Can you guys use this? (MPEG Titile Animation Clip)

[Destructavator]

Hi,

First off, sorry I've been out of touch for a while, I've gotten very busy with work the last several weeks, I haven't been in this forum for some time, although I still have tiny bits of spare time here and there.

I've recently purchased some upgrades to my video editing software, more of it is still on it's way in the mail, but I've been running tests with what I have so far to try it out and came up with this title animation:

www.destructavator.com/public
filename: UFO_Title_Anim_1.mpg

Can this be used for anything for the project?  (I can covert it to almost any format.)

I might be able to make another promo trailer like the old one for 2.1 as soon as 2.2 is officially released - I could save this animation for that if anyone thinks it looks good, or you could use it for something else for the project.

I can always make changes, add the project URL, change the colors, etc.

BTW, I'd like to thank whoever suggested posting the old promo on the internet archive - I forgot to credit that person before, which is my fault and I apologize.

EDIT: I also encoded a second version with variable (instead of constant) bitrate that has a much smaller filesize, filename UFO_Title_Anim_2.mpg.

-Destructavator

[XaverXN]

I like it...

Maybe at the end of the intro, or at least as a placeholder until we have an intro?

[TroubleMaker]

...until we have an intro?

Will an intro be optional (smth like "do not display this video in future") or mandatory ("press something to skip") ?

As I'm not a :AI squad's member, I can't require anything, but let me suggest to make the intro viewable ON DEMAND, not on every startup?

[Destructavator]

I agree, I think it would be nice at the end of an intro, and as far as whether or not it would always play, I'd think it would be easy to have it play by default after installation but also have an option somewhere in the main menu that says either "play introduction video" or "skip introduction video" next to a checkbox.

I could also add the project URL after the main title stops zooming and is fixed in place, which could appear in various ways.

Personally I think it would also go well with a new promo trailer for 2.2, I can envision it at the end, perhaps along with the end of the greecei.ogg track (with the climax, if I'm thinking of the right music file).

[Winter]

I think it'd go quite well in the game, but I have no clue about what goes into incorporating animations. Was hoping someone like mattn would post with some info.

Regards,
Winter

[Mattn]

we have animation support in form of roq format - e.g. the ffmpeg lib support it and you can encode it. also see the wiki about more roq infos and some links

[Destructavator]

I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard to program this clip to play immediately after a scripted intro animation as an ending (after I convert the file to an roq video file).  The only problem I see is that if there is a soundtrack playing, it might not sync the same on all machines.

The alternative would be to render and record a video file of the (hopefully) soon-to-be-created intro animation, add this title clip I made to the end of it to make one single video file, then transcode the whole video file into roq format and have the whole thing play as an introduction.  This option might actually come out with better results IMO.

If someone can put together a simple binary that just animates the models already created from the game and send it to me or post it somewhere, I have plenty of screen video capture/recording utils that can record it into a video file, and then I can add this to the end and include a soundtrack for the whole thing, and convert the end result into an roq file, which could be the introduction.

I actually attempted to try this myself by using the render function in blender, but because I'm not experienced with blender or animating models I couldn't figure out how to make it work right to create an AVI or MPEG.  Digital video and editing I know, but models and animation based on scripts I really don't.  As far as programming, most of what I know is limited to JAVA and HTML/CSS.

If any of this doesn't make too much sense, let me know and I'll try to rephrase what I'm proposing.

[Destructavator]

BTW, the same method could be used to easily create end-of-mission or end-of-game movie clips that would play in the game, as well as clips for when certain special milestones are reached in the progression of the plot.

[Mattn]

the blender source files are not yet animated (except the powerarmour model) - you can try to import the md2 files of the character models, then you have all that you need. the animations are stored in it. It doesn't make much sense when someone put up some video files with all the animations of a character - because the uploader can't know the angles you need and so on. it's better to create a hole sequence with all the models included and render this to avi or roq

[Destructavator]

That's my idea exactly, I apologize if I explained it a little unclearly - I did figure out how to get blender to import some md2 files and attempted to put together an intro animation per the storyboard and script in the into animation topic, but I found that I don't have the expertise to make blender render the whole thing into a video AVI or ROQ.

My point was that if someone who has more knowledge and experience with blender could create the animation and render it, I could take the resulting AVI file and add the MPEG I created to the end of it, (joining two video files together) and also add a soundtrack to the video file, giving an end result of an ROQ that would be the intro animation.

Again, sorry if I didn't explain that too well - does this make sense?

-Destructavator

[Psawhn]

Blenders Sequencer can also do editing like that, putting multiple video files together and adding sound.

Rendering to a video file is really easy, too. You just have to select the codec in the render panel, select the animation output location at the left, and hit the big "Anim" button. (You could also press F3 when finished to save the file somewhere.)

I could maybe give the animation a shot, but there are a few obstacles in the way.
1. The models are not rigged, so I would have to either use the prebaked animations, or rig the thing myself.
1. b. I have no experience animating humanoid characters (or any other organic animation, for that matter)
2. I need to create the environment. The city in particular looks hard, and my few attempts have been unsuccessful. There's also the hill the alien stands on.
3. The alien models are textured for the game, and will probably look somewhat ugly close up .


Still, I have some ideas for the city that might work... lemme go try it out.

[Mattn]

the environment can be exported from gtkradiant with the obj exporter - and wavefront can be imported into blender

[Psawhn]

Oh, is there a specific map in mind? Even then, there's problems exporting the textures into Blender, and filling in the border between the edge of the map and any backgrounds in mind. It'd probably be easier (for me at least) to just create the whole thing from scratch in blender.

[Destructavator]

Sounds like you know blender much better than I do, you've already used terms I'm not familiar with, so I'll leave it up to you, Psawhn.  In the meantime, if the video clip I put together would still be useful and integrated, I can re-render it in an AVI instead of an MPEG, or any other format that would be easier to work with; I don't really know what types of video blender can use.  As far as codecs, I have several AVI codecs on my machine already including Lagarith (lossless, very nice quality and open-source) and XVid (Also open-source, but lossy).  Just tell me what would work best if you want to use it.

In the meantime, somewhere on one of my external hard drives I have some pictures (digital photos) of a sky and clouds.  If you want, I could dig around for it if you think it would be useful as part of a background.

[Mattn]

the textures should work, too
the mtl files is exported, too