How I suggest we can preserve our work

nagorak

With the imminent shutdown of the Foundry, I am sure many of you are considering how you can salvage at least something from your missions. I've been thinking about this myself and I've decided the best thing we can do is to try to convert our missions into interactive movies.

The way I think this can be accomplished is by using the Foundry's export command to dump our missions to a text file. This text file can then be read by a program (which I or someone else will write) that can recreate our dialogue trees and mission storyline. Then all we have to do is fill in the NPC dialogue animations, and record video footage to place between dialogues. Ideally the program will be able to stitch all this together, or it will be possible create a webpage that does so.

How I would recommend accomplishing this is the following:

1) Use the Foundry export command to dump your mission to a text file:/ugcEditorExportProject filename.txt

*Replace filename.txt with the name of your missions, one word only. It will be exported to your Live\Data folder.

2) Use a screen capture software (Nvidia Shadowplay, AMD ReLive, FRAPS, etc) to record the NPC dialogue animations from your mission. You only need one recording of each emotion state per dialogue contact, but try to get the full animation. Later on we can convert these to animated gifs. You don't need to play through the whole mission, but doing so will probably ensure you don't miss anything (even then you have to account for branching dialogues, which for me at least is a big problem). Also, don't worry too much about getting BOFF footage, you can get that later from a stock mission if you have to.

3) Play through your mission while using the STO /demorecord command to record your actions. Later on you can play back the demo and record video footage, including from any angle using the free camera. Unfortunately this function only works with published missions, so you can't do it from the Foundry editor.

*The point of this playthrough is staging. Try to control your character/ship in a smooth manner. Maybe walk instead of run to get where you're going on a ship/planet.

*If your BOFFs are acting erratic, or shouldn't be involved in the action (ex: meeting an admiral) then put them somewhere out of the way.

*Remember that your Captain/Ship/Crew are now the main characters of this story. It probably helps if they are closer to ST canon. I suggest using an iconic ship, setting to a default paint job and ditching any weird Borg/Breen/Other Equipment that causes weird visual effects. Exception: if you have a Borg Captain, maybe you want a Borgified ship, but remember this is now what other people are going to see when watching.

*Likewise if you are wearing really weird uniforms you may want to put them closer to either STO canon or whatever matches the uniforms in your mission (ex: if everyone is using TNG uniforms, then use those).

*Don't forget you can perform multiple takes (we can selectively record from the demo later, and also patch videos together). It doesn't really matter what the mission is doing except for what other NPCs are doing. So, if you start out with your BOFFs but don't want them present, just run them off somewhere and then go back to the start and begin again.

*Depending on how your mission is structured getting good demo/video footage might be easier by republishing a version of your mission with some or all of the dialogue stripped out. That way you don't have to worry about being stopped automatically when the dialogue pops up.

Conclusion
The only trick to all of this is we only have a month to capture all of the elements we need to rebuild our missions (it would have been nice if Cryptic could have provided a bit more warning). The demo playback function might still work after the Foundry is pulled, but I wouldn't count on it.

Also someone is going to have to write the program that pulls this all together. I'm not the world's greatest programmer but I can probably figure out how to do it, however if someone with more experience wants to help I will not object. Unfortunately, I also have a lot of irons in the fire so writing this program is not something that is going to be done tomorrow, it will probably be a few weeks or months. I do have a vested interest in doing it though, since my missions rely on such massive dialogue trees that simply recording a video of them loses most of the content.

In any case, even if you just want to create Youtube videos of your missions, using the above demorecord technique may still be helpful for achieving that.

This is my current plan for going about this, but if you guys have any feedback or suggestions I'd be interested in hearing them.

benalexander

This would be a huge endeavor. I'm not saying it's impossible, but an enormous amount of work.

Exporting Foundry missions can be done easily. Extracting dialog isn't much of a problem either. But getting the emotional state of every NPC involved – that's a lot. First you have to record, then edit the file, maybe make it into a GIF. And all of this for quite a few missions. Then there is demorecord. As far as I know, we have no idea if it will be working for foundry missions after April 11th. It might... it might not. So the only way to make sure we have all the footage is to not only record it before then, but also edit all the paths and render it for the use outside the game engine (so in case, demorecord stops working, we are covered)

A program to stitch all that together would technically not be needed before the deadline. Nonetheless: While I am not a programmer by trade and more of an enthusiast I cannot image this being a simple task. It would need a huge amount of user input to know, what parts are supposed to go where – especially in missions, that are non-linear. (For example: I have a mission with three different endings and additional side quests). In the end it seems to need almost everything a “real” video editing software has plus some additional features.

Again, I'm not saying it is impossible and sadly I don't really have a better idea. The only thing that comes to mind is to make or collect Let's Plays - not the same, I know. A lot of the dialog will be lost. I would love to see your idea happening and don't want to discourage you. Personally, I know I spend more than a month on a very limited program that only extracts the dialog (admittedly, I was learning a lot doing so). Sadly, for me at least, the amount of time and resources before and after the deadline needed for this to work, feels rather daunting.

I'm really sorry.

zorbane

I was coming here just to recommend doing the export!

nagorak

I agree with you that it won't be easy. I wish we'd been given a couple months, or better yet six months, rather than only a month. Cryptic didn't really do us a favor by giving us such late notice. All the same, it's still the best idea I have to try to preserve these stories.

Making more of a video does actually open some things up. For example you can just record an NPC talking (talking animation) and have a text overlay, rather than a dialogue box that you click through.

Also, it's possible to do something like create an extra map/dialogue where you just have NPC after NPC go through the emotional states. It would be annoying to do, but that might be ultimately the easiest way to capture all of them in a row for easy extraction. Of course you could also just use static screens instead of animations, that would save some considerable amount of work.

Stitching it all together could be as simple as having a web page where you go through a dialogue and then it links to a new page that plays an embedded YT video with the results. There was actually someone who made a program that parsed the dialogue boxes from the export into a series of webpages. I e-mailed him but haven't heard back.

I think it's technically feasible, albeit still a challenge. In any case, for now the focus has to be on preserving the inputs necessary to recreate something out of them. Because without those there's no point in worrying about the rest.

I don't know, maybe I should just be resigned to let my stories go, but I'm stubborn and I just don't like letting all the work I put into them go to waste. I can understand if others feel differently, and it could honestly be that the best decision is to just cut your loses and move on with your life.

allocater

I think the most efficient way is to record a youtube video while you play through it with as much as possible optional content. Everything beyond that has severe diminishing returns and is a lot of work for minor gain.

pendra37

It really just boils down to finding a new game that can do what STO can, to an extent.
If you find such game, which allows modding, it is a simple deal to create an mission importer. The you can convert the UGC export mission and load it into that other game.
Is there such game?

zorbane

Hi guys.

I'm adding the ability to upload your export file to foundrymissions.com. Then you can download it back or get a Json version.

It's actually pretty much done on my own local test site I'm hoping to deploy it some time this week. I also need to fix a registration issue, if you try to sign up and it either gives you an error or you never get the verification email let me know and I can manually approve you.

https://twitter.com/STOMissions/status/1112752716118282240

duncanidaho11

Thanks Zorbane! I'll definitely be uploading all my stuff.

pendra37#5088 wrote: »

It really just boils down to finding a new game that can do what STO can, to an extent.
If you find such game, which allows modding, it is a simple deal to create an mission importer. The you can convert the UGC export mission and load it into that other game.
Is there such game?

Unfortunately not, the UGC export doesn't contain the assets (ex. maps) required for making a Foundry mission and will not allow any other game to build what STO built in using the data (there's no 1:1 translation.) It's just a text file. I think the best that you could possibly do for an export is create a stand-alone Foundry player which runs through a text-version of the mission. Ie. sequential dialog trees and per "map" optionals.

With some other features (Ex. image import for maps and characters, UI design similar to the Foundry) that could be fun but I don't know how realistic that would be to create (it wouldn't be as simple as a one-time import and publish, authors would still need to do a lot of building if the dialog trees aren't sequential, mixed between optional and mission, or don't reference maps.)

duncanidaho11

Okay after a little research I realized that I'm basically just describing a visual novel maker setup with a UI setup like the Foundry. With character screenshots, backgrounds, and appropriate setup it would be possible to recreate a Foundry mission 1:1 (living through dialog trees and scene transitions, no 3D environments or STO gameplay).

I'm exploring a few options now (Novelty and TyranoBuilder seem most approachable), we could take this up as a community project (step 1: build templates, step 2: tutorials.)

zorbane

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

Okay after a little research I realized that I'm basically just describing a visual novel maker setup with a UI setup like the Foundry. With character screenshots, backgrounds, and appropriate setup it would be possible to recreate a Foundry mission 1:1 (living through dialog trees and scene transitions, no 3D environments or STO gameplay).

From what I see in the export that is what I envision as well

duncanidaho11

Update: I have made some progress on the Foundry revival front. Below is a completed proof of concept for stand-alone Foundry missions (build in a free visual novel creator). With the program I'm using we can create a standard template with easy inclusion of characters and backgrounds. Anything we could do with the dialog editor we can do here (and then some.)

If folks want to try it out, the prototype is included in the folder below. To play it, download the two files (the mission and the application extension to run it) and play the .exe.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-LbAaXArlKw8Qf98o6CIb79Ktk5viCmS?usp=sharing

Update: in user testing we've found that windows doesn't like the exe file when downloaded. You may see some security warnings, if worried you can close out there but me and Kael can vouch for this working cleanly. Ideally with a shared visual novel template, we want export files that simply work so it's worth exploring other options. Novelty (what this uses) I can use to replicate Foundry dialog window but it's older (2010) and more limited with the output (two files, .exe only, and it upsets window security when run after downloading. When playing my own I haven't had any security pop-up problems.)

Ren'Py (most accessible alternative) seems more capable but it involves Python (no graphical editor). Folks with coding experience might be able to setup a Foundry template for general use but it's beyond my capabilities ATM. Documentation is below if folks with expertise want to look into this.

https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/index.html

Novelty link:
http://www.visualnovelty.com/about.html

nagorak

If you can make it so we can insert videos in between dialogues, then we can use footage from the game to fill in the gaps. I'm still trying to move forward with my plan to preserve my missions. I'm gathering footage of basically all the events that happen and hope to be able to create sort of an interactive novel, as it sounds like you're doing.

Honestly, I'm afraid a lot of the stuff from the Foundry is just going to be lost though. I wish they had given us a few months and not just sprung this on us with one month's warning. Alternatively, maybe put up a static Foundry server that doesn't ever update for the time being. I guess it is what it is though.

zorbane

The update with the foundry export upload is live!! The Json export still has some issues so is disabled for now.

nagorak wrote: »

I wish they had given us a few months and not just sprung this on us with one month's warning.

I agree whole heartedly with this. Everyone is scrambling to save whatever they can

zorbane

FYI right now it looks like there's a problem uploading new missions. Adding an export to a current mission is working fine.

Thanks for CaptPFDennis for helping me diagnose the issues

zorbane

An update.

I think I've fixed the uploading of exports so please try it and let me know what happens.

I've moved onto reading the exports to display dialogue andsort of have it figured out in a proof of concept kind of way. Hopefully it can be implemented on the website in the next few days

https://twitter.com/STOMissions/status/1114035978757238784

zorbane

Some more progress pics

April 6

https://twitter.com/STOMissions/status/1114777875314380800

April 7

https://twitter.com/STOMissions/status/1115123389306363904

nagorak

In the end I've decided to more or less let my missions go. I've got some friends doing playthroughs so they won't be totally lost, but capturing footage of everything from the missions was just too ambitious. I actually spent several hours trying, but it would take a dozen more hours and I'd just be stressing about it over the next couple of days. In the end, even if I got everything it would probably be hundreds of hours of work to piece it all back together. And then would anyone even play it? It just wouldn't be worth the hassle.

I'll dump my missions to text so the dialogues are preserved, and the story is basically preserved by the playthroughs.

Star Trek: Atlas had a good run, but it's time to move on.

zorbane

I've been looking at the mission export and I can't figure out how objectives are linked. Has anyone got any ideas?

benalexander

What du you mean with "linked"?

Usually they are listet early on in the export file like this:

Name Holodeck_Ugc_194449_8a7a45c5:Mission

GrantBlock
{
PromptBody <&Sir, we are received a transmission. It is marked as "Urgent".&>
PromptPetCostume Engineering_Space
}

Objective 1
{
UIString "Talk to nurse Rassa in the infirmary on ESD"
WaypointMode Automatic
ComponentID 1184
}

Objective 3
{
UIString "Go to the bathroom"
WaypointMode Automatic
ComponentMapName 524776864
ComponentID 1392
}

Objective 4
{
UIString "Find an empty stall"
WaypointMode Automatic
ComponentMapName 524776864
ComponentID 1393
SuccessFloaterText "You found an empty stall"
}

Objective 5
{
UIString "Close the door"
WaypointMode Automatic
ComponentMapName 524776864
ComponentID 1003
InteractText "Close door"
InteractAnim Clip_Board
}

Objective 12
{
UIString "Have a seat"
WaypointMode Automatic
ComponentMapName 524776864
ComponentID 1009
}

Objective 14
{
UIString Flush
WaypointMode Automatic
ComponentMapName 524776864
ComponentID 1271
InteractText Flush
InteractAnim Wrench_Stand
InteractDuration UGC.DurationShort
}

Objective 15
{
UIString "Open the door"
WaypointMode Automatic
ComponentMapName 524776864
ComponentID 1006
InteractText "Open door"
InteractAnim Clip_Board
}

Objective 16
{
UIString "Wash your hands"
WaypointMode Automatic
ComponentMapName 524776864
ComponentID 1072
InteractText "Wash hands"
InteractAnim Computer_Counter
InteractDuration UGC.DurationLong
}

Objective 13
{
UIString "Return back to the ESD main level"
WaypointMode Automatic
ComponentMapName 524776864
ComponentID 19
InteractText "Return to duty"
InteractAnim Clip_Board
InteractDuration UGC.DurationInstant
}

The objective number doesn't seem to matter much (i guess it is the order they were created in). The order they are listet in should however be correct. The link to the corresponding object / dialog / place marker etc. is part of the ComponentID listed with each objective.

zorbane

Hmm you are right, my code ordered them by number so that's how I was seeing it. I will have to include an order number or something and order it that way instead

Thanks for your help for making me see the obvious answer!!

benalexander

You might also want to store the ComponentMapName. As far as I know, it's the easiest way to determine for the rest of the export file, what dialog / objects / etc. are actually used and not on some old map. (Atleast, thats what I did back in the day)

zorbane

Thanks.

I'm trying to add the ability to view your old mission details on the foundrymissions website, and converted the export file to json and during that processes I lost the order it appears in the export file.

You can see what I've done so far here http://foundrymissions.com/missions/the-great-escape/view/