Crowind

Thank you all for the kind words about the video! <3 It's really interesting seeing what people have to say about it, knowing all the stuff that went into it Again, thank you guys!

I appreciate all the comments about the briefing video! I made the briefing videos for all of his previous entries, and really enjoy making them. It's the kind of work I've always wanted to do! This one I made very quickly on short notice for his Halloween entry, despite all my heavy work going on. I'm glad you all enjoy it! I've offered my help to the Dark Mod Campaign, but it appears they don't need my help with the one they're making. Outside of the next video I'm working on with Goldwell, I'll have a lot of free time this month and would love to make more videos. If you guys need anything don't be afraid to drop me a PM as I love working with this community! -Crow

Oh man, if you guys could add support for RoQ2 that would be awesome!

@motorsep Ahh yeah, FFMpeg can also make higher res videos as well. Also, the cool thing is you can actually make them whatever res you want! Sadly the engine doesn't support them as I tested. Also, in the ROQ I made, it worked and processed perfectly fine without it being power of 2. I've tested and ran all these things extensively before I posted this. I feel I should make a video on all this now, because this post might be a bit too wordy haha

Just a quick update: I made a topic about my workflow for a higher quality ROQ here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/16759-higher-quality-roq-compression/

Hello again! After posting my help ad topic in another forum, I wanted to post my work-flow from AVI to a higher quality ROQ. With that said, the EOQ is still locked at 512x384. The resolution is small, but with the right compression tools, you can pull out a higher quality. Let me explain what I've done: Tools I'm using: FFMpeg for compressing to ROQ as it has the most recent codec. Do not use Quake Video Maker or anything else older than this, as this is the only one I could find that had the most recent up to date compression for ROQ. Adobe Premiere (*You can use any editing program really, but it's recommended that it's an updated program past 2010. Definitely not iMovie or Windows Movie Maker!) A text editor for the game files. I also wanna clarify before we start: You do NOT have to split your videos up into 60 second segments. I don't know if the documentation I was reading on this is old, but I was able to use this file perfectly at it's full length, so disregard that information on splitting up, unless you're making a multi-map campaign. First things first, here's the video I'm using: https://www.youtube....h?v=sJS9Qm1i6jM I made this video using Adobe Premiere originally at 1920x1080 at 24Fps. Now, ROQ is 512x384, 4:3, at 30Fps and if you have audio like mine there, it'll be really hard to match that up and keep the same frame rate because the video will create new frames to accommodate the new frame rate from 24fps to 30.What I did was I created a new sequence at 1600x1200 30FPS, 1.0 square pixels and put the video in there. The reason I chose that resolution was that it scaled down much nicer from 1920x1080, and into ROQ perfectly. 1920x1080 is 16:9 and 1600x1200 is 4:3, which is the aspect ratio the ROQ needs. The video has black bars on the bottom and top, which Goldwell and myself were fine with. I then put the audio file separately into the time line and slowed the video down to match it exactly to the millisecond.(Now, this technique of slowing down and making it look 24fps is only good if you have a program with frame blending as a rendering option.) Once that was all matched up, I took the audio out, and went to export the video. I made sure to choose an uncompressed AVI. There are actually a lot of AVI codecs, so if you can, try to choose one that's uncompressed or an animation codec as those are pretty high quality. (Make sure you have the space too because they tend to be in the gigs in size!) Then just hit render and you should have yourself a big AVI to convert with. (Optional: If you're doing the slowing down technique like me, make sure frame blending is set as an option if it's available.) Now onto FFMpeg. Once you unzip it, the program uses the trusty command prompt to function. Make sure you have your video in the same folder as FFMpeg and open up the command prompt. This is what I used to type in for the conversion: ffmpeg -I Accountant.AVI -r 30 -s 512x384 -ar 22050 AccountantR.ROQ As far as I understand it this is how it's broken down: -I is for the file you're using (Filename).AVI is the name of the file you just rendered. -r is output the frame rate -s is the resolution you're outputting to -ar is the audio file sample rate. (It has to be set to 22050 or the conversion wont even work, regardless if there's an audio file for it or not.) (Filename).ROQ which is the final file. You can name it whatever you want. After all that you just hit enter, and sit back waiting for the conversion process to finish! A quick note: It's possible and much nicer looking to make an image sequence, however FFMpeg creates duplicate images during the conversion process and I can't figure out why. So if I can find out the answer to that, I'll be using image sequences over AVI. So, once the process finishes, I had to put it into the FM itself. This required the editing of these two files: guis\mainmenu_custom_defs.gui materials\briefing.mtr First I made sure to put the video inside the /video folder and the audio ogg inside sound/video/ folder then changed the name of the audio file to briefing_video.ogg and replaced the one inside the folder. Then I opened up the mainmenu_custom_defs.gui and did this: Search for #define MM_BRIEFING_VIDEO_MATERIAL_1 You don't have to replace this one if you don't want to and use MATERIAL_2, but for this I replaced the logo video. Then I changed the line inside the quotations to: #define MM_BRIEFING_VIDEO_MATERIAL_1 "video/Accountant" Then search for #define MM_BRIEFING_VIDEO_LENGTH_1 Now this is the tricky part. You have to know how many milliseconds your video is. Just do the math based on your video's time code. For me the line looked like this: #define MM_BRIEFING_VIDEO_LENGTH_1 66666 The numbers at the end are the milliseconds for the video exactly. If you're using MATERIAL_2 then make sure you use LENGTH_2 Now once you do that, save it, and move onto briefing.mtr. You need to make sure your briefing.mtr looks something like this: video/Accountant { qer_editorimage textures/editor/video { videoMap video/Accountant.roq } } Just make sure to replace the names with the names of your video file. Once you do all that, just pack it up, load it up in the game, and it should be playing! The quality of the video is dependent on the compressor, and what it's coming down from. Down-sampling from 1920x1080 to 1600x1200 is a good way to maintain visual quality and prevent stretching, and when it down-samples into ROQ using FFMpeg it should look pretty decent. I wish we could use .mov .h264 codec files or MP4s, but for now this is how I'm working this. If you guys have any suggestions or questions, just post them in this topic. I'll keep this document updated, and eventually I'm going to add images for a more visual guide once I get more time. Anyway, thanks for reading! -Crowind Update: Fixed a couple typos. ;3

@Springheel Yeah definitely. I'm going to spending most of the winter working on older projects, and playing through a list of FMs that I was recommended, so I'll be around. @New Horizon It was kind of a work around. Not an intense process or anything, but a generally overlooked one I'd say. I'll elaborate more in my workflow post. Also, I have been thinking of messing around with the codec itself, just to see what I can do. No promises on anything great, but it'll be something fun I can do.

Since there is some interest in this, I will post a guide and workflow on how I made it. Also, if anyone still needs some intro cinematics made, I'd love to help! Just message me with the details and we can figure out where to go from there.

@Bikerdude Thanks man! Yeah getting higher quality ROQs was a a fun research project haha @Cambridge Spy It wasn't put in the mission because at the time I was told that it wouldn't work right. I've since been able to figure it out and eventually when Goldwell has the time, he'll put it in the map along with other misc. fixes.

Nah, that's Goldwell's voice in all it's buttery goodness.

Hello DarkMod community! I'm looking to make more Dark Mod videos and I'm offering my skills to the community. I'm a film graduate with a minor in photography and currently work as an after-school teacher for both mediums. I have many different tools in my arsenal, and I want to expand my abilities by creating videos for various projects. I've always been a big fan of the series, and always wanted to do more in the style of the older games. (I'm also open to new ideas.) I made the video with Goldwell for the map "The Accountant", and have been wanting to do more like it. I'm currently in pre-production for a new video with him, but I will also put out there that I do have time this winter to do more. I've also come up with a really good workflow to make these videos into ROQ, if you so desire. (and of decent quality.) Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJS9Qm1i6jM If you're interested, please send me a message, and we'll see what we can come up with. See you guys around! -Crowind Update: I made a topic on how I got my videos to be higher quality in ROQ here: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/16759-higher-quality-roq-compression/