Trying to finish up

[dmpdesign]

Well my dates and goals certainly didnt mean much from earlier posts.

Im taking tomorrow off work to try and finish my game and get a beta out for some people.  The download will be hefty in size...probably over 1 gig...unless I find a better way to construct some of the cutscenes (SOM only supporting old school .avi really screws me on the ability to compress my movie files and retain any sort of quality).

If for whatever reason some folks are living in the dark ages and still use dial up or whatever, I am willing to put together a mailable version for a couple beta testers. 

The final version will be available on dvd and will come with all the niceness of a normal game (manual, case, cover yadda yadda) but I wll still have it available from download as well.

If you are interested in a beta copy to test (I am not sending out the source code, just the final output) I will send out two more copies.  John I am not sending you a beta, i dont want you to be turned off by an unfinished version!

Anyways, first come first serve, 2 are available, PM me your address if I dont already have it and I will send them hopefully in a week or two.

[Holy_Diver]

If I'm going to have a jewel case copy or whatever I'd rather it be something more final. I'll download whatever you think is your final beta release. Is it really 1GB compressed? Even though avi/wav can be kinda big you can still compress them. I see avi files online though, so they must be pretty close to mpg compression wise or I would not think people would still host them.

What always bugs me about avi, is I'm always downloading avi files that won't work with any avi players except on Linux. I don't understand how Quicktime etc can't play an AVI file that most Linux apps will. It's not a codec thing whatever it is.

I can probably spare enough bandwidth to download it at home, but I might have to wait until the next time I'm in town.

[dmpdesign]

Im not sure what to do about the enormous avi files I have.

I have contemplated stripping out the real big opening one (its 600mb).

I just wish SOM handled more modern compression formats.  It pretty much leaves us limited to huge files unless we don't mind really grainy and practically unreadable video.

I am including with my game the proper codec needed to make windows run the avi files I am using.  They are a ligos format (which is about the best compression quality/size ratio I could get) and may need a special codec if your media player doesnt have any codec packs installed.

I will see what I can do about the beta, I dont think it requires the opening vid...so I can at least shorten its length for download.  Maybe 500mb instead of a gig.

[dmpdesign]

Does anyone know a good video creator I could try to use besides windows movie maker?  (preferably free hehe)

The reason I ask is, I think part of my problem is I am using windows movie maker.  Its output is a wmv file, which I then have to recompress into an avi.  This double compression is really making some stuff look like crap, which is why i have to basically leave the avi uncompressed (compressing twice just kills the vid).

Any help would be appreciated on this.

[kilroyfx]

I have something that's free, and its very professional. But it is much more than a simple converter, which you may actually like.  What is your starting file format, or is it individual images that you are turning into a sequence?? Regardless I think I have what would work.  I was able to compress my opening down to 60mb, and it looked decent.

[dmpdesign]

Well part of my opening is a section of your video (so you know that format)

The rest of the opening consists of 4 bitmap images that fade in, have text, then fade out, one after the next.