The "the price of freedom" Movie Project

They did a few others of these parodies. Mostly with games which had filmed cutscenes (Rebel Assault 2, Daedalus Encounter). But they were also some other games (Full Throttle comes to mind).
pcplayer.de is a semi-official tribute site to pcplayer which sadly doesn't exist anymore. It was the best german pc games magazin (imo) at the time.
 
I'm really sorry to drag up this thread (I hate that myself when it happens on my own site), but since I was really anxious about this project, I just have ask:

What's the progress on this project AD? Anyone? Or has it been cancelled that i'm just unaware of?

Again, sorry for 'gravedigging', but I was really curious...
 
Eraser said:
I'm really sorry to drag up this thread (I hate that myself when it happens on my own site), but since I was really anxious about this project, I just have ask:

What's the progress on this project AD? Anyone? Or has it been cancelled that i'm just unaware of?

Again, sorry for 'gravedigging', but I was really curious...
Click to expand...


No problem... I'm still working on it, although progress was really slow over the summer. Summer is always my busiest time of year so it was hectic and I didnt get much done other than playing a bunch of counterstrike: source. So now I'm just starting to get back in the swing of things. Just the other day I worked on a sequence a bunch. Im about 3/4 of the way through making the "gameplay" videos. and once that is done It wouldnt be long for me to finalize the cut of the movie. Putting together the gameplay vids is probably the most challenging aspect of this project aside from deciding where to cut and trim. (story/ pace wise). As well, the farther into the game, the more complex they become.:)

Thanks for the interest though. I'll try and keep you guys posted on my progress a little more frequently.
 
One thing I highly reccomend for you or for that matter anyone else interesting in editing with game footage (this goes doubly so for the folks making the music videos) is going to have a look at some of the higher rated videos on http://www.animemusicvideos.org . Many of those videos are truly superb undertakings, often telling entirely different stories than the original footage intended. Another wonderful benefit is the ammount of support the community offers for anyone interested in video editing.

[Don't however try to put Wing Commander videos on their site. That would break several of their rules. They like to keep their videos purely anime-oriented.]

Now something specific to this project. Have you worked out the kinks of the video or can I offer some pointers about editing with DVD ripped footage? I'm actually learning a lot about this at the moment as I am working on a project of my own. There's some exceptional ways of making the footage look and work nice. Send me a message if you're interested in what I know and perhaps we can exchange tricks of the trade.

-DP
 
A very good way to edit video

In the past, I have used the software program "Super DVD Ripper" from
www.mpegx.com to convert my VOB files to DIVX. The DIVX website has some software enabling you to convert other video formats and to edit the DIVX files.
Hope this helps. Good luck on your fabulous project. I look forward to its completion.
 
Ultimate Solution For In-flight movie headaches

Okay. Here's how you do the no-headache recording of the in-flight sequences.

1) Get a computer hardware device which allows you to watch your PC on your
TV.

2) Using your VCR, record the game while your playing it.

3) Get a computer hardware device which allows you to watch TV on your PC.
Most of these components come with video capturing software.

4) Play back the VCR footage and record it onto your computer.

5) Using the software you already have, edit the footage.

I gaurantee this will save you a whole lot of time and effort.
 
cleusk said:
Okay. Here's how you do the no-headache recording of the in-flight sequences.

1) Get a computer hardware device which allows you to watch your PC on your
TV.

2) Using your VCR, record the game while your playing it.

3) Get a computer hardware device which allows you to watch TV on your PC.
Most of these components come with video capturing software.

4) Play back the VCR footage and record it onto your computer.

5) Using the software you already have, edit the footage.

I gaurantee this will save you a whole lot of time and effort.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the suggestions, But they don't really fit the scope of what I'm doing. In fact, a simple video of the gameplay would provide a rather bland result much like watching someone else play. It always iritates me cause I just want to get in there and do it my self. So my solution is to make it as cinematic as the confines of the wc4 engine allows. And my current methods are providing better results than I'd ever get using a vcr. Honestly it would be more effort to hook up your proposed setup than to keep going on my current process. (honestly I've been a little delayed while I've been tinkering with my HL2 map but I have every intention of finishing this and getting a downloadable version available to you guys)
 
cleusk said:
Okay. Here's how you do the no-headache recording of the in-flight sequences.

1) Get a computer hardware device which allows you to watch your PC on your
TV.

2) Using your VCR, record the game while your playing it.

3) Get a computer hardware device which allows you to watch TV on your PC.
Most of these components come with video capturing software.

4) Play back the VCR footage and record it onto your computer.

5) Using the software you already have, edit the footage.

I gaurantee this will save you a whole lot of time and effort.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's definately one way of going about it, although I would recommend removing the VCR from the capture process, as it is a redundant intermediatary step that introduces further quality degradation into an already lossy and analogue capture process.

So a more preferable route would be:

Host PC ---> Capture PC

The more practical and likely ideal solution here, especially with an older, less resource-hungry game like WC3/4, is to use an efficient capture utlity, such as FRAP's, which I believe that AD is using, as the framebuffer is captured and encoded digitally on the host PC and provided there is no bottleneck, should provide a lossless copy with the right settings.

The VCR route would definately provide watchable captures and this is something I've tried with WC and other games before, but unless one has a high-end S-VHS deck or professional broadcast equipment, there is going to be noticeable quality degradation to a varying extent with this method. Less so with the VCR removed from the process, but ultimately both are analogue approaches.

I currently have a spare system (with TV capture card) hooked up to my main rig and have achieved almost completely transparent captures in tests with WC3 gameplay, save for some slight colour correction due to the capture card, which can be corrected with post-processing. Issues to look out for include varying gamma values for the capture cards and graphics output, poor quality cables and limited capture software, alhought these can be remedied.

Cheers,


BrynS
 
Keep it up

AD, thanks for your work on this. I was surprised to see someone making this effort and I really look forward to the final. I'd definitely buy a DVD of this; WC4 was one of the best games I've ever played.
 
AD said:
Thanks for the suggestions, But they don't really fit the scope of what I'm doing. In fact, a simple video of the gameplay would provide a rather bland result much like watching someone else play. It always iritates me cause I just want to get in there and do it my self.
Click to expand...

I hope this doesn't mean you won't have any gameplay sequences at all.
I saw the sample WCIII movie by queeg and he fit it gameplay shots that worked very well. Speaking as someone who has only played Wing1, I thought the in-game stuff was cool as long as there's alot of good old space blasting action. Or SBA for short.

But, all of that depends on the audience. Someone who has played WC4 to death probably wouldn't want to watch a bunch of in-game stuff thinking 'been there done that'. But for someone who hasn't played, the in game stuff is cool, and exciting, as long as it's done properly.

Anyway I don't even know if I'm making any sense, or even if any of this applies to your movie, but you asked for advice and constructive comments so here's my two cents.
 
Raptor_Pilot said:
I hope this doesn't mean you won't have any gameplay sequences at all.
I saw the sample WCIII movie by queeg and he fit it gameplay shots that worked very well. Speaking as someone who has only played Wing1, I thought the in-game stuff was cool as long as there's alot of good old space blasting action. Or SBA for short.

But, all of that depends on the audience. Someone who has played WC4 to death probably wouldn't want to watch a bunch of in-game stuff thinking 'been there done that'. But for someone who hasn't played, the in game stuff is cool, and exciting, as long as it's done properly.
Click to expand...


Oh, there will be gameplay stuff. It's more of a necessity with WC4 than 3 in my opinion as there is more story stuff that takes place inflight. My comment was rather about the method that was described for getting the footage for which I had already worked out a solution to ages ago. I Don't know if Queeg read this thread before starting his project or not, but his process actually seems very similar to the one I've been using for a year now. (I should have had this out earlier but it's my own fault really).
 
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