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Author Topic: [[CGI for UQM]] - Please send model files. // Submit your animation idea.  (Read 50540 times)
Amiga_Nut
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[[CGI for UQM]] - Please send model files. // Submit your animation idea.
« on: July 08, 2007, 12:31:59 pm »

           Hello folks! 
            Well it’s been a while now since I promised the core team members that I would be re-creating the “Duck Spin” animations. For those of you who are scratching their heads; these animations were shown when you hit the (info) button on the ship selection screen. I came to understand that it was not possible to include the original Star Control 2 animations INTO the pc port for legal reasons. (You can put them in after the fact of course, but they do not belong to us.) To that end, I am re-doing IT ALL, including the intro and ending videos. This time however, each ship description video will be an ACTION SHOT and belong to everyone. All animations will be 400 frames, with a pause at frame 300 for ship information overlay. McMartin will be working on that. More than 60% of the material needed to do all this doesn’t exist yet. I am looking for as much good source material as possible to help my designs remain true to the heart of SC. There will be a UQM PROMO VIDEO combining these animations with high quality screenshot videos and other material. I’ve even contacted Eric Schwartz to see if he was willing to help create a few parts of the video. (Clip showing a Shofixti female waking from cryogenic sleep, etc…) It’s going to make you cry people!

Mycon FInal
MyconHD FInal
Androsyn Semi Final
Druuge Final
Spathi Motion Test
Thanks Novus                     



Thanks to Meep-Eep for this hosting.
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« Last Edit: January 01, 2008, 10:11:50 am by Amiga_Nut » Logged

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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2007, 02:13:31 pm »

I came to understand that it was not possible to include the original Star Control 2 animations INTO the pc port for legal reasons. (You can put them in after the fact of course, but they do not belong to us.)
Yep; TFB didn't do them, so they can't release them.

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To that end, I am re-doing IT ALL, including the intro and ending videos. This time however, each ship description video will be an ACTION SHOT and belong to everyone. All animations will be 400 frames, with a pause at frame 300 for ship information overlay. McMartin will be working on that I think.
Judging by your preview video and the plans you describe, this has the potential to be as awesome as the Precursors' remix packs.

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I really don’t want to deal with the posting of all this material. I am interested in having someone help with that. (Get all the material hosted* and posted in the UQM forum.)
Not a problem. Mirror here. I have 500 MB of unused web space to spare on another account, and I suspect that we can use SourceForge for hosting anyway, if this is considered a part of UQM.

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Since the early days of CGI development on platforms like The Video Toaster and the Indigo, I have always been working in computer imaging. I can assure you all that this will happen, and it’s in good hands. I admit however, that I am quite new to all the current internet technologies, and would greatly appreciate some representative savvy.
Thanks for your time. SC forever!
I really want to see this happen, and I'd be happy to provide advice (or, hopefully, contribute to discussion) on compression and distribution of this video and assist in getting UQM to play it. FFmpeg plays your DivX 5 video properly (and it looks great!) and is licensed under LGPL, so we can use it in UQM (and pretty easily, too; it integrates nicely with SDL, apparently); I see no good reason to change that.

HD video is going to be overkill for many users' systems, so it would probably be a good idea to provide a standard definition package as well (640x360 would work very well with UQM).
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2007, 02:45:42 pm »

Wow, terrific! I see that a lot of UQM projects have appeared in the near past (or are appearing). I wonder in what degree we owe this to the 2007 IRC chat.

I have only two comments to make:
1. Shofixti nubiles emerging from cryo sleep should have fur as short as possible (there are lots of ways to explain this, such as because freezing has cut it, or because ZEX is such a pervert that he cut their fur etc., but the main reason is that they must look as gentle as possible). They also can't possibly be dressed. ZEX must have taken off their clothing.
2. Use Slylendro's sleek Yehat model (like here) and don't forget that the Dreadnought's and the Jugger's mid-sections are wider in reality than in the 3DO videos.
3. In the ending, Talana can wear some lighter clothes - it's downright sadistic to force her to wear such heavy clothing... After all, she doesn't have to wear her uniform aboard the Earth Starbase.
4. Talana sex scene video required.

OK, not two, turned out that they were a little more...
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2007, 02:52:03 pm »

i *warship* *yuubuu*
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2007, 04:02:19 pm »

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2. Use Slylendro's sleek Yehat model (like here) and don't forget that the Dreadnought's and the Jugger's mid-sections are wider in reality than in the 3DO videos.



Personally I think Krish's Yehat model from Timewarp looks a lot better, anyone know if it's still around? I'm sure it would be in the hands of the PonaF.

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3. In the ending, Talana can wear some lighter clothes - it's downright sadistic to force her to wear such heavy clothing... After all, she doesn't have to wear her uniform aboard the Earth Starbase.
4. Talana sex scene video required.

Afaik Talana's uniform in the last scene had almost nothing on anyway, what more do you want? o_O

Ok so someone's going to go get live FMV actors to do a porno shoot? Roll Eyes
« Last Edit: July 08, 2007, 04:07:00 pm by Elerium » Logged
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2007, 06:40:56 pm »

Ow, nice! I haven't seen that model before. Yep, it looks better (sorry, Slylendro), but it needs some texturing. It looks too perfect.

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Afaik Talana's uniform in the last scene had almost nothing on anyway, what more do you want? o_O

Ok so someone's going to go get live FMV actors to do a porno shoot?   Roll Eyes
There was a reason for which I said "two comments".
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #6 on: July 08, 2007, 07:08:14 pm »

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There was a reason for which I said "two comments".

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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #7 on: July 08, 2007, 07:34:41 pm »

This looks really amazing Amiga_nut, I look forward to seeing all the finished products.
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2007, 06:12:22 am »

Hot stuff.

Surprisingly, the HD video runs neatly on my crappy PC, which can't even play Apple's medium-sized movie trailers... In fact, it barely runs UQM with minimum settings. Undecided

Anyway, a thought about the Druuge Mauler model... isn't the ship's back end a thruster? I'm kind of obsessed with realism and functionality, so those metallic arms covering it seem a bit strange to me. I mean, they'd melt or something. Undecided But I guess that's just me.

Hot stuff.
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Shofixti Scouts doing gravity whips  /  These are a few of my favorite ships!
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #9 on: July 09, 2007, 08:21:59 am »

Well, you’re right about that. Since I have been doing these ship designs, there has been a bit of controversy regarding the thrusters of the ships. If you look at the original animations, and just about all the fan work for that matter, you will see that conical transparent polygons are used to “simulate” the thruster exhaust. All the new UQM animations will be using a sophisticated particle system instead. As for the actual thruster designs, or any other design suggestions; PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR IDEAS HERE!
"A picture is worth a thousand words."

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« Last Edit: July 10, 2007, 03:13:22 am by Amiga_Nut » Logged

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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #10 on: July 09, 2007, 12:40:06 pm »

I see you're using a resolution of 320x240. While this is great for compatibility, most machines that run UQM should be able to handle 640x480 video as well. 1280x960 would be pushing it (and slows down horribly on older hardware). Since even the HD videos aren't too large in terms of file size, I suggest we provide the videos in those three resolutions (assuming you have the CPU time and disk space to render all that, of course).

Since the videos are playing back full screen, we can switch to a video overlay for hardware accelerated YUV to RGB conversion and scaling (at least on workstation-style hardware; I have no idea whether consoles or hand-helds support this sort of thing).
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #11 on: July 09, 2007, 01:06:51 pm »

I always want to use more resolution! It shows the tiny detail so much better. I have had several discussions on the subject with the powers of UQM. I have been told that 320x240 is what they want for the videos. I played around quite a bit with codec’s before I settled on the divx set-up used in the HD video. Of course I would love to use 1080i or something. (I could) But it's important everyone can see the videos play smoothly.
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #12 on: July 09, 2007, 01:18:57 pm »

I have had several discussions on the subject with the powers of UQM. I have been told that 320x240 is what they want for the videos.
Considering the way UQM handles video playback right now, 320x240 is easier to implement and works pretty much everywhere UQM does. Nevertheless, I think support for higher video resolutions is worth the effort.
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #13 on: July 09, 2007, 07:25:02 pm »

i *warship* *yuubuu*

x2 . Hope to see more soon.
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Re: What videos? CGI For UQM
« Reply #14 on: July 09, 2007, 08:09:38 pm »

As for the actual thruster designs, or any other design suggestions; PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR IDEAS HERE!
Well...... Tongue I've always found the Arilou Skiff's headlights rather ridiculous. I mean, the guys can move through different dimensions, for crying out loud. Why would they have something as mundane as headlights on their ships? It's not like headlights are going to be of any help considering the distances in space. Undecided They The bumps could instead be regarded as some sort of sensors or something.

I don't know why these things bother me so much. Embarrassed
« Last Edit: July 09, 2007, 09:38:25 pm by alephresh » Logged

Marines on Maulers and limpets on Earthlings  /  Bright Podship plasma and warm Kohr-Ah death rings  /
Shofixti Scouts doing gravity whips  /  These are a few of my favorite ships!
       © meep-eep
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