SpaceSimCentral

We're currently working to get Pioneer onto Desura, a distribution service. The main goal is to make it easier for our players to get updates (ie you download a patch through Desura rather than the entire Pioneer package), but obviously there's some great promotional opportunities here too.One of the things we need is a promo video. I have no video making skills whatsoever, so its going to take a while if left up to me. If any of you do have some skills though and would like to try making something, that would be awesome.Desura don't give any suggestions on what should be in the video, so I'm going to set the following guidelines:60-90 seconds. Towards 60 is probably betterOnly uses stock Pioneer graphics and sounds - no modsPrefer to use some of our musicShouldn't show anything that isn't actually part of the game (so no ripping off nebulae and asteroid fields from other games, as was suggested to me)Can use hacks to get rid of UI elements, tweak cameras, etc. It should show the game, but not necessarily be the game, if that makes senseShould finish with the name, maybe the badge, and a URLLicensed under CC-BY-SA or equivalent permissive licenseBut I write that as guidelines more than rules, mostly just to get you started. If you've got a better idea, please go for it.If it helps to sweeten the deal, I'll send out some Pioneer stickers to anyone that comes up with something halfway decent

How soon it has to be made?I'm in university, learning film making/animation, also teaching that in a secondary school, so video making is not entirely alien to me, but I have quite a lot to do now, so I can't really look into it before summer break.Those hacks you are talking about. Are there any of those implemented in the game or anything? (Some kind of rudimentary tool that can import animation and camera data from blender, and render it with the game's rendering engine would be king! ) At first I think, there should be an idea generation phase, about what to include. Like what aspects of the game you want to emphasize. Then comes the storyboard hopefully.Also it would be useful to collect as much screencasts as possible, preferably without the GUI and with similar video quality of course.Bottom gui bar could be worked around with a larger window and some cropping in post processing.(Am I overthinking?)

We're currently working to get Pioneer onto Desura, a distribution service. The main goal is to make it easier for our players to get updates (ie you download a patch through Desura rather than the entire Pioneer package), but obviously there's some great promotional opportunities here too. Hi Robn On the downloading, the download area for pioneer can be setup pretty much any way you want. You can have the core download and then a patches folder, all downloads can be managed by the owner(s) and they can be incremented or replaced with new versions without title change. If you want to set something up just let me know and it would take a few minutes to setup.

@robn The creatives must know the aspects to highlight. It would help to know some definitions. EgWhich of the following is closer to the ultimate goal of your project? 1 - A Space Simulator?2 - A Game, running on a Space Simulator?3 - An Engine to develop games and simulations spatial?4 - Other, but not for humans.

It sounds like you all might be overcomplicating it. I was just thinking something simple - a bit of taking off, flight, landing, shooting, some pretty terrain and station fly-bys, and then a bit of text at the end.Of course you're welcome to do more than that, but it really doesn't need to be anything movie-quality.

n the downloading, the download area for pioneer can be setup pretty much any way you want. You can have the core download and then a patches folder, all downloads can be managed by the owner(s) and they can be incremented or replaced with new versions without title change. If you want to set something up just let me know and it would take a few minutes to setup.We already have very good download support via SourceForge (kinda hard to beat a global CDN that can cope with a gigabyte a day without issue (two builds can do that)). And its all automated - the build script pushes there directly.The only difficulty for players is that its not easy to get updates by download the entire 150-200MB package every day. Meanwhile, patches against previous versions are hard for us to generate and manage, and hard for people to apply safely. Desura gets around that - we upload a complete package, and it takes care of communicating with the client and sending the necessary changes to bring it up to date.

How soon it has to be made?The sooner we have it, the sooner we can move forward.Those hacks you are talking about. Are there any of those implemented in the game or anything? (Some kind of rudimentary tool that can import animation and camera data from blender, and render it with the game's rendering engine would be king! )Nothing like that currently exists. Being able to import camera positions would be fantastic. I think you're unlikely to get anything like this for this particular project though - that's kind of a big job.Bottom gui bar could be worked around with a larger window and some cropping in post processing.That's more the kind of hack I'm thinking of

Getting in the eclipse on New Hope (for example) would be superb, I love seeing them and think they're one of the most powerful visual effects we have, especially when interacting with the atmosphere rendering.

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hi everyone, I work in television I'd be more than happy to create a trailer for Pioneer here are trailers/promos I've done so you can see I have a pretty good range [url][/url] [url][/url] [url][/url] [url][/url] [url][/url] let me know if you're interested and what your time frame is... as you may recall I've always been a fan of this project but have never managed to quite find a way I could properly contribute... this may that very moment trumpet

@trumpet, they're cool videos!What would resolution would you recommend we capture at for a simple YouTube video? @EveryoneYou should be able to "TAB" the GUI away entirely for screenshots in the latest nightly builds, press TAB once to get rid of labels, press again to get rid of the GUI AND display the system name/coordinates, press again to get it all back  Should make for some cleaner, GUI-less, screenshots. Also if you want to disable even the system name + coordinates then you can add "DisableScreenshotInfo=1" to your config.ini file and it will get rid of that text too!  Cleanest of clean screeshots!  Enjoy Andy

@trumpet, they're cool videos!What would resolution would you recommend we capture at for a simple YouTube video? *** the highest rez for youtube is 1280x720p I'm pretty sure.. - that would be the best :preved: but I'd look at what gets you a consistent 25fps frame-rate *** I also agree with minimising the HUD display for a lot of the shots ** and also: recording/screen capturing on a machine that is capable of displaying Pioneer and its best possible graphics settings ***and then of course if you do a fly-by of say Tomm's Sancturary... the best thing would be to do it twice, one with cockpit view and then one with external. Ie get coverage of the action your ship is taking Beyond that, I mean if you guys want to have a think about what you want the video to highlight from a marketing perspective that star citizen trailer is a great example straight off the opener there's a 'character' talking to you/engaging with you - interesting opening line too 'they said I was dead' who's dead? I'll keep watching draws you in - it's done away with once we see space footage - but its done its job by that stage and then a montage of glamour shots of the ships define and demonstrate the scope and scale of the universe - combined with the 'holy crap that's the game engine! moment' then music changes gear and we get the battle-jizz with the pay-off of the explosion as the end - very FE2 there (actually that's another great trailer for its time) all of these shots obviously as you guys know show off key features of that game - in game gfx super early so you go 'wow cool', huge ships with huge detail in the interiors... space opera locations and lighting asteroids - cause every space game needs em since Empire wing commander-esque crew scambling to ships show the world is alive with NPCs and obviously lasers/exciting battles - you'll get to shoot ships and probably other players cause the game's an mmo It's light on narrative apart from the ruse at the start with the full frame titles --- Let's look at FE2 trailer as a similar example in space setting (you've all seen that before no doubt)  that manages to get in: Imperial Courier - cool ships #desire/I want that ship when I play this game it gets 3d space sim in early too and then seamless planetfall but you'll note unlike the Star Citizen - it does also set up a narrative/lock a conflict with the courier ship as you see the 2 eagle mk IIs as dots of light as Mars is revealed -holy crap the game even has clouds!!!- the planet surfaces have stuff on them - and then boom, there's your music change and the conflict ensues... you can be on the surface of a planet but nowhere is safe... ... unless you jump into hyperspace.... #spacestations/scenery# giant ships whose underneath side looks like the death star # ship to ship combat in space ---- the last example is the opener for Left 4 Dead.. I won't outline that one but I will say that its a brilliant the way it feels like narrative and characters but every beat in the story is demonstrating a piece of gameplay - from pipe bombs, to the Tank... and then the brilliant finish 'son we barely made it across the street'  well worth the look at this to get your creative juices flowing if you've not seen it... So what are the key game play elements you want to showcase for pioneer?? obviously planet fall and procedural based galaxy are up there - and there's some awesome ships now too hope that helps continue this conversation

I've never done video editing, but I could record some sequence that I like, which could be useful for those who want to make a montage.I can record up to full HD, but the frame rate may drop in some scenes.This is an example, recorded in 1920x1200.I think that in 1280x800 could be a little smoother. EDIT: Link removed. The clip is now here: [url]https://www.box.com/...pih1aiph7lnjmkm[/url] If someone is interested, the program I used to record is glc [url]https://github.com/nullkey/glc/wiki[/url]

1280x800 would be fine anyway as it's still 100px higher than youtube's top HD setting nice framing by the way for your setup - is that the top gfx settings too?

I don't know if this would be of any help to you trumpet, but here is King Haggis's original promo vid for Pioneer which used the Alpha 3 build way back in 2010. This vid really helped Pioneer get noticed. Admittedly he did use copyrighted music, but he did succeed in showing the vast scope of the game. I never tire of watching it. :girlglasses: 

1280x800 would be fine anyway as it's still 100px higher than youtube's top HD setting nice framing by the way for your setup - is that the top gfx settings too? Yes, but with antialasing set to 0 in config.ini.I have the worst frame rate when near cities (~15fps) and frame drops on some occasions. Next time I'll try to record a descent and land to a planet, to see how it looks. I think it could be a good strategy to save the game before starting to record. In that way, one can reload and record the same situation with different views.

Yes, but with antialasing set to 0 in config.ini.I have the worst frame rate when near cities (~15fps) and frame drops on some occasions. Next time I'll try to record a descent and land to a planet, to see how it looks. I think it could be a good strategy to save the game before starting to record. In that way, one can reload and record the same situation with different views. that's a great idea.

Geraldine, this is great ref - its too long but I'll rip it and cut something shorter out of it as a starting point perhaps - then we can get similar shots and ships from the latest version

Unfortunately it's impossible to use the imperial courier , he was remove from pioneer with all frontier content . [url]http://spacesimcentral.com/ssc/topic/3434-removing-elitefrontier-content/#entry36810[/url]

Some new sequences in 1280x800 :lol:Another docking with a fixed view (0:20)I'm not completely satisfied, but I think that's better than the previous. I prefer to set in advance a fixed camera, because I'm not able to move the camera smoothly or in a way that you won't notice the movemet too much.Elliptical orbit around Europa with periapsis in the point where you can see Sol and Jupiter rising. 2x time compression. Ship heading locked to forward. :prankster:The first seconds are quite dark... Keep calm and whistle Also Sprach Zarathustra :PInside view (2:55)Sidereal view (2:53) EDIT: Links removed. All the clips are now here: [url]https://www.box.com/...pih1aiph7lnjmkm[/url]