[Flaser]

its not that much work - its the utter and mostly ****ty quality loss. You're essentially cutting the quality twice when going from Indeo to Xvid. At least, I think it will

No harm giving it a try, I guess.
*goes off to compress

That can't quite happen.
Indeo is a lossless copression format - so it CAN'T introduce artifacts of its own.

Granted encoding into any MPEG-4 format (WMV 6-9 included) is an art onto itself (I know that little from my own ex-video pirate experiences). However there *is* a good middleground size/quality wise, there has to be otherwise animefansubbing groups wouldn't release anything with the codec...and they actually do.

I suggest trying 2-pass encoding with default setting and 900kbps main average bitrate setting.

[Cobra]

ok singh, small problem. none of my media players can play .wmv3 fromat vids properly. it freezes up when the second line appears at the start of the video. if i skip ahead it'll play a small portion but freeze up again. (the only players ihave that will play it are WinAmp and Windows Media Player, but the clip freezes up. )

[Singh]

Ok - try this and ignore the other video for the moment.

Rather than re-upload everything, I've uploaded the latest scene, in xvid format. The compression is set quite high, so their is a little quality loss. It's 5mb total.

Click me for super fighter ninja furball mayham!

[Galemp]

Warning. It's an executable.

[Singh]

thats cause it's compressed that way! reduced the file size from 10mb to 5mb....

[Galemp]

Interesting. Shame about the Pirates of the Caribbean music. I kind of like the frantic gameplay aspect of it, it feels like you're in the middle of the action and there's amazing details in every corner of the screen. There's a lot going on and in general it looks fantastic.
Try not to wash out the screen with too much white though. Consider that a little can go a long way, as well; remember the burning Faustus from the FS2 intro? It's only on screen for a second but it's a great detail. The Mjolnir dying is a nice touch, but don't linger too long on the Lucifer. A skybox and a few capships duking it out in the background (Terran destroyer slagging a Moloch, perhaps) could be neat too.

[Cobra]

reupload the whole goddamn vid!

oh, this one is great.

[Singh]

Interesting. Shame about the Pirates of the Caribbean music.

Ok, since everyone's complaining about it, might as well put up the choices. They've all been uploaded, so just listen and vote on which one to use.

Gladiator Battle Theme
Matrix Revolutions End theme
Crimson Tide Battle Extract
Destroy it full, Red Alert 2
Alexander Sountrack (extract only)

Frantic will be used for the Inferno bit (coming up next), and hte entire piece will be made around it, as opposed to the other way around.

Other options: extracts from Alexander soundtrack (will post later) and maybe, just maybe, the Burly Brawl (but that isnt much of an option)

[Singh]

Another thing I was hoping to ask.

I dont want to suck GW's bandwidth dry with thing, as a lot of development stuff will be going on, including uploading and downloading trailers and so forth. Is there any possible way that I can ask for temporary hosting over at HLP, or anywhere else? I dont need much, just 100mb of space - I just feel guilty for using GW's space for this, especially considering the number of leechers Matthewpapa has been having recently for the FS2 ISO's....

[Flaser]

thats cause it's compressed that way! reduced the file size from 10mb to 5mb....

Argh....!

Knew it.
You're using PCM-Sound aren't you? That's *UNCOMPRESSED*. That's also the reason why you can squeze the files with a compression method.
Start compressing audio too (I can tell you how it's done in VR-Dub, but not Premier)

Recommended audio formats: mp3 or ogg (vobris).
For the later you're gona need VR-Dub Mod.

On a sidenote: with an mkv file (Matroska) you can have subtitles with custom font, size, position - embedded into the container file (mkv) but not burned into the video.

About the new portion - there's too much white glare. (Maybe have suns with no glare?).
The pacing is very good though, and there's a good sense of momentum carried from scene to scene, that lets the action flow even without cluttering the scene with ships and beams and BOOMs - which is good.
A BoE scene could be good, but wihtout buildup, pacing and coreography - highpoints of the trailer so far - it would be just a huge clutter on screen....and you may reserve that moment for the Star Wars project as a tip of the hat.

The Lucifer would work a lot better with a lower ambient factor or just against a dark background, it's the prime 'black-ship' with a scrary red (or now in cutscene colors, red-green) glowmap.

You should go beyond the cutscene effect - I wonder if any ship has acceptable cockpit rendering by now. With that you could give the exact same 'in-my-pants' moment Lt. Ash had....then let the Lucy swoop by, start tracking and show the action from an 'above the shoulder' perspective as it unleashes hell.

I wonder if it would be possible to do orbital bombardment by now (many campaings used the reverse - ground based canons), though you could just show some of Omni's planet models with the Lucy howevering like Damocles' Sword.

PS.: I like the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack. Hans Zimmer RULZ in any music though.
PS.PS.: You may have had trouble with the mp3 encoding as Windows likes to *upgrade* the codec along with Windows Media Player.
This or this should solve that.
The first is an old pirate response to 'Mircosoft's kindness'.
The later is the best damn free mp3 codec out there. It's an ACM codec so Premier should be able to use it.

[Singh]

Whole vid has been updated once more. Finished the inferno mod scenes (although not totally happy with it - may change it in the future). Next up is TBP - but that's going to take a while till I can clear up disk space and get my new external HD online

I cant quite put what is wrong with the Inferno section...probably the lack of sound. If in the end its still not so good, I'll simply change it to a section of one of the trailers, as opposed to snippets of the older ones.

Edit: FYI, the link's changed.

Click me for an everybody-friendly xvid codec video

[starfox]

Damn, the music is gorgeous. brings out that chilling feeling when listening some quality musc.

[FireCrack]

Man, i can only download that at 4kbps!

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

The music is pretty much spot on

With some fine tuning, this is going to be very good. There is a small problem with the contrast between your SCP footage and the Inferno stuff, the other being very movie-like where the other is, well, simple turkey shoot.

Also, as you propably know, the text needs some work. Not just the text itself, but just about everything about it starting from the font that keeps changing from one shot to another. Try to add some coherency by choosing a single good font and sticking by it, without too many "cool" effects (shadows, glows etc.). Catch me online on icq some day and I might have a few suggestions

[Flaser]

The music is pretty much spot on

With some fine tuning, this is going to be very good. There is a small problem with the contrast between your SCP footage and the Inferno stuff, the other being very movie-like where the other is, well, simple turkey shoot.

Also, as you propably know, the text needs some work. Not just the text itself, but just about everything about it starting from the font that keeps changing from one shot to another. Try to add some coherency by choosing a single good font and sticking by it, without too many "cool" effects (shadows, glows etc.). Catch me online on icq some day and I might have a few suggestions

Trust the man, he made some mighty impressive cutscenes for TWVP, that will someday hit the public when the staff finally has time on its hands.

On the file and encoding:
Oooowww....don't use ACM. (Media player, didn't even recognize it. Had to use VR-Dub / Mplayer to do). You may not notice it, but I did since usually use headphones....and it ain't pretty.
Try 2-pass encoding. Simply put, it's like VBR encoding in mp3.
During the first pass, the encoder collects statistics in a log file about the video to determine the bitrate demands.
On the second pass, it encodes with that data, assuring maximum quality / bitrate.

About the footage:
I didn't like the music selection for Inferno - though it's just personal preferance in this case IMHO.
That part, although the most true to gameplay, lacks the direction the earlier portions had. I know, it's hard to coreograph dogfights, but you can assure the scenery at least.
Lighting also wasn't top-notch. It was too dark...

The Lucifer's in too much glare - put a lightsource (ergo the sun) somewhere on the side, behind the ship, but not right behind it. That should illuminate the ship's glowmap, and the jump-anime will be the stark background for the black-ship.
You shouldn't dwell on the ship, but you could at least let it pass the camera, like the Herc did (with some Shivans flying formation?).

I liked the earlier presentation of the Deimos - use a harder direct lightsource, to amplyfy its shine. By putting it in the ship's path you can still retain the glowmaps' beauty.

That said, so far, so good. Keep it up.

[Goober5000]

Crimson Tide Battle Extract

Ooh!  Someone used this music in another campaign trailer recently.  Anyone remember which one it was?

[Flaser]

Crimson Tide Battle Extract

Ooh!  Someone used this music in another campaign trailer recently.  Anyone remember which one it was?

Into the Halls of Valhalla IIRC.

[Goober5000]

Into the Halls of Valhalla IIRC.

Actually now that Galemp reminded me, I think it's Lightning Marshall.  Though with search b0rked I can't check.

[WeatherOp]

Very good, except for when that Serphim does a loop in the scene with the Orion.

[FireCrack]

It actualy hits an ursa, that's why it loops.