In-game opening crawl theory

[GBJackson2]

Hello, all...

 

I've been thinking about the opening crawl effect and how it might be possible to actually render it in-game as opposed to using a movie sequence. This could, if successful, allow seamless transitions from the crawl sequence to the innitial scene of the level itself.

 

One of the Chronicles of the Rebellion tests will experiment with the theory I am about to propose. But you guys here who are experienced map designers will know how well it will probably work or whether it will work at all.

 

I remember seeing something in a behind the scenes feature of one of the Star Wars films that showed how they did the crawl.

 

They had this long rectangular plate with a black background and the text of the crawl in the familiar yellow. They panned a camera at what appeared to be at least a 45 degre angle backwards along the length of the plate. This would ultimately be layered onto the starfield background in post production.

 

Why not do something similar with the game?

 

I don't know how exactly skies are done in the game. Are they rendered as skyboxes like in Unreal or is it a different approach?

 

If it is the skybox method, where the skybox camera is positioned inside a hollow with sky textures painted on its interior walls, it should be possible to take a long corridor with all of its surfaces designated as sky. A thin floating rectangular block with the opening crawl text on it can be placed above the floor. A transparent background would be used so that only the text is seen. a cutscene camera can be made to pan backwards along the surface of the textblock at the correct angle.

 

Since a skybox camera maintains a fixed position and only may be rotated and pitched, the starfield would remain stationary as the cutscene camera pans along the textblock surface.

 

To transition smoothly from the crawl to the game, a script can be put in place so that when the cutscene camera associated with the crawl sequence reaches a certain point, the game switches to a different camera.

 

This new camera will be in the area where the action will take place. It's sky surfaces referencing the same starfield skybox as the crawltext corridor and innitially beginning at the same angle, so when the game switches cameras, the player will perceive no change, except that the distandly receded crawltext will have vanished.

 

The camera may now be panned in whatever direction needed to bring the opening scene action into view.

 

So, is this within the realm of possibility?

[volrathxp]

skys are all shaders. there really is no special thing you have to do like in Unreal. you texture a brush with a sky shader and it's a sky. that's it.

 

your little thing would have to be in a box outside the level however in order to work.

 

i'll stick with the roq files for the text crawl thank you... looks more movie-like to me.

[GBJackson2]

But my idea will work, right?

 

I agree with you about the ROQ files looking smooth and movie-like. But for the project I'm heading up, the less large multimedia files involved the better. There will be MASSIVE amounts of spoken dialogue which will make the download huge as it is. If my team can cut corners and still have an effective crawl sequence, then it may turn out for the best...

 

Anyway, after a ROQ plays, you have to wait for the levels to load, so there's this long pause. If my theoretical method can be made to work, then there would be no delay before the action starts.

 

Thoughts?

[volrathxp]

Originally posted by GBJackson2

But my idea will work, right?

 

I agree with you about the ROQ files looking smooth and movie-like. But for the project I'm heading up, the less large multimedia files involved the better. There will be MASSIVE amounts of spoken dialogue which will make the download huge as it is. If my team can cut corners and still have an effective crawl sequence, then it may turn out for the best...

 

Anyway, after a ROQ plays, you have to wait for the levels to load, so there's this long pause. If my theoretical method can be made to work, then there would be no delay before the action starts.

 

Thoughts?

 

roq files are tiny depending on what they are. the text crawl is about 1 mb. text crawl is easy to call with scripting. and who cares if the player has to wait for the first level to load? they have to wait anyways. plus they gotta wait for all your other levels and/or cutscenes, etc. trust me, if raven can pull it off and get people to play it, you should have no trouble with getting people to sit through your load times. although, recommendation also: there is a reason Raven split things up as they did. organization. that way players have a clear understanding of what level they're playing. i personally have no problem with the load times.

[GBJackson2]

The only problem is that Chronicles of the Rebellion is going to be a JK2-rendered film. No playable content. All locations for each episode will be merged into one map, though they will be located apart from each other.

 

There will only be a single load phase for each episode. and if everything can be done within the game, then so much the better. We may use the ROQ files for opening and closing sequences, but if we can do the sequences internally, then players will only have to wait through one long load sequence.

 

And I want this thing to be a friendly download for dial-up users, not just ubergamers with cable modem or DSL access. Like I said, the less unrequired multimedia the better.

[idontlikegeorge]

i thought there was already a scrolling text shader for the opening storyline crap; i remember someone finding a texture the shader uses, and was able to change the text in it

 

****ing no search ****; i dont even remember which forum it was in

[War Master]

Look in your text_crawl shader. You'll see the scrolling text for the retail and demo versions.

[GBJackson2]

This is great. If there's already a shader for it, then cool. Anyone know how well it looks when used?

 

And you know? I've wondered about the "no search" issue myself. I mean why do they bother even having the button for searches there if they're not going to permit its use?

 

Oh, well. We'll experiment with both methods for in-game text scrolling. Whichever one looks more like the movies will be the one we use.

 

Thanks for your help guys.

 

PM me with any further thoughts on the issue, or for questions regarding the Chronicles of the Rebellion project

[volrathxp]

Originally posted by idontlikegeorge

i thought there was already a scrolling text shader for the opening storyline crap; i remember someone finding a texture the shader uses, and was able to change the text in it

 

****ing no search ****; i dont even remember which forum it was in

 

it's in menu/video in assets0.pk3

 

the shader itself does not actually animate, as you will see if you open the text_crawl.shader and go it's properties.

 

also on the subject of the camera with this: you cannot move the camera and expect your background to remain stationary. this would look very bad.

 

you would have to make the brush (or patch) move upwards at an angle by making it a func_train. unfortunately in my opinion this would look bad too and you really would be better off using the roq file.

[GBJackson2]

I guess this is one of those areas where the Unreal engine, with it's skybox method, is superior to the Quake engine. There's even a DOOM engine mod that allows skyboxes.

 

Surely an engine as sophisticated as Quake3 has a comparable feature. And what is the point of them having a scrolling text shader that cannot scroll?

 

There's got to be a missing element here.

 

Anybody have a clue as to what it is? and no, "just use the roq files" is not an acceptable response.

[Andy867]

when changing the intro scrolling text, don't freak out if opening it in like adobe photoshop. because it will appear white... btw, you will need to open the tc_engl.tga for english text, etc.

 

What you would need to do is for photoshop users is go to windows, and look for the option that says Show Channels. click this, then after the pop-up window opens, click the option for alpha channel... I've learned personally that is best to space the font (using arial narrow for close to Film accuracy) so that the music ends when the text ends. you will be able to see my work in the upcoming AOTC: TC mods, and as well as the JK1: TC mod.

 

 

Andy867

JK2Net File Master

http://www.jediknightii.net

[volrathxp]

Originally posted by GBJackson2

I guess this is one of those areas where the Unreal engine, with it's skybox method, is superior to the Quake engine. There's even a DOOM engine mod that allows skyboxes.

 

Surely an engine as sophisticated as Quake3 has a comparable feature. And what is the point of them having a scrolling text shader that cannot scroll?

 

There's got to be a missing element here.

 

Anybody have a clue as to what it is? and no, "just use the roq files" is not an acceptable response.

 

No one ever said it was a "scrolling text shader". It's a shader that allows for transparency so when it's put though the roq file the background behind the lettering is transparent.

 

The whole point of the crawling text thing is to look movie-like. That's why they use the roq files.

 

On the point about the camera. The camera is moved by scripting. The panning of the camera across the brush that has the text shader on it would just not look movie-like enough for anything.

Plus the background would still move. Remember, this is a video game and you cannot set a brush's texture to just not change anywhere when the camera is going over it. it is going to change. you can't change that.

 

granted ut's engine may allow for this, but unfortunately JK2's q3 based engine doesn't. We can only do so much with scripting and your idea sounds great, but it's just not gonna work and look good enough to be professional. my other idea about making the brush a func_train and moving it would look bad simply because you can't change brush geometry ingame to make it taper as it's going up.

 

all i have to say is good luck. if you somehow find a way to do this, let us know. but don't ask to tell ya "i told you so" when you have to use the roq file.

[GBJackson2]

I recently came across a tutorial for skyboxes in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which is also uses a Quake3-based engine. I have asked the writer of that tutorial about this concept, and I await a response.

 

The way he describes the skybox effect for Q3 indicates that it will work with the same principle as Unreal skyboxes.

 

The key is to have the crawltext placed on the top surface a floating platform that is transparent except for the text in bright yellow or whatever color is desired. The angle of the camera is what is important. It must be done in such a way that the most distant horizon (where the top row of the crawl text will be when the sequence concludes) is at the very top of the screen.

 

The entire crawltext corridor will show the starfield from the skybox, which will remain stationary, no matter how the camera moves about.

 

Unless the Q3 skybox feature is unique to RTCW.

 

As I understand the tutorial, an object called "prop_sky" or something like that must be placed in the skybox area.

 

I will be spending the next few weeks (my time is limited) learning Radiant and I will experiment with this to see what happens.

 

I shall report my findings... unless someone else wants to try it out first...

[volrathxp]

Originally posted by GBJackson2

I recently came across a tutorial for skyboxes in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which is also uses a Quake3-based engine. I have asked the writer of that tutorial about this concept, and I await a response.

 

The way he describes the skybox effect for Q3 indicates that it will work with the same principle as Unreal skyboxes.

 

The key is to have the crawltext placed on the top surface a floating platform that is transparent except for the text in bright yellow or whatever color is desired. The angle of the camera is what is important. It must be done in such a way that the most distant horizon (where the top row of the crawl text will be when the sequence concludes) is at the very top of the screen.

 

The entire crawltext corridor will show the starfield from the skybox, which will remain stationary, no matter how the camera moves about.

 

Unless the Q3 skybox feature is unique to RTCW.

 

As I understand the tutorial, an object called "prop_sky" or something like that must be placed in the skybox area.

 

I will be spending the next few weeks (my time is limited) learning Radiant and I will experiment with this to see what happens.

 

I shall report my findings... unless someone else wants to try it out first...

 

 

hmm... ok... I think maybe the RTCW thing is unique to RTCW. remember really only 10% of the original q3 code was left intact by Raven when they designed and built the game. 90% of it is their own modified code, so unless that's something that ID added exclusively for RTCW then you may be out of luck. It would be helpful to find out tho. I mean it does sound like a good idea and I'm not trying to knock your persistence, just pointing out some facts that could be obstacles for you.

 

I don't have RTCW and have never edited for it so I really dunno if the skybox thing can work that way really in JK2 or not. It would be interesting (and nice) that way the camera could move. but then you'd still need to solve the issue of having the text taper at the top as it goes up (it does do that).

 

 

hmm..

[GBJackson2]

If by "taper," you mean the text gets smaller and narrower at the top than at the bottome, that is an easy issue.

 

When you look down a long hallway that has walls that are exactly the same distance apart at all points, what do you see?

 

You see the appearance of the hallway growing narrower, and the floor looking like this:

 

/ \

/ \

/ \

 

or near enough to it

 

If you think of the crawl text as the floor, and the camera going backwards down the hall, then the text will seem to scroll up and get thinner, as if you are looking at it along a flat surface.

 

The real trick of getting it to look right is getting the downward angle of the camera right, coupled with the distance from the "surface" of the crawltext.

 

If JK2 IS capable of this effect, then a little experimentation can be used to get those figures, which can be applied to any project wishing to use this effect.

 

Length of the crawltext block isn't an issue, but width of it is. But even that can be rendered moot with an adjustment of the altitude of the camera from the text.

 

Speed of the camera's movement is another factor, but again, experimentation will define the value. Of course, using the movement scripting commands which instruct an object from point X to point Y in Z seconds will come into play, where Z is the number of seconds that it takes for the opening music to play.

 

As you can see, I have been doing some studying of the game's scripting capabilities...

 

Opinions?