Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Leeko on July 13, 2009, 06:48:16 pm
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I'm not sure if this belongs in the upgrade project forum, but since it doesn't have to do with upgrading models or textures and the like I'm putting it here.
So, the SCP graphics are now more realistic than even the pre-rendered cutscenes. I think a good project for a dedicated group of modders would be to recreate FS2's cutscenes with in-game footage. However, I can foresee a few problems.
1) You'd need to make a new model for the constructor ships in the Colossus cutscene, as well as one for the unfinished Colossus itself... and a freakishly large Ganymede.
2) You'd need to add pre-rendered bits for, say, when the narrator starts rattling off the Colossus's specs and it shows wireframe representations of what he's talking about (though this could be circumvented with in-game footage, if this was found to be too hard).
3) The dialogue and music would need to be taken from the original cutscenes without any of the ship-type sound effects (which would ideally be present in the form of the actual in-game counterparts to the custscene sounds). Rerecording the dialogue would violate the authenticity, however I remember reading about someone getting the original, uncompressed music files for FS2 from a Volition guy just by asking, so the cutscene music could probably be acquired that way too.
4) Choreographing the dogfight in the FS2 intro would be hard as hell, and I'm not sure how one would go about making the on-planet bits or the smoke with the in-game engine. Though I suppose using the existing pre-rendered version of that particular scene would be acceptable - however I would at least want to have the uncompressed version, which is still probably laying around at Volition somewhere.
5) I don't think the Bosch monologues could be made with the in-game engine (except the second to last one that just shows the Iceni and Ravana) but they're not particularly interesting anyway. :doubt: You could, alternatively, show the Iceni in the locations of the cutscenes without showing Bosch, but if the uncompressed cutscenes could be acquired that would be preferable IMO. In fact, the one place where the cutscene quality outclasses SCP quality is the aforementioned monologue in which it shows just the ships - the cutscene nebula soup is sextastic.
6) Models for planets and a star for the outro would need to be made, as well as custom animations for when the Sathanes' arm things are bending. Plus an effect for the subspace distortion thing that said arms form in between them. And I have no idea how to make it look like the planets and ships (the Deimos and Moloch at the end) are disintegrating. Once again, a case where the uncompressed cutscene might be better.
I do remember seeing on youtube once an "extended version" of the fall of Vasuda Prime cutscene in FS1, but I don't remember the story behind that. I think that might have been user-made, or maybe a product of someone contacting Volition. That was like a year ago, I don't remember. :nervous:
EDIT: It was user-made and that's exactly what I'm talking about.
Anyway, most of you out there probably know more about SEXP than I do (the most I ever did was make a three mission campaign with Ancients ships in Inferno) I'm wondering how plausible this is and, if it is, why no one has tried it why no one is doing this. ;7
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The Fall of Vasuda Prime was made by IceyJones, and he was making a cutscene out of the Tombaugh Station attack, but that kinda just... died, I think. Too bad, because that cutscene would have been epic. Basically, he thought they were good cutscenes that should have been in the game, but weren't.
I haven't seen Icey around here for a while, though... what happened to him?
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He's still here.
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Those were excluded from retail FS1 weren't they? Tombough station and Vasuda Prime that is. It's been forever since I've played FS1... :doubt:
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Only if by 'excluded' you mean 'never got made'
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You could go on www.hard-light.net/wiki, learn how to FRED cutscenes (after experimenting and watching a few made by the community), make your own interpretation of the cutscenes and show us the finished results? (If you decide to do this, you can consult with me).
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I considered that, I just thought that someone who's already an expert and has some free time on their hands might want to take up the proposed project. Partly because I'd want to see this sometime in the next 6 years, partly because I'm a lazyass 16 year old. :p
I might though... I have been looking for something to spend my time on, and I haven't heard back on any of the job applications I've put out, so I'll probably have a lot of free time, what with it being the summer... I just don't want it to end up looking terrible because I'm inexperienced, and I also don't want it to take years for the same reason. I'm a perfectionist to a fault. :(
About the community-made ones... BP was excellent! :D The only cutscene that really irked me was the long monologue after the vision of seeing Sam's wife get blow'd up.
I'd need to get someone who can make the aforementioned edits (see problem no. 2 in the OP, I would want them to be as true to the originals as possible). If I could find such a person, I'd probably be willing.
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You can try, and it'll be easy enough to learn how - you can pick up FRED in a week with example missions to work from - but your end products won't ever look as good as the original cutscenes.
While the models may be better, they're going to lack the various effects and butter-smooth framerate that pre-rendered video has.
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Well I mean I wouldn't add them in as in-game cutscenes, I'd want to record them and add the necessary editing, then replace the retail cutscenes. I mean... if it was good enough. :p
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So you want to re-render them using Max or something but with the updated models?
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I don't know what Max is but I think you're getting the gist of it. If we're updating the in-game graphics why not make the cutscenes prettier too? The low sound quality and blockiness of the current cutscenes bothers the crap out of me, too. Though that's probably a result of compression. Of course... I might just be overestimating the CG technology of 2001. ;)
EDIT: Watched The Fall of Vasuda Prime again, and that's pretty much what I would be aiming for. Only instead of making my interpretation of a cutscene that was never actually put in the game due to budget restraints, I'd be remaking the existing ones in higher fidelity.
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Out of curiosity, which program did IceyJones use for his cutscenes?
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Cinema4D, I heard.
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I see.
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;-)
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ST:R is not considered canon.
And there's a problem with cutscene limits.
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;-)
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The cutscenes look "pixelized" as you put it because of data compression. They struggled to fit it all on three discs. :rolleyes:
Making new pre-rendered cutscenes not with the in-game engine would require a real 3D animation expert, and last time I checked Pixar doesn't do charity work. :P
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1) You'd need to make a new model for the constructor ships in the Colossus cutscene, as well as one for the unfinished Colossus itself... and a freakishly large Ganymede.
Constructor ships...... I've been trying for ages :(..........In the end i opted for a chopped poseidon.
No screenies.. :p
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Making new pre-rendered cutscenes not with the in-game engine would require a real 3D animation expert, and last time I checked Pixar doesn't do charity work. :P
The point here is that if you want new cutscenes, you should either make them yourself or spearhead the project in some other manner. Undoubtedly many of us have thought about redoing the cutscenes but it requires skills and time.
ST:R is not considered canon.
Ok, I consider it a good replacement to the canon
ST:R is concidered better than the original Silent Threat but it's still not canon, because it is a fan-made production.
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;-)
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And that would be any easier?
And my 4gb of RAM, 8800 GTS, and quadcore processor would beg to differ with your predictions. FS2 always runs buttery smooth. :cool:
But as Jeff Vader said, it would take time and skill. Myself, I have plenty of time but no real FREDing skill...
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I just want to make it clear that it'll never look as good in the FRED remake as it does in the original cutscenes anyway.
FSOpen has higher resolution and better models now, yes, but it can't do many things in-engine that you can do with prerendered video.
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Yes, especially if you want to emphasize certain scene, e.g the Manticore/Herc chase in the FS2 Intro. The AI behaves differently and unfortunately uncontrollable.
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The most noticeable thing is that volumetrics turn up a lot in Voltions renders, and the odds of FSO getting those are, for the foreseeable future, zero, you might be able to do things like Pseudo glass-refraction using a shader, however.
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;-)
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Hush, High Max, you'll scare off the noobs.
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And that would be any easier?
And my 4gb of RAM, 8800 GTS, and quadcore processor would beg to differ with your predictions. FS2 always runs buttery smooth. :cool:
Not everyone wants to waste money on having top of the line specs like that and replacing their parts the moment something new comes out, assuming you bought it and your parents didin't. If your parents did, are you spoiled? Your profile doesn't give a hint on your age.
You realise the 8800 GTS is like more then 3 years old by now right? And that it wasn't the top of the line model at that time.
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;-)
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High Max: I'm 16, since you seemed to want to know. :P
However, the quadcore and RAM came with the computer (it's a Gateway something-or-other, 15th birthday gift) and the 8800 was my 14th birthday gift. (i.e. before the recession, when my family could afford to spend money on non-necessities)
I don't consider myself spoiled, I am grateful for these things every day. Nor do I, as a lifelong gamer, consider buying good hardware a waste of money. And I also never said I intended to do such things myself, if you have been reading my previous posts you'd have known I intended to throw it out there to someone who has the skills more so than tell people I wanted to do it myself. And since the cutscenes would be played back as video files rather than running them with the in-game engine (they would just be recorded with in-game footage and edited) I don't see much of a hardware specs issue. I never said or thought it would be easy, which is why I'm not jumping all over it myself. I'm sorry if I seemed condescending, but I suggest you simmer down.
Spoon: I never said that the 8800 GTS was top-of-the-line, but for FS2 it's more than adequate. nVidea for life :)
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This is meandering off topic. Get back on it. Noone forces anyone to use the latest mvps. And scalable options are there to accomodate everyone. No more spec wars. :mad:
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I'm currently running on a Quad Core with 4GB of RAM (yes, I know 32bit applications can't make use of it, but I was developing 64bit apps at the time), and an 8800 GTS. It's adequate for what I do (it even doubles as a room heater), but really, I could use something with more speed, more cores and loads more RAM.
That you 'use only Radeon' is an interesting statement. It suggests that you diregard nVidia and other manufacturers without looking at their products.
I evaluated all the options before deciding to use the 8800GTS, including the Radeons, and concluded that 1) their driver support wasn't up to scratch 2) their GPGPU support wasn't up to scratch 3) they didn't have the same support in the gaming or CAD world (think Tesla, Quadro, etc). These have changed now, but that was the situation then.
If you think only a server needs 4GB of RAM, think again. Many applications these days will benefit from having huge amounts of RAM available - think CAD systems and geologic simulations. Think modern games (which given only a modest RAM boost can perform much better), think modern photo processing, think video processing (how is daddy going to process little johnnies football game on a celeron?).
To top it off, I've been using this system since April 2007 and I expect to be using it for another few years to come. The only thing I've changed is to add more RAM and storage. It's about buying quality gear upfront and having it survive much longer than cheaper equipment. I've got a Dell 600Mhz P3 still running under the desk as a file server (it's 9 years old this year).
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Please... don't turn this into an Nvidia vs. Ati discussion. :rolleyes:
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Yep, I agree with miles. There are places for that. This topic doesn't fall under that mandate.
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/me snaps off salute.
Apologies Sir!
[resists temptation to poke High Max]
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Spoon: I never said that the 8800 GTS was top-of-the-line, but for FS2 it's more than adequate. nVidea for life :)
Never said you did, it was aimed at high max. Apparantly somebody pushed his rant button :p
To top it off, I've been using this system since April 2007 and I expect to be using it for another few years to come. The only thing I've changed is to add more RAM and storage. It's about buying quality gear upfront and having it survive much longer than cheaper equipment.
I have a more or less comparable system (E6600, 8800GTX, 2GB) and I just recently upped my harddrive space. (and replacing that 6 year old drive really did wonders for my performance :yes: ) and I too intend to keep using this system for an other year in the least. Buying high end quality parts really paid off.
But eeeh... what was this topic about again? :lol:
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;-)
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I've heard from several different people that the cutscene limit has been removed or will be removed in an upcoming version...
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/me didn't know there was a cutscene limit.
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I managed to make a beam effect on 3ds Max, that I believe could be useful if we really want to remake the Cutscenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ-JetzhnD0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ-JetzhnD0)
I still need to try to make it better, and find a nice video codec and compression