Hi, I would really like to hear your opinion in this matter, since I'm looking up to make an HD version of some video cuts in Daggerfall, as I already hinted in this topic.
I don't know yet how Daggerfall Unity is going to handle HD videos, I guess sooner or latter Interkarma is going to talk about that. But right now I want to be really thoughtful in how I'm going to approach this task of making videos, 'cause I had some trouble with it in the past:
Not long ago I made an HD title screen for Morrowind, and that led me eventually to remake the short video sequence that comes before the title screen (for consistency sake, 'cause looking a low quality video that unfolds into a high resolution image wasn't pleasant at all). In case you are interested, you can take a look at it here.
That was my first experience in making videos, and I have learned that you need to keep things as modular as possible for practical purposes. But even that did not help me with the issue that came after I first released the "mod", and that is people who downloaded the replacements suffering from stretching, widening, narrowing, who knows how many issues just because I didn't take Aspect Ratios into account. I ended up releasing both HD title screen and video intro again in both 4:5 and 16:9 formats, for that I had to make a lot of extra work, a lot, more than it took to make the first version.
In the end all was for the better, since now I'm happier with the result, but now you understand that I'm not exactly well aware of some vital stuff in the matter, and I don't want to make that kind of mistakes again. That's why I would like to hear your opinions in making an HD version of a video file in Daggerfall, since I notice some things:
-Most videos in Daggerfall have Letterboxing, should I preserve this or do you prefer Fullscreen videos?
-I know now that I have to keep aspect ratios in mind, but is it safe to just replace the original videos with 4:5 or 16:9 versions? Is there any possible issue that could come out of that? (I have to say though that those videos with letter boxing are good candidates for widescreen versions).
Sorry for the post length, and sorry for my English, if something isn't clear don't hesitate to ask.
On the eventual case of HD Videos.
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Arl
- Posts: 202
- Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 10:57 am
On the eventual case of HD Videos.
My Deviantart page, I have some Daggerfall stuff in there.
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Interkarma
- Posts: 7244
- Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:51 am
Re: On the eventual case of HD Videos.
Unfortunately I don't really have a good answer for this right now. I would recommend sitting on this particular project until the greater modding community is underway. HD videos will no doubt necessarily tie into a HD UI remake.
One idea to keep things simple is to produce rough storyboard videos consisting of sketched stills (think of the Thief cinematics, but rougher). This would allow you to quickly produce a variety of video formats, with and without letterboxing, and see what "sticks" to the community and tech at the time. Then you can work on producing the high quality versions as required.
One idea to keep things simple is to produce rough storyboard videos consisting of sketched stills (think of the Thief cinematics, but rougher). This would allow you to quickly produce a variety of video formats, with and without letterboxing, and see what "sticks" to the community and tech at the time. Then you can work on producing the high quality versions as required.