Illusion Museum/Lightstone Holodeck - Play movies.

[Nights Bane]

Was too excited to try and wait to be added to the new scripting assistants forum, or to even ask to be, so here is my excited ramblings:

I've created a monster.

The QA where you can 'plug' in lightstones is an area where PC's can read up on all the awesome lore and history by playing these lightstones/recordings for anyone who isn't aware.

I created a short video based on the first one about 'Charles Bresley' and you can see what it looks like here on youtube: (Please set it to 1080p and Full screen for max effect)

Link to Video

What you can't see from the video- is that I have been ruthlessly bug testing the possibility of adding these videos INTO NWN modules/EfU.  I spent the better part of today dissecting the existing bioware videos and getting the correct bit rates, compression rate, resolution etc etc to ensure everything would work properly (I even tested an online module running NWNX with a local machine that did NOT have the movie files to see whether it would crash or generate an error, it did neither).

Anyway-

I could make a whole series of lightstone videos like the Charles Bresley one.  Yes yes, i'm aware some of the words are different, and yes yes, it doesn't quite sync up, but imagine if we get some of the artists of #efu IRC involved with sketchs? I'm a programmer, and the images I got off GOOGLE image search!
[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]
INB4 : Are the haks big?
ANSWER : The haks would be optional

INB4 : Your writing and narrative there is shit, can I write it instead?
ANSWER: It was text taken directly from inside the efu module, which was not meant to be a movie.  It's a taste test to see what people think, its an unpolished video.  Also, remember to watch the youtube video on 1080p (Hi-Def) and in full screen otherwise it will look worse.  

INB4 : There's no sound/music.  Oh wait- Why is it so quiet?
ANSWER:  I cocked up, I've had my volume on full the whole time making it, and headphones in.  Its nothing that can't be easily remedied.
[/COLOR]

[PlayaCharacter]

This is still a pretty amazing level of effort, and I'd hate it to go unused.

If you posted this stuff in character somehow, or could find some other way for players to utilize it, I would certainly take advantage of it. Lightstones would be tough, but there's got to be some other way to work with this, even if it's just for flavor on the forums.

Good on you for sharing something cool.

[Merrick]

It would probably be possible to highly compress the video content of such a video and achieve a size as low as 1 or a few mb at that length with decent quality. The YouTube at 360 pixels is around that size.  I don't know about nwn scripting though. Great voice acting in my opinion heh.

[Nights Bane]

Cheers!

Yeah, I looked into the video thing, but it was the simplest thing which eluded me all along.  [COLOR="Red"]Players need to not be in game to play the video.[/COLOR]  They can simply open up VLC or whatever media player- and view them outside the game! LOL

Making the videos wasn't a problem for me, and neither was the file size, they were approximately 1 meg per minute. like you said- nor getting it to work inside NWN, I found that very easy, its a single function inside the toolset (Although I did spend hours tweaking the compression rates).

The problem was people just viewing them, I considered encryption systems to make them only viewable inside NWN, but that is a crazy amount of effort to go into just for some stylish content thats all about style.

What I've decided to do instead, is make versions of the lightstone conversations and put them on youtube.  None of the 'special' light stones mind you, just the generic ones.  it should be a stylish way to view the content should anyone desire to do so.  It will take me a wee while to do them all, particularily as I am trying to get a kobold player faction off the ground at the minute.  

P.S: My voice actor shall remain anonymous until they desire otherwise, I'd like to thank them for their contribution all the same and for all the fun roleplay we have in game.

[Damien]

that video is far too slow, its like watching some attempt at an artsy video

but gj for making a movie i guess?

[Nights Bane]

It was a bit slow huh

Yeah, I suppose it was a bit slow and artistic.  Thanks for the kudos on me making the video though.  Is it really that bad?  I might have kinda lazer vision on, because I spent so long making it.

[Wrexsoul]

Damien what the hell. The video was cool, and so is the concept! It'd be awesome to have actual videos like this at certain (special) points in the setting (just as you launch your character into the world would be very cool, for example). It worked to great effect in the official campaigns, and it'd be the same here. Could use some music too though, maybe!

[ScottyB]

Re: Too slow: I think the editing could be a little tighter, but that's it. When the narrator is speaking it has a good pace, but there's too much silence between sentences/slides.

I think having a collection of music cues would be better than finding full tracks, and that could either fill the time between images or emphasize a particular statement, and would be very flexible to re-use in other videos.

Thus concludes my thoughts as a guy who took a film class once.

My thoughts about applying this to EFU are still coming together, because there's a lot of potential here. Addendum: I'm speaking as a fellow player and would-be creative soul. Not as a DM.

[Nights Bane]

Its pretty unpolished yep

Yeah, there's definately something to it.  There's potential.  As for the artistic slant, I'm a software programmer/computer network engineer-  I'm DEFINATELY not an artist.  

This was my first attempt.  My latest is better, with music and less jerky.  But anyway, getting it working in game is just a stylistic thing, but the problem is people can just open the files in their media player once they have downloaded them.  

I'm here if video needs made, give me and a good sketch artist with a story board, and i'll do the animation and compression and stuff like that.

P.S) If you ever want vid, ScottyB, you do the story boards! Find me a sketch artist- I'll film/animate and edit and compress the video.

[Garem]

What about a "drop over" video player that oriented itself in the top left of the screen, sort of like those windows that Steam pops OVER in-game screens when you have a message, get a gift, etc.?

Is that possible?

[Ebok]

I really like the lightshows as they are, and would not want to have video loading IG for any reason. Other applications are sure, whatever floats your boat.

[SN]

Snide remarks aside, this should  definitely be used for an 'intro' movie for new PC's after they go through the portal in the OOC area.

[efuincarnate]

First, NB, well done on attempting and completing a film of any sort. I work in Hollywood, doing so in various forms for a living.  It is a tremendous undertaking to take any film project to completion, so kudos on that!

Cut scenes fill the RPG video game world.  Now a days, they are pro produced things done for millions of dollars per cut scene film ala http://bethsoft.com/en-us/games/elder_scrolls_anthology

What you created from my standpoint is quite good, I take it you did it on your own with available tools at hand?   Not sure it works as an in game tool, but cut scenes for the intro to the server, especially with the End of Days theme  as the start point, is an idea worthy of investigation .  Happy to talk shop with you in PMs or in IRC.  Feel free to hit me up.