The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Hey everyone ...

I was just wondering ... since this is a 3DO port ... and an option has been added in 0.5.0 to include 3DO movies, is there any possiblity that these will be made available to the public?

Thx in advance

only if we can find the copywright holder and if they give permission to release the videos to the public, otherwise probably not.

if you have the SC2 3DO cd then you can extract the videos from that, otherwise you'll have to goto PONAF (http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/3do/movies.shtml) to view the videos in extremely lower quality.

Thx for the link ... now if only I thought fileplanet was worth paying for :)

But thx for the answer. Unfortunately, I don't have the 3DO version ... I've only ever played the PC version ... any idea who has the copyright on the movies? I would assume it'd be the same people who had the copyright on the game (since they're a part of it), but apparently not ... or is it that they just haven't agreed to release those to the public? (Would assume by your answer that it's no. 1, but some time spent in Scotland taught me not to Ass-U-Me anything *LoL*)

you don't have to pay for fileplanet  ;)

Possible copyright holders (in increasing order of estimated probability):

• Accolade, the publisher of PC SC2, was assimilated by Infogrames which merged with Atari (http://www.atari.com). Unlikely, as they weren't involved in the 3DO released (in fact, TFB bought some rights to the game back from Accolade for the 3DO version).
• Toys for Bob (http://www.toysforbob.com/): They wrote the game but, according to them, they didn't do the 3DO videos and the manuals. Sold to Activision.
• PCA Graphics (http://www.pcagraphics.com/): These guys did the videos, but probably as contract work for Crystal Dynamics.
• Crystal Dynamics, publisher of 3DO SC2, was bought by Eidos Interactive which merged with SCi (http://corporate.sci.co.uk/). This is the most probable owner, in my opinion.

TFB licensed the rights back from Accolade, not bought. They only regained the rights when Accolade (or one of its successors) defaulted on the due royalty payments to TFB.

Neat ... is anyone from the Dev team tracing this possibility? Although I love the PC intro - Works just fine for the game - I've always wondered why it wasn't a movie, and I'd love to have movies in the game ... would round it off very nicely :)

We know TFB don't have the rights. We haven't gone after the ones who do.
As for movies, PR3 has indicated the ability to play standard video formats was on top of his wish-list and we do intend to add that capability. We'll leave the making of the actual movies to others though.

I found the 3D0 videos underwhelming, myself.  Seemed to clash with the whole painty vibe, and on top of that, the voice-over (I think it was Paul Reiche's dad, forgive me Paul!) was distractingly bad.

This is actually off topic, but since the manual thread has progressed to MAKING one, and this thread still seems to be on the subject of copyrights...

I heard it said that TFB does not have the rights to the previous manuals.  However, some of the included text is almost CERTAINLY penned by Paul Reiche (or is it Fred Ford?  You have to forgive me, I was like 8 when the game came out.)  As such, shouldn't the copyright default to its author?  Then again, if it were a work-for-hire...which it probably was, that's kind of moot.

Though if we're being honest, I have a feeling that whatever company TECHNICALLY holds the few remaining Star Control related copyrights will ever know, or care, if parts of the manual were reused anyway. :P But I guess that's not the point either.

Heh .. I'd just love to see them ... you know? ;) Having "grown up" with the slides, I'd love to see the movies :)

well if nobody gets on my case about it, i'm converting the videos for viewing by anybody that doesnt have the 3DO cd's...

they're gonna be in an uncompatible format with uqm so that nobody gets any ideas  ;)

StarBorn :I was just wondering ... since this is a 3DO port ... and an option has been added in 0.5.0 to include 3DO movies, is there any possiblity that these will be made available to the public?
Starborn, technically, UQM isn't just a port of the 3DO version, it's a combination port of both PC and 3DO versions, and, if I understand it correctly, it's becoming variable according to the user.As for the movies, I would think that they wouldn't be that bad if they were added in, but I agree that the voice overs would have to be redone. I'm also curious as to whether or not UQM will include voice overs for the credits in SC2 (I'm referring to the SC2 Satire Lines).

This will probably happen if the voices are rerecorded.

How do you intend to perform this conversion? I suppose you could hack the UQM DUK player to output a sequence of screenshots (in e.g. PNG format) and then feed that through a video codec. That should give a reasonably good output. Then again, the PoNaF MPEGs actually didn't look much worse than the original DUKs, and they were transmitted through analogue output!

I'm pretty sure someone already got the idea I think you're referring to. Also, what's to prevent adding support for whatever format you use to UQM?

Mrh? I thought I posted this succesfully here.. Ohwell, guess I didn't.. *blames his connection for being way too flaky lately*

Any video capturing software could do it for you, really... I've got a .avi of the intro (with sound) right here, but I'm not going to distribute it, because of legality issues..

However, as to not dissapoint you all, Here's a video of me, fighting a gainst a Trader with my trusty Cruiser. Note the lack of any skills whatsoever because of too much playing of Space Rangers 2. (http://home.deds.nl/~megagun/temp/clip0005.rar)

well what i mean by converting is not gonna be converting in any 'normal' way, i'm using fraps and i put UQM on opengl so i can record them straight to avi at 60 fps /w 320x240 res, so it will be a perfect 'copy'.
Then i will convert the uncompressed fraps avi to a more compressed format like divx or maybe wmv (if wmv gives me the quality i want).

or maybe i will convert to flash .swf so that they can be streamed with a little better quality than .wmv

that way people can see the videos without having to go through fileplanet.

Sounds great :) Looking forward to it :)

What program can I use to make an .iso image of  the 3DO cd?

WinISO and Magic Iso refuse to read the bloody thing.  Nero is able to make an .nrg image, but then the aforementioned programs refuse to convert this specific .nrg to an .iso...

In Linux, I just do something like "dd if=/dev/cdrom of=sc2.iso" (substituting desired CD-ROM device and output file as applicable). Doing this sort of thing in Windows is a pain. I don't know if this is any help to you, though.

CDr-WIN i believe can make .iso images

"CDr-Win" + the verb "can" in the same sentence - ERROR

Anyway, nevermind; BlindWrite did the trick - awesome little program. It would probably make me an .iso image even if I put a circular slice of goat cheese in the drive.

Great, software that rips cheese. Just what the world needed.

I rip cheese without a program. Usually without consent of those around me either. I'm often asked to leave the room and open a window on my way out when I do.

Well i've decided to finally release ONE of the videos that's on the SC2 3DO cd but it isn't the intro or victory, maybe at a later time i will release the Intro but that'll be awhile.

this video is the "DRUMALL" video, normally this video would play if you would lay dormant on the menu screen for 20 seconds. It is basically an oversized 3DO commercial.

HERE YA GO (http://uqm-mods.sourceforge.net/DRUMALL.zip)

CAUTION!: This file is a winzip file containing an .avi file, be sure that you have the right software to view this file

¡PRECAUCIÓN!: Este archivo es un archivo del winzip que contiene un archivo del avi, sea seguro que usted tiene el software derecho para visión este archivo