The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

whatever happened to the ship description videos from the 3do version?

for those who have no idea what im talking about go here
http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/3do/
and click on one of the ships on the left side of the screen.

the videos on the 3do version can be seen at the ship selection screen in melee.

i just wanna know if somebody is going to put them in.

Neither the 3do intro nor the 3d ship videos can be distributed with UQM, since Toys For Bob does not own the copyright for those videos. UQM does have the ability to play back the intro if the files are present, but it cannot play back the 3d ship videos as of version 0.4.

oh well.

Meh... I think we could do better then that.
(And by "we" I mean anyone but me ;) )
Seriously, look around, there are tons of SC art on the net, I think that people that made it would have nothing agaist using their models for videos of this kind in UQM.
And it also should be no problem to find someone with a voice less annoying then the one in the original videos...

I've mode 3D models of some of the ships. I'd be happy to do some flyaround renders and donate them to the cause.

That would be much appreciated!

Just tell me what format (though anything much more exotic than .mov is probably out of my reach with my current software) and filesize criteria. The ships I've finished are the Earthling Cruiser, Chenjesu Broodhome, Ur-Quan Dreadnought, and Arilou Skiff, Ilrath Avenger (a WIP), Druuge Mauler, and Pkunk Fury (sort of a WIP).

I'm not sure. Maybe mpeg?

Since we're using libogg already for the ogg vorbis files, it might make sense to encode the videos as ogg theora (then we'd only have to integrate libtheora). Then again, I think theora ogg is what you might consider an 'exotic' format.

Maybe the best option for now is full frames (uncompressed) avi. Then we can compress it and encode it as needed. High quality quicktime may work as well.

It's very likely we would go for an external video library which can handle multiple video formats. So any common format would probably be ok.

OK, I did a quick test render of an old crappy animated model and put it on my site in .mov and .avi formats:

http://www.seankreynolds.com/uqm

Let me know what you can do with those two formats. If one or the other doesn't work, let me know and I'll see if I can get some software that'll convert it to something that does work. Once we have a format that's working, I'll do some renders of my actual SC ships.

What dimensions should these animations be, anyway? 640x480? 320x240? 800x600?

Both .mov and .avi are container formats. They may contain media encoded using various codecs.
On my PC the .avi file plays, but the .mov file doesn't, but whatever lib we end up using could have totally different capabilities. I suggest you just go with some common format which has an open source implementation or at least a codec that can be distributed and used with UQM.

As for the dimensions, we could probably display anything, but 640x480 is the resolution that is used by the game (at least what you end up seeing).

{Both .mov and .avi are container formats. They may contain media encoded using various codecs.}

You might as well be saying "blah blah blah" here. :) I know what a codec is but not the details because I'm not a programmer and don't need to be a programmer. Just tell me what I need to do. ;)

{On my PC the .avi file plays, but the .mov file doesn't, but whatever lib we end up using could have totally different capabilities.}

I created the files on a Mac. The original export is a .mov file but I'm able to convert it to an uncompressed AVI easily. I'm sure I can find software to export it to other formats if that's what it takes.

{I suggest you just go with some common format which has an open source implementation or at least a codec that can be distributed and used with UQM.}

Such as ...? :P

{As for the dimensions, we could probably display anything, but 640x480 is the resolution that is used by the game (at least what you end up seeing).}

Easily done.

The AVI opened, but it was a little 'jittery', probably the framerate could be better (at least 23.98 to 30 fps).

I think there's something wrong with the quicktime file. I'll check it out on my mac just to make sure.

Based on this experience, I would go with uncompressed AVI.

Uncompressed AVI? You do realise that means hundreds of megabytes for a quick fly-by at any watchable resolution? Uncompressed AVI may be great as an intermediate format while working (i.e. as long as you don't have to transfer it anywhere else than your 200 GB hard disk), but you really don't want to distribute that on the 'net. Here's my plan:

My suggestion is XviD (http://www.xvid.org/) (a well-known GPL MPEG-4 implementation). The codec has been tried and tested on many platforms and there should not be any problems linking it to UQM (legal or technical). AVI seems to be the usual container format for XviD. Alternatively, we could use Ogg movie containers (.ogm) instead (we're already using libogg for audio). Theora (http://www.theora.org/) is a less established codec but has similar capabilities and integrates a bit better with Ogg.

To encode video to XviD on a Mac, the easiest solution appears to be ffmpegX (http://homepage.mac.com/major4/).

MPEG 1 layer 3 audio is the de facto standard, but as we're already using Vorbis, I suggest we stick to that. We can add audio separately, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

As far as resolutions go, I'd suggest using 320x240 and 640x480. Most of UQM runs at 320x240 internally, with scaling and filtering to 640x480. 320x240 is acceptable for low-quality video, while 640x480 looks quite good.

As for bit rates, I'd use something like 800 kbps for the video and 128 kbps for the audio on the high quality version. 300 kbps for video and 64 kbps for audio should be enough.

Summary: XviD+Vorbis in Ogg or AVI container, 640x480 (800+128 kbps) for high quality, 320x240 (300+64 kbps) for low quality.

I agree with Novus. xvid gives good quality at a good compression rate. And ogg vorbis for sound.


How is that original .mov file encoded? Because if it's not uncompressed to begin with, you'll have the quality loss of both the initial compression and the xvid compression.

I'm not sure how the .mov was encoded; the conversion process to AVI was uncompressed, but the original may have some form of compression.
I've just upgraded to the new version of my software; I'll be in soon. With it I can export directly to AVI, which should take care of the problem.

I normally can do up to 60 fps ... the ones I posted are at 15fps because I didn't know what frame rate you were using and I didn't want to make huge test files.

So as far as the main videos go, we're talking a simply spin on its axis with a starry background, like the original 3DO files?

In my opinion, 25 or 30 fps is enough. 15 fps is a bit jerky and 60 is overdoing it in most cases. Doubling the frame rate means you have to increase the bit rate almost as much.

If you can think of something more imaginative, feel free to do so. Demonstrations of ships' systems in action would be really nice (an Avenger popping up out of nowhere and torching a hapless Cruiser, a Shofixti Scout firing a few salvos and self-destructing, taking an enemy ship with it, etc.), but a simple spin around the ship would already make people happy.

That's what I meant. If he gives us the movies as uncompressed AVI's, we can encode them however we like. Otherwise, there will be loss from the codec he uses as well as loss if we re-encode the videos.

OK, I see what you mean. I just figured it would be easier to have seankreynolds code the videos the way we want them and save some time on his initial upload of the files. Then again, I suppose that isn't a problem if Sean has enough upload capacity.

I have plenty of upload capacity, it's not a problem.

OK, I have all my new software so I can do the stuff I was talking about. I've done a couple quick test renders of the Earthling Cruiser: no compression, 30 fps, 320x240, one in .avi and one in .mov

http://www.seankreynolds.com/cruiser/

Take a look at those and let me know how they work for you in terms of programming stuff. Again, this is a low-rez render with a placeholder background (a default "nebula" background image that comes standard with my 3D software).

In particular I'm curious how well looping these animations would work on your systems. If you loop the file from the end to the beginning (as it would if it were just a simple 360-degree spin like the 3DO ship movies) and it hiccups on your system, we'll definitely want to go with some other animation event for these things (such as a flyby or demonstration of ship attacks/defenses), otherwise you'll get that hiccup every 6 seconds (the 3DO version had one full rotation after 6 seconds) and that'll be yucky.

I'm not adverse to a different animation event; for example, I could have the cruiser fly into the foreground from the background, firing a missile as it does so, then "park" in the foreground, perhaps blasting an asteroid with the point-defense before assuming a static pose at the end of the file (at which point you'd probably want to hold the animation on that last frame, or transition to a still-frame rendition of that exact frame if that's not feasible). Or I could have it fly away off-screen and you could still loop the animation, so it would continually come into focus from the background, flyby, and exit frame again (in which case and animation hiccups won't be obvious because you'll only have the background image in frame and that will be the same at both ends of the file).

Ok, downloading now...

27 mb is kind of big for a prieview. Maybe compress it a little bit on the next round? The final one shouldn't be compressed, but the previews ought to be. Sorenson 3 or cinepak should do the trick.

Ah ... I'm giving y'all the uncompressed version so you programmers can do what you need to do with the uncompressed version to make it work. In this particular case I need to know if there are looping problems on your end with a full render.

In the future I'll just render fewer frames for the previews, but I needed all frames for this situation.

Okay.

Not bad... although i've seen better cruiser models before. You might want to take a look at the links to SC3D/bunchamodels I posted earlier in this thread. There is an excellent cruiser in there somewhere.

Hmm, I see no such link in any of your posts in this thread.

Edit: Ah, I've looked around and found what you're talking about.

Edit: But there is no Earthlink ship there. And they're all in MAX format, which I can't read anyway.

Sorry, I was confusing this thread with another one. Here are the timewarp bunchamodels sites:
http://www.geocities.com/bunchamodels5000/
http://www.geocities.com/bunchamodels5001/

Both of those pages have a model pack with a cruiser in them, I don't remember which one is better. And it shouldn't be much trouble to find a 3d object converter (there are tons of freeware ones around) and convert it to something standard your modeller should be able to read, such as .obj.

Out of curiosity, what modelling suite are you using?

EDIT: Just found the model I was thinking of:
http://mypage.iu.edu/~djtavria/vegastrike/shpearcr.3ds

It's the one culture20 was using for his star control mod (http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2365) of vegastrike.

{Both of those pages have a model pack with a cruiser in them, I don't remember which one is better. And it shouldn't be much trouble to find a 3d object converter (there are tons of freeware ones around) and convert it to something standard your modeller should be able to read, such as .obj.}

The problem is that most or all of those are in 3D Studio Max format, which is a proprietary format and there aren't any 3rd-party converters out there; you basically have to have a Max user save the file in a more generic format such as OBJ or DXF, which usually ruins its utility in two ways:

1. It goes from a dozen linked parts (in the Cruiser's case, most people would model the body as one piece, the nacelles as separate pieces, etc., with small details as separate parts added to each component piece) to one very complex piece that can't be broken into its separate parts. That in itself isn't a major problem because we're talking about a complete and finished model, but when combined with ...

2. It removes all textures, giving you a flat gray object that you have to retexture ... which is a MAJOR problem because now that your shapes are gone you have to figure a way to make it work, and it's basically impossible (for example, you'd normally wrap a cylindrical texture around the nacelle, a disk-like texture around the bridge, and so on, but you can't do that any more when the nacelle and bridge are now parts of a giant complex object).

Basically it's just easier to create your own model at this point.

{Out of curiosity, what modelling suite are you using? }

Strata 3DCX.

{EDIT: Just found the model I was thinking of:
http://mypage.iu.edu/~djtavria/vegastrike/shpearcr.3ds}

Yep, I can open that (I can open 3ds files no problem) but it's a melded and textureless object (problems 1 and 2). Here, compare how that file opens as one textureless melded object ...

http://www.seankreynolds.com/cruiser/shpearcr.jpg

... to how my file opens, as a set of textured objects which I can manipulate separately ...

http://www.seankreynolds.com/cruiser/sean.jpg

That's not 100% true, you can import 3ds files in blender 3D(freeware) and they'll come across as separate objects. No textures, lights or cameras though. MAX files cannot be imported, period.

That's why I said "usually." :)

Hm. I was able to import the same cruiser 3ds file into wings3d, and colored materials were preserved (as I recall, the model uses materials instead of textures). I could save it as an OBJ for you, but i'm not sure if that format supports materials.

At any rate, now that you can at least see the geometry, you might want to look at how the artist modelled the bridge dome and nacelles. I think he did a very accurate job when compared to the sc1 ship database entry on the cruiser.

Sure, save it as an OBJ and I'll see if I can open it without it being all screwed up.

As for the models, I'm going to do them my way because it's my personal project to model these things. If you guys want to use the videos, great, if not, fuggedaboutit. :)

That's fine, there's nothing wrong with taking artistic freedom. I'm just saying that if you really want to see your animations included in an official distribution of UQM, you should probably keep them as faithful to the original as possible (at least as much as the original 3do animations were).

Of course, the final decision is up to the coredevs. It would be nice to hear their opinion on the matter.

I haven't talked about this with the other core team members, but my opinion on this is that the story should at least be in accordance with the canon. The way the story would be displayed would be entirely up to you, but no new plot points should be invented if you want my vote.

I've created a patch to play the 3DO ship spin videos in UQM. See bug 733 (http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=733) for details.

awesome, i'll get to work puttin them in

also, is the patched version of those files also in the cvs?

Not yet. I submitted the patch this morning European time, so I doubt that anyone from the core development team has looked at it yet, let alone committed it to CVS. You'll have to apply the patch yourself to your local copy of CVS.

Waiting until coredev takes a look at it is probably a good idea; I may have broken some feature I was unaware of. patch works both ways, though, so you really don't have much to lose (I strongly doubt that I've screwed things up badly enough to cause any real damage).

oh and also how do the ship videos work, i mean, which files are they on the 3do cd and where do they go into your game directory?

nvm, i found out when i was applying the code

well i had applyed the patch and everything seemed to be going fine while building but i got a bunch of syntax errors, i guess i'll wait until somebody has a succesfully patched their files cause im not going in there and finding all the errors, i got ships to mod. ;D

Interesting. Maybe something big has changed since I wrote the patch. I'll have to look into this. What sort of errors are you getting?

It may be a good idea to continue this part of the conversation in the bug database.

maybe Halleck or Meep-Eeep could take a look at the patch when they have some free time, cause im not well versed in C, i understand most of it only because i used to write programs in dos with qbasic and some of the commands are very similar.

jhguitarfreak (or whatever your nom du jour is), I can't help you unless you tell me what syntax errors you've been getting. My guess is that you've applied the patch wrong or something else is badly wrong. Does UQM compile properly for you without the patch?

i_think_i_might_of_applyed_the_patch_wrong_and_uqm_does_compile_correctly_by_itself.
i'll_try_the_patch_again_and_do_a_more_thorough_look_at_the_errors_i_got_the_first_time_when_i_get_a_new
keyoard. :P

Typing like that must be a pain. It also makes it very hard to do anything code-related.

Anyway, the patch applies nicely with just a in the sc2 directory and compiles nicely with GCC on Linux and Windows (MinGW). I don't have any clue about compiling on Visual Studio or some more obscure compiler, so it'll probably fail. Defining WANT_SHIP_SPINS globally may be the missing part.

i used to have mingw, but it was alot easier for me with visual studio, and i edit the source code with Dev C++.
i could apply the patch manually, but i know i'll screw something up.

maybe you could send me the patched version of the source, and that way i could test it out and see what changes are made...

oh and do you have to convert the .aif files to .wav for this patch to work?

got a new keyboard and mouse ;D
Kohr-Ah Death has CTRL again ;)

Well, MinGW (or MSys) contains patch, so you can use that. Failing that, this archive (http://koti.mbnet.fi/lonnberg/shipspinmodified.zip) contains the modified source files compared to CVS at Sun Jul 17 07:55:14 UTC 2005.

UQM doesn't have an AIFF loader. However, it does have a WAV loader. If you don't convert the files, the videos will have no sound. The conversion is lossless and easy to perform, so I see no reason to add AIFF support to UQM.

point taken...

i will test this out right away...
i'll probably post right after i do a thorough test of the game, i.e. i'm gonna beat the game and do all the sidequests and test ALL the ships in super melee.

edit----oh yeah, and what is special key to view the ship spins?  Menu-Special right?

well i used your patch and it compiled correctly, now the only problem i have is that when i get to the melee menu where you can select a ship  i tried every button on my keyboard(and yes i defined every input) at the ship selection screen(where it actually says push C for ship description) and nothing, all the menu-special button does is delete ships off your team.

maybe its a directory problem
am i correct in putting the ship spins into the "Content/spins" directory?
or is there more to do?

Sounds like you're pressing Menu-Cancel instead of Menu-Special. Check your key configuration (the same key may appear multiple times).

The selection box refers to the 3DO keys. Someone should do something about that!

ship*.duk, ship*.hdr, ship*.tbl, ship*.frm, ship*.aif converted to ship*.wav, spin.wav and create spin.snd. All those in content/spins. Details in the bug database.

Even if the video data is missing, you should get a fade-out and fade-in.

You did check this, didn't you? If you don't define this, the ship spin code will be replaced by a no-op, just like before.

how do i "define" WANT_SHIP_SPINS in either visual studio or Dev C++?

and at least i got all the files in the right place


edit--- i swear to god that menu-delete and menu-special are exactly the same function

If Dev C++ is using gcc to compile, tell it to send -DWANT_SHIP_SPINS to gcc as part of the compilation flags. You should already be doing something similar to select which graphics and audio backends are being used, so this shouldn't be new to you.

BTW, doesn't Dev C++ use MinGW anyway? I still don't see why you can't use MinGW to compile instead of fiddling with the IDE.

i've deleted my 2 previous posts right after your most recent post Novus.


i was able to compile uqm with the command you posted

in visual studio.

and all seems to work very well, i can now test to see if there are any discrempencies in the exe by doing a full diagnostic
i.e. beating the game and doing all side quests, and then doing a debug with visual studio.

but so far everything works perfectly.


edit--- stupid question #1: how do you convert .wav to .snd?

You don't. The snd file is just a list of sound effects; a text file listing all the filenames of the sound effects belonging to a sound effect package of some sort (probably a remnant of the 3DO resource system).

oh, i just misread then, well everything works fine on my side, i've beaten the game and i've done debug, i have no problems whatsoever, except my compiled version doesnt play the intro and and ending videos up to speed with the sound.

but what i like is that you've implemented the ship spins into the shipyard.

That's my fault. The error was so slight (and machine-dependent) that I didn't notice that the audio was running a bit ahead. Fix added to the bug database.

allrighty then, i'll get to work putting it in(hopefully succesfully)

Kinda off topic and late, but we had some success making gameplay videos over at TW-Light/Timewarp. 

Divx Format, 44 MB (44,714,908) (http://ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/tw-light/media/indie-presentation-2005/TW-Light-Demo-Divx.avi)
MPEG2 format, 87 MB (87,265,284) (http://ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/tw-light/media/indie-presentation-2005/TW-Light-Demo-MPEG2.mpg)
QuickTime, 78 MB (77,159,802) (Sorenson compression) (http://ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/tw-light/media/indie-presentation-2005/TW-Light-Demo-QuickTime.mov)

Browse all files here. (http://ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/tw-light/media/indie-presentation-2005/)

Discussion (http://timewarp.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=264&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30) to see how we did it. 

Also, many moons ago we tinkered with a hack in TW (http://timewarp.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=294) that would generate screenshots of each ship, then a tool would combine them into animated Gifs.