[Kopachris]

All I can say (since I didn't read the whole thread) is WOW.  I really hope these make it into the mediavps if you ever finish them.

[Galemp]

My two cents: damage lightning was in the FS2 ending cutscene, but it looked awful. If you can replicate the in-game effect, and make it look appropriate, I say go for it.

[sigtau]

...and make it look better...

Fixed.

[General Battuta]

...and make it look better...

Fixed.

It's already been upgraded in recent builds.

[QuantumDelta]

Niggling annoying frustrating little problem I have with it....I realise that the originals suffered from it slightly too, but does it really have to jerk so much? camera panning can be supersmooth and in some of these more majestic shots surely it should be as smooth as possible..?

If you look at the edges of the rotational movement on pretty much any of the videoclips you'll see what I mean (assuming it's not my video codec acting up), but it seems to lurch across the screen instead of roll across it.. fixable? am I being overly fussy? =<

Great work overall though, I perhaps agree with the guy who commented on some of the non-focal points being a bit too dark/quite/understated but yea awesome work in my opinion, just needs a little polish.

Are you talking about the Ancients videos or the EndGame preview? I can't imagine you are talking about Ancients.

EndGame should be pretty smooth on the wide shots as there is little movement. The closeups (especially with the Ursa) have some wiggle that corresponds to the explosions. Maybe that's what you are talking about?

But I do agree on the polish. That's why I don't want to release them so quickly even though they seem complete. I want to have time to look them over, let them sit, and see if I still like them when I come back to them. It's a process that helps me get things really polished.

Talking about Ancients 2 more than any of the others, though, it's the most obvious of them and the problem is there with all of them, the problem with that IS, it might be my computer (as I hinted), but, if you fullscreen Ancients 2, on my screen the stars jump about half their width across the screen every half second or so (I wish I knew how to explain it better, instinctively I wanna blame my PC but since my PC can handle high-res playback on iPlayer which uses the same tech...), watching it in non-full screen, just as an embed in vimeo it looks smooth, so it might be the upscaling or it might be my PC ;P

Either way, when it comes to playing it in game, these are gonna be viewed at 1080p, and if it's that jerky it'll be very distracting :<

When I view it without fullscreening it it looks exactly as I would hope it to <3
Anyway great work overall, just a few touches here and there (most of which have already been brought up by people) and you should ask for them to be added to port ;D

[Mehrpack]

hi,
i take today a look on anciet 4.
first is really nice.
but i noticed there something.
if the asteriod fly into the sound, you really see that the lightsource of the sun is smaller as the image of the sun.
good to see on beging with 4 seconds.
yeah i think if the lightsource is greater the asteriod will not block the light, but imho maybe if theres a second lightsoure with lesser brightness and its possible to add god-rays, then maybe it will look more natural?
dont really know if it possible, only a idea that i would post .

Mehrpack

[mjn.mixael]

QuantumDelta, I don't experience that issue when watching these fullscreen. It might be vimeo (as I'm watching the files on my comp and not Vimeo's version). Vimeo's video servers have been slow lately, especially for HD videos.

Mehrpack, I'm not entirely sure I understand you, but I matched the star's size in the original. When it is covered by an asteroid it just lessens the lensflare because the asteroid isn't quite big enough to block out the whole light source. If you are talking about the point of light that seems obvious, I'm working on that. The plugin I'm using can only seem to work with points of light...

EDIT: Quantum, that is definitely a Vimeo issue as it did it on my computer as well. Worry not, the actual files are quite smooth.

[QuantumDelta]

Worry abated muchos <3

[Colonol Dekker]

Juuuuust out of curiousity what are the file sizes of the ones so far?
 
 

[mjn.mixael]

The .ogv of Ancients 2 (the largest so far) is 128 MB.

[mjn.mixael]

I keep going back and tweaking the Ancients videos... at this rate I'll never move on to the others...

But I am very happy with Ancients 1,2,4, & 5. I need to do a little bit more tweaking on 3.

So if I wanted to test these out in-game, how might I do so? I have them in .ogg format, I'm just not sure I understand the file hierarchy for FSSCP. Would a seperate file in /data take priority over one in the .vps?

[sigtau]

Since you're doing the FS1 cutscenes right now, you might want to talk to the FSU guys.  The way FSO prioritizes datafiles, you might need to put them in a VP using a utility like VPView.

[Mongoose]

No, you won't need to mess about with .vp files when you're in the testing stage.  For the FS1 cutscenes, if you have FSPort installed, just stick them in your fsport/data/movies folder (which you may have to create yourself).  Make sure they're named the same as their retail counterparts, and they should theoretically play just fine.

[-Norbert-]

Would a seperate file in /data take priority over one in the .vps?

I'm not sure how the hierarchy among the VP files is, but a file in the data folder (or rather subfolder of data) always takes priority over those inside the VPs, if they are named correctly that is.

[Galemp]

Don't worry about packaging them in VPs. We can handle that, All you need to do is make sure they're OGG encoded and strike a nice balance between quality and filesize.

[QuantumDelta]

Don't worry about packaging them in VPs. We can handle that, All you need to do is make sure they're OGG encoded and strike a nice balance between quality and filesize.

Yes, as big as you need for maximum qualities.

[-Norbert-]

Would two packages, one optimised for filesize and one with high-res videos, be a good balance?

[Mehrpack]

[...]
Mehrpack, I'm not entirely sure I understand you, but I matched the star's size in the original. When it is covered by an asteroid it just lessens the lensflare because the asteroid isn't quite big enough to block out the whole light source. If you are talking about the point of light that seems obvious, I'm working on that. The plugin I'm using can only seem to work with points of light...
[...]

hi,
ok i try to descripte it better.
as the video start, the camera begin go move and the asteriod fly before the sun.
first you see the light is around the asteriod, as the asteriod move more to the middle of the sun, the light is blocked but the most of the sun is still visible.
you see now that the image of the sun and the light of the sun have two different sizes.
on 32 second is the next good example to see it.
the peak of asteriod came into the sun, the asteriod only cover maybe 30%/40% of the sun, but the light fade out. on 33 second the asteriod now cover 40%/50% but the now the light is completly blocked.
and that looks odd, because the sun should still outshine the asteriod.

here some screens:
1. the sun outshine the asteriod and its shinny *g*


2. here you see now, that the asteriod begin to block the light to the camera out and how big the source really is, compared to the image of the sun


3. now the asteriod block it completly and the light to the camera is blocked


i hope that help you

Mehrpack

[mjn.mixael]

Ah, I get what you were saying. I have been trying to fix that, but the short explanation is that when the *direct* light is blocked, the flare goes out. I have tried keyframing the light's position as it gets covered but that looks weird. I have also tried using multiple flares which looks worse. Short of manually drawing the flare for each frame, there just doesn't seem to be a good way to pull this off.

[castor]

Just make the asteroid larger?