Higher Quality ROQ (compression)

[Crowind]

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

Edited December 7, 2014 by Crowind

[motorsep]

RoQ2 for Jedi Academy can make high res RoQ videos, but engine needs to be fixed to support that.

 

RoQ also has to be power of 2, e.g. 1024 x 1024.

[Crowind]

@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

[New Horizon]

RoQ2 for Jedi Academy can make high res RoQ videos, but engine needs to be fixed to support that.

 

RoQ also has to be power of 2, e.g. 1024 x 1024.

 

If I recall, the source code for Jedi Academy was released a year or so ago. Do you know if ROQ2 was included in it? If so, that would probably make it possible to port it to TDM and open up the quality.

[SteveL]

@Crowind thanks for sharing this. A video would be the icing on the cake, but what you've already done will give us a real boost in video quality.

[New Horizon]

Source code for Jedi Academy is here, although I don't see anything about ROQ within it.

 

All the same, perhaps it will be helpful. I assume support for roq2 must be in there somewhere.

 

https://archive.org/details/jediacademy_source

[grayman]

I suggest that as soon as the Wiki is open for business again, that the OP be wikified, to make it easier to find in the future.

[motorsep]

RoQ2 source code: https://github.com/i...ster/utils/roq2

 

It would be nice if someone can add cmake support to it and ability to generate solutions for MSVC 2010, 2013 and gcc (for Linux), that can be compiled

Edited December 7, 2014 by motorsep

[Crowind]

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

[nbohr1more]

Hmm.

 

Could it be as simple as increasing:

 

const int DEFAULT_CIN_WIDTH = 512;

const int DEFAULT_CIN_HEIGHT = 512;

 

in Cinematic.cpp

 

...I will do a test compile this evening...

[motorsep]

Hmm.

 

Could it be as simple as increasing:

 

const int DEFAULT_CIN_WIDTH = 512;

const int DEFAULT_CIN_HEIGHT = 512;

 

in Cinematic.cpp

 

...I will do a test compile this evening...

 

Afaik not. We had to increase mem allocation besides tweaking those two. However, that could be because RoQ reintegration into BFG engine. idTech 4 might get away with just increasing those.

[motorsep]

I figured I'd link my post here, since I am guessing Crowind might know about RoQ more than I do

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/16769-authoring-roq-videos-and-defining-their-properties/

[New Horizon]

Just in case anyone missed it, motorsep posted the roq2 source a few posts up.

 

https://github.com/ioquake/jedi-outcast/tree/master/utils/roq2

[Bikerdude]

Just reminder for those involved to update/correct the wiki please.

[Obsttorte]

Wasn'T there a plan to include avi support, or am I wrong?

[nbohr1more]

Yes, FFMPEG was merged into one of the upcoming SVN builds. Won't help for current v2.03 missions though

[Goldwell]

Yes, FFMPEG was merged into one of the upcoming SVN builds. Won't help for current v2.03 missions though

 

Oh really? O.o

 

So what does that mean? 2.04 will support .avi or .mpg videos directly? also what resolution

[nbohr1more]

"If all works out well", v2.04 will support any codec that FFMPEG supports at any resolution supported natively by TDM.

 

Currently, this is pending work to fix precision issues that are caused by MSVC 2013 as the build requires that compiler.

(Unless you like mantling into geometry rather than on top of it and enjoy braindead AI who can't path a straight hallway... )

Hopefully Greebo will be able to assist with sorting those problems shortly so we can merge that branch into the core mod.

[Goldwell]

"If all works out well", v2.04 will support any codec that FFMPEG supports at any resolution supported natively by TDM.

 

 

Is this still happening in 2.04?

[Bikerdude]

If it isnt listed in the change log then its been pushed to a later version.

[nbohr1more]

 

Is this still happening in 2.04?

 

Unfortunately, no.

 

The fix is included in the "Dhewm 64-bit branch" along with EFX audio fixes. We cannot merge that branch until we figure out how to fix

the loss of precision from 90-bit to 32-bit in MSVC 2013 (or later). NagaHuntress has supplied some fixes that will help with this but currently

the 64-bit branch is still unstable.