Creating a promotional/tutorial video

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ed
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Post by ed »

pike wrote:Anyone tried to hack .aarec files and change player movements in recorded file with any success?
If the recording client enters a server as a spectator, says nothing and does nothing, with the resulting aarec you are able to switch around players, change cams, use glances, etc without it crashing. All you need then is a rewind button :S
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pike
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Post by pike »

Yeah, but what I meant is - can I change player movements (I guess it's saved in .aarec file somewhere) without causing the playback crash? I actually changed few settings in such file and some of them worked well, while some others resulted in client crash.
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Post by Z-Man »

In theory, it's possible for local game playbacks, but it's hardly practical.
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Post by sinewav »

KamP wrote:I thought it looked like we were leaning to a tut series of short videos. Where did one condensed vid come from?
Opps! Sorry, it's not on this thread and I don't remember where it is right now. It came out a conversation similar to this...
2020 wrote:conc's trying to come up with a simple starter pack
as it were
so that when a new player downloads the game
it is meant to be really simple to get the player on the grid as easily as possible
One idea is it include a video in the package or embed it in the executable to propel a new user into the game with fewer questions. So sorry KamP, I guess we're looking at both a series of tutorials and a single distributable one. My bad. :?

Maybe someone should create a Arma youtube channel and give access to the community. Is this easy to do? Then we will have a place to link to from the main site, and we can upload videos as we make them. BTW I'm kind of an idiot when it comes to youtube. I'm never on it.
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KamP
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Post by KamP »

I created a Youtube profile, ArmagetronAdvanced. PM me for the passwd.

They won't let me modify it much for 48 hours, which seems like a foolish rule.

I tried to get ArmagetronAD, but some fool registered it last year and put up a bunch of Dark Knight and Iron Man vids. Srsly, some ppl. :)
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Post by joda.bot »

@sine: not your bad

This thread started out as BOTH promotional and tutorial thread, because we did not really decide where to go. My intention was a promotional video which attracts players. Like your example of trying to show the concept and fun of Armagetron to a friend.

After reading all these good comments and finding some existing tutorial / gameplay videos, I'm really happy with all the feedback.


about a promotional video:
My initial idea was makeíng a promotional video, which shows:

a) game concept
b) convincing arguments (whatever makes it worth playing: rubber, game variations/different perspectives ?)
c) give it an egoistic approach ? (how does Armagetron work/look for you, how can you have fun and become the player)

Those points describe my expectations best. I guess my attempt would be to focus on following one player (with a really good configured camera or a human camera man following one player).


about tutorial videos:

I'm supporting the idea of tutorial videos but I'd rather have tutorial maps :-) or summarys how to present, teach or learn the basics.

I also have some tutorial maps in my cupboard which focus on training the player skills slowly, but also try to be challenging for good players (none of those have so far been modeled though). I'll make a new thread for those maps, I guess those maps might be a good idea for a single players training campain, which might work well with a story, too.

EDIT: I like the quality of this one (HD): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J76J4C3Z_Cg
I'd adwise against using SmartCam! Use a higher perspective to give new players more overview about what is going on, but close enough to see the cycle and just a dot. An arrow might help to indicate what to focus on (aka. player at the lower center of the screen ?)
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KamP
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Post by KamP »

Actually, one promo video idea that I've had jangling around in my noggin is using roulette and some regular players.

Basically, put us all on a teamspeak server, and we roulette while jawing about whatever is going on. The idea is just a casual kind of video, that shows something somewhat interesting you can do in tron (pending how much you like mazing), and even showcases one small piece of the community (and the sense of community).

Also it's just plain simple, not unlike a recent video, if you remember the Wii Fit Girlfriend, which I got the idea from. It's not the promotional video with the most pizzazz, but it'd probably get a lot of people curious about the game, and they'd see the kind of things you can do.
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Post by Concord »

KamP :D I know what roulette is from reading the wiki, but I haven't seen a game of it. Ever.

And by ever, I mean the time I've browsed the master list since 21. October, 2007.
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Post by sinewav »

Concord wrote:KI know what roulette is from reading the wiki, but I haven't seen a game of it. Ever.
It usually happens spontaneously in shrunkland. It's hella-fun. Recently someone showed me sumo-roulette, but they couldn't remember how to play it. That was hella-fun too.

I watched that HD Arma video above. Looks great. I can't get that kind of quality out of my system; my equipment is really old. It may be another 10 years before I do anything HD.
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Post by KamP »

Concord wrote:KamP :D I know what roulette is from reading the wiki, but I haven't seen a game of it. Ever.

And by ever, I mean the time I've browsed the master list since 21. October, 2007.
It's more of a shrunkland game... Coincidentally, I stopped playing around that time.
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Post by Tank Program »

I've looked at the aarec format and I hacked it a little bit to get the keypress info out... and then overlay that on top of video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qZW8F0WC78
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Post by pike »

joda.bot wrote:EDIT: I like the quality of this one (HD): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J76J4C3Z_Cg
Hehe, that's not HD, just one of several failed attempts. You actually cannot get HD quality on youtube, but something pretty close. This is the best I get so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtG85KGfwYg (.mov files seem to be smoother than .mp4), but I think this is enough for our needs.
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Post by epsy »

Last time I checked, HD uploads were restricted to USA. I however didn't find the help document about this on youtube's help anymore. Be sure to look at the recommended codecs to use
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Post by sinewav »

pike wrote:This is the best I get so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtG85KGfwYg
Impressive. Too bad my computer is too slow to play it. What kind of setup are you working with? It's making me wish I could afford the CPU power for mirrored floors.
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pike
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Post by pike »

sinewav wrote:Impressive. Too bad my computer is too slow to play it. What kind of setup are you working with? It's making me wish I could afford the CPU power for mirrored floors.
I think the key is somewhere in settings. I used to watch recorded Ladle final with mirrors and moviepack lately. Then yesterday, with few settings changed and new moviepack, I could hardly get 10 fps from the same file.

Btw, what resolutions you're working on sine? And how your uploaded videos (on YT&DM) look compared to original ones (same or worse)?
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