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Author Topic: ship videos?  (Read 13603 times)
seankreynolds
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #15 on: June 22, 2005, 09:33:54 pm »

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?
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #16 on: June 23, 2005, 12:00:24 am »

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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.
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.

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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?
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.
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Halleck
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #17 on: June 23, 2005, 06:37:20 am »

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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.

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.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2005, 06:37:33 am by Halleck » Logged


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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #18 on: June 23, 2005, 02:21:43 pm »

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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.
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seankreynolds
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #19 on: June 23, 2005, 08:26:12 pm »

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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.
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seankreynolds
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #20 on: June 30, 2005, 03:53:14 am »

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).
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #21 on: June 30, 2005, 07:34:44 am »

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.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2005, 07:38:12 am by Halleck » Logged


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seankreynolds
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #22 on: June 30, 2005, 07:48:50 am »

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.
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #23 on: June 30, 2005, 08:38:50 am »

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.
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seankreynolds
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #24 on: June 30, 2005, 09:31:59 am »

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.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2005, 09:39:22 am by seankreynolds » Logged

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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #25 on: June 30, 2005, 10:42:29 am »

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 of vegastrike.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2005, 10:48:49 am by Halleck » Logged


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seankreynolds
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #26 on: June 30, 2005, 06:25:41 pm »

{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
« Last Edit: June 30, 2005, 06:35:49 pm by seankreynolds » Logged

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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #27 on: June 30, 2005, 06:40:14 pm »

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.
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seankreynolds
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #28 on: June 30, 2005, 07:26:53 pm »

That's why I said "usually." Smiley
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Re: ship videos?
« Reply #29 on: July 01, 2005, 04:45:09 am »

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.
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