[starbug]

After playing War in Heaven and seeing the amazing cutscenes i thought i would like to have a go. So i thought i would start of with something simple. I have setup a battle with a moloch and a demios. both following waypoints side by side, so there giving it a full broadside so to speak. I want the camera to be slightly in front of them following the action. The problem i am having is i am not sure how to setup up the camera and its movements and was wondering if there was a tutorial kicking about for doing cutscenes?

Edit first attempt to do a cutscene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_C6ycBWL4U

[Dilmah G]

Hey mate, there's a wiki article up and going. But basically what you need to do, in simple terms (everyone does it differently), is go into FRED and find the x, y and z coordinates (the numbers that change in the top right window of FRED) of the position you want the camera to be at. You use the set camera position sexp under the cutscene menu thing in FRED events and enter those coordinates. If you right click the sexp, you'll be able to add more lines to it, and in the grey box beneath the events window you'll see a basic outline of what all these additions do.

From there, you'll be able to enter a second set of camera coordinates (where you want the camera to be at the end of its motion for this sexp, can be left blank if the point is stationary), and how long you want the movement to take. I think the time value for this is has to be entered as milliseconds, so be wary of that.

Sorry for the whole crudeness of the thing, I haven't touched FRED in a few months, but when I used to FRED regularly I knew cutscenes reasonably well. Hopefully a cutscene expert like Axem'll come by and help you more.

Oh crap, I forgot about panning the camera. I think the tutorial covers that.

[starbug]

Cheers man, i have had a wee play with the cutscenes SEXP's and have come up with this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_C6ycBWL4U Sepia effect done in Pinnicale to add a bit of atmos. I don't suppose a sepia effect can be done ingame?

Mods used BP WiH
Music imported
Darksiders soundtrack
"battle over ruined eden"
"end Credits"

I think the darksiders soundtrack fits ok into the FS universe. so any tips or improvements i could make? Oh yeah how do you do camera rotation? I wanted the camera to rotate on to its side as it pulls out from the battle(is the term "bank"?). I have tried to use the camera-rotation sexp but all it seems to do is rotate the camera to face backwards.

[General Battuta]

I really like using relative camera coordinates, i.e. camera coordinates by using the arithmetic operator '+' combined with get-object-x/y/z under 'Status'.

EDIT: wow, that long shot was...really really epic. I think we may end up ripping that off, and the music too. 

[Scotty]

I really like using relative camera coordinates, i.e. camera coordinates by using the arithmetic operator '+' combined with get-object-x/y/z under 'Status'.

Thank you for that.  I hadn't figured out how to do that yet.

[Axem]

Awesome cutscene. Very sad and epic.

Set camera rotation makes your camera face a pitch/bank/heading in a global direction. To make things real easy to understand, it's just like how the pitch/bank/heading works for backgrounds EXCEPT it is reversed. So to face a background that's at 90 degrees heading, you want either 270 or -90 in your rotation sexp.

Now since its global, you need make sure the orientation is the same except for bank. So if your initial camera orientation is like 45, 0, 90 then your target orientation should be something like 45,45,90. I've had some odd stuff happen if bank goes over 90, but that might've gotten fixed in the RCs.

The fun stuff begins when you start using set-camera-host and -target. Those sexps make the camera sexps use a ship as its zero point for position or orientation. So if you camera-set-host a Karuna, then set-camera-position 0,0,-2000, the camera will always be 2000m behind the Karuna. You can move the camera around the Karuna as well, making awesome pan shots.

[SypheDMar]

That was amazing!

[Dilmah G]

HOLY JESUS HOMEBOY

YOU ARE ****ING AMAZING

[Darius]

Well done! You've got a good eye for mise-en-scène and pacing...

[starbug]

Wow, thanks and there was me thinking it was a bit "meh". Cheers for the tips Axem i will have to have a go at doing them