I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

[DeviFoxx]

I've been gathering my materials for this movie I'm working on. Getting people who're interested in voice acting... The proper Utilities to make this happen... Adobe Premiere Pro... After Effects... Photoshop... VirualDub...

Originally making an FFXI movie was the main reason why I wanted to get heavily into .DAT editing. But I ran into a few problems.

· Creating and scripting Cutscenes would take a Private Server which is neither here nor there.
· Because of the style of Camera you're given in the game, it's very difficult to get the angles you want. Hence why I posed the first question if one could script his / her own cutscenes.

So, having neither option available to me for the production of my FFXI movie, I had to tap into my creativity and come up with my own alternative. That being--

Record the backdrops and scenes I need to record for my movie with FRAPS, then add in the other characters by making animated .GIFs out of them with the FFXI Model Viewer. To which point, I would "Overlay" the character GIFs onto the scene so it would appear as if they were really there.

Example:



I'm talking about something like this, with the exception of course that the background wouldn't be still. Try to imagine that the Attowah Chasm background is moving as if someone were walking around it in first person mode (for Camera / Cinematic purposes) and the Taru was just an animated .GIF that was overlayed on top of the video, like in the picture above.

That's pretty much what I'm trying to do for my video / movie.

However, I've run into a bit of a problem. I've saved some animated characters into both animated .GIF and .PSD format and tried loading them into Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe AfterEffects. The problem I'm encountering is that when I choose to "Import" them into my "Project" it asks for either which ONE Layer I want to use, or if it's going to be "Footage"... I select "Footage" and then drag and drop it into the "Sequence" below. The .GIF / .PSD doesn't play. Just one frame sits there, Frozen. I'm not sure how to have an animated .GIF (With Transparency on the edges) can be overlayed on top of a video. Atleast not with Adobe Premiere Pro or AfterEffects.

Does anyone happen to have any ideas? I could really use some assistance.

I figured what better place would it be than to ask here?

In summary:

I load my program to edit.
I load my video into the program.
I put it in the sequence.
I load in my Animated GIF which I plan to Layer on top of the video...
I do so.
It won't animate. It remains as one motionless frame.

Please, if anyone can "Drop Some Knowledge On Me"... please do so, I ask of you kindly.

[Balfree]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

Instead of using a pure gif...

Using swishmax [http://www.swishzone.com/] , you can import a gif into a flash movie, and export it as an .avi or .swf, that's how i'd do it

edit:

im a bit worried about it preserving transparency... you can give it a try though.

My best suggestion would be.. use flash to make your video instead of premiere, and export it as .avi :p

You're not capturing real video after all, so what's the point of using premiere? D:

You know what, i think you should just get actors and create the movie ingame, i'd be your hume if we were in same server lol

[DeviFoxx]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

Yes, but then Camera angles would be an issue. Then there's Lag, and people moving off synch and all this other garbage.

I've recorded the footage I want to run in the background, so that's good.

Now I just need to get this to work.

Thank you for your feedback, by the way.

[Yasmine]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

devi. i remember seeing a program that lets you load the areas into a model viewer. if you could use that and then move the angle around while recording with fraps it may work. I don't really know how that priogram works but i bet it's worth a shot. I think you may be able to load character models in there too. no idea though.

[DeviFoxx]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

If you're talking about "FFXItool"... I've tried that. And... it's not quite "satisfactory". It's very buggy and loads areas in a rather bizzare way.

Hmmm...

[Kilandor]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

Well, the best thing I think to do, would be to get a actual group of people on the same server, and do your filiming that way, via Fraps It would likely be the best and easiest way. But its hard to say. What your talking about doign with gifs, would take an insane amount of time for any long video.

[Balfree]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

Yea.. your best bet is still to get a group of friends, good friends who listen and are capable of following instructions, and get r done

But i know how hard it is, i once tried aligning 10 people in a straight line, took me half an hour.

[DeviFoxx]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

Yeah. Getting people to move in perfect synchronization is very, very difficult.

However, I might be in luck. A British friend of mine heard of my plight and might have something to help me... A program called Multiquence supposedly can overlay an animated GIF on top of a movie.

It's a very small program... About 1 MB big it seems. I'll give it a whirl and see what I come up with.

[Alucath]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

My parents do visual effects and what you're doing in effect is.. having every shot in your movie project a composite shot. In essence you're "comp'ing" the foreground image into the background.

You wanna know the hardest part about this which I'm sure you'll find out soon enough? It's called tracking. Sure you'll be able to put the image sequence of someone walking into a still shot. And that'd be pretty easy.. but if your background is moving, you need to match the movement of your camera in your image sequence to that of the background.

Good luck sir. That's an arduous process. At least you're exporting the image sequence with transparency and you don't need to get into rotoscoping. I believe the guy who made his matrix FFXI trailer spoof thing (was pretty damn awesome) rotoscoped all of his actors from the game.

[Jei]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

to add to alucath's post, camera tracking usually is a frame-by-frame man-power process it's not hard, but it's a crap load of work.

Alucath make sure to introduce me to your parents xD i'll need a job soon hehe

[DeviFoxx]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

Aye... That's what I'm trying to do.

The Tracking Part will be fairly easy for the shots I plan to use however because the only time I'd have that part done would be during the "Really Dramatic Fight Sequences".

Don't get me wrong, I AM going to use people as In-Game actors.

The .GIF animated characters are only during Dialogue Scenes, and that's about it.

Other than that,this should be a nice project.

[Alucath]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

Haha Jei, Whereabouts are you from anyway? You know your journals were what got me started playing RDM @.@. *needless fanboy moment*

[Regenshire]

Re: I've got an FFXI Movie Project... However, some problems.

However, I've run into a bit of a problem. I've saved some animated characters into both animated .GIF and .PSD format and tried loading them into Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe AfterEffects. The problem I'm encountering is that when I choose to "Import" them into my "Project" it asks for either which ONE Layer I want to use, or if it's going to be "Footage"... I select "Footage" and then drag and drop it into the "Sequence" below. The .GIF / .PSD doesn't play. Just one frame sits there, Frozen. I'm not sure how to have an animated .GIF (With Transparency on the edges) can be overlayed on top of a video. Atleast not with Adobe Premiere Pro or AfterEffects.

I have been doing alot of what I call "blue screening" using the model viewer and Fraps for my current video project which is extreamly complicated and involves a villian that I have to "bluescreen" for all of his speaking parts. I also use Premier. It sounds like you are making things too complicated by video taping in fraps, then exporting to animated gifs, and then bringing it into Premier. You do not need to do this. Instead, video tape from the model editor into fraps, import the video you made directly into Premier (skipping the whole gif thing). Now it is time to use something called "Keying" for transparency.

1. Put the clip into your timeline.
2. Click on the Effects tab of Premier, and drill down through Video Effects, and into the Keying folder. In this folder are a number of keys to make colors transparent. I normally use pure Blue or pure Green. This needs to match your background color in fraps.

By using this method, you will have greater control and better image quality then using animated gifs. I can do alot of stuff using this technique. If you want an example of what I am doing with it, check out the trailer for my current project at http://files.filefront.com/FFVI_Oper.../fileinfo.html.

A good portion of the scenes involve me using this technique, with pretty good results. However, I would recommend live filming for as much of your film as possible, as it is very difficult and time consuming to use blue screening techniques, and often you can tell that it was created this way.

I hope this helps.