Rebuilding the movie files [Solved]

AnthonyBF2 · Post by **AnthonyBF2** » Wed May 25, 2016 8:01 pm

I was reading the stuff about custom movies but I did not come to any information on how to rebuild the movie files using the default videos. For starters I need to make the videos smaller with less quality and a much smaller resolution, which I can do without problems. The real issue is actually making the new movie files.

Can anyone shed some light?

Marth8880 · Post by **Marth8880** » Thu May 26, 2016 6:14 pm

No, my lighting is set to low. :u

JK! The tutorial doc for making custom preview movies (included in the 1.3 patch documentation) explains what you want, even though it's for custom preview movies:

Hidden/Spoiler:

[quote="Add A Preivew Video.txt"]How To Make A Preview Video:

Video Suggestions:
-Keep it short
-Keep its file size small
-There is no audio, so don't include any
-Don't expect any viewers to be able to read any ingame text
-The video will be displayed in a box of 150 by 150 (pixels?)
-There is a one second fade in and a one second fade out. If you do not want the fading, use 'preview-loop' instead of 'preview'
-The video loops until another map is selected
-If you can create the two video formats, both pre-movie.mvs and pre-moviepal.mvs should be used

Tools Needed:
-A video recorder such as Taksi (free), Fraps (trial), XFire (free), webcam, etc...
-RAD Game Tools (free): http://www.radgametools.com/binkhcwb.htm
-SWBF2 UnOfficial v1.3 patch (so you can see your video ingame)

Assumptions:
1) You have SWBF2 and its mod tools installed
2) You have done some modding before and you sort-of know what you are doing
3) You know how to pick your own video capture/recorder tool
4) You have a map you want to add a preview video to (this example uses a map named PVE, so whenever you see PVE or pve, replace it with your map's code)
5) Your map has had its 'Common' munged at least once
6) You are not using the PAL version of the game. If you are, pre-movie.mvs should be pre-moviepal.mvs. I think that is the only change (can't test it as don't have the PAL version).
7) You have the Custom Era shell installed or a mod which includes it installed.

Setup:
1) Have SWBF2 installed
2) Have the SWBF2 mod tools installed
4) Install RAD Game Tools

Create the video:
1) Start Battlefront and load your map
2) Start your video capture tool and create whatever video you want to make

Convert the video:
0) Note: the following values are only suggested values. They may be changed for each video. The goal is to make the video as small as possible without losing too much graphically quality
1) Open the RAD Video Tools
2) Select your video and click 'Bink it!'
3) Set 'Compress to data rate (bytes)' to 750000
4) Select the radio button 'multiple of the overall data rate:' and use 3.0
5) Set 'Scaling compression' to 'No scalling'
6) Set 'How many frames to preview during bandwidth allocation' to 12
7) Set the width to 150 and the height to 150
8) Set the contrast to 8
9) Set the 'Smooth %' to 3
10) Check 'De-interlace'
11) When you are done changing the settings, click 'Blink' to convert your video
12) Wait for the tool to finish converting your video.

Munge the video:
1) Move and rename your bik video to data_PVE/Shell/movies/PC/preview.bik
2) Create a movie list text file called pre-movie.mlst in /data_PVE/Shell/movies/PC. When munged, this file will turn into the pre-movie.mvs, which contains your preview movie embedded inside.
3) In pre-movie.mlst, type in the path to your video. Example: ..\..\Shell\movies\PC\preview.bik
4) Optional step (prevents a munge error): Create shell.req in data_PVE/Shell
5) Optional step (prevents a munge error): In shell.req, add:

ucft{}

6) Run VisualMunge for you map
7) Click 'Unselect All'
8) Check 'Shell'
9) Click 'Munge'
10) When the munge has finished, you will find your new pre-movie.mvs in data_PVE/_LVL_PC/Movies

Add the video:
1) Pick a location for your movie file. It can be placed anywere, but the recommended location is GameData/addon/PVE/data/_LVL_PC/movies
2) Copy your munged video (pre-movie.mvs) to this location
3) Open the addme.lua (data_PVE/addme/addme.lua) file from your mod map
4) Around line 23 is the line that you edit to change your map's game modes. Edit this line to include the movie file, the movie name, and 'dnldable = 1' (dnldable is optional). An expanded example is

shown below. Its important to note that the 'movieFile' does include the file name of the video, but does not include its '.mvs' extension or the 'pal' part for PAL users. Also, the 'movieName' is the name

you used in movies.mcfg's MovieProperties() Name variable:

sp_missionselect_listbox_contents[sp_n+1] = {
movieFile = "..\\..\\addon\\PVE\\data\\_LVL_PC\\PVE\\movies\\pre-movie",
movieName = "preview",
dnldable = 1,
isModLevel = 1,
mapluafile = "PVE%s_%s",
era_c = 1,
mode_con_g = 1,
}
mp_n = table.getn(mp_missionselect_listbox_contents)
mp_missionselect_listbox_contents[mp_n+1] = sp_missionselect_listbox_contents[sp_n+1]

5) Run VisualMunge for you map
6) Click 'Unselect All'
7) Click 'Munge'

Viewing your video in SWBF2 (v1.3):
1) Start the game
2) Go to the IA or MP map selection screen
3) Click on your map
4) Watch the preview video box for your video
[/quote]

Post by **Teancum** » Thu May 26, 2016 11:50 pm

See the post by AceWell in the topic below. Looks like MVS files are just basically like LVL files in that they have some header information, then the movies are stored. Luckily the movies aren't actually munged, and you should be able to split them out somehow via hex and use RAD Video Tools to make changes.

http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=13599

AnthonyBF2 · Post by **AnthonyBF2** » Fri May 27, 2016 12:57 am

Teancum wrote:See the post by AceWell in the topic below. Looks like MVS files are just basically like LVL files in that they have some header information, then the movies are stored. Luckily the movies aren't actually munged, and you should be able to split them out somehow via hex and use RAD Video Tools to make changes.

http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=13599

I still need to stomp down the videos, so I can't just use the raw video extractions. I know how to do basic video editing (resolution, quality, etc) but when I do get that part done I need to figure out how to make the new ingame.mvs, and other movie files with the original, but edited videos.

Post by **Teancum** » Fri May 27, 2016 2:02 am

Right -- so in the most basic of steps:

1) Figure out the MVS header -- basically where each video starts and stops. Hex-cut them out and save them to their original file names, which may still be referenced in the mod tools.

2) Use video editing software to convert to the correct resolution.

3) Rebuild MVS text file, munge with new vids.

Something like that, right?

AnthonyBF2 · Post by **AnthonyBF2** » Fri May 27, 2016 2:09 am

Teancum wrote:Right -- so in the most basic of steps:

1) Figure out the MVS header -- basically where each video starts and stops. Hex-cut them out and save them to their original file names, which may still be referenced in the mod tools.

2) Use video editing software to convert to the correct resolution.

3) Rebuild MVS text file, munge with new vids.

Something like that, right?

That makes sense but I was assuming there was something I could fumble around with when munging shell, I think this because there's a movie folder in shell and a few other traces of movie stuff. There's also a movie option in munge.bat which makes me believe it's possible to take new source videos and munge them into a new official movie file.

EDIT: I got it! - Almost...

I can compile an exact replica of ingame.mvs using the source videos as well as the other less important .mvs files. Now the hard part is finding a way to get my own videos from avi. to .bik - I am not sure what to do in the RAD tools to convert my edited videos back to the .bik type. I either get a Windows error (This program has stopped working) or RAD just generates .tmp files sized at 0kb.

DylanRocket · Post by **DylanRocket** » Fri May 27, 2016 7:18 am

AnthonyBF2 wrote:I am not sure what to do in the RAD tools to convert my edited videos back to the .bik type. I either get a Windows error (This program has stopped working) or RAD just generates .tmp files sized at 0kb.

I'm converted videos (or music really) to .bik, all you have to do is select the .avi file and select the Bink It! button IIRC.

AnthonyBF2 · Post by **AnthonyBF2** » Fri May 27, 2016 1:40 pm

I did exactly that and the program crashes. I am using Windows 7 64 bit if it matters.

Got it - RAD wasn't accepting .avi so I did .avi to .mpg then .mpg to .bik

Hidden/Spoiler:

Post by **Teancum** » Fri May 27, 2016 5:20 pm

You still have to call the movies from the shell lua files.

AnthonyBF2 · Post by **AnthonyBF2** » Fri May 27, 2016 5:22 pm

Teancum wrote:You still have to call the movies from the shell lua files.

shell_interface? I have all the movie code that's on shell_interface untouched, not sure if that matters or there is more.

Post by **Teancum** » Fri May 27, 2016 6:34 pm

I don't recall to be honest. I know the startup videos and the space tutorial video are in the shell, and the campaign videos are in their individual map mode luas.

Rebuilding the movie files [Solved]

Rebuilding the movie files [Solved]

Re: Rebuilding the movie files

Re: Rebuilding the movie files

Re: Rebuilding the movie files

Re: Rebuilding the movie files

Re: Rebuilding the movie files

Re: Rebuilding the movie files

Re: Rebuilding the movie files

Re: Rebuilding the movie files [Solved]

Re: Rebuilding the movie files [Solved]

Re: Rebuilding the movie files [Solved]