GlasWolf on 14/1/2006 at 11:51
Suggestion about movies - we also have the option to use in-engine matinees, probably in addition to old-style video briefings.
jay pettitt on 14/1/2006 at 12:06
Quote Posted by Crispy
Is a real name really required? :erg: Not that I don't trust you or anything, but as a matter of course I prefer not to give out that kind of information...
I thought Crispy was your real name?
Crispy on 14/1/2006 at 12:08
Quote Posted by STiFU
Don't you want your name in the credits of this campaign neither? I think something like that is always a good reference and so i'll add my name to it! :)
If I'm happy with the work that I've done on it, then yes I probably will be in the credits... I just get jumpy when asked to enter personal details into anything online. Sort of instinctive I guess. I have this weird thing about privacy. For example, I point-blank refused to have my name associated with photos of me on the website of a nation-wide programming competition; I never have posted photos of myself on the internet, and never will. Call me paranoid if you wish. :cheeky:
Quote Posted by STiFU
I'll try to get those programs. Has someone of our team yet experience with those tools? I think str8g8 would possibly draw the pictures and someone else could then make the cutscenes. If no one has experience with those programs i'll try to learn them.
I have Photoshop experience but my artwork is crap. Also tried to use Premiere once, but it kept crashing. :p
Quote Posted by GlasWolf
Suggestion about movies - we also have the option to use in-engine matinees, probably in addition to old-style video briefings.
Yes, we should use matinees as much as we can to keep file size down.
Note that this doesn't mean we have to be all fancy and Fleshed all the time; you could easily use a "blue room" (not literally blue) filled with flat textures (on BSP or smesh), and just pan the camera across them. This could be really good for old-style briefings, which were often just that - the camera panning across various drawings. Or do it the other way - have flat textured actors being moved around in front of a camera. (Matinees can move other objects, right?) You could even get fade-up/fade-down effects using lighting, and crossfades using transparency. It'd be complicated, but pretty cool - all your cutscene needs, but without movie files!
I have to try this now. :D
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
I thought Crispy was your real name?
Real? Sure. Legally recognised? Unfortunately not. :p
Ziemanskye on 14/1/2006 at 12:15
First - quick update for Rantako's questions about the lightless:
No there are no deep shadows to hide. No lights to cast them and the ambient on that level is quite high though. You can still hide from the guards using LoS rules though - you can hide behind smeshes and things so it's still possible, just rather different of a sneaking experience. You might be able to fake the visibility with scripts and volumes though if you wanted more normal thiefing.
Also, the main reason the frame rates have dropped on it is because I've raised the roofline by another floor and the place isn't portalled off, pretty much at all, and I've added plants (you'd've thought I'd've learnt by now how much that kills performance, especially when they look through one another...)
As for Crispy's question about moving other things with Matinee's:
No, you can't. In unreal, yes, in Flesh, no - they just end up attached to garrett's head/the camera. Matinees can seemingly only move the cameras around here.
Crispy on 14/1/2006 at 12:21
Quote Posted by Ziemanskye
As for Crispy's question about moving other things with Matinee's:
No, you can't. In unreal, yes, in Flesh, no - they just end up attached to garrett's head/the camera. Matinees can seemingly only move the cameras around here.
Ugh, darn. Oh well, most of the effects would still be possible, if you didn't need layers of images moving in different directions... big "if" though, since that was done A LOT in the old cutscenes.
Could use elevators, I guess, similar to the way wisps work. Hopefully there wouldn't be any timing problems.
STiFU on 14/1/2006 at 12:50
Hey cool!! Ey found some very cheap way to achieve the newest versions of adobe premiere pro and after effects. If someone wants to know where to get them, just pm me...
GlasWolf on 14/1/2006 at 14:34
I'm just messing around with matinees, and I can't get fades to work, which could be a killer. Even screen tints in the trigger script don't kick in until after the matinee is complete, though flashing text up during the matinee works.
Ziemanskye on 14/1/2006 at 15:00
I think they're like almost everything else unreal around here - broken or incomplete.:(
I was trying to use them to climb through narrow windows, which is almost possible with them, but in general most of the things you'd want in the matinee itself don't work, or the triggerscript stuff seems to wait till after the matinee's finished...
Maybe you could trigger a few scripts - one to start the matinee, and others to control screen tints and things with manual timings so they are all more or less in sync?
GlasWolf on 14/1/2006 at 15:14
Quote Posted by Ziemanskye
Maybe you could trigger a few scripts - one to start the matinee, and others to control screen tints and things with manual timings so they are all more or less in sync?
Funnily enough, I've just done exactly that. The concurrent script does work in itself (so you could have stuff happening as the camera moves) but the tinting still doesn't work until the viewpoint returns to the player. I guess it just doesn't see the matinee camera in the same way as the player camera.
str8g8 on 14/1/2006 at 17:36
I'm not sure about using matinees for cutscenes, they are never going to have the same flexibility as a movie. However, it might be useful to set up a camera movement which can then be frapped to a movie, to be edited.
I've used Premiere and After Effects a bit, or rather, just played around with them. A lot of the original cutscenes were fairly simple, just extremely well done.
But as Godismygoldfish says, it takes time, so I don't think I'd be able to do any mapping of I were to do the cutscenes ... that's OK though, it does fit in more with the concept stuff, so I'm cool with that.
cheers
str8g8
