Cutscenes

[Rachael]

And then there's also the bloat you'll start seeing in the mods - we already see all sorts of nonsense with 10-map episodes taking 80MB+ because of a dozen full-length high-quality MP3s the mapper felt just had to be there for the full user experience, how much worse would this sort of thing be with full video support?

This.

This is EXACTLY what concerns me. That goes right to the heart of the issue.

[Leon_Portier]

And then there's also the bloat you'll start seeing in the mods - we already see all sorts of nonsense with 10-map episodes taking 80MB+ because of a dozen full-length high-quality MP3s the mapper felt just had to be there for the full user experience, how much worse would this sort of thing be with full video support?

Hm, I´d put those high quality audio files in a optional add-on separate to the map.

I can comprehend the drawback of implementing video support into the engine and can life without it.
When push comes to shove and I really want some kind of video, I´d solve it by pointing a ZDoom camera to a wall and display the frames as a wall texture plus audio, problem solved!

[wildweasel]

When push comes to shove and I really want some kind of video, I´d solve it by pointing a ZDoom camera to a wall and display the frames as a wall texture plus audio, problem solved!

Except good luck with audio sync, and you're not getting keyframe compression, so even short sequences may take up more space than necessary.

[Leon_Portier]

Except good luck with audio sync, and you're not getting keyframe compression, so even short sequences may take up more space than necessary.

I see, well drawing a slideshow is less work than animating everything.

[Zen3001]

I very much prefer cutscenes done with the engine, because they don't take me out of the game. FMVs where the world and characters look nothing like they do in-game have a way to violently break the consistency of experience.

I don't think it breaks the expirience when the models are made to depict the real life charakter or in this case it can even be photographed people (so they'll look just like in the videos). I don't know any games at all that use this type of cutscenes, only max payne and it worked perfectly in that game for me.
I like how the devs posed for the pictures, I don't think it's less creative. The game would lose a lot of it's charm for me if it used some animated videos with these models instead.

I'm not asking for this feature anymore, just wanted to argue your point here, I came up with some other ways to deal with the story telling in this engine.
Turn this into a new topic about how cutscenes should be done in general, if you feel the need for it (I don't really want to do that).

[Rachael]

The topic is fine the way it is. We offered a compromise that would consist of third-party involvement, all that's needed is someone with the initiative and desire to carry it out. If said person follows my instructions the chances for inclusion are far greater. We're not going to spoon feed it to said person though - there are plenty of major feature commits in the Github repo that should illustrate how we expect such things to be done. Quake 3 is open source, so it shouldn't be too major to pick up its decoder and plug it into the game.

Did I mention initiative? That person will also need to write the ZScript and ACS functions to run a video, too. As well as MAPINFO/GAMEINFO directives for intro videos, and whatnot.

Worst case scenario it doesn't get accepted - what are you going to do? Host it in a fork. Listen to critique and feedback. Learn from your mistakes, and you'll be better for it in the long run.

[Kinsie]

When push comes to shove and I really want some kind of video, I´d solve it by pointing a ZDoom camera to a wall and display the frames as a wall texture plus audio, problem solved!

ANIMDEFS textures aren't guaranteed to be at the starting frame when they first appear.

For the brief recreation of the Duke3D intro in JPF, I used a for loop in ACS to flick through a bunch of individual frames, playing sound effects on specific frames as needed. Not bad for such a short sequence (44 320x200 PNG animation frames totalling around 600-700kb) but trying to do full-on lengthy PS1-style FMV is a ticket to madness.

[Leon_Portier]

ANIMDEFS textures aren't guaranteed to be at the starting frame when they first appear.

For the brief recreation of the Duke3D intro in JPF, I used a for loop in ACS to flick through a bunch of individual frames, playing sound effects on specific frames as needed. Not bad for such a short sequence (44 320x200 PNG animation frames totalling around 600-700kb) but trying to do full-on lengthy PS1-style FMV is a ticket to madness.

Thats amazing! With 44 frames one would get a little over 5 seconds of animation with a framerate of 8 FPS.
I didnt look into the ANIMDEFS so far, for a animated wall I would have used [wiki]SetLineTexture[/wiki] in a loop.

[ReX]

My two cents: Depending on the type of DooM mod, having "proper" video (AVI, mp4 format) could work. Specifically, if the mod is intended to display a high degree of realism, such video could be integrated into the game to enhance the experience and increase immersiveness. Video, in particular (and cutscenes in general), can be used especially effectively to advance a story.

Note that I'm not advocating for such a feature (especially given the level of technical difficulty in implementing it). I'm merely stating that the feature can be used to add polish and style to mods. [But then, I don't believe anyone on this forum is disagreeing with this sentiment.]

[ibm5155]

I'm a noob at this area but can't software just make use of external installed codecs?

[wildweasel]

I'm a noob at this area but can't software just make use of external installed codecs?

You'd need to make assumptions about what codecs are installed (the method of doing so is NOT cross-platform, by definition). Which means the second anybody includes a really elaborate logo movie in their project for no reason other than vanity, suddenly everybody that hasn't installed some form of ffmpeg or x264 on their machine is going to wonder why GZDoom is suddenly producing errors, or else is refusing to start up when such a project is loaded.

[Kinsie]

includes a really elaborate logo movie in their project for no reason other than vanity

I'll have you know that preventing my inclusion of a clumsily-blown up 4k version of this alongside my Boom speedmap is a violation of my human rights.

[Zen3001]

there's this little example I just found

[hardcore_gamer]

When push comes to shove and I really want some kind of video, I´d solve it by pointing a ZDoom camera to a wall and display the frames as a wall texture plus audio, problem solved!

This is actually something that I have considered. But would you not run into problems with the frame names? As I understand every lump in a wad file or pk3 has to be named using only a limited number of characters which in theory places a limit on how many lumps there can be. If you make something like a CG movie with a framerate of 24 fps (that's what movies use right?) and it's 1 min long, then that's a total number of 1440 frames. And that's just for 1 min. If the quality of the frames is suppose to be high then they would also probably take up a considerable amount of space.

[wildweasel]

Even in that case, though, you have roughly eight "digits" to use, and you're not restricted to just numbers. 90 minutes of 24 FPS video is about 129,600 frames, so you'd have room for two characters as a prefix unless you're using a base-36 naming scheme.

As for the practicality, though, I'd agree in that it's really not that practical. =P