A glimpse at my StarCraft 2 project. (tiny update 3/4/09)

[Lavarinth]

You should still note something about FRAPS. Having used it exstensively.

Any footage it saves is saved with it's own codec, it's near lossless, so no prob. It does take a chunk of CPU to capture though, so anything 3D will need higher (sometimes much higher) specs to capture, especially in higher resolutions.

Also there is the very real issue that FRAPS is a software thing. It will eat up your memory, while a hardware capture card does not. You might want to consider that, since a hardware card does not eat memory or slow down your performance.

That said, FRAPS has been enough for me in the past.

Hardware capture... Go onnnn...

[Brightstar]

Hardware capture really isn't a good idea because you have to analog out of the computer into another computer or into a spare PCI slot on the same computer. Plus you're usually limited to TV standard resolutions NTSC PAL 720i 720p 1080i, and that will end up stretching or shrinking the signal. Plus the card usually cost over a thousand for a DVI/HDMI in port.

Plus those come in uncompressed so the size gets worse with them and it's near impossible to play a game, capture, and compress all at the same time without frame loss unless you're workin on a quad core system.

[Negi]

LOLOLOL

Have you ever heard of digital out like DVI or HDMI?  It outputs uncompressed DIGITAL frames from your graphics card.  I'm sure there's a hardware capture device that has digital in or some other type of digital frame capture. 

[UntamedLoli]

FRAPS does not use more than 1 MB of memory while recording over sitting there showing an FPS counter, if you are worried about ~9 MB of it being taken by a recorder/FPS counter you have larger problems to worry about trying to play SC2 at all

[Maglok]

What Negi said.

And FRAPS uses your vidcard to record, and that is what is slowing it down, not the normal usage of RAM.

[UntamedLoli]

CPU and HDD performance is what bogs down recording with FRAPS, recording to a second HDD with nothing running from it alone will make a huge difference.

[Maglok]

I know, it helps, but it still eats a lot.

[Marco]

Joel Steudler has always provided valuable contribution to my past projects, and this one is no different.  I've sought his aid in creating the soundtrack for the campaign and he has done so with excellent results in my opinion.  Here are a few samples of his work:

http://www.celestialreverie.com/joel001.mp3 - Entitled 'History Lesson'.  Following the main character Issac Rangel, you will have to piece together a conspiracy by investigating many sources.


http://www.celestialreverie.com/joel002.mp3 - Entitled 'Viking'.  Take command of a powerful unit that will serve as a symbol of justice and hope.


http://www.celestialreverie.com/joel003.mp3 - Entitled 'Reverie Theme'.  Looked highly upon as the Terran army that holds themselves to a higher standard, 'The Reverie' and soldiers within their military, referred to as 'The Revered', are led into battle by only the most skilled and talented leaders.


http://www.celestialreverie.com/joel004.mp3 - Entitled 'Military Ambience'.  Carry out your mission side by side with the forces of The Reverie.  Build units exclusive to the Reverie, including a variety of androids with various abilities.

[AA7Dragoon]

Listened to all 4.  Some of Joel's best work yet.  I liked the ambience of History Lesson and the fourth track was very upbeat.

[Maglok]

Very, very nice stuff.

[Aekenon]

Amazing!  And I thought Joel's stuff was good before.  He's really gotten good at this!

[Magic]

Greetings blue one.

android02-01 - Very good effort, but I agree with the others. The warbled effect makes it too difficult to hear clearly. Don't worry, most voice editors have been there, giving robots and androids (relatively) heavy effects. The android I had in Trinity was once described by NiteFox as something like "A wasp nest in a tumble dryer".

terran-voice-01-v2 - Generally sounds fine audio-wise, but the lack of acting here shows. Focus was likely on getting the voice correct.

terran-jackass-02 - Awesome, suits SC finely. Redneck hicks in SC are always fun.

Android-001 - 05 - Much, much better. I like it a lot. I don't mind it being fast, it suits an impatient android (One that is impatient with human meatbags of course). I'd just slow it down for important lines.

The title of the project, Celestial Reverie, is not of any relation to my previous campaigns.  There will be no Rond, no 7576, no Shaddox, whatever.  A completely new story with completely new characters.  It had to be done, as I didn't feel like I could salvage the old story.  I can safely say that I will never go back to those old stories.

Good move. I'm sure there may be similarities, but people shouldn't rely on the players of a campaign remembering or having to go back to older work. It also allows you to be more creative. Empty your cup, to quoth Bruce Lee.

The script is another story - I've only named one character so far and I'm waiting for more details on StarCraft 2 to emerge so I can get into specifics.

Sounds similar to me, and no doubt others here too. My end-villain has ended up as the usual RPG boss but I'm leaving it that way until I come up with something better, hopefully inspired by playing the actual SC2 campaigns. I've already got some awesome sources - from my favourite singer of all people, his work is in turn is linked to an old sci-fi TV series and other concepts. It's as fun as ever to create these stories and characters, certainly.

In the case of most RPG's and such I play these days, I've found that they tend to spoil the first couple hours or so (sometimes even later occurances) of their titles if you try to read up on them on the official webpage or anything like that.  While feeding people early plot developments may excite them and gain interest for your product, it also severely weakens the impact of these developments when you actually play the game, seeing as how you already knew what was coming well before you even acquired it.

Sup old timer! I know this has been discussed somewhat now, but I'm just reading through the thread and writing a reply as I go. So there.

I half agree with this. Hype is a double edged sword - it does help to promote your production, the feedback and comments by people can be a surprisingly strong motivating factor for our hobby, but at the same time too much can raise hopes. Balance in all things.

Back to Desler.
Music:

History Lesson: The piano is very haunting, I like it - providing it's used in a fairly sad, sombre scene, rather than actual studying. Reminds me of the usual 'past history' music used in Nobueo Uematsu's work, but is different and original in its own right.

Viking: F**k yeah, that is motivating and just charges the player into using a new unit. I can just imagine a big war mech operating to this. A little slow to build up and in parts, but again it'll depend on the context of the campaign. For all I know, characters could be discussing the unit before it's actually in battle when frantic action has commenced.

Reverie Theme: Feels more action oriented at first rather than pure military but again, I don't know the exact context. The trumpets coming in are very good and make up for this. Also very moving, like the scene is of people gearing up and going into the theatre of war rather than lounging about in a base.

Military Ambience: For a cutscene of your military force carrying out an operation, very suitable. For general RTS gameplay, I'm not so sure as it's very dramatic, but again. ... context.

Oh and the website looks amazing, you can tell you put the effort into the design and revamped it several times.

Edit: Let me know if you need some VO auditions. I'm preparing a new sample zip, but feel free to send anything my way for a test.

[Marco]

That's a load to respond to.  Hey Magic.  Appreciate the feedback. 

I've come a long way in terms of the story from this last post, but its always evolving.  Now that I have the entire story down, I've began to focus on the early missions and what events specifically they should entail.  This is a story that is going to progress at a different pace than most other campaigns.  Rather than jumping into epic battles map after map (ala CI), there will be a lot of buildup and character development before most important events.  It is paced to be a very long journey from start to finish, as the main character comes to terms with a lot of facts that change everything he knows.  It will also be a slow but significant pace, with every crevice being cracked open for clues about the conspiracy plot.

Lets say for instance the first mission of CI would potentially be expanded to about 16 or so missions in Celestial Reverie, with the motivations of every character being thoroughly explored, where there is a lot more detail to large scale battles to preserve the epic feel when they do occur.  There are actually only a few significant events in this campaign, compared to CI where every single mission had some important battle occuring constantly.  For the sake of gameplay, I also draw them out, because there are a lot more gameplay opportunities than the 'build and destroy', and i don't mean the other typical 'one man army' missions that many WC3 campaigns/maps had either.  I loved the WC3 editor because the triggering system allowed you to do a lot.  I took advantage of a couple of things and managed to show them off in my newer 'Mistiria Map 1' demo released a few months back.  Those were just some ideas off the top of my head at the time.  I've had a year to ponder many ideas, so you'll see quite a few varied gameplay sequences between maps.

Your criticisms and compliments have been added to my mental notes, thanks for the thoroughness.  The feedback should help construct a better campaign.

[Magic]

Any time. Looking back over the years, it's shocking how few people don't even rate or comment or give feedback to campaign producers so I know how much it's valued. You seem to be surpassing even your veteran campaign designer status, so I'm looking forward to SC2 for several more reasons now.

As long as the characters drive the story, you can't go too wrong, that's what I was told. My problem has always been writing decent dialog, as well as getting into a schedule of making campaigns with regular effort, but I won't ramble on - suffice to say I feel I generally make a big effort for the start of a campaign, realise how much time and work it will take for the whole thing and realise I can't feasibly do it. With SC2... we'll see. Worst come to worst, I'll do stuff like voice acting where I can assist people without needing too much time.

[Marco]

I'm always on the lookout for loyal community members looking to voice roles, because as it stands, I have a lot of smaller roles that will be recurring from time to time, so people who will be around a lot would be best to fill those parts assuming I can match the voice to the person as well.