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Author Topic: Few noob questions  (Read 9330 times)

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birukoff

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Few noob questions
« on: September 13, 2007, 10:39:18 AM »

Hi all,

I am new here, and have got a couple of questions. Could be so kind to clarify these points:
1) Can I apply normal maps on the 3D characters? I think DX9c open the way to shaders, right?
2) Can I animate the camera properties, for example, field of view, in order to achieve more cinematographic effects?
3) Can the engine remember the positions and poses of the 3D characters in one scene and restore them in another scene? Better, with the example. There is a fighting episode, as in Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) or Dreamfall: The Longest Journey; characters fight. When the player comes close o certain position on the screen, the scene changes, and now the fight can be seen from another camera from another point of view. But, during this transition between scenes the position and the poses, and lots of other stuff should be remembered and restored in the new scene. For instance, the position of the enemy: if it is 1 meter away on the first scene then it shouldn't be 10 meters away on the second scene.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2007, 11:16:46 PM by birukoff »
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Nihil

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Re: Few noob questions
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2007, 04:04:09 PM »

Hello, and welcome to the forum.

@1: No, normal maps are not yet supported afaik, I don't know if support is planned?
@2: No, you can only scroll larger scenes
@3: I'm not sure, but that doesn't sound like an easy task because actor-positioning is done by x/y-values, so I guess you'd have to re-calculate them for scene-changes with new camera-angels etc ...

If you don't have too many scene changes like this it would perhaps be the easiest way to just store the x- and y-differences between both actors and then do a rough recalculation of their new positions according to the new camera position and rotation?
Or wait if someone with better math-knowlegde than me comes up with a correct formula :-)

birukoff

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Re: Few noob questions
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2007, 11:16:29 PM »

Thank you, sir!
It is so pity about camera animation, it could really be a great step to cinematographic effects in game.
Another thing, with cinematographic ideas in mind: how does video playback affect engine performance? Can I stream videos from hard drive, so that interactive scenes and video cut-scenes are mixed? With split-of-second transition time between them?
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sychron

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Re: Few noob questions
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2007, 11:45:56 PM »

Please remember that Wintermute is a 2.5D engine. The backgrounds are prerendered images, moving the camera along them doesn't make much sense.

Transition times between cutscenes and game scenes are quite fast, if a cutscene is played from within a scene. So you can load the scene, play the cutscene, and return to the scene without a noticable transition time.
If you load another scene after playing the cutscene, the transition will may noticable, depending on the loading time.
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birukoff

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Re: Few noob questions
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2007, 12:41:29 AM »

Thank you for the answer.
Animating camera: I mean animating the Field of View (FOV), the angle of the camera view. It is like zoom,and creates illusion, similar to moving. It is extremely often used in movies, because it can focus the viewer's attention on something important. To see the example of it, see the first scene in Fahrenheit, when Lucas looks at his hands after the murder. You will see really amazing example of using this technique. And it perfectly fits 2.5D idea  ;)
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sychron

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Re: Few noob questions
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2007, 02:41:02 AM »

Well, for effects like this, I would create theora cutscenes containing the zoom and play them from the scene. If the last frame of the theora matches the scene, the transition should have the desired effect.

Zooming while playing the scene is a problem, for that the actor must first be set to a defined position to match the first frame of the theore -- but then, it should work as well.

"Standard" effects, like vertigo zooms etc, cannot be done this way, but well simple zoom/slide effects or scene changes may be done.
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Jyujinkai

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Re: Few noob questions
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2007, 03:09:50 AM »

Point (3)

I have been playing with this myself and it is easy enough to film a 3D Realtime cut sequence inside wme using multi-camera angles.

What you need to do is use absolute values rather than have the model standing on the spot, as in a cut sequence you are not going to be controlled by the user.

Setup your scenes.
 - Render it form your requried angles to get the background plates
 - Export you animation in panda
 - Set your animation cycles to the desired length of you camera cuts. EG:- fight sequence anim01 = frame 1 - 50 (punch), anim02 = 51 - 200(fall over)
 - set up your scenes in wme and your done!!!

How this works
 - If you do not have the animation running on the spot it, the animation is relative world space IN the 3Ds file. So form where ever you palce the actor is will move from there as it was animated in the 3D app.
 - Also if you call the actor and then the animation at say frame 51, then the model will jump to what ever spot it was sitting in your 3D app at frame 51. This means simply place the model in wme where you would like the animation to start fomr and bang there you go.

Here is a super quick example of what I am talking about. This scene uses a WME scene change to change a camera viewpoint on a single continuous animation. Designed as a non-interactive cut sequence. This is real quick and dirty but i think you will get the idea.
http://hosted.filefront.com/AnimationCluB/


Notes

- Remember that the camera cut can hide a tiny mistake in exact placement so just make sure it looks good and you players will not notice.
- For cutsequences you can export more than one thing at a time.. for a fight export both the fighters in a single animation.
- You might find it a it easier to split the animation cuts into a separate actor for each scene. (A little big on space but if you do it right you can all reference the same textures so the bloat is not that bad) That way when you are position the actor in wme the first frame of the animation is equal to the positioning in the editor.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2007, 03:23:52 AM by Jyujinkai »
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birukoff

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Re: Few noob questions
« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2007, 12:42:21 AM »

Another question :)
How quickly can Wintermute change between scenes? Is it possible to preload scenes in order to make transition time between them very small, like 0.1 sec?
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atm_deev

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Re: Few noob questions
« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2007, 06:54:21 AM »

Theoretically, this is possible if all the pre-load (method written by you) their own.
In another question: how possible cache information (example, sprites) standard WME-instruments?..
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birukoff

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Re: Few noob questions
« Reply #9 on: November 10, 2007, 07:56:19 PM »

Sorry, I didn't get it...
Is it possible to switch between scenes quickly, like under 0.1 sec, or not?
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