Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: IPAndrews on June 18, 2003, 06:11:11 am

Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: IPAndrews on June 18, 2003, 06:11:11 am
. FRED

Set up a mission in FRED that puts all the action you want to capture in the field of view of Alpha 1. It's probably a good idea to make Alpha 1 invincible, protected, and beam protected so that all the ships in the mission leave him alone.

2. FRAPS

Boot up FRAPs and set the movie frame rate to 15. Untick show frame rate in screen capture. Leave it running whilst you load...

3. FS2

Set FS2 display to plain 640x480 (not 32 bit). Load up your mission and at the appropriate moments hit the FRAPs movie capture button to start, and later stop movie capture.

4. VirtualDub

A (large) .avi has been created in the FRAPS directory. Load it into VirtualDub and save it out to a temporary directory as an image sequence of .bmp images. Set the minimum no of digits to 4 so that filenames are output as thing0001, thing0002, thing0003 etc...

5. InfranView

Load InfranView and choose Batch Convert. Set input and output formats both to .bmp. Add all your .bmp files to the job. Enable Advanced Options and set them as follows. Enable crop. Y co-ord 90. Width 300. Enable resize. Width 440. Height 200 (pixels). Enable resample. Start the batch operation and watch your new resized images appear in the new temp directory.

6. Bright

Bring up a command prompt and go to your new temp directory. Run bright with the following parameters:

bright *.bmp -common

This will convert all your images into .pcx and give them a single shared palette.

7. ANI Builder

Go to settings -> set source files and point it at the first .pcx file. Hit start. Copy the resulting animation to data\intelanim and you can now use it.
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: RandomTiger on June 18, 2003, 06:41:13 am
Nice one
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Tiara on June 18, 2003, 06:53:43 am
:eek2:

That looks awesome! Thanks man!
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Bobboau on June 18, 2003, 07:45:07 am
this is sort of like something I made a long long time ago, back when I was planning on makeing the standard "make a secret hades to blow up the shivans new super ship with its mega ultra super uber beams" campain. the mission was you defending one of the five new hades ships wich was still in dock (and being defended by two other hades ships recently completed, but still lacking the mega ultra super uber beams, you had to settle for mear uber beams) from the remnents of the NTF who had found out about it and thought of it as there last chance for neoterra. this clip is from the end were the bad guy comes in and says "if I can't have this ship no one will!!!" and rams the station causeing what is to this day the single coolest explosion I have ever seen, comprised of 1 suicidal orion, 1 arcadia, 3 hades, 24 polaris docking struts, and countless fighters/bombers all explodeing in sequence.
I have uploaded it for you're viewing pleasure (it's in ani format) here (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/proc.zip)
remember I made this like four years ago, and every frame was converted manualy in PSP 1.0, I also made a version that fit into a comand breifing but it didn't come out looking so good.
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Tiara on June 18, 2003, 08:07:54 am
WOOOOO! My 1st ani! It isn't much but its something :p

Here it is :p Its just a simple flyby but still ;) (http://www.swooh.com/peon/Tiara/Freespace/Sathflyby.rar)
Title: Re: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Killfrenzy on June 19, 2003, 03:54:06 pm
Quote
Originally posted by IPAndrews
2. FRAPS
4. VirtualDub
5. InfranView


What, what and WHAT?
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: karajorma on June 19, 2003, 03:57:38 pm
A google search will turn up all three! :)
Title: Re: Re: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Tiara on June 19, 2003, 04:16:48 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Killfrenzy


What, what and WHAT?

This, (http://www.fraps.com/)  this (http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/)  and THIS! (http://www.tucows.com/preview/194967.html)
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: KARMA on June 19, 2003, 05:47:54 pm
with photoshop you can easily skip the last two;)
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Solatar on June 19, 2003, 06:19:42 pm
Where can I get bright?

Google search for Bright doesn't really do me any good...
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Tiara on June 20, 2003, 01:20:17 am
Lazy bastards! I found and so can you... Anyway:

Hint: Look for "unreal texture bright" (Without the quotes)
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: karajorma on June 20, 2003, 02:08:04 am
Quote
Originally posted by KARMA
with photoshop you can easily skip the last two;)


Yes. And it will also cost you money while the other two are free.
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Joey_21 on June 20, 2003, 02:52:41 am
Hey... not bad. This method appears to be the most promising that I've seen yet. :yes:
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Killfrenzy on June 20, 2003, 03:55:38 am
Thanks to Tiara, I'll have a play! :D
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Joey_21 on June 20, 2003, 05:27:14 am
Quote
Originally posted by Solatar
Where can I get bright?

Google search for Bright doesn't really do me any good...


I think this (http://www.planetunreal.com/lode/files.html) might be it...

(Bright183.ZIP)
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: FreeTerran on June 20, 2003, 05:50:21 am
I what for a fs_open version was the HUD delte action i think it was CTRL+G or......?

and what version special.exe ?
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: Solatar on June 20, 2003, 10:46:02 am
most later versions...just look in Phreak's sig. I think that is one of the most up-to-date.

And it is Shift-O.

Thanks for the link to Bright Joey.:)
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: aldo_14 on June 20, 2003, 12:42:07 pm
Bright is the best method of colour reduction I've used - and the only one that has no perceptible impact on the pre & post appearance.  i.e. it's good.
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: IPAndrews on June 22, 2003, 03:45:40 am
A HUD on/off toggle for FS Open would be a very nice feature. In the mean time you've got the option to turn off parts of the HUD in the HUD config screen. If there's anything that won't turn off then you can do this:

1. Use VPVIEW to find the HUD item's corresponding .ani file in the .vp package.
2. Extract it and use ANIVIEW32 to save out all it's frames.
3. Paint each frame pure black (transparent).
4. Use ANIBUILDER32 to put the .ani back together agaiin.
5. Place it in the data/interface folder so it is used in preference to the .vp version.
6. Once you've finished your movie capture using the invisible HUD element and want to return to normal, just delete and the original working .ani in the .vp will be used.

Quote
Originally posted by Free Terran
I what for a fs_open version was the HUD delte action i think it was CTRL+G or......?

and what version special.exe ?
Title: Command briefing animations on the cheap
Post by: FreeTerran on June 22, 2003, 03:49:33 am
The SHIFT+O thing don't work.........

I think i try IPAndrews idea.....thx man