Hello all,
Minor update to share - has it really been two months?
DainApp recently reached V1.0 alpha status and entered open source development, so I started tinkering with the new version to see how much more stable it is - and the answer is "
much more stable".
So I started playing around with the WCIV video and produced some stable, glitch-free and totally smooth
60fps videos.
I think this is a massive improvement over the previous 60fps experiment (from
waaaaaay back in May) - so much so that I think we're going to make them an option in
Wing Commander IV Remastered.
Don't worry for those of you who hate the dreaded "Soap Opera Effect" - I had a word with
@Pedro and he said we can make 60fps video optional in the game settings. If you don't like it, you can turn it off and every other frame of video will be skipped, dropping playback back to 30fps.
I probably won't be releasing this as stand-alone HD Video Pack for the GOG/Origin releases as I have for previous versions, mainly because I don't think it they'll handle 60fps footage very well. Also, the download size will be enormous if I try to encode using h.264. For the Remastered project, we can look into using a more efficient video codec to keep those file sizes down.
One of the main goals for the remaster project is to make the transition between FMV and gameplay as seamless as possible - and I think this would go a long way to helping with that goal - going from 60+fps in-engine to 30fps in the FMV is ok, but if we can keep everything buttery smooth, I think that would be a better overall experience.
So, here are some samples :^)