Development > Artwork

(Link) New, shorter and smaller intro animation W.I.P.

(1/1)

Destructavator:
http://www.destructavator.com/public/NewIntro1.avi

I was wondering if something like this might work better for an intro - It's not a ROQ yet, as it is not finished, (actually an AVI right now, encoded with Xvid) but once completed it would be much shorter and therefore make a much smaller ROQ to be included in the game as an intro movie.  As some may remember, the last version was too long and too large a filesize when rendered as a ROQ.

At this point it is very rough, and in fact more than half the soundtrack (specifically, the middle half) I intend to replace or change completely, but at least it is a rough draft that might prove better than the last proposed intro clip.

As usual, I'd appreciate any feedback of almost any kind, so that the next time I have some spare time on my hands I could do something more with this.

- Dave

Drag D:
I think that the stars sequence starting from second 10 is too long and the black cosmic background is not as black as the the rest of the scenes

In the scene with the moon from second 3 - i think it would work better if somehow the earth would be in .

I also find the transitions from one scene to another a bit abrupt .
And yes the second part of the soundtrack could be changed.

overall i like it a lot.   :)

Zorlen:
Does the stars sequence mean camera flying from the Earth to the Moon? The way they are passing by (Starwars style) suggests very distant interstellar travel. A short (in astronomical scale) trip from a planet to its satellite wont make them change their relative visual positions. In order to show camera movement some debris or space dust could be used for example, the method I saw in X2-X3 games.

Anyway, nice work!

Destructavator:

--- Quote ---Does the stars sequence mean camera flying from the Earth to the Moon?
--- End quote ---

I was actually attempting to show the alien spacecraft moving through space at a superphotonic rate before they slowed down and began moving toward earth at a slower, sub-speed-of-light velocity, although the mere fact that it was unclear to the point that your question would be asked tells me that it should be depicted differently, and more clearly.  As I said, I'm still working on it.  Part of the problem is that I really need more source video clips to start with, to mix together.


--- Quote ---I think that the stars sequence starting from second 10 is too long and the black cosmic background is not as black as the the rest of the scenes
--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---I also find the transitions from one scene to another a bit abrupt .
--- End quote ---

Both of these should be rather easy for me to fix, thanks for pointing them out - I was unsure of these issues myself.


--- Quote ---And yes the second part of the soundtrack could be changed.
--- End quote ---

I agree.  The second part was indeed "quick and dirty," until I come up with something better.

As I stated, I don't have a lot of original source video to work with, mostly just the single, long clip that Sitters rendered.  I feel I have adequate software for non-linear video editing, but I don't really have any expertise with animating models into video.

Yes, I'm aware that there are already plenty of models available with the source, I just don't know how to render animations of them into video very well.  I do have blender installed on more than one partition on my computer, although I only "sort of" know how to use it.  I'm also not a veteran coder with 3D engines, most of my coding is related to web-page related languages, HTML, CSS, Java, etc.

I will say that I have played around a little bit with the Irrlicht 3D engine, which can load many kinds of model formats, including many of the ones used in UFO: AI, although it isn't easy (yet) for me to use them to animate such models in a sequence that I could then capture into a video AVI (or other type).  I know Blender can also render video, although I haven't gotten it to work right (yet).

Something tells me there are probably better ways of creating and rendering video clips with the models from this game, but I'm rather new to 3D modelling and animation.  Most of my experience related to this comes from editing digital video taken with a camera of real-life actors and objects, targets in front of blue/green/whatever screens for chroma key FX, etc., and making movies or music videos and such.

If anyone is willing, I'd be more than happy to accept more source video clips to work with and mix together that would make a good game intro.  (Short ones would be nice, as the earlier proposed intro clips were too long, resulting in a large filesize that would make the game too much to download - after all, later in development of this game there may be video for various cut-scenes in the plot, as well as the UFOPedia, etc., and they can easily add up to make future releases rather large to download if they are too long.)

EDIT: I do have a decent digital camera, a background screen, and other tools if any real-life filmed digital video would be useful in any parts of the game, although if the devs want strictly 3D modeled/computer generated content only, I can understand that.  I will say that I'm not afraid of putting my face in front of a camera though, and I wouldn't mind recording things that could be mixed with computer-modeled backgrounds and other content.  I've seen some games do this, they have live actors in front of solid-color backgrounds that are replaced via computer editing with something else, or otherwise combined in various ways.  With today's technology, it isn't as hard as it used to be.  I also remember games like Command and Conquer where mission briefings were little video clips.

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