Film view wish list part II

[AKDejaVu]

OK... given HiTech's recent post:

Good sudgestion:

Other things we are planing.

A camera capture system.

This would alow you to set all view points/directions/and types i.e. internal/external then when you make the avi it would replay from these views.

A voice capture system that alows additional voice overs to be added to the films, mainly for training purposes.

A system that will capture you orignal view & look directions for playback use.

It seems that he is somewhat paying attention to the civil discussion going on in this forum.

It seems HiTech has a history with vid capture from flight sims and it seems that the film viewer will always have a certain portion of his attention.  Lets play on that weakness;)

Here's a carryover of suggestions from the other thread (and a couple more thrown in from other threads):[list=1]

• no beeps when pressing keys to change views (any key)
• view changes using joystick
• sounds for recorder's aircraft
• some sort of speed control or motion control....ei. slow motion
• Flight displayed as smooth in film as in the game
• the ability to either set the view positions in the film so they're recorded into the avi file
• Icon for recorder's plane
• Weapon view for Bombs and torps
• Target view where it shows a highlighted aircraft's external view looking at your aircraft.
• a more complicated method of "view scripter".. where the views and camera angles would automatically change in the way the user pre-set it
• more camera angles
• "stationary camera" placement.. where you can set a view point within the environment
• Associate .ahf with film viewer and allow user to double click on ahf file anywhere on hard drive to start film viewer with that film
• Ability to adjust time (night/day) on playback
• name icons for enemy planes in movie window
• backward slow motion
• possibility to show the "damage list" for my plane and planes I hit during recording of film
• icons in recorded AVIs, if you choose to display icons, should be much larger (or adjustable), so they can actually be legible once the film has been run through a compression algorithm
• visible external ordinance/tanks to filmer's aircraft
• ability to create an offset from padlock and chase view
• ability to zoom in further from the chase view

Some of the suggestions have already been done:

-ability to turn icons on and off
-visible tracers from other planes (if they used them)

Thanks for taking the requests seriously HiTech.  And thanks again for this cool new tool.

AKDejaVu

[hazed-]

couple to add deja:

1: the ability to set the padlock view to friendlies so we can do formation shots locked on friendly from cockpit or external.
2: to be able to padlock a view but then turn off icons and have camera/padlock veiw still be active
3: add hits/explosions from bomb hits and craters too if possible.

these ok?

[AKDejaVu]

Those are all very good suggestions.  I'd thought about the icons off with padlock one too... forgot to include it.  The other two I only wish I'd thought of.

AKDejaVu

[hazed-]

just thought of another deja:
It would be nice if the editor 'remembers' or 'saves' the segment i choose with the start/end positions.

The reason is because when you set a start and end point for the avi and then actuly compress it you are unable to repeat the process(for instance if a mistake was made with camera movement during the 'recording' phase) without forwarding through the whole film and resetting your start/end position.

after i compress a segment to AVI the only button available from the play/pause/stop/forward/rewind buttons is the 'play' one.However, pressing this restarts the film from the beginning!.
It also wont allow me to move the slider to any point in the film as it crashes(programme has performed an illegal operation).Im forced to restart the film and forward using the button, re-enter the start position and end position and try again with the avi compression.Obviously this is time consuming and very tricky to get right.

maybe the answer is to edit out my chosen segments from the AVI using an AVI editor? but it would be usefull to have it saved.

[Doberman]

Gotta split this up for some reason.  WOn't post whole.
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OK, I'd like to address some of Deja's points and add some of my own.

1:  This is irrelevant to me, but probably wouldn't be too hard to change.  So might as well be changed since it seems to bother so many folks.

2: This would be nice, but would require building the joystick routine into the viewer.  I want it, but can wait.

3: Not particularly important unless we're gonna be able to save the sounds to the AVI or if we are able to resave the ahf with view changes & such built in.  (I'll address this below.)

4: would be nice.  Not imperative to me tho.

5: Probably not gonna happen.  The film in AHFilm is (at least for me) playing back alot faster than 30fps.   When you take away much off that extra frame data by changing say, 60fps  to 30fps, the result will be a less smooth playback.  Everyone who claims you can't tell the diff over 30fps, watch a film in AHFilm and then watch the same thing saved as a 30fps AVI.

6:  Definately.  It's hard to make something truly cinematic with the current system.  The way I'd like to see this done I'll address below.

7: PLEASE!

8:  This would ROCK!

9:  Does padlock work as a kludge for this right now?  Can you jump into the ENY aircraft and padlock your own?  I'm not at a computer with AHFilm on it rite now, so I can't check.  The way you describe would be nicer though.

10:  This is basically a repeat of #6 isn't it?

[Doberman]

11:  such as?  

12:  You mean " truly fixed" as opposed to the "sorta fixed" that we have now?  Set the camera on top of the tower and do an airshow routine?  Would be nice.

13:  Sorta surprised this doesn't already happen.  

14:  I can't imagine that this would be easy to do.  Might be a nice feature, but it's waaaaaay down on the list of anything I'd like done.

15:  You mean the pilot's name instead of just plane type?  This is definately something I want.  What's the use of making a beautiful AVI of yourself shooting down HiTech in a Spit 14 if there's no PROOF that it's him in the final product?

16:  Already put forth in #4 above.  You're repeating youself.

17:  Would be very useful for training, which is more important to me than making cenimatic AVI's.

18: I'm not a world class programmer, but I simply don't see any way of making this possible.  If you were able to make them much larger in the original AHF file, they may translate better to AVI but that's pretty much the only way.

19:  Eye candy, which makes little difference to me.  Would add to the cinematic films though.

20:  YES YES YES.  External padlock is really next to useless here.  The ENY is obscured by your own plane so you can't see what he's doing.   This is a detriment to both training films and action movies.

21:  Please.


As I've said before I begged & begged for a Vfilm clone for years in WB.  Here we are years later and we finally get one in AH.  Thank you HTC.

The #1 feature I wish to see is the ability to save your film back as an AHF with your view switches imbedded.   While the ability to make AVI movies is cool, I see AHFilm's possibilites as a training tool as being much more important.   It's somewhat limited in that aspect at the moment.  

Often times things happen so quickly in an engagement that a newbie would be overwhelmed trying to understand what's happeneing physically with the planes as well as manipulating the views to keep the ENY in sight.  The ability to annotate your own text into the buffer upon editing would be icing on the cake.
Id's be very helpful if we could say, "Here.  This is what it should look like out the front view.  And here you change to this view to keep him in sight. etc."

The size & clarity issue makes it imperative that this be done as an AHF.    AVI's simply are not going to be feasible for use as a training tool.  

I personally think that this ability should be the #1 priority.  Many of the fixes/additions discussed above would be helpful & welcome, but AHFilm will never be a REALLY useful training tool without the ability to edit views & resave as AHF.

[mason22]

we're drinking in the office today and i'm too lazy to read all the above wishes, so i'll just post mine.

I would like to be able to have an external chase mode that i can zoom in and out at any distance without having it move in and out according to how fast the object is moving. As it is now, when you are in chase mode the distance will increase with speed ad decrease with the loss of speed. Is it possible to have the speed (in chase mode) not affect the distance at which you are viewing the object?



other than that, it would be excellent to have smooth flight paths as we do when flying in real time in an arena or offline (this would only apply to external and internal mode becuase chase mode is smooth already).

just my $.04  

[AKDejaVu]

Doberman... you misunderstand.  This is a collection of ideas posted in the other thread.  Things various people would like to see.  Its not my wish list.

I'm not about to sit here and argue the merrit of one idea vs the other.  Present the idea and let HT think about it.

AKDejaVu

[weazel]

It would be cool if the gun turrets moved too.  

[Doberman]

Originally posted by AKDejaVu
Doberman... you misunderstand.  This is a collection of ideas posted in the other thread.  Things various people would like to see.  Its not my wish list.

I'm not about to sit here and argue the merrit of one idea vs the other.  Present the idea and let HT think about it.

AKDejaVu

Discussion is not good?  

And it's always benificial for the developers to hear veiwpoints from other players.

My wishlist isn't yours.  I commented on what I'd like to see and what I think is unimportant.  I also pointed out some stuff that's probably not realisticly possible (ie. 30fps looking as smooth as 60fps.) so as to possibly forestall people constantly begging for somthing that's not gonna happen.

D

[hazed-]

doberman you could have just added your list of wants or some fix you need without tearing into others wishes.there are things im not bothered about in the list but other people have their own ideas or plans for films so the merits of them may not be clear to others unless they have had a similar idea.
we are tallking 'making films' and everyones wish lists.Each person is like an artist.some may want to do crazy stuff!Whos knows what others wish for or why?
Im not trying to be mean here beleive me but your(or our) veiws can be discussed in another thread once HTC lets us know what they are thinking of including.
I think Deja intended this thread to be an easy quick glance list for HTC.
Im guilty of going into too much detail too i think. (deja?)
I should have posted the problem with the avi re-record option as a sort of bug report in another thread really.

my appologies dej

[AKDejaVu]

That's twice you've understood me correctly in two days hazed.  Knock it off.

AKDejaVu

[Sancho]

new wishes for me:

- add ability to save ahf file minus voice comms

I love how ahvoice is saved in the films, but when we do a scenario and my squaddies are all sending me films of the same event from their POV, I don't need the voice in there.  Voice makes film file size much larger than it needs to be.

Another use for this is if you have a fight in the MA that you want to save.  You're just lone wolfing it, but your country men are being really chatty while you fight.  You would probably want to cut the voice out of that film.

- add ability to type dot commands while viewing film, like .squelch, .vsquelch, .wingman, etc. (that dot command to change the time, I forget which it is)

You might have a film with really good use of voice with somebody being an idiot talking at you.  Make sure vsquelch works in film viewer, just like you can .squelch text in the old film viewer.

[Doberman]

Originally posted by hazed-
doberman you could have just added your list of wants or some fix you need without tearing into others wishes.there are things im not bothered about in the list but other people have their own ideas or plans for films so the merits of them may not be clear to others unless they have had a similar idea.
we are tallking 'making films' and everyones wish lists.Each person is like an artist.some may want to do crazy stuff!Whos knows what others wish for or why?
Im not trying to be mean here beleive me but your(or our) veiws can be discussed in another thread once HTC lets us know what they are thinking of including.
I think Deja intended this thread to be an easy quick glance list for HTC.
Im guilty of going into too much detail too i think. (deja?)
I should have posted the problem with the avi re-record option as a sort of bug report in another thread really.

my appologies dej

"tearing into"?  I think you're exxagerating.  Jeebus, you people are overly defensive.  

What Deja "intended" isn't really of much matter anyways.  Posting anything in a public forum leaves it open for comment by others.  

Personally, I think you're selling the HTC folks a bit short by assuming that they need some sorta "easy quick glance list" in order to see what people want.  While HiTech may not be able to type/spell, he can certainly read.  And I'd imagine that intelligent discussion of features would go further into letting him know what people really want than would a bunch of random wish lists.  It'd certainly show him which features people are particularly passionate about.

I pointed out which things I thought were less important and even some that I don't think are feasible at all.  I also stated what I feel is the #1 needed addition.  In turn, you can do the same.  Rational discussion.  That's how it works.    

D

[Yippee38]

I would like to see nose art in the films (or at least have the option of showing it).

I think it would be cool if when the film started, the A/C's engine would be in the state it was when the film recording began instead of starting at the beginning of the film.

It would be cool if we could save clips and have them visible in the interface, select the clips in order and merge them into one film.

Documentation.