Cinematics

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MikeTheRaptor
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Cinematics

Post by MikeTheRaptor »

*is getting frusterated*

This is the third time I've tried to post this... first time, I decided to move it to it's own thread, second time - everything I typed mysteriously disapears! So here goes again...


IN GAME CINEMATICS

The solution to human characters in Tres?

Maybe... After reading the plot, I decided human characters play too large a part not to be included somewhere.

Now... Trespasser plays .smk movie files, which are essentially compressed videos. It is simple to convert an .avi (rendered in 3dsmax) to .smk. Of course, there is a catch, but first, let's start with the basics - file names and actions.

_______


1. Win.smk

The win.smk file plays at the end of the game. It is called upon by a trigger and once it is done playing, the level ends.

2. tpassintro.smk

The tpassintro.smk file plays when you run Trespasser. It is the one with the DWI logo and Hammond talking. Just like the Win.smk, it can be changed as long as the name remains the same.

3. newgame.smk

The newgame.smk plays when someone starts a New Game. Unless we make our own standalone level (much like TC-Isle, where I think they used the demo's engine), this doesn't help us, as the first level in Tres is the Beach and we really don't want to mess around with that.

4. credits.smk

We could create our own credits.smk to play as well. It probably starts automatically after the win.smk, and doesn't even need to include credits if we didn't want it to.

_______

Of course, the catch is... when and where you can play these cutscenes is strictly limited. No trigger currently discovered will allow you to play a cutscene during a level. Cinematics only play before and after.

2nd catch... all the file names must remain the same, requiring that the players themselves rename/create backups of the files (unless we can find a programmer willing to write something that does all this automatically, like the first TC level)


I just had to post that because I really think we can't count out the human aspect of the game - and there is no way currently to include them directly. Yet, even will all of this information, we still need someone who is skilled in character modelling and animation.
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Post by DemonCarnotaur »

since it is a 3 level game could we have cut scenes between each level?
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MikeTheRaptor
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Post by MikeTheRaptor »

Well cutscenes in Trespasser are tricky. I'm not really sure if you could have one between each level, most likely not - but I'll look into when I get the chance.

Either way, an intro is definately possible and probably desirable to introduce the player to the new storyline.
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Re: Cinematics

Post by Draconisaurus »

MikeTheRaptor wrote:I just had to post that because I really think we can't count out the human aspect of the game - and there is no way currently to include them directly. Yet, even will all of this information, we still need someone who is skilled in character modelling and animation.
I agree it wasn't easy for me to decide that I should make everyone dead by the time you get there. I was gonna have Tasha's brother still be bearly alive but I don't even wanna mess with that now, plus I would have to figure out how he stayed alive until you got there. And, you have a very good point. We would need a character modeller/animator. I am not really either, which is why most of the dead people in the game were going to be skeletons. Perhaps if we come by such a person, we could consider reincluding a human element.

As for cut scenes in general, I have thought quite a bit about them. I had even thought before that they could be used in scenes at the EA with the Rogue Faction, but now that I know mid-level cutscenes aren't possible that settles it. However we'll definately make an intro scene to explain the plot before hand that Tasha would know about, also like you brought up I think we should make this a stand-alone level like TC_Isle, since it is so big. That's how I've been thinking about it (3 levels, with 2 versions of level 3, and the Aviary mini-level).
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Post by DemonCarnotaur »

MikeTheRaptor wrote:Well cutscenes in Trespasser are tricky. I'm not really sure if you could have one between each level, most likely not - but I'll look into when I get the chance.

Either way, an intro is definately possible and probably desirable to introduce the player to the new storyline.
Oh ok, still that would be neat if we figured out how, but an intro will be great, we need to begin to write a script for that so we know what it will explain...
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Post by Draconisaurus »

DemonCarnotaur wrote:we need to begin to write a script for that so we know what it will explain...
Hmmm yes that's a good point. I'll try and work on that sometime soon, it has to be both good, feesable, and fufill the purpose of filling in the player on all that plot they need to know ahead of time. Also we should look into getting voices for our characters. Anyone know any girls with good voices? :D
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Post by JPXTom »

Yeah, they must be hard, or else there were be cutscenes already, but there must be a sring for it to activate a scene.
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Post by MikeTheRaptor »

JPXTom wrote:Yeah, they must be hard, or else there were be cutscenes already, but there must be a sring for it to activate a scene.
I looked into it. The win cutscene is triggered by an end game trigger. It doesn't specifically call for a named file to play. Basically, the end game trigger is hard coded to play the win.smk and can't really be changed.

You can create an .smk file of the same name and it will play, but thats about it.
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