My bad WingTip - I guess I shoud clarify... because technically this would be the 2nd video I've seen (and then if I count some of the clip scenes around here - this would actually be the 5th... but now thats getting silly)
What I mean is the first part wher the zoom in on the map is actually "outside" the map looking through the walls - I've see this technique in other games - but haven't done any ground recording (or in the videos case whats looks to be a PvP enclosed map) to try such a camera approach (as my videos would be based "in" the hallway like yours). the overview zoom to approach is nifty though
Hey mods... Can we PLEASE get this thread stickied so that it doesn't keep getting burried?
If it doesn't fit within the scope of general discussion, move it to the apropriate forum and sticky it there. But it needs to remain visible wherever it is. Lots of useful stuff here for those who are into machinima.
Edit the shortcut TARGET, and add
-demoplay demo_name
to the end of the text, outside any quotes.
I don't see anything in properties called "target".
the shortcut target is the location the shortcut actually points to when you click the icon, as in the physical location on your hard drive.
What OS are you using? On WIndows 7, if I right click the shortcut and select "Properties", you get a window with several tabs. It should default to the "Shortcut" tab. If it doesn't, click over there. in the second area under where it displays the icon for the shortcut, you should see 3 fields:
Target type
Target location
Target
In the Target field, you should see the path for the file. That's the part you need to edit.
the shortcut target is the location the shortcut actually points to when you click the icon, as in the physical location on your hard drive.
What OS are you using? On WIndows 7, if I right click the shortcut and select "Properties", you get a window with several tabs. It should default to the "Shortcut" tab. If it doesn't, click over there. in the second area under where it displays the icon for the shortcut, you should see 3 fields:
Target type
Target location
Target
In the Target field, you should see the path for the file. That's the part you need to edit.
I'm using Vista and there doesn't seem to be a way to edit any of this in the properties tab.
I got bored a few nights ago and decided to make a visual basic utility to make accessing .demo files easier!
I got the blessing of h2orat (cheers mate) to share the utility with you all.
Please note, it is a good few years since I wrote any sort of computer program, my design skills are questionable and I am very mutch amatuer at this! That said, the utility works (tested on Win7 (64)) .
If you try to use the utility and it does not work please let me know via the email address in the 'Readme' document so I can try to put any error right. (My time for programming / scripting etc is limited though!)
Okay, firstly, I've only been playing with this tool for a short while and am still getting the hang of placing cameras. I've got 3 things:
1.) Is there any way to set in and out points for the demorecord feature to export an image sequence for video editing? i.e.- start exporting 12 seconds in, stop exporting 45 seconds in?
2.) Is there a way to change focal length on the camera? I noticed depth of field (see #3 below)... but no focal length - numerical, slider, whatever - having the ability to change that look would be an incredible tool for people.... epic shots on a wide angle lens, really dramatic close ups, etc.
3.) I've read the entire thread (some great vids btw, everybody- I totally need to try CrazyTalk!!!)... and nobody's really asked about depth of field... I'm a bit lost on it. I could just use aftereffects to roto and blur the bg or maybe throw/rack focus, but I see the tool is there, so why not use it.
I understand that a blur amount of 1=full blur where 0=in focus. What i don't understand is how the distance value is calculated. If 0 is your point of focus, does 10~10ft behind that point, -10~10ft closer to the camera? Does that mean the DoF only works when following an object?
Here's an example of my thought process- maybe we can figure out how to modify this process to get the desired result of "racking focus" on a scene on a standard bridge.
EXAMPLE
-- I create an "easy path" and place the camera at point A, The camera is right over the front console, framing my helmsman to the center-left of frame, just off her right shoulder is the captain's chair in the bg... to the far right of frame, in the back of the bridge, is my captain. I want the captain & background to be out of focus slightly (maybe a value of .7), but the helmsman to be completely in focus.
-- The captain will take about 8 seconds to walk to the center chair, so i adjust my camera so that my helmsman slides to left of the frame and I see more of the captain and captain's chair center frame. There I drop point B, give it a 8 second travel and voila, i have a really nice, slow pan... however, I want the focus to shift so that the captain is now in focus and the area behind him is still slightly out of focus (i'd love if the helmsman would go fuzzy, but that's probably much more complicated).
Am I using the wrong camera path type? What determines the value of my blur distance? yeah, these are the things I think about on my day off
I've never seen another game with anything like this tool. And the controls are virtually identical to those used in professional 3D modeling programs like Maya. I've had no major issues with them.
i was in a hurry when i posted that but other than the camera placement ability the exporting and loading of files , playback, etc are much easier on just about any other game recorder...... yes the camera placement is very nice but after the one video i made i will not do another till they attempt to address the dozen things i mentioned in one of my earlier posts on page 18 of this thread......not the least of which was the stuttering... thats an entire dealbreaker for me.... and as mentioned no matter how i exported or how i tried to edit it out in sony vegas you couldnt get rid of all of it and it just ruins your hard work.....
i was in a hurry when i posted that but other than the camera placement ability the exporting and loading of files , playback, etc are much easier on just about any other game recorder...... yes the camera placement is very nice but after the one video i made i will not do another till they attempt to address the dozen things i mentioned in one of my earlier posts on page 18 of this thread......not the least of which was the stuttering... thats an entire dealbreaker for me.... and as mentioned no matter how i exported or how i tried to edit it out in sony vegas you couldnt get rid of all of it and it just ruins your hard work.....
Perhaps you should PM your concerns to h2orat, as he has asked for feedback on the tool. As often as this thread gets burried under a mountain of complaining and whining (It really should be stickied), your feedback may not be readily noticable here.
This thread is incredibly informative and BADLY in need of being stickied! Keep up the great work everyone, I'm going to begin my own plunge into this soon.
h2orat is not in town this weekend - is there any chance I could get the instructions he PM'd to one of you who has it by chance? I'd really appreciate it.
Yes we are very aware of the laggy motion you get on ship combat and are working to get the fix we have in house to be seamless into the demo record tool (the dev fix is a very involved multi step process and we want the tool to be user friendly for the public). The issue right now is devoting programmer time to it, as the demo record toolset is not really a supported part of the game - but rather something we are opening up for the general public to toy with, other game pressing issues are taking priority.
I am hoping we can get this patched and fixed for you guys sooner rather than later - keep up the great work with those videos!
no bigge tho... im not using the recorder tool till several things are addressed and fixed.... but to be honest i'll probably cancel my sub before those happen.... so i hope you all enjoyed the video i did make
I'm running into an issue, and I don't know if this has been covered already or not as I cannot find anything that seems to resolve it.
Whenever I record a demo and then play it back, everything works fine up until I actually attempt to add a waypoint to a camera to it. Once I do that, if I click the "rewind to beginning" button (upper extreme left button), the whole screen goes black, and all I see are the camera paths and any points I've set. From that point forward, I can't see anything but that - I cannot get the blank screen with camera points to change to the demo.
If I quit, and then attempt to re-start the demo with the saved paths, it begins the same way until I quit. To get the actual demo graphis back, I have to delete the entire .demo file, and replace it with the original backup copy I made.
I haven't seen this before but one thing that happens sometimes is when you make a new camera point the game engine sometimes places the camera not through your viewport lens but some weird place. It's easy to fix though - you just click on the reset point and will move the camera to where it should be (your viewport). If you lay down a camera point and the screen doesn't shade purple (because you are looking through the new camera) then most likely this is what is happening.
Also make sure when starting a new project to hit the new path button which will over write the basic game camera that was recorded. (Sounds like you are doing this).
Also make sure you save your work before hitting the rewind (it sounds like you are doing this).
Lastly it could be the orbit camera broke on last patch - try an easy camera and see if you are having the same issue - you can do an orbit with and easy cam or normal cam (normal can tends to be smoother becuase you define one focal node for all your camera).
Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGu1ye0eT9M
this is the youtube TRIBBLE low quality version..
higher quality on my server
http://www.indyhelis.com/junk/17thfleet.wmv
My bad WingTip - I guess I shoud clarify... because technically this would be the 2nd video I've seen (and then if I count some of the clip scenes around here - this would actually be the 5th... but now thats getting silly)
What I mean is the first part wher the zoom in on the map is actually "outside" the map looking through the walls - I've see this technique in other games - but haven't done any ground recording (or in the videos case whats looks to be a PvP enclosed map) to try such a camera approach (as my videos would be based "in" the hallway like yours). the overview zoom to approach is nifty though
I have been thinking of doing this to show how to do the last room in "infected" with the borg queen...
Edit the shortcut TARGET, and add
-demoplay demo_name
to the end of the text, outside any quotes.
I don't see anything in properties called "target".
If it doesn't fit within the scope of general discussion, move it to the apropriate forum and sticky it there. But it needs to remain visible wherever it is. Lots of useful stuff here for those who are into machinima.
the shortcut target is the location the shortcut actually points to when you click the icon, as in the physical location on your hard drive.
What OS are you using? On WIndows 7, if I right click the shortcut and select "Properties", you get a window with several tabs. It should default to the "Shortcut" tab. If it doesn't, click over there. in the second area under where it displays the icon for the shortcut, you should see 3 fields:
- Target type
- Target location
- Target
In the Target field, you should see the path for the file. That's the part you need to edit.I'm using Vista and there doesn't seem to be a way to edit any of this in the properties tab.
Interesting... Vista shouldn't be that different than Win7... are you operating as the Administrator on your machine?
I have no idea.
I got bored a few nights ago and decided to make a visual basic utility to make accessing .demo files easier!
I got the blessing of h2orat (cheers mate) to share the utility with you all.
Please note, it is a good few years since I wrote any sort of computer program, my design skills are questionable and I am very mutch amatuer at this! That said, the utility works (tested on Win7 (64)) .
If you try to use the utility and it does not work please let me know via the email address in the 'Readme' document so I can try to put any error right. (My time for programming / scripting etc is limited though!)
you can download the utility .rar at:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/stoplayerselect/
Hope this helps.
If you wish to criticise the utility pleas be constructive. Thank you.
Edit : Seperate thread created: http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=157479
1.) Is there any way to set in and out points for the demorecord feature to export an image sequence for video editing? i.e.- start exporting 12 seconds in, stop exporting 45 seconds in?
2.) Is there a way to change focal length on the camera? I noticed depth of field (see #3 below)... but no focal length - numerical, slider, whatever - having the ability to change that look would be an incredible tool for people.... epic shots on a wide angle lens, really dramatic close ups, etc.
3.) I've read the entire thread (some great vids btw, everybody- I totally need to try CrazyTalk!!!)... and nobody's really asked about depth of field... I'm a bit lost on it. I could just use aftereffects to roto and blur the bg or maybe throw/rack focus, but I see the tool is there, so why not use it.
I understand that a blur amount of 1=full blur where 0=in focus. What i don't understand is how the distance value is calculated. If 0 is your point of focus, does 10~10ft behind that point, -10~10ft closer to the camera? Does that mean the DoF only works when following an object?
Here's an example of my thought process- maybe we can figure out how to modify this process to get the desired result of "racking focus" on a scene on a standard bridge.
EXAMPLE
-- I create an "easy path" and place the camera at point A, The camera is right over the front console, framing my helmsman to the center-left of frame, just off her right shoulder is the captain's chair in the bg... to the far right of frame, in the back of the bridge, is my captain. I want the captain & background to be out of focus slightly (maybe a value of .7), but the helmsman to be completely in focus.
-- The captain will take about 8 seconds to walk to the center chair, so i adjust my camera so that my helmsman slides to left of the frame and I see more of the captain and captain's chair center frame. There I drop point B, give it a 8 second travel and voila, i have a really nice, slow pan... however, I want the focus to shift so that the captain is now in focus and the area behind him is still slightly out of focus (i'd love if the helmsman would go fuzzy, but that's probably much more complicated).
Am I using the wrong camera path type? What determines the value of my blur distance? yeah, these are the things I think about on my day off
Yep, and they usually work alot easier.....
Perhaps you should PM your concerns to h2orat, as he has asked for feedback on the tool. As often as this thread gets burried under a mountain of complaining and whining (It really should be stickied), your feedback may not be readily noticable here.
Just a thought.
h2orat is not in town this weekend - is there any chance I could get the instructions he PM'd to one of you who has it by chance? I'd really appreciate it.
Yes we are very aware of the laggy motion you get on ship combat and are working to get the fix we have in house to be seamless into the demo record tool (the dev fix is a very involved multi step process and we want the tool to be user friendly for the public). The issue right now is devoting programmer time to it, as the demo record toolset is not really a supported part of the game - but rather something we are opening up for the general public to toy with, other game pressing issues are taking priority.
I am hoping we can get this patched and fixed for you guys sooner rather than later - keep up the great work with those videos!
no bigge tho... im not using the recorder tool till several things are addressed and fixed.... but to be honest i'll probably cancel my sub before those happen.... so i hope you all enjoyed the video i did make
Whenever I record a demo and then play it back, everything works fine up until I actually attempt to add a waypoint to a camera to it. Once I do that, if I click the "rewind to beginning" button (upper extreme left button), the whole screen goes black, and all I see are the camera paths and any points I've set. From that point forward, I can't see anything but that - I cannot get the blank screen with camera points to change to the demo.
If I quit, and then attempt to re-start the demo with the saved paths, it begins the same way until I quit. To get the actual demo graphis back, I have to delete the entire .demo file, and replace it with the original backup copy I made.
This is what it looks like when this happens:
Sample Editor Screenshot with issue
Is this normal? And if so, how do I get the original demo view back? And... if it's not, what's going on and how do I fix it?
Also make sure when starting a new project to hit the new path button which will over write the basic game camera that was recorded. (Sounds like you are doing this).
Also make sure you save your work before hitting the rewind (it sounds like you are doing this).
Lastly it could be the orbit camera broke on last patch - try an easy camera and see if you are having the same issue - you can do an orbit with and easy cam or normal cam (normal can tends to be smoother becuase you define one focal node for all your camera).
after waiting for the go of the fleet management, here finally it is:
Demorecord 4tw
enjoy^^
NIce work!
:eek:
Much of the interior camera movement was a bit on the fast side. Beyond that THAT WAS TOTALLY F-in IMPRESSIVE! gratz on such an AWESOME job!!!
A standard has been set.
Very Enjoyable