AE talk:Trailer

Geyser, I may be able to record that sequence at a better quality. Increasing the resolution of the texture used may help too. Gumby 01:30, 28 July 2008 (CEST)

Hmm, didn't see this until just now. I assume you must have seen my trailer draft, geyser (linked to from my User page). Do you still prefer to see the trailer done this way, having seen that? --Iritscen 03:28, 28 July 2008 (CEST)

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Gumby, feel free to re-record that scene. I believe I made it easy enough to replicate so it can be recorded in no time. I also think that sequence works quite nicely all the way to the "Oni" logo (also a placeholder for original Oni footage), except for the cheap-looking titles and the lack of animation for the logo itself (the large size will be OK as long as it pops up in some drop-dead-gorgeous fashion)... As for the textures of the glowing rings, on a good GFX card, with antialiasing and smart texturing and such it should look quite decent. If not, we can always rerecord this one scene with better textures closer to the deadline.

Iritscen, about your take on the trailer: I was notified of the forum thread by Gumby; other than that, I've been pretty much absent from everywhere including this wiki, barely ever looking at Recentchanges or such). As for your draft, the short answer is yes. I prefer "my" idea of the trailer over "yours". I have three major things to say and three minor ones.

Minor thing number zero

overcapitalization. "Coming Soon..." and "Watch For It"? WTF?

Heh. I am not too attached to those two titles either. Watch For It is kinda corny and Coming Soon is arguably superfluous. --Iritscen 03:07, 29 July 2008 (CEST)

Minor thing number one

"we've been busy for the past 7 years and 7 months"... Huh. Not like I don't respect the early Oni modders, but organized modding as we know it didn't happen until a couple of years ago (and as for the "we've been busy", we're still nowhere close to productive teamwork if you ask me).

I wondered what the reaction to that line would be. As with the other opening text, I threw it in without any forethought just so I could present my draft (not knowing about yours at the time). The "seven years, seven months" sounds good, but admittedly I was shooting in the dark because I wasn't around back then and didn't know what was being done. So yeah, I won't defend that. --Iritscen 03:07, 29 July 2008 (CEST)

Minor thing number two

preposterous release date. It's the trailer that will "air" by the end of August, and that if we're VERY VERY VERY lucky and hard-working and cooperative and inspired and talented and and and... and as for AE, I wouldn't expect it to come in time even for the 8th anniversary in January... that's why I stopped calling it the 7th Anniversary Edition a long time ago, preferring "Anniversary Edition" or "Edition". But that doesn't matter. Whenever we'll release it, it will still have Bungie's one ond only seven in the main menu background. "Anniversary Edition: it's a seven" - even if we release it 2 or 3 years from now.

I don't see why we can't at least get the trailer out soon; I mean, I wasn't planning personally on making a trailer that was exhaustive, just a nice sneak peek at some of what the AE may or may not offer (since what doesn't get packaged with the AE can be released on its own, so it's not all that dishonest to advertise those mods too, since they will run off the Edition framework). I am a little disappointed at your pushing back of the Edition. I think the first time I ever contacted you, by PM, I suggested that you release iterative Editions, one a year, with the latest mods available as of that time. You saw that as a lot of work, but I saw it as a simple matter of slapping some files together that were already done, and releasing the package once a year. I still would like you to consider releasing what you have now (or in the near future), and improving on that later. Just use version numbers or years ("Anniversary Edition '08") so people can keep them straight. --Iritscen 03:07, 29 July 2008 (CEST)

You know I used to make releases before January, but I've also been paying attention to the feedback, and it just so happens that some of the features so far are flawed (buggy/crashy) and/or controversial. I know lame when I see lame, and I will *not* showcase or officially release lame (or controversial), because that would be the end of us. We need more thorough checking (e.g., Loser's modded TRAM cause memory corruption and Loser is apparently too busy with new stuff to double-check or fix that ^_^), and we need modular installation options (i.e., a truly powerful frontend for OniSplit on both PC and Mac, and probably an OniSplit 1.0 core to go with it). We don't have that now, and I don't know when we will, so I don't even want to think of a release date now. Just to make it clear again: the minimal set of AE is a solid modding mainframe, and a couple of equally solid upgrades (preferably modular/optional).

As for the more or less random (and lame?) mods cluttering up the trailer, just what kind of attention do you think they'd get us? We're not making a trailer for OniSplit-powered goofing, for sake's sake. No one needs a trailer that doesn't look awesome, so if it's not awesome by the August 21 deadline, I'll postpone it. I hope I won't have to though.

geyser 13:50, 29 July 2008 (CEST)

Major thing number zero

the music. Hunt is sluggish and Pursuit also lacks some energy. As you can see from wiki history and maybe even OCF history, the "Ambient Suite - No One Left To Trust" mix came up quite some time ago (it's been brewing practically since January AFAIR). NOLTT is typical Power Of Seven, mainstream enough to sound familiar to those who "hate techno", powerful enough to drive an action-packed trailer, and to top it off it's a track from Oni's early days, which didn't make it either into Oni or onto the promotional CD. Ambient Suite is a nice mixing effort on the part of Salvatori or O'Donnell or whoever, it features unfamiliar samples that don't appear ingame, and its movements allow for creatively synchronized titles. I have always been intrigued by the redundant intro, so I naturally came to use the twin explosions as the basic markers. As for the ending, I didn't actually sync it at all: Ambient Suite is just muted while NOLTT plays, and then kicks back in. So the music for the end titles is just a lucky coincidence.

...I guess this is just a difference in taste. I won't go into why I prefer my selections in music, though. Since they don't seem to work for you like they do for me, I would be willing to mix the trailer with the music you used. --Iritscen 03:07, 29 July 2008 (CEST)

Major thing number one

your draft is overly verbose at the beginning, which can be come across as long-winded, anticlimatic, or even aggressively "commercial", depending on the amount and type of words you use. Sure we want to advertise a bit, but we don't want to sound like those release-period reviews that are actually part of a game's promotional campaign. Actually, your trailer is pretty much a manifesto of our "team", and it's not bad... for a manifesto... but I think we need something lighter and more artful at the same time. Something closer to Oni's 1998 trailer if you like: let the visuals speak for themselves as much as possible. I'm not saying my intro is perfect, but I like how the sound samples match the phases of the footage, and there's a hidden "let's go back in time" meaning to the reversed cutscene: in order to have a second look at Oni, start where it all ended, literally... and then rewind a bit.

I should have mentioned earlier that I really like the intro you used — it's a good visual, and not bogged down in words like my intro, although it's potentially spoiler-ish for those who never played Oni. Does that matter? Not necessarily, if we're aiming this at existing Oni fans. --Iritscen 03:07, 29 July 2008 (CEST)

Given the lack of backstory, I think it's your typical teaser: people are intrigued by the flow of energy, then see the transmitter, and then take a short look at the back of some super-chick surrounded by dead bodies, somehow connected to the transmitter: that said, I'm pretty sure many people discovered Oni after watching the spoilerful Resurrection; after all, the fun of Oni is mostly about the gameplay, and you can't really spoil that; oh, and the plot is largely understated, so there's not much to spoil there anyway ^_^

Major thing number two

I don't think much of the side-by-side comparison of the highlighted upgrades. Specifically, while we should certainly do our best to make the Edition's content/gameplay look awesome, it's not a good move at all to try and make Oni look dull/dumb by contrast. That's why I opted for a quick overview of Oni's original awesomeness (with a focus on the unique gameplay and a little bit on the pseudo-anime imagery: that latter one to match the kawaii feel of the music), followed by a 1999-trailer-styled mash-up. Some intense, uncommented footage at the start; then a sequence of thematic highlights (with minimal comments); and again some intense stuff right before the end titles.

I agree with your concept of the overall pacing. However, if we don't point out the differences then people are missing what we've changed; it just looks like we're advertising Oni, which has been out for seven years, and isn't owned by us. I think we need to make it clear that the Edition is a specific set of mods, and why it's worth looking at. There's no harm in pointing out flaws in such an old game, either. --Iritscen 03:07, 29 July 2008 (CEST)

On the use of "kawaii" here: the second part of the intro uses a pentatonic Asian-ish theme. This section also comes across as cheerful and humorous in a "cute" way after the somewhat dramatic opening.

The trailer is not the place for pointing out flaws and making them part of our showcase (with booooorrrrriiiiinnnnggg footage as Loser puts it). So what if Oni's original AI sucked at pursuit, melee or dodging gunfire - that's not new, and it's not the exact point why people shoud check out the Edition, is it? The point is that in the Edition, they do behave in a realistic and challenging way, and that's what we want the people to see. Of course, before the footage there'll be a minimal comment saying "faster AI" or something but interleaving before-after and sucks-rocks is anticlimatic IMO. If our stuff looks so awesome and fits in so well that it feels like it's always been there, all the better. If you want to add more insight into why such-and-such feature is a breakthrough, YouTube lets you add annotations to the video after you upload it. Something like "original AI didn't dodge projectiles at all" or "original AI ran much slower than the player". You won't waste time on "artificially lame" footage of pre-Edition Oni, and you won't introduce breaks in our non-stop display of awesomeness ^_^

geyser 13:50, 29 July 2008 (CEST)

Off-topic but not quite

As for what you're doing to Motoko, it may be a good idea to show your results-so-far and report your problems ASAP. Don't let your pride become a major time sink. Also, I haven't gotten back at you on Mutant Griffin: do you want me to, or should I have a look at your latest fixes first?

geyser 23:59, 28 July 2008 (CEST)

I don't think I made any fixes to his geometry since you called him a mutant. I still would like an explanation on that.

Iritscen 03:07, 29 July 2008 (CEST)

I have an email draft lying around but it's not quite finished. Basically, it's about how the OBJ wasn't symmetric in the first place (the head is rotated a bit in the idle pose), about how you broke the mesh apart at the seams when subdividing, and then about how you didn't apply the exact same transformation to left-right vertices in a lot of places, notably on the forehead, whereby he ended up with quite a few asymmetric "horns" (large bumps). Those flaws are all the more noticeable with flat shading, but they scream with the ingame Gouraud as well, especially during the closeups for which the model was intended.

What about Motoko?

geyser 13:50, 29 July 2008 (CEST)