>>BZ2 Montage<<

[Gamelimbo]

Hey everyone! I'm putting together a little BattleZone 2 montage to support the community and maybe help the Battlezone user base grow. I was wondering if the current users have any content they think would be appropriate for the video and/or any ideas for it. Also when the video is posted I will provide a link here for everyone to see (it will be on youtube). Have a great day all, and a wonderful holiday!

EDIT: VIDEO QUALITY TEST HAS BEEN POSTED HERE

[Ded10c]

Some tips:

Use BZ2's music, or at least something instrumental. Anything else (especially if it has lyrics) could potentially detract from the mood of the video. There's a massive pack of it (including unreleased music) available at http://matesfamily.org/bz2.

Make sure your graphics settings as high as they will go whilst maintaining a decent framerate. I can't stress this enough - many BZ2 videos I have seen are unnecessarily ugly, or are almost a slideshow. Find a decent program to record with - FRAPS can eat frames, for example - and make sure your graphics settings are set to a level that doesn't look ugly without slowing things down. Bear in mind that movies are only shown at 24 frames per second, so anything more than that is probably unnecessary.

Do a good edit. That would mean don't do something like have a standard Windows Movie Maker-type title screen.

[Gamelimbo]

Thanks for the suggestions. I actually had no idea I could get the original music from the game, I will probably do that with a mix of some other great pieces (lyric free I promise ). I'd like some good suggestions on a recorder that eats as little fps as possible would be nice. Also I am going to use Sony Vegas Pro 11 to make it pretty epic.. It will be by FAR the best montage of Battlezone.

If anybody has good quality recordings from their in-game plays of Battlezone I'd be love to have them to piece them into the video. Also if anyone knows of a possible high-rez pack fix for the cut-scenes that would be great, as I will probably piece some of those in. -Cheers

[Ded10c]

BZ2's music is available from Nathan's website at the same page you downloaded 1.3 from - http://matesfamily.org/bz2. That pack contains not only the released game music (minus the first track, for some reason, which is currently only available from your CD), but also dozens of unreleased tracks. If you do choose something from there, make sure it's something that has good atmosphere whilst still sounding epic - the intro track is good for this (though you might want to get rid of the DAW metronome click at the beginning).

I also hear that XFire is fairly good for video capture, but have never tried it myself.

[Gamelimbo]

I was reading through the forum and the Strat guide caught my eye, does anybody think it would be a good idea to make a video of that as a tutorial? Or maybe a collection of tutorials for newbies? And does anyone know if I can get the cut-scenes that are in Battlezone? (e.g. the parts where the commander talks in single player)

Thank you for the information Hadley.. very helpful to have the music

[Ded10c]

Voiceovers can be found in data.pak, videos in the Battlezone II\movies folder. Be aware that movies are very low resolution.

[Gamelimbo]

How can I open the data.pak? Thanks!

[Ded10c]

Pak Explorer, which is on bzscrap.org.

[Gamelimbo]

Good stuff! Now do you know how to get rid of the HUD in-game? Thx!

[Ded10c]

Shift+F5, IIRC. +F4 should get rid of the 3D cockpit if you have it on as well. And remember to disable the info at the top of the screen too (find the control in gameprefs.ini, then put the value you want in localprefs.ini).

[Gamelimbo]

Could you explain how to disable the top info a bit more and what IIRC means? I have my 3D cockpit disabled (looks ugly in my opinion) but how do you disable the general display (scrap, ammo, map ets.)? Thnx again.

GOD there needs to be more resources available for Battlezone

[Ded10c]

The top bit (sound channels, framerate, etc.) can be disabled by a setting in gameprefs.ini. Read through gameprefs until you find the setting you want, then put the same setting in localprefs with the value you want it to use. The HUD overlay is toggled by pressing Shift+F5.

IIRC stands for If I Recall Correctly.

[Zax]

Some tips:

Use BZ2's music, or at least something instrumental. Anything else (especially if it has lyrics) could potentially detract from the mood of the video. There's a massive pack of it (including unreleased music) available at http://matesfamily.org/bz2.

Make sure your graphics settings as high as they will go whilst maintaining a decent framerate. I can't stress this enough - many BZ2 videos I have seen are unnecessarily ugly, or are almost a slideshow. Find a decent program to record with - FRAPS can eat frames, for example - and make sure your graphics settings are set to a level that doesn't look ugly without slowing things down. Bear in mind that movies are only shown at 24 frames per second, so anything more than that is probably unnecessary.

Do a good edit. That would mean don't do something like have a standard Windows Movie Maker-type title screen.

Correction/addendum: Strobing or declarative parts should be 24fps, gameplay segments should be full 60. Watch any trailer for examples.

[Ded10c]

It's extremely rare for a human eye to see anything beyond 24fps as less than smooth.

[Zax]

It's extremely rare for a human eye to see anything beyond 24fps as less than smooth.

24fps: film effect. Why films have micro stutter.
60fps: smooth gameplay/news broadcasts.

Though the eye cannot see smoothing past 24fps, your display must refresh those 60 (120?) times per second. 60 fps = 60 hz = 1:1. Smooth and clear. 24 fps needs to interpolate (on newer tvs) or just draw a blank in between frames to = that refresh rate, creating a small stutter. You might have heard of this called 3:2 pulldown by marketing.

In any case, shooting in 24 fps gives a movie trailer look to your montage, and when switching to fast paced "Wow, look how advanced those graphix is!" you use 60fps.