Star_Dancer

Scuzz, you may be right about the hiccup. I just noticed that the FX for the hit is a hair BEFORE the baddie firing the bolt!

Anyway, I'll try splicing in a JumpPost or something similar to see if that will look OK.

Thanks!!

[ QUOTE ]
If I remember right, there are some fx sounds in the fansite kits.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not really. There are a couple unidentified sounds used for the various ATs, but even those don't seem quite right.

Hmmm. Once this contest is over, I might just create a web repository of sounds similar to Mantid's animated emote guide. Assuming, of course, that it is OK with NC to do that...

Here's another problem I have just run into: The following FX command does nothing to my toon:

OneShot 186249 WEAPONFX/CROSSBOWHIT.FX 186248

It is part of a unaltered demorecord file with my toon being hit by a Mortificator's crossbow bolt. When recorded, the toon did a nice reaction to the hit. But on playback - Nada.

Thoughts?

Music is proving to be a bigger challenge than I'd expected, even with all of the CoX sound files that are available. I just can't seem to find certain themes. For instance, I wanted an fast, energetic heroic theme for the intro. The closest I can find is the Atlas Park loop.

{sigh} Why must we suffer for our art?

(I'm sure this has been discussed before, but...) Does anyone know of a collection of the sound FX for the various powers and other MOVs? Yes, I can generate them in demoplayback, but I'm feeling lazy and whiney today... LOL

I know that nothing is documented about the ragdoll commands, but I'm seeing a ton of EntRagdoll commands well after a critter is down for the count. I tried deleting some of them but I somehow end up with critter pretzels on the floor.

Does anyone have any theories/experience with this command? Why are there ragdoll commands after the thing stops moving? Which ones are the important - Ones closer to the MOV POSTDEATH, or the last ones?

LOL - I just want my critters to die a meaningful and natural death. Zombie pretzels look decidedly... non-tasty...

Umph... Zot... howb do i ket dish micapobe oww my nobe??? Ish tuck!

OK - LOL @ self...

Any of y'all using your own voice for parts of your vids?

I believe it's pretty much a truism that everyone hates the recorded sound of their own voice. Am I right? I did a little announcer-voiceover myself for my contest vid, and even though I added reverb and lowered the pitch - I still cringed when I heard it! The spousal unit listened to it and said, "No, it's OK. It sounds campy!" Campy! OMFG!!! I sound like I should be in "Remedial Person" classes!!!

Anyway. Just saying, my vid will most likely be "an attempt" at humor. I don't have much choice at this point.

"Did you six-slot stupid?"

That.

I spent the better part of an afternoon watching vids on Michelle's site. (If you haven't visited her site yet - GO NOW!) It's hard to believe that she's not an artist by profession.

Creativity, style and technical savvy...
I'm a fan, sweetie. Seriously.

LOL - How many times have I PM'd Zloth or Balshor about problems like this?

PEBKAC - Problem Encountered Between Keyboard And Chair!

All I can say is that Experience is the best teacher. Z and B give us tools, but just like with hammers - it is up to us to learn how to use them.

Kudos to Zloth and Balshor - For teaching us how to fish.

Kudos to Dark_Respite - For showing us how delicious the fish are!

Look at the demo file and delete any POS or PYR commands for that Reference/Object that don't do what you want.

BTW - The word "Move" can also include animations run by MOV commands. "FX" commands can also cause what we perceive as "movement", but that prolly isn't what you meant.

(Since I read that Zloth is thinking about a UI re-write...)

As long as we're asking about res... Please allow us to enter a custom resolution setting! (And remember it)

To re-aim the camera in-game, hold down the PageUp key while moving your mouse. If you have a scroll wheel, that will zoom in and out. Press PageDown to reset the camera.

The camera will still be centered on your character. If you want true independece for the camera, then what Zloth said - learn how to manipulate demorecordings.

[ QUOTE ]
Well it would seem only proper to include the names of the people involved in the production and their role (like voices, music, etc). Wouldn't I be safe doing that?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm hoping that you're not planning to use any music other than the CoX bits or something you wrote yourself. Remember that you have to be legally capable of assigning EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS to everything in the vid that isn't in CoX. Even if some band you know allows you to use their music, I doubt seriously that they will be willing to give away that song forever.

My take on the credits question:

The sponsors of the contest are adamant that all rights to every aspect of the submissions will be assigned to THEM. They don't care who did what, and actually they would prefer that everything was done entirely by the contestant, since that simplifies their claim to rights ownership. Rolling credits with other people's names just may get you disqualified before you can explain that you have obtained signed releases from the persons listed.

Presumably the winning videos will subsequently be used, wholly or in part, to promote the Toyota Matrix. Ever seen credits in a commercial? No.

So, I'll be skipping credits on this project. Not my usual way of doing things, but this contest is a horse of a different color...

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Seriously - Most of the hard part is editing the demo files. Once you have your "script", you can do seriously cool stuff using just Windows Movie Maker (on a PC) or iMovie (if on a Mac).

The CoX engine can do wondrous things if you know how to manipulate it.

[/ QUOTE ]And my flaw lies right there. Tried going through and editing the sequence I already recorded and just said forget it because I was getting nowhere. I prefer the approach of setting it up in game and as I record to a demo file and then going through and recording it to video. I try my best to set it up so I can do it that way.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a good place to start. Next thing I'd do is lower all of the CAM POS Z coordinates (the second argument) a couple of units, so that you're not looking over the toon's head. Balshor's editor has a handy "Translate POS" command that will easily reduce all of the CAM POS Z numbers (filter for just the CAM entries first) so that you don't have to manually adjust all of the entries.

BTW - I use both Balshor's and Zloth's demo editors. Each has cool features and the compliment each other nicely.

[ QUOTE ]
Haha, third would be nice but it won't even cover the cost of all the software I need once I get a nice and powerful Mac Pro to edit on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Seriously - Most of the hard part is editing the demo files. Once you have your "script", you can do seriously cool stuff using just Windows Movie Maker (on a PC) or iMovie (if on a Mac).

The CoX engine can do wondrous things if you know how to manipulate it.

Lordy, I think y'all are just WAY over-thinking those rules.

LOL

Has anyone grokked what Toyota is really looking for out of all this? I mean, I'm guessing that it would somehow tie in with a marketing campaign for the Matrix. If that's so, it might help to know so we can tailor our submissions to what they really want...

And is there a place to view the submissions? All I've seen so far is that one posted by GrandConjurer over on the GameTrailers.com site.

[ QUOTE ]
... the company in charge of the contest (in this case, NCSoft) needs to do something to fix the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

See, there's the flaw in your logic. NCSoft is NOT in charge of this contest. Ex Libris has officially said so in the topic where we are asking about the contest rules. (I believe that you have posted this "request" over there also.)

IT AIN'T NCSOFT'S CONTEST. Period. Any feelings or opinions that you have which are contrary to the stated facts are not relevant.

Ummm... NCSoft isn't running that contest. Why would they be involved with GameTrailers.com's technical issues? And how could NCSoft "address" problems we are having with a completely different company?

Oops. I almost forgot...

5 - Enter your video in the Matrix Machinima Contest
6 - Come in 2nd place to my entry
7 - Read my posts about how great my new car is!

OK, it occurred to me that my explanation was less informative than I intended. Here's the steps (in broad terms) to producing the effect you want:

1 - Record your in-game scene using the /demorecord command.
2 - Edit the demorecording to suit your needs using either Zloth's or Balshor's excellent (and free!) demorecording utilities.
3 - Playback the demorecording and record it as a video (.mpg) using FRAPS (or something similar).
4 - Edit the MPG video with an editor that can overlay titles that are rotated in 3 dimensions (Dunno which ones will do that. Video Studio won't)

Hopefully that gives you a better idea what is involved.

Bzald, Zloth is right - you can't accomplish what you want purely from editing a CoH demorecording.

You can accomplish it if you make a video from that playback and overlay the titles on the video. That's why I asked what VIDEO editing software you are using (not the DEMO editing software).

Bzald, I think you're talking about "titles", but I'm not sure. And I think what you're trying to do is angle the text to conform to the viewing angle of a surface, like a sidewalk. Is that correct?

If so, we'll need to know what video editing software you're using. Some editing software has very nice titling capabilities. Others. not so much.