Hi, I just wanted to know if there were any plans on adding the original SMAC/X movies (intro, secret projects, etc) into Planetfall. Probably not, since it's not mentioned anywhere, but they're so great it just struck me with curiosity.
Can I do it? I have time only on weekends due to work and college but I would eventually post them here...
PS: If someone would like to help, this app converts the elusive .wve files to uncompressed .avi: http://hcl.wcrevival.de/movie_player.html
Converting/compressing the avi to .bik shouldn't be hard afterwards.
Yep, the WC movie player (also attached here) can be used to convert from wve to avi. At least everyone but me can do so. The program doesn't work correctly on my computer for some reason.
Thereafter RAD Video Tools can be used to "Bink" the avi into a bik file. Not having converted an avi yet, I don't know which compression settings should be used. Some experimenting would be necessary if a balance can be found between file size and movie quality. I guess a file size similar to the original wve might work?
maritimeControl.wve would be a good file for testing.
So far i've converted all the WVE files to AVI without problems except on some videos which look extremely pixelated (citizensDefense looks absoutely horrid), and the only workaround would be video capturing the movie from inside the game with an external application.
Right now I'm experimenting with compressing the AVIs. Since the original videos are very small in resolution, it is very easy to compress them without losing quality. The thing is that when they're played on Civ4 they're greatly enlarged, and look really pixelated. I don't think there's a way to avoid this, unless you can adjust Civ4's video playback window size.
For binking files the following equation can be used:
PS: I'm using a letterbox effect for movies that have different aspect ratios, so they fit in a 4:3 resolution, and have made a copy of opening.wve without the Firaxis logo.
The thing is that when they're played on Civ4 they're greatly enlarged, and look really pixelated. I don't think there's a way to avoid this, unless you can adjust Civ4's video playback window size.
It is possible to change the size and x-y ratio of the movie window. IIRC from my past enquiries it is even possible to let it differ depending on which movie is playing. So there's no need at all to change the size or the ratio of the SMAC movies.
If it matches your quality standards, I'll upload all the movies tomorrow at work. If not, I could use the feedback to reconvert the files and upload new versions next week, though there's not much that can be changed.
Here are the settings I used on RAD:
Compress data to a % of the original: 100
multiple of the overall data rate: 3.0
Scaling compression: no scaling
How many frames to preview during bandwidth allocation: 8
Contrast: 16
Smooth%: 3
Compress audio level: 4
De-noise marked.
I did not intend to reduce size, but without wanting, the output file was reduced from 7mb (WVE) to 5.7mb (BIK). The total size is around 300MB.
Finally, here's a list of the movie files categorized by video size (and a small explanation to the less obvious names):
If it matches your quality standards, I'll upload all the movies tomorrow at work. If not, I could use the feedback to reconvert the files and upload new versions next week, though there's not much that can be changed.
The sound sounds different at the start of the movie (a consequence of de-noise?), but for the rest it looks ok!
Do you mean you have already converted all the movies?
If not, I'd divide the movies in five groups in terms of priority:
As you may have noticed, there are a few movies that look really pixelated because of the Wing Commander Converter (citizensDefense and theyTranscend come to mind). I put a 'REEMP' tag at the end of their filenames to note they might need to be replaced.
The only way to replace them with better quality movies is by directly video capturing from inside the game, something I can't do (I tried and the output video stutters and there's no audio), so some outside help will be needed.
PS: If you want I can re-Bink the movies without De-Noise, but as I said that'd be next weekend.
Oh, it must be because I used WinZip 11, it uses a new compression format I think.
It's the WVE ->AVI conversion that comes bad, it must be because that program is designed for Wing Commander 3 rather than SMAC. All those YouTube videos that use that utility have the same problem.
If I ever find a way to get more quality videos I will post them here. Thanks!
PS: Are the intro videos also on the list? Hehe. The smacx intro could be played when the aliens arrive (on later versions) and the original intro could be used when the game starts for the first time or as the opening slideshow (although I almost never get the slideshow to play)
For the intro video I was thinking I could look into letting that movie play inside the Dawn of Man screen. But first the simple things: movies for the secret projects.
I had set the game option to "No Movies" for a long time, but reactivated it now to test a secret project movie. In the attached picture you can see how movies look...
The strange thing is that in the past movies did play properly. I even had already succesfully tested the Weather Paradigm movie in some distant past. I don't see how it could be a graphical memory issue either, as I even get this result using a 250k single frame placeholder test 'movie'.
If you attach the necessary files in their proper folder structure here, I could take a look tomorrow how it looks on my end...
From the top of my head, perhaps it is a resolution problem? Meaning the available screen is too big for the resolution of the movie itself?
The resolution looks oddly small. Even on the smallest, 1024x768, the movie player fits complelety without overlapping any of the bottom bar or the buttons on the top... also the minimap looks weird. Video card config problem?
EDIT: D'oh! Just tried and never noticed it did overlap.
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