will definitly go into 2.2.1 (which will be a patch release)

[Destructavator]

OK, not a big deal.

On the positive side, it gives me more time to polish it.