Movie Cutscenes! Created 8 years ago2015-05-31 20:41:29 UTC by Dimbeak Dimbeak

Created 8 years ago2015-05-31 20:41:29 UTC by Dimbeak Dimbeak

Posted 8 years ago2015-05-31 21:05:43 UTC Post #325751
[Solved, like, immediately. Huh. CHECK IT OUT!]

So, I've started work on a little project, and an idea popped in my head: movie cutscenes. Are they possible to do with Source?

By movie cutscenes, I mean pre-rendered video files that the game plays, not in-game, in-engine cutscenes. I've been told the only way to do this would be to have an animated texture that plays every single individual frame, and a camera aimed directly at it, but I don't like this solution.

Basically, I'm trying to find a way to stream .mp4 or .avi files separate of the game altogether. I already know that the engine has some support for this, because the Valve logo is a separate movie file, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 has an opening pre-rendered cutscene which plays after beginning a new game.

I'll look more into this in the meantime and tell you guys if I find anything of value, but this will probably take the work of a coder. If you guys could help me out with this endeavor, that'd be great!

Some initial poking around stuff:

I was looking at the opening chapter files, and I found this immediate difference between the first chapter and the second chapter.
User posted image
So I went looking in Episode 2's media folders and came across ep1_recap.mov, which matches the command in the earlier chapter.
User posted image
It's watchable, but there doesn't seem to be any audio. I also found some more information located in its pak file, where I'm searching for the location of the video audio.
User posted image
I'm still currently looking for where the video audio is located. Once I find that, hopefully it's just a matter of replicating these steps so that I can achieve having multiple videos like this.

[EDIT]

Well, that was a quick journey! I suppose use this for reference if you want to use cutscenes in your games.

There is no external location where the audio has to be located. As far as I know, you can put ANY .mov file at the beginning of any chapter, and it'll use that .mov file's audio. This was way easier than I thought it would be.

I'm surprised that there aren't a lot of people who have found this when it's actually quite easy. Use this as reference, I suppose.
Dimbeak DimbeakRotten Bastard
Posted 8 years ago2015-05-31 21:57:43 UTC Post #325752
Great Dim! ***
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