Im wondering if anyone has done this...

F

floodcasso2

Spaceman
Hey guys whats up, im a LONG time WC fan and long time WC news reader, and a first time poster. I have a background in graphic design and video editing, and i was wondering if anyone has taken those incredibly well done cutscenes from wing commander 4 and tried to edit them down into a feature length film? Taking the most important story elements, and adding some newly created 3d spaceflight graphics? If not, I would like to be one to spearhead a project like that, wing commander 4's cutscenes were absolutely incredible and edited together would make a far better film than wing commander the movie. just my two cents... so if anyone has done something like this. please post the link, if not id love to get started on a project like that :) And one last thing BRING BACK CHRIS ROBERTS AND PROPER WING COMMANDER GAMES!!!

sincerely
long time WC fan
Justin F.
 
Modding of the WCP Vision engine is quite advanced these days, you might get a lot of good scenes using mods. Don't know how you record them, though. better ask the UE people.
 
floodcasso2 said:
wing commander 4's cutscenes were absolutely incredible and edited together would make a far better film than wing commander the movie.
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And one last thing BRING BACK CHRIS ROBERTS AND PROPER WING COMMANDER GAMES!!!
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Now, you can't see it, but I'm making a rude gesture at you. Many times.
 
floodcasso2 said:
. . . i was wondering if anyone has taken those incredibly well done cutscenes from wing commander 4 and tried to edit them down into a feature length film . ..
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Theres been "wouldn't it be cool" talk about it off and on, but no one is currently pursuing it. I think its a worthwhile project that should be pursued at some point.

C-ya
 
Don't ask the UE people! ;) This UE person is currently coding an OpenGl intepretation of R-Type for a piece of coursework (I'm using WC graphics, atleast until I can get some original graphics, so its completley WC), if anyone wants a copy when its done tho I'd be happy to post it :) Given enough time I should have music, sound effects and gamepad support up and running via DirectX.

And Quarto is doing too much already, he really should go outdoors ;)

Anyway... cutting from Vision engine graphics to live action video would be a BAD idea, best to ask someone like Hadrian or Rylex (although not them cos I believe both of them are very busy atm) to render some proper sequences.
 
R-Type rocks.
Maybe using Vision wouldn't look as good as Hadrian-grade stuff, but it would be easier to do...
 
Oh, you don't have to ask Hadrian. You can just assume he'll help. It's in the Fan Project Guide.
 
well as a member of Scifi meshes.com's forums im in almost constant contact with a large group of modellers and animators that would probably be able to help. the question is what to leave in and what to take out... i mean Id like to make this as close to feature length (more or less 2 hours) as possible. any ideas?
 
not to mention that i agree wholeheartedly that mixing in-engine game graphics of ANY engine with live action and coming out with something that looks professional would be almost impossible... what i would like to do is come up with a good "shooting" script, so that we all know whats staying and leaving and then determine how many SFX shots need to be created. The first thing is getting DVD master quality video from someone who has the dual side dvd format version of WC4, and who would be willing to convert all of the video footage on the disc from its native DVD format to a high quality video format (ie mpeg4, DivX, or even mpeg2 files or MiniDV tape) for editing.
 
I wouldn't shoot for 2 hours if I were you, that may be biting off much more than you could develop. Maybe more along the lines of an hour to an hour and a half(depending upon how much video there is). As for my personal input, I see the actual fighting scenes being secondary to the video "plot", more along the lines of the WC novel engagements than those seen in the games. Watching WC fighters shooting at each other for 10 minutes every mission would get kindof repetetive after a few times. You'd have to see what footage you could use and what is not "plot-driving" so that maybe you were left with under a dozen "fighting scenes".

Then there's the matter of the musical score to extract from WC4 for spaceflight background, if that is appropriate to the fighting scenes.

Anyway, like you said, you'd have to set on a "shooting script" that incorporates all of the relevant video to determine how many "fighting scenes" you'd need.

C-ya
 
I thought about spending the time going through and drawing up the "shooting script", but I have zero modeling/cutscene-making/SO engine tweaking skills so I'd just be wasting my time.

C-ya
 
I had a similar thought ages ago. However the problem is with the cut scenes. If you use the movie viewer program to rip them to AVI keeping all their quality (both sound and video and removing the interlacing) they are very big files. Just the Wing Commander 3 intro on it's own is 1.49gig. I'm sure you could use programs like virtual dub to rip them to divx and compress them while keeping most of the quality. It will take a lot of time and effort to do this for every single movie file on the CDs. Another hurdle is the choices, everyone has preferences as to what they want, such as the ending. I guess you could make one for each choice, but you will need an official guide to follow, such as the novels.
Then once you have ingame flight footage and the cutscenes, all you really need todo is combine the whole shebang using something like Windows Movie Maker.

If you ever commence this project and really get into it, I'd help with the Windows Movie Maker phase of development. I'd even gladly help out compressing the movie files once I finish learning the ins and outs of compression. :cool:
 
I'd vote for a full length film in line with the game. Every video and every mission (following successful conversation choices and accomplished missions). However this will be above the feature length limit.
 
Dundradal said:
why not follow the path of the novel?
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That's what I said in my previous post, however some people may prefer different choices than the novel since the story of the game was so flexible. Novel would be best though as I guess it's considered canon?
 
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