Animations

Ok, well, what I am talking about are not CS animations, but regular animations.

How do you make them? Because I would like night and day, and whoever posted the "i know how to do night and rain: questions" didn't quite say if they had to be CGE animations, or regular ones.

Also, with movies, how do I make those? Because I'd like to make an intro movie, but I'm not sure how.

Sorry if this seems like a newbie question, I just had to know, and I haven't quite considered it until now.

Thanks,
Bunny

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Quote

Originally posted by PinkFluffyBunny:
**didn't quite say if they had to be CGE animations, or regular ones.
**

Coldstone uses animations created with the Animation Tool within Coldstone.

Quote

Originally posted by PinkFluffyBunny:
**Also, with movies, how do I make those?
**

What kind of movie? You could take a video camera and record one then get it onto your 'puter (via firewire or a video input card)

If you want a cartoon or something you could draw all the frames then make a movie in QT Pro ($30 well spent, btw). Of course who wants to draw all those frames of animation?

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Some 3D graphics programs allow you to make QuickTime movies, as well, but that would be a heckuva lot of work, and you'd have to be a graphics artist. (Guess why I am not planning on having movies in my game?)

You could actually make a movie with Snapz as well, if you wanted. That might be cool if you just wanted to have a movie of normal Coldstone action going on. I think you can even add audio as you record, too. Of course that might just end up making it seem kind of home-video-ish, but it could be worth a shot.

I'm actually liking this idea. I may have to use it myself. 😉

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Found me password!

If you're talking about movies that enhance the environment, stuff that plays as the player, er, plays: this is how we are doing things like water, wind, etc. (also how the windmill in PoG is done I guess)--
Create your animation. Save it as a sequnce of frames. Use the CS animation editor to create an animation with these frames. Place the animation in the appropriate layer on your map. Use .pngs as the frames to make the animation translucent for rain and water effects. You can make some pretty smooth environmental effects with CS. Yay.

Cutscenes:
Create a movie. (.mov) Now create a dialogue event with NO TEXT. Just the movie. The event will freeze everything, play the movie once, unfreeze everything. Caution: the movie is just thrown on the screen, with everything (map, etc) visible around it. Include a teleport to and from an all-black screen with the dialogue event for a more professoinal transition.

As far as how to create the .mov--yes, most 3d programs include a way to make movies. QT pro is a cheap and effective way to make cell animation by assembling sequnces of pictures. People with budgets or generous parents can go for an animation or video editing program. Our animator is using Animation Stand (www.animationstand.com), and he loves and recomends it. It simulates every aspect of a traditional cell animation studio.

Animation is rough. But keep this is mind: even a mov of simple fade transitions from one picture to the next (or just scrolling text) with appropriate background music can really do alot to pull a player into a game, and, if done well, can set the mood infinitely better than a click-to-continue intro story. The PC game Thief has good examples of simple cutscenes done well. QT Pro is $30. CS supports QT. Think about it.

myshkyn

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"Animation is a lot of work. If you don't want to do the work, you shouldn't be in animation." --Richard Williams, Academy-Award winning animator behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Remember too, that animation and movies in your game will add significantly to the megabytage it consumes, in terms of disk space, hosting space, and bandwidth.

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Thank you all for you help -
I just registered CS yesterday, so it'll be a little while before I can do anything, because I reached the maximum of almost everything in the demo. 😉 Anyway, I will test things out. Is snapz pro for OS 9?

Edit: Had to change snaps to snapz....whoops! :redface:

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(This message has been edited by PinkFluffyBunny (edited 09-17-2002).)

I wrote that topic and I used CGE graphics. The way I did it was take a screenshot of the screen. Copy the size of the viewable screen, and make 10 or so purple transparent screens. Works like a danish.

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Ah, ok thanks smodis.

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