Cut Scene
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/Cut Scene
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| It is not urgent, but at some point I would like to be able to add plot cut scenes to my games. What do you guys use to make these? Is there anything free? Creating it as a movie, and then importing that is crappy quality, and I would not like to do that if possible. |
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| Noless, most companies are doing it. If the movies have a high resolution then it shouldn't be a problem. A true cutscene player is something that may complicate things unneccessary. I did some simple players some time ago. You need to create yourself some kind of action recorder. THis way you'll record your actions when you control the actors one by one. THen you'll replay the actions parallely, so all actors "act" the way you controlled them before. This may also contain animated meshes, of course, and advances character controls (including lip motion for pseudo lipsync). Finally, you should create a tool that allows to position WAV samples on certain points on a timeline, so you can edit the virtual audiotrack of a dialog or so. If you want real lipsync then you may have to use BASS dll, make sure to check the license of BASS before you do plans. You'd also require NPC meshes with lip bones, and maybe lid bones etc. for true libsync. A cutscene player should ba capabl of playing any scene that is made of recorded user controls. Sometimes, if the game is not built on a reusable game engine, it may be easier to script the cutscene right in the executable, eg. writing a hardcoded function that will move things and so on. Such a function can be used only for one specific cutscene. Both methods may however use the loaded meshes. just make sure to reset their positions etc. after playing the cutscene. An other option may be to load the meshes seperately to a second world, that is far away from the actual game world (out of camera range). |
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| But won't a video cut scene be really crappy, since Blitz can only do a few file formats? |
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| Blitz can do every file format that is supported by your systems DirectShow filters, the movie codecs for DirectX. You may distribute your game with a codec installer. Try www.free-codecs.com . Also, when your game will open a movie and the returned handle is zero then the codec is not supported. The game may then suggest to run the installer. The only real problem with movies is their size. No problem on a dvd, but it sucks when you have to download it. |
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| In the documentation, it says it only supports GIF, AVI, and MPEG formats, and those tend to be very bad - at least on my computer (big files, bad quality). |
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| ? Just use B3d to make the cut scenes, like deus ex (to name just one of a million) |
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| This in not correct. it supports ever format that is supported by the directShow filters, as I said before. Currently I am using the Realplayer format that allows to define a bitrate when you encode it, so it's up to you to set a quality from crappy to DVD-like. There are many DirectShow filters, including mpeg2, quicktime, I even remember there was a Flash player somewhere, so you could "play" Flash SWF files (I assume, only as long as they are not interactive) And BTW Avi or Mpeg doesn't have to be bad. It really depends on the encoding part. Especialy AVI is only a name for a file that may use one out of a high number of codecs, including mpeg2 or mpeg4. H&K - Deus Ex is a good example. I like their cutscene player very much, especially in version 1. Remember the random camera angle feature, so the scenes where never looking the same, but still using very nice looking camera angles. But I think they didn't use B3D for Deus Ex (as you said ;). Not sure what you meant, use Blitz3D, or use a B3D animated model for the entire cutscene? The second wouldn't be practical IMHO. Coding a cutscene tool and player module isn't that easy, especially when it comes to seamless integration into a game engine. And especially when it has to be good as eg. Deus Ex. While there is another million of games that are using movies, besides codec problems this is the most flexible and future compatible solution IMHO. Games like NOLF where using Movies, although the engine (monolith) was surely capable of rendering cutscenes. |
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| Thanks guys. Will a cutscene not play, then, if the player doesn't have the right codec? I was citing some sample movies I quickly made up on Windows Movie Maker, which had extremely bad quality and a huge file size for the AVI files. I don't know if this is the result of Windows Movie Maker, or the AVI file format, but it seemed bad. What software do you guys use to make your movies? Especially ones that are high quality enough to look like the scenes are actually hard-coded into my engine, rather than imported? |
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| But I think they didn't use B3D for Deus Ex (as you said ;). I wasnt very clear there was I.What I ment was that they just used the same 3d engine for the cut scenes as for the game. A possibly clearer way would have been. Just use the same engine as the game, in this case B3D to make the cut scenes, like deus ex ;) |
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| Thanks. |
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| Buggy - whenever you save an Avi, there must be settings: you may choose a codec, eg. MP4 or Cinepak so something. The diffrences are huge. You need to know th ecodecs. Additionally, you may set the size, framerate, bitrate, color depth etc. of the movie. I'm using MAGIX Video Deluxe (guess MAGIX Movie Editor in the UK/US). It is true, if the codec is not installed on a users machine, your movie won't play. If you programmed it badly then it will even crash due to a missing codec. Unfort. the pre-installed codecs of windows differ very much with every version of the OS. There is NO codec that is present on every windows machine (other than total crappy, useless stuff). The solution is: your game will open the movie. This will return a movie handle (see examples). If the handle is zero then the codec isn't supported. In this case ExecFile an external Codec Installer EXE that may be distributed with your game. H&K is right, a true Cutscene renderer that isn't based on movies may be something very nice, although it will take some time and hard work do create something good. Refer to my 1st post. |
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| Try PureMotion from MediaChance. I own the DvdLab Pro and it is pretty sweet. There stuff has the functions of higher end software for much cheaper price. They have 30 day trial software. www.mediachance.com For free try this. http://www.debugmode.com/wax/ |
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