2003MINI on 23/3/2005 at 17:46

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To expand this question, and bump it, I'd also like to add how does one CREATE the movies and cut-scenes, as well as add them to the game? Is there a tool to come up with those black-and-white movies in T1 and T2? How about the cutscenes from TDS? Any help is appreciated.

Gestalt on 26/3/2005 at 19:08

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I was going to post this earlier, but I forgot to do so.

Movie Making
Creating a movie for T3 should be more or less the same as it was for Neverwinter Nights, since they use the same format (Bink) and the same sort of techniques (the camera panning thing, etc.). With that in mind, you might want to have a look at Bioware's guide <a href="http://nwn.bioware.com/builders/movie_tutorial.html">here</a>. The only real differences should be how you get them into the game and play them and things like that. This is where I can help.

Where to Put Your Movie
Movies will need to be placed in the VideoTextures folder in order to play properly. If you're like me you deleted that while installing the editor, so make a new folder with the same name in the same place (...Content\T3\VideoTextures), then put your new movie in it. Bink movies aren't stored in the mission files, so keep this in mind when you're packing up your mission and getting it ready for other people to download. Players will need to copy your movie(s) into the correct directory before they can play, but I expect the children of Darkloader will take care of that for them.

A Note on Naming Conventions
If you take a look in the VideoTextures folder of a normal T3 install, you'll notice that the names of the movies follow a pattern. All movie filenames end with "_engl_none_30" (pagan_intro_engl_none_30.bik, eax_engl_none_30.bik and so on). You'll need to follow this naming scheme too if you want your movies to actually show up in game. This will be important later.

Playing a movie when the player enters a volume:

* Go to View -> Trigger Scripts
* Click "New"
* Name your new script something appropriate that you'll remember later
* Click "Condition"
* Select the condition "When linked volume(s) [LinkFlavor] are breached by [Enum:eObjectCategory]". It will be in the category labeled "Volumes". Hit OK.
* Once you've done that, click [Linkflavor] in your new condition and change it to [MYSELF]. Change [Enum:eObjectCategory] to [Category_Player].
* Click "Action"
* Select "Play the [String] bink file, allow interruption [Bool]?". It'll be in the category labeled "Bink". Hit OK.
* Click [String] and enter the filename of your movie. There's a trick to this, though. Let's say you made a movie with the filename yourmovie_engl_none_30.bik and put it in the VideoTextures folder like I advised you to earlier. Logically you'd put "yourmovie_engl_none_30.bik" (minus the quotation marks) as the string value, because that's the name of the file, right?
That isn't the way this works. Instead, the correct string value would be "yourmovie.bik", minus the quotes of course. If you forget to leave out "_engl_none_30" here, the video file won't play.
* Click [Bool] and set it to [TRUE], because people hate unskippable cutscenes.
* Click OK until you're out of the trigger script manager.
* Create a volume in the editor to attach the script to.
* Right-click your new volume and select "Volume Properties" from the list that pops up.
* Right-click "Properties" at the bottom and select "Add Property".
* Select Scripts -> TriggerScripts, then hit "Add Property".
* You should be back at the Volume Properties tree again, with the line "TriggerScripts" selected. Click on the "Add" button, which should be to the right of this.
* Select your new script
* Hit "Done".
* Build All.
* Test it out.



Next up: Getting an intro to play at the start of your mission, which is what you actually asked for. I'll probably finish that and tidy everything up a bit before I add this stuff to the Wiki. This is assuming I figure it out and write a tutorial before someone else does, mind you.

Gestalt on 3/4/2005 at 02:56

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Sorry, I've been covered in homework lately and haven't had time for editing/tutorial writing. If I finish the five paintings I have to do before Thursday, I'll try to get back to this.

ascottk on 3/4/2005 at 03:48

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Thanks, Gestalt. No rush, I know how the student thing goes. :p