The WC4 'Price Of Freedom' Movie Project

BrynS said:
Looking good! :)

The framerate issues seem to be resolved and while it's difficult to simulate the original titling without the original font and production tools I assume, I think you've done a good job under the circumstances in maintaining the effect and flow where you have made edits.

I can't really discern the multi-channel AC3 through my laptop's tinny speakers, but I can see it interleaved in the AVI container. I know that the Dolby Digital on WC4 sounds good on the right setup and it's very neat that you're planning to integrate it completely into the project in both the FMV and gameplay scenes. Had no problems viewing it, but would think that anyone having problems may need something like AC3Filter if you don't have an appropriate AC3 DirectShow filter or VLC installed.

The compression quality also looks fine; 2-pass ~1200kbps VBR Xvid should be sufficient for the resolution. Are you using a custom matrix or the H.263 or MPEG profiles? How are the gameplay sequences looking on your new PC? Anyway, good work.

Cheers,

Bryn
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Yes I forgot to mention the AC3 filter might be required. The xvid is using the regular h.263 unrestricted profile. As far as I'm concerned the gameplay footage is of good quality and the framerate seems perfectly smooth now. I'm really having high hopes now things are running smoothly. Thank you for your input, my Easter holiday break just started so I'd better get cracking with the project!
 
Obi-Wan Kenobi said:
only when the Medical frigate comes flying by I get these frame drops, just as if the frigate is skipping instead of flying that idea, I'm not sure if that can be fixed?
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I get the same effect when I watch this on my standalone DVD/DivX player.
Using VLC on my Mac the skipping is less noticeable, but I'd prefer to watch this on my home theater setup instead of a computer with two tiny speakers... ;)

Another issue which I noticed is that the Dolby Digital logo plays way too fast - almost as if it was sped up from ~24 fps to ~30 fps.
The rest of the video seemed to be playing at proper speed.
 
Ghibli said:
I get the same effect when I watch this on my standalone DVD/DivX player.
Using VLC on my Mac the skipping is less noticeable, but I'd prefer to watch this on my home theater setup instead of a computer with two tiny speakers... ;)

Another issue which I noticed is that the Dolby Digital logo plays way too fast - almost as if it was sped up from ~24 fps to ~30 fps.
The rest of the video seemed to be playing at proper speed.
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That's strange, I thought the frigate was fixed now. Is it possible your DVD/divx machine converts it to PAL before sending it to the TV?

Also the dolby logo is purposely sped up, it is quite long and time is scarce. I'm not sure what to suggest, I'd like to make the video work for everyone. Undoubtly there could be others having the same problem with frame skipping...
 
Just saw the intro sequence looking forward to seeing the final cut. One thing that has always bugged me though with the music certainly on the intro of the game is it never seemed used to it's potential (elevator rather than space operatics; the marching beat was to quiet) whats the chances of the sound mix being sorted so it's a touch more pumping if you know what i mean
 
ser lev said:
Just saw the intro sequence looking forward to seeing the final cut. One thing that has always bugged me though with the music certainly on the intro of the game is it never seemed used to it's potential (elevator rather than space operatics; the marching beat was to quiet) whats the chances of the sound mix being sorted so it's a touch more pumping if you know what i mean
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Yeah I think know what you mean, i'll try and do something with the music but I'm no sound editor. The movies almost finished now for anyone that wanted to know. All the missions have been shot and almost all the main videos are in place, and compresson has recieved final tweaks :) should be on torrent by next week hopefully!
 
Movie Complete

Thats right, it's all finished. I am pretty happy with it, but I would like to create an extended version using some better software in the not too distant future.

The movie is precisely 2 hours long, this means of course that there were many cut backs so I hope you guys won't be too disappointed about what is missing. Theres only a couple of minor glitches that I couldn't fix which should draw too much attention.

Download Here

It's on a torrent file as usual so if you download please seed for as long as you can!

Well, enjoy! Looking forward to hear feedback.
 
hmmm... I d/led the file, but it says that it is corrupt? What player do you recommend using to view the movie? Hope I don't have to re-download :)
 
mustanger said:
hmmm... I d/led the file, but it says that it is corrupt? What player do you recommend using to view the movie? Hope I don't have to re-download :)
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If it's like his WC3 movie you might need the XviD codec installed. I would give the video a shot in VLC player ( a free download). If it will not play in VLC then the file is most likely corrupt.
 
AD said:
If it's like his WC3 movie you might need the XviD codec installed. I would give the video a shot in VLC player ( a free download). If it will not play in VLC then the file is most likely corrupt.
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Correct, to play the video in windows media player you need the xvid codec and probably AC3 filter. Or you can use Video Lan Player which supposedly plays anything :)

If the file is corrupt then you can try re-opening the torrent which should hash the file and should re-download corrupt data.
 
thanks for the replies... I've run the WC3 movie under windows media, but can't run 4 for some reason... the total size of the d/l is showing 1,310,752,768 bytes, but it still won't run at the moment...

I'm going to try the other player you suggested, and will let you know.
 
WOW Queeg, fantastic you found the time to finish the movie in a hurry... Didn't expect to see it this soon.

Downloading now! Will post again later.
 
Well saw the film, fantastic dvd-like quality, watched it in the comfort of my home cinema with crystal clear picture and sweet surround sound. Much better than the low-tech WC III.

Concerning your editorial work, it's good but not great. The story doesn't flow like in your previous movie, but I understand you had to cut a lot of great scenes to keep the running time to a minimum. Sad you had to delete all the neat stuff near the end, with the battle between the cruisers. Still, 2 hours doesn't do the great storyline of WC IV justice. Would love to see an extended cut if you decide to make one.

Also, combat missions were noticeably absent, and if you included them, they were cut short. Makes the whole flow of the movie more abrupt. The whole part when Paulsen comes on board and before Blair and company 'transfer' to the Intrepid is a bit of a mess, but okay, time restraint plays a big reason here.

This is just some complaining seeing it comes from a fan of the game, but I still applaud your work, don't get me wrong. This is something I've always wanted to do myself, but I'm just a lazy ass that likes to bitch about other people's hard work. :D Anyway, WC IV deserves to be told the right way, which means a much longer version with all those cool missing bits is practically a necessity.

Queeg, job well done. So now for your next project?
 
Darkelf said:
Well saw the film, fantastic dvd-like quality, watched it in the comfort of my home cinema with crystal clear picture and sweet surround sound. Much better than the low-tech WC III.

Concerning your editorial work, it's good but not great. The story doesn't flow like in your previous movie, but I understand you had to cut a lot of great scenes to keep the running time to a minimum. Sad you had to delete all the neat stuff near the end, with the battle between the cruisers. Still, 2 hours doesn't do the great storyline of WC IV justice. Would love to see an extended cut if you decide to make one.

Also, combat missions were noticeably absent, and if you included them, they were cut short. Makes the whole flow of the movie more abrupt. The whole part when Paulsen comes on board and before Blair and company 'transfer' to the Intrepid is a bit of a mess, but okay, time restraint plays a big reason here.

This is just some complaining seeing it comes from a fan of the game, but I still applaud your work, don't get me wrong. This is something I've always wanted to do myself, but I'm just a lazy ass that likes to bitch about other people's hard work. :D Anyway, WC IV deserves to be told the right way, which means a much longer version with all those cool missing bits is practically a necessity.

Queeg, job well done. So now for your next project?
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Ah, yes there were major cut backs due to the incredible amount of footage the WC4 game holds. I thought the 2 hour length would be appropriate as a lot of films don't exceed that. Rest assured, there shall be a complete extended copy which will fill in all the gaps :). I still feel a little guilty for completely cutting out catscratch and the bar guy. Along with the whole jamming event which lasted about 5 minutes. To be honest I wasn't completely satisfied with it myself, but completely determined to meet the 2 hour limit.

Thank you for writing back it seems you're the first to have seen it and reply :). I'm sorry you felt that the film was lacking and I entirely agree with you, the 2 hour cut doesn't fulfil WC4's potential. I really hope you get to see the extended version when it's done, I'm certainly not ready to close the book on this project anytime soon! :cool:
 
Length of WC4

I agree that most films are 2 hours in length, but all the great movies are longer. Classic epics like Gladiator and Braveheart are 3+ hours in length. WC4 is epic in stature and should be left that way. Even modern superhero films like X-Men, Spiderman, and Superman are over two hours in length. I don’t think you should be worried about going over a time limit. Most film companies require movies to be cut so they can squeeze more films into a viewing day, and this usually results in the director’s work suffering from a bad edit. That is why we are seeing so many directors’ cuts these days when films reach DVD. Just treat this project as your directors cut. Don’t limit your story telling capabilities to a viewer’s short attention span. Most people that will see it are already fans and we are willing to deal with the long length. Those of us that are not already fans will become fans when they see the epic scale of the story. In my opinion 2 and 4 have the best stories because of the scope and quality.

Who cares if people complain about bandwidth and long download times? WC4 is worth it. If you treat it like the Gone with the Wind of Wing Commander you may piss off some people, but once they watch it they will see that it is worth it. Thank you for all of the time you have put into these projects. I am looking forward to watching WC4 with a friend who is not into gaming, but loves Sci-Fi.
 
Queeg,

As with Wc3, you did an excellent job putting in the effort to recreate one of my favorite video games. However, I have to say, unlike the WC3 project, this one did not reach me the same way as your previous effort.

I really applaud you for maintaining the strict 2 hour limit you imposed. As a writer, I know how hard it is to trim your work down to a level for the sake of scene flow and interest. However, despite the fact others have commented on this, this was my first opinion as well...WC4 just has too much story to be compressed into a 2 hr movie. Who cares about bandwidth and whatnot...I think your work would be much better in a 2.5 hr to 3 hr movie.

Your WC3 movie flowed BEAUTIFULLY, and I can't applaud you enough for your work on that. I think the thing here is that you tried to compress a 6 hour movie into a 2 hour movie, and by doing so, left out a ton of the side plot elements. Not to mention, most of the in-flight combat was completely missing...and some of your edits were confusing, and others were so quick that they didn't make sense (one of the first being when Blair and Maniac first leave the planet in the beginning and suddenly we see Seether drop a space mine and jump out for no reason).

At any rate, I apologize for being so blunt...you put in the effort that most of us, including myself, weren't willing to put in to provide a great piece of nostalgia for everyone. I can't wait to see your extended cut...hell, who cares about time limits, go all out, and make it seamless. As I said, WC4 was not meant to be 2 hrs long...I mean the sheer fact is was a 6 cd game as opposed to a 4 cd game should speak volumes about that.

Good job, Queeg! Thank you for taking the time and bringing one of my favorite games back to life!
 
Thanks for taking the time to put the whole package together, Queeg. :)

I'm having trouble torrenting the file in my campus halls, so I'll wait for a direct download, but there's no rush.

On the length issue, perhaps an episodic format might work -- given the amount of FMV as well as the number and variation of missions covered during the period of the game? Or perhaps split it into a two or three part mini-series? Finding appropriate sections to segment into a first, second and and third act for each episode or series, might be more difficult however.

Cheers,

Bryn
 
Alright I've read through everyones feedback carefully and I think I can safely say the 2 hour limit is a big problem and the plot holes/shortcuts are noticable. I want to improve on the movie as it could obviously be a lot more.

I especially like Bryn's idea of a three part series (reminds me of back to the future). Although I don't think that would quite work, as there isn't really specific places in WC4 that could be passed off as a 'To Be Continued' ending in my opinion.

So if people don't mind sitting through a 3 hour film then all the better :) having the freedom of adding scenes without worrying about length impact is great. I have already changed the opening sequence so nothing is cut, including the bar guy asking for drink money who was completely cut before. I haven't done any other work yet so if there is any more suggestions you guys want to contribute then now would be a good time.

Basically my plan is to release a directors cut of the film, a full length (up to 3 hours, maybe even a bit more) extended movie. Thank you for taking the time to watch the film and I really do appreciate you all helping me and hope the final movie will live it to WC4's potential.
 
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