Cutscenes and Movies?

[REDJOHNNYMIKE]

Could someone explain how Cutscenes and Movies work, and what the differences are in making them?

 

Because I was wondering if anyone had ever tried to make scenes for a story mod that weren't like the ones used ingame,

For instance, could you use an anime style video where main plot videos are used, like if you're making a story and you want a scene like Nihilus and Sion attacking Treya in the academy instead of shots of ingame characters?

 

And can you set several pictures as cutscenes (Max Payne) so you could use a comic book style with angles and effects you can't get ingame?

[TheProphet]

Yea you can do all that, but its no simple task, you have to be significantly good at animating in a 3d program that can do render videos. Once you have made your render video you just run it through Bink tools and make it a BIK then put it in your movie folder with any name you like, and run it via script when the time is right.

 

~Gsccc

[Archon II]

I'm 99.99% sure that Obsidian and Bioware used 3DS Max for their cutscenes... And believe me, it's hard work. I'm using GMax for our intro and extro movies over at the M4-78 Restoration Project and making simple animations and getting textures to work correctly can be a real pain...

[wasa7]

But what about the pictures? I think is a very good idea, what you need is someone making very cool fan art, drawing and such and then to play the pics (like a powerpoint presentation hehe) and there is your movie. The pics can even have some writing so it will be more like a comic book but I think some good things can be done this way....

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

I'm 99.99% sure that Obsidian and Bioware used 3DS Max for their cutscenes... And believe me, it's hard work. I'm using GMax for our intro and extro movies over at the M4-78 Restoration Project and making simple animations and getting textures to work correctly can be a real pain...

Yes, it was 3Ds Max.

[REDJOHNNYMIKE]

The 3d rendered video sounds completely out of my league, and it scares me:D

That would be cool, but what I actually meant was animated video, like cartoons, a look like that cowboy bebop show would fit the story pretty well.

 

@wasa, that is what I was wanting as well, I could draw up a crappy outline, then beg forum artists to illustrate it, maybe a different artist for each area of the game, so as to further increase the differences in atmosphere between modules, and if it could be synched properly, add actor voiceovers to play alongside it,

but would you have to make a slideshow, instead of recording the slideshow and making a simple movie out of it, that seems like something that would run better ingame?

[Archon II]

Why not just draw the pics, then save them as .jpg's by scanning 'em, then use a program like Windows Movie Maker or Camtasia where you can just squish 'em all together along with some audio. Then, save that as an .avi file, then use Bink and Smacker to turn it into a .bik file.

[TheProphet]

Oooooh for the comic mod, well I dont know if they do but I know that Ghost in the Shell does, but Cowboy Bebop may use 3d renderings with Cell Shaders to give it the anime effect. You could also use different types of flash makers, the big tool most hot shots use is called ToonBoom, though it is expensive and you have to know what you are doing.

[REDJOHNNYMIKE]

@archon, that sounds right, I just never heard of any of that stuff before:)

it sounds like the way to go though.

 

@gsccc, huh, I've only seen it a few times, but I thought it was just like cartoons where you just have one picture after another?

mainly what I meant by that statement was that I'd rather have the finished product look like that show than bright and shiny like aquateen hungerforce or those other Aswim shows, I thought that toons were always made as just frames that were slightly different from the ones before?