Thief 3 Briefing: End of the Bloodline

[liszt17]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRHqi...ature=youtu.be

[Beleg Cúthalion]

That looks good (make sure it doesn't become too hasty, which I feared at the beginning)! I wonder if we could include those while I redo the original levels to get rid of loading zones, since you can include briefing videos for each mission. Unfortunately especially Rutherford Castle keeps crashing as soon as it's about to be combined. If you could do one for the Pagan Tunnels or St. Edgar's Day, I would give it a try and provide a new map file.

Maybe it'd be worth relying a bit more on TDS soundtrack to keep it consistent.

[Judith]

It's a mixed bag really. Some drawings look great, almost as is they were a copy/paste from T1/2 intros, while the others (like the guard face) display much lower quality. Also those whistle sounds are played too often and sound a bit cheesy. The same goes for this one: http://youtu.be/OHnh1f-3Xe8

[Beleg Cúthalion]

Some drawings look great, almost as is they were a copy/paste from T1/2 intros

They are copypasta from the old ones which might indeed be another thing to tackle.

[liszt17]

Thx for the replies. I know, this and the other briefing are not perfects, but just test versions only, need some tweak, rework and others.
Im i'v got some freetime,I will work on this.
just a little thing: In my opinion, these videos are far better than "please read the text below"

[Beleg Cúthalion]

Of course (although in fact you don't have to read the text since someone reads it out for you), and I'll be happy to use them. We just gave our remarks to help you improve it, since we all want it to be something great.

[Judith]

Sure they're better but I think there's room for something more creative here. While I agree on using music and sound samples from T3 only (easily extracted with DX Sound Drone tool), I'm not too sure about pasting artwork and movie sequences from T2. I'd rather make new models or a scene to get a decent high res screenshot so I can paint over it myself (I could help you with that). Besides, it would be cool to have such movies in decent resolution i.e. 720p. If used properly, RAD Video Tools (.bik) will compress it quite nicely without much quality loss.

I'm going to do something like that in my upcoming FM briefing, here's my first test: http://youtu.be/9_lp7QfZACw

[snobel]

Old-style videos based only on T3 assets would be very cool indeed.

I'm going to do something like that in my upcoming FM briefing, here's my first test: http://youtu.be/9_lp7QfZACw

That sets the mood very well. But wouldn't 16:9 aspect ratio be more suitable for video these days, even if you're going for the classic look?

[Judith]

Sure, the final version will support your widescreen patch I think I will leave the old framerate style though. Panning looks cooler in 15-20 FPS And it saves HDD space as well.

[Judith]

My take on intro mission, now that was fun

[Beleg Cúthalion]

OMG, ideas are coming, things are happening here!

[Judith]

I'd say someone had a spare afternoon and since heat outside was unbearable (35 C), there was nothing better to do anyway

[Beleg Cúthalion]

Did you make the drawings on your own?

[Judith]

The first one is a 16th century painting, the purse is a royalty-free stock image, all others are ingame sceenshots. Only the map was made from scratch, based on the HDMAP_Inn texture. And, I had to cut Garrett's voiceover to pieces, so I can control the timing.

[liszt17]

The first one is a 16th century painting, the purse is a royalty-free stock image, all others are ingame sceenshots. Only the map was made from scratch, based on the HDMAP_Inn texture. And, I had to cut Garrett's voiceover to pieces, so I can control the timing.

Great job, same technique as mine.
A question: what program(s) do you use?
And the small rotations on the screens are cool, but i cant make similar. How are you doing it?

[Judith]

Great job, same technique as mine.
A question: what program(s) do you use?
And the small rotations on the screens are cool, but i cant make similar. How are you doing it?

Thanks I use Audacity for audio editing, Gimp for image post-processing and Sony Vegas for video editing. There are separate pan/crop settings for every clip or image on the timeline, and that's useful in panning and rotating those images.

[liszt17]

Hmm..I think I'm redone my previous briefings, and make the others vit vegas, if it works...Thank you

[liszt17]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOllPRZe740

Here it is. 2nd edition. there is minor sound problems

[Judith]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOllPRZe740

Here it is. 2nd edition. there is minor sound problems

A bit better but still no quotes at the beginning. Also, you could make it a bit longer by splitting Garrett's voiceover into separate sentences, add longer pauses so you can have longer image panning etc.

[liszt17]

A bit better but still no quotes at the beginning. Also, you could make it a bit longer by splitting Garrett's voiceover into separate sentences, add longer pauses so you can have longer image panning etc.

Judith, you are so critic
Yeah, i know about the quotes, i have my own reason, why not adding them yet...later will be quotes.

A question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oorc2...=youtu.be&hd=1
What is the first image in this? Can I use it for my own briefing ?

[Judith]

I know I'm a bit pain in the ass, this is called "striving for perfection"

Besides, I feel it's relatively easy: you take of the loading screen quotes, make the gradient background, use proper font, and then sync the timing with music of your choice and voila

The first image is a part of the painting called The Quarrel of the musicians (or The Musicians' Brawl) by George de la Tour, you'll find his works on google images

[liszt17]

I know I'm a bit pain in the ass, this is called "striving for perfection"

Haha

The reason why im not adding quotes yet: there is few cutscenes in the original t3 (intro for keepers, pagan, hammers ), and there is only one slot for videos int the t3 gamesys.
So later, when i'll be mixing them together, i'm going to make the quotes for the briefings.

[Beleg Cúthalion]

AFAIK there is the possibility to add briefing videos to all missions when you edit them in T3Ed, so you don't have to restrict yourself to the existing ones in any way.

However, what might be worth a thought is the question of the background image when the quotes appear. After all T2 already used more elaborate ones, so one could provide new ones for Keepers, Pagans and Hammerites. One idea would be to take scenes from the OMs (Jacknall's Paw location, slow panning, and similar) and see if there are decent video effects to make them more appealing. Another idea would be to edit the three existing intros and expand the section where the quotes appear. In TDP you first had a long sequence with the chains and the lock which got shortened throughout the game. One could do the same with the TDS Keeper intro, reducing it slowly to the drawer scene with the keyhole symbol.

[Judith]

Good idea, T2 had keeper library, pagan forest and mechanist factory in the background for quotes. We could load the Keeper Compound, Pagan Sanctuary and Mechanist Fort in the editor and use that borked Scene manager tools to make a simple camera path for every scenery, and record it with Fraps or similar thing. After that you'd need some brightness/contrast/colour effects in the video editor and you got a proper background for the quote. It takes much more processing power than the simple static gradient though.

[liszt17]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amzmDeeqD-o

Its the final version, I cant make better...
Quotes will be added later.