[REM]

Greetings,
I’m interested in creating cinematic sequences with the BFME engine, similar to what’s seen in the intro movies. I had a go at World Builder but because of lack of documentation I couldn’t figure out so far how to build the basic map framework for cinematics. I don’t need the map to actually be playable, just to be able to record the scripted actions of various units I would place in World Builder…
So, does anyone have any tips on how to set up such a framework ? How about the camera work?

many thanks,
~REM~

[DeeZire]

If you have played Generals or Zero Hour it will be easier to construct cinematics - they used precisely the same method/engine to generate cinematics, however in those games the cinematics werent video files, they were played through scripts within the map file itself - openeing any of their single player missions will give you an insight into how they are made, its pretty much the same drill for BFME except theres more you can do with the camera.

As for WB documentation, you can grab the official manual (which was written for Generals) from the Generals & Zero Hour section of this sites Downloads

[REM]

Originally Posted by DeeZire";p=&quot

If you have played Generals or Zero Hour it will be easier to construct cinematics - they used precisely the same method/engine to generate cinematics, however in those games the cinematics werent video files, they were played through scripts within the map file itself - openeing any of their single player missions will give you an insight into how they are made, its pretty much the same drill for BFME except theres more you can do with the camera.

As for WB documentation, you can grab the official manual (which was written for Generals) from the Generals & Zero Hour section of this sites Downloads

Thanks, that’s good info… I guess I have to step back a little bit and look at some Generals maps.

[REM]

I have another question though…
How would one get around recording the scripted cinematics as a video file? Is there any “record demo” type of functionality?

[DeeZire]

No there isnt - does your copy of BFME World Builder have a 'Toggle AVI Capture' script function? If so then thats the way to do it, if not let me know and I'll explain how to enable it along with a couple of other script actions that I think were disabled in the public release.

[REM]

Yes, there’s a “Toggles on & off the AVI capture” action, but it actually takes screenshots every frame and saves them as bmp files at the current game resolution.
The whole application became very sluggish, I may be better off with an external capture program….
Is there anything more to the “AVI capture” script action that can be configured?

But now my main problem is that every time I create a map with the minimum player set-up (so it will show up in the “custom maps” listing), I get the “Defeated” screen right after the map loads! Any way to disable/modify the map’s objectives ?

Basically what I want to do is to create scripted animations like in the shell map and record them as video files.
This might be far fetched (and pls don’t lol here…), but is it possible to use the retail version of the game engine just to render a scripted map file, without loading it through the skirmish or multiplayer screens? I noticed that “game.dat” is actually an executable, so I was wondering if there are any “developer” features left in the engine…

many thanks,
rem