Afterworld

[Benny26]

You can however place pictures inside blank boxes during cutscenes if done right(from what I hear), though you gotta watch out for the cut off point in the boxes.

There are a few annoying problems trying to do this which are:

1) The image cut-off point of the frames in a cutscene goes right through the bottom half of the dialog box. So any image placed there could easily look out of place with the rest of the character portraits (with not having all the box the face would either be squashed or very small).

2) Anything the dialog box covers is dimmed, and as so the portrait would again not look too good like that.

3) Due to FPG's 6.7 frame-rate, the bigger (or longer) the cutscene is will make the timing very hard to get right. It will be a case of watching the cutscene over and over a LOT of times, which gets annoying.

[graylandertagger]

Hmm... I see your point. Sounds like those are hard technical barriers to get by. A Shame.

This brilliant scene from a brilliant movie captures a lot of what I'm going for here, in spirit at least.



You might here the words "Peak Oil" a lot in this game... and, unfortunately, in the coming years from society ourself.

Sounds like you want to go the extra mile by using animated cutscenes. If your interested in doing so cutscenes for your mod Benny26 found a way to turn live action videos into FPG edit which makes creating animated cutscenes a whole lot easier.

A while back i secretly mentioned to a few people that it might be possible to make animated cutscenes using live-action video. Obviously it's all about the convert from the vid to FPG.

Well for a few week I've been on and off looking at various methods and how to correctly apply tweaks for FPG, to see if i could nail it. Let's say moderate success so far. As people may know, creating something complex and seamless for FPG is not easy. This method allows those complex things to be done in a fraction of the time provided you know how to tweak it. I could write up a tutorial, but it depends if people are really bothered

[Stein]

Wow, thanx for the useful info. It helped me figure out a possible choice should I go the FMV route!

I think the best way to do this is to use FINAL CUT PRO 7 to create and time the video portion (or virtual slide show if I go that route.). Then convert the video file into a .mov and run it through Quicktime Pro and convert the file into an "image sequence" of BMPs so that I can upload it finally into FPG editor.

I will let you all know how that works out.

I was gonna keep it simple but the creativity bug bit me (lol) so I might go for it here and try to do live-movie footage as cut scenes. Wish me well!

[Benny26]

Good luck. I personally thought up that method for small complex live-action sequences rather than for big FMVs though.

I suppose all you need to remember is that the bigger the frame-rate you record at (or the further over 7 fps you go), the slower it will play back as a cutscene in SoR. And yet recorded at lower rates makes it jerky. At the moment it's all about a compromise in what looks best to you.

[Stein]

Success! Or, at least I think... haha... *fingers crossed* But, seriously, I found that a good video editing program and an understanding of our to convert video into an image sequence can transform this monstrous task into a manageable affair. I did a mock up of the FMV and it seems to run fine as long as I stay within the 2 min or so limit (FPG 999, etc.) So play testing it was a go!

For fun I will post up some of the live-action FMV in the form of stills so can have a good laugh over how I'm handling this. Wait till you see whom I've chosen to play Axel, Blaze, Adam, Skate, Roo, Max and even Zan... funny stuff.lol

[graylandertagger]

-Weapons are key to this game (especially swords, pipes, bats, etc.) So they will be made available to the players in a generous way. However since you are fighting sub-bosses this works out great since it helps to balance things out. This will be a part of the story to since in the "Afterworld" universe the survivors rely on melee weapons to survive.

Although you've mented that guns will be scarce in the game perhaps you could make a level where your most fighting gunmen(SOR3 handgunners and Mr.x's) and relay on firearms stored behind crates(graphical layers). I know this has been done in SOR-At the Movie, but seeing how weapons are the main focus of the mod I thought that it's only fair to mention this concept as I feel a shooting stage could be a nice change of pace. Keeping an eye on the ammo in a machinegun so you know when to go pick up another one being one unique new tactic.

For fun I will post up some of the live-action FMV in the form of stills so can have a good laugh over how I'm handling this. Wait till you see whom I've chosen to play Axel, Blaze, Adam, Skate, Roo, Max and even Zan... funny stuff.lol

What do you mean by "chosen?" You mean for the cutscenes or by the palletes that you switched for them.

[Stein]

What do you mean by "chosen?" You mean for the cutscenes or by the palletes that you switched for them.

Starring Dolph Lungdren as Axel


Jennifer Garner as Blaze


Michael Jai White as Adam


and Maurice Dean Wint as Zan (yeah, I have no idea who the hell this actor is either...haha)


and more...

Anyhow, you can laugh now.:-p lol

[graylandertagger]

Sure did. Some good choices you made for character casting.

Update:
I also most forgot. Seeing how weapons would be the key focus on the game I wanted to point out how you can arm the SOR1 Galsias with pipes and the Donovans with bats. Both of them are quite skilled at using them and seeing how your required to relay on weapons it's best to mention that.

[Stein]

Update: Have made a lot of progress on this. I'm taking this slow because I want to get some things right. Will post some screenshots soon. Very innovative stuff with this mod, mostly in the storytelling department. The Full motion video intro (and cut scenes) will be a special treat for all SOR fans. I promise.

[Don Vecta]

Glad is still alive, keep it up.