Tuesday 1 April 2008

I really shouldn't do this...

Yes I know it's sort of a spoiler, but I wanted to show you what's going on. *jumping up and down like a kid in front of mom with a new drawing in his hand*
As I wrote before I've been working on the starting scene with a moody thunder storm. Here's a preview from an early test I did. I think the desaturation makes the rain more realistic and I'm pretty satisfied of the lightning and thunder. I know that the quality of this 35 sec. clip isn't enough to show the details, but anyway here it is. Turn up the brightness of your monitor because it's dark at night.

/Amraphael


17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Coolies! Not a very big spoiler. I wanted to watch more!

Great job!!

Michele

Merecraft said...

Wow, that looks great! Very creepy indeed.

EC said...

Very nice. Puts us right into the mood. Weather effects look very convincing. I noticed the mailbox custom placeable too. You could say the almost black and white graphics of this opening scene (at least that's the way it appeared to me) makes the link between the monochrome text-only original and your full-coloured visual version.

Josh said...

I echo E.C. Patterson's thoughts. Very interesting indeed. The desaturation really adds to the mood.

Kind of reminds me of Dracula :) The lightning could probably be varied some maybe as it seems to hit that one spot alot, unless that was intentional.

Amraphael said...

@liso
Thank you my lady!

@merecraft
Thanks! It's a bit more creepy than the original intro, but I wanted some thing to happen in this non-music starting area.

Amraphael said...

@E.C.Patterson
Right on the spot, man! The lead in scene is bridging the 1980s text adventure over to the colorful graphical world.

@Josh
I suppose the lightning can strike the same spot twice :) No, it really can't, it can't but the clip is combined from two different shots. I was to lazy to do another capture, and thought no one would recognize.

When triggering the flashes and lightning script the script fires once, hitting a specific spot. The "ambient" script randomizes far-away flashes. Real(close to)random there is - not OEI's fake random.

CmdrDats said...

Wow, that is very impressive! Can't wait to see it in game! :D

Amraphael said...

Oh, visitors from South Africa! Thanks a lot CmdrDats.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that looks great!

Though it's funny, I always imagined that the game starts in pretty nice weather. But I am not complaining, it was just an observation. Bad weather actually makes for a more interesting start to a module.

The rain and everything really looks convincing. Well done!

- :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Ernie Noa said...

That looks terrific. I love the fade in from the text. Ah... that takes me back. This mod is going to be a fun ride.

Jclef said...

I love it - simply awesome effect there, Ampraphael. The bolts of lightning, the flashes, the sounds ...amazingly atmospheric.

This is really more of a BIG TEASE than a Spoiler, haha! ;)

Anonymous said...

I really got a Ravenloft vibe from this scene. I6 coming alive, anyone?

Very nice indeed. Atmosphere seems to come in spades in this mod. This is one that you crawl up in your sofa with, huddling below a pillow hot from the laptop running!
:)

Amraphael said...

@jazhara7
Me too. I always imagined the ZORK I in sunshine - even the indoor areas like the dam has a sun. They say it's a bug in the original game but who cares. While the intro is pretty dramatic, because I want to bride over from the text to graphic mode (see above), the rest of the game will get some nice weather. I take the liberty to violate the artistic parts in this mod. After all, it's an adaption, not a clone ;)

Amraphael said...

@Ernie
Hi man, are you back on your feets yet? Glad you like it. The fade was made in the video program not in the game. But when I saw that you thought it was cool I did an extra turn on trying to make it into the conversation - with success.

On the first conversation line
1. FadeToBlack(), ultra quick!
2. Show the TGA with the text.
3. FadeFromBlack(), pretty slowl fade.

The TGAs is only 75Kb so there is no problem to have a couple of them. I think this will be a work around for the SetAreaTransitionBMP() bug too.
Thanks for the idea, Ernie!

Amraphael said...

@Indira Lightfoot
Great to see that you catch the feeling I want for this intro. It's hard to catch the orignal atmosphere and I've started to feel more forgiving to movie makers turning a book into a visual form.

I wouldn't quite dare to compare it to the really creepy mood of the PnP Ravenloft. Take a look at the screenies of Misery Stone that the Bouncy Rock people works on, that's the real classic horror movie feel.

Glad to see you found your way here and thanks you for comments!

Amraphael said...

@jclef
Thank you sir, it was pretty much work for this little detail. It's very sad OEI left weather control (other than rain) out of the game. It wound have made the OC more alive and for all those PW's out there it would be essential. But we can always do our own :) If I had the time I would like to explore this niche. Different types of rain, clouds, storm, hail etc. Even a sand storm would be cool.

Wyrin said...

great intro movie! all ready to open that window (or can we still get lost in the woods first??) ;)

The powerbar plugin has some weather control if you fancy playing with that