[Nighteyes]

I'm asking for a simple tutorial about preparing a movie and how to convert it to a formal freespace understands, whats the best encoding, rez, program to encode and such, all the basic so someone can bring an uncompressed AVI to something nice that works in the game.
thanks.

[mjn.mixael]

Hmmm, I think I wrote something similar a while back. Let me see if I can find it.

EDIT:

Here is what I wrote before.

When I get some more time, I'll write up something far more comprehensive. Any other specifics anyone wants to know about cutscene creation (not the FRED kind either)?

EDIT:

New Tutorial!

Continue discussion of that tutorial here.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

The MakeOGG cmd-file doesn't work. After I've entered my video name, it outputs the following, without asking any more input. No OGG files are created.

While at it, could it make a cutscene at input-file resolution as well? I have an AVI at 848x512 (don't ask why), would be a pity to see it scaled down to 720p.

Code: [Select]

Which resolutions do you wish to make?
Please answer Y/N...
'CHOICE' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
'CHOICE' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
'CHOICE' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
OGG conversion complete!
Press any key to continue . . .


[mjn.mixael]

Hmmm, interesting. I know the script works because I use it. Make sure you have the latest version of the toolkit. (Should be version 1.5).

Watch this tutorial on the toolkit. (I think the part about the MakeOGG script is near the latter end of Part 2.)

Video Tutorial using MixaelANITools Part 1
Video Tutorial using MixaelANITools Part 2

As for making a custom size, if you have the latest version of the toolkit, tell the script 'N' for 480p, 720p, and 1080p and it will ask you for a custom size.

EDIT: Furthermore, what version of windows are you running?

EDIT2: Seems like 'CHOICE' was not available for XP, so I'm guessing you are on XP... 

It'll take a quick rewrite, but I'll get a new version of that script up today. New version linked here.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Yeah, XP it is. Eh, it's still doing it, only the 'CHOICE' line shows up four times now.

[mjn.mixael]

 

Please extract this to MixaelTools\data (replace the old one). You'll need to rerun the setup script, but this *should* do it...

Sorry this is taking so much work... There aren't many ANI or Cutscene creators around here, so getting this thoroughly tested has been... well.. not happening.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[FreeSpaceFreak]

While running the setup, I got the error box attached (last time as well, failed to report it, sorry). That's when I installed it to D:, anyway - installing to C: didn't do this, so I guess I should do that.

The 'CHOICE' error is gone now, but instead it says "The system cannot find the path specified" four times. It still doesn't ask me any input other than the vidname, and doesn't produce any OGG (regardless of whether installed to C: or D: )

Don't worry about it taking a while, it's not holding up anything

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[mjn.mixael]

Huh... That is odd (C: vs D:). I'll have to consult someone smarter than I on that. For now use C: I guess and I'll figure that wierd error out...

As for the latter. That's my bad. Stupid syntax error. 

Same drill as last time.

EDIT: Could you try the attached setup script on your D: drive? Delete AutoANI.cmd (It should be in the same folder as the setup script itself) and see if the setup script recreates it.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[FreeSpaceFreak]

After "Which resolutions do you wish to make? Please answer Y/N...", I now get a dialog box telling me that choice.exe is not a valid Win32 application. Four times.

On a positive node, installing to D: seems to work with the new setup script. No warnings, and AutoAni, AutoEff and TheWorks are created. And MakeOGG produces the same error :/

[mjn.mixael]

Good gravy I hope this works...

I totally depreciated the Choice.exe as windows XP seems to hate the bugger. Which means I gave that script a pretty hefty rewrite to use a different method of capturing user choice. I did a some testing and it works over here... I hope Windows XP is as nice to this method as my research suggests.

Same drill as always. Place it in data and rerun the setup script. Also, thanks again for your patience!

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[FreeSpaceFreak]

Yes, works like a charm now! So much better than SUPER...

[mjn.mixael]

Awesome! With that confirmation, I'm making MixaelANITools V2 publically available. Now includes MNG support, cleaned up scripts, bugfixes, and new extra scripts to allow user choice instead of the defaults.

[Tolwyn]

Hmm... this is most likely related to my workstation: install script reports that no scripting engine was installed for the .vbs file extension (which is a fairly loose translation, by the way).

[mjn.mixael]

It's a visual basic script.

[Tolwyn]

That was my initial impression. I just wanted to make sure that the problem is caused by my OS.

[mjn.mixael]

Yeah.. my next goal is to make that script unnecessary.

[Tolwyn]

Yup. I've just "installed" on my render workstation, setup script worked like a charm. The amount of work you put into creating this tool set is simply amazing. Thumbs up!

[mjn.mixael]

Yup. I've just "installed" on my render workstation, setup script worked like a charm. The amount of work you put into creating this tool set is simply amazing. Thumbs up!

Thanks! Yeah, it has made my projects much easier... figured it would be super beneficial to share.