The game works by having a film background, over this is the sprites of the characters you have to shoot at, think Duck Hunt but with a film for the background with the sprites to shoot at and the film backgrounds
I have hit some problems, first is play a movie but have objects appear on top of the movie, so far they are under the movie, I want them on top of the movie so I can see them. I need this as the objects on top of the movie are the enemies you are going to shoot, I need to have them seen on top of the movie that is playing
Also I have a question that will help with editing the game .
Possible top have a time line so that I see what happens in my game by the timeline, I want to see visually what happens, so say I have a sprite appear on screen at say 1 min 45 seconds into the game I want to see that in the editor, and the movie at that point, is that possible. It makes editing this a lot easier if I can do that, some visual feedback would be easier to edit the game.
2. I don't think that is possible at all without some hefty coding, and even then I don't think it's possible but I could be wrong... hell I ask some pretty messed up questions as well.
I put the movie on layer 1 and a sprite on layer 2, in the editor the sprite is above the movie when I run the game the sprite is below it, What gives, try it yourself, the movie is on the top when playing the game.
Are you using an MPEG object? If not, what kind of movie file object are you using?
I can't acctually test it myself because I don't have ANY movie files on my hard drive right now as my hard drive blew up and I've only just reinstalled everything less than a week ago. I'll need to go through some DVDs or something and find a movie file I can test it with...
My only last suggestion, failing the effort to get the movie file to appear behind the sprite objects, is to convert the movie using Adobe Image Ready into seperate "animation frames" and make it like its own active object instead of a movie. I think the trouble is that movie files use a Windows overlay function and are "always on top" no matter what. It's a Windows issue I'm thinking.
Converting the movie to an active object would no doubt work, but probably run like crap if its a large movie file... perhaps there's another way?
you can do it ( have objects above it)if its an
Graphics and Animations - animation object
but not if its a
video - AVI
whats the difference, animation object has no sound, thats a bummer, any other difference.
can you have the avi file as the animation object, but keep the sound, otherwise I have to export the sound out of the film as a seperate file and load that, just makes it messy, it would be nice if animation object let you have the sound, or the AVI could have objects above it.
Any ideas.
the file was an avi in the tests, Ill try an mpeg if I have one. just tried, yep mpeg is the same as avi.
I'd say the best bet is to convert the AVI file into seperate frames with Image Ready, save the frames (it automatically numbers them so you can just import into MMF2 without any hassles) and then use something like MS Movie Maker to rip the sound out and save it as a seperate file. All you would ned to do then is make the sound file play as soon as the "movie" is initialised.
I can play it if its a
animation object, plays fine, and objects can be placed above it, so that works fine, pitty about the sound but I can import that and have it play at the same time as the movie, I hope you can play multiple sounds at once, like have one play and the have another over it.
having seperate files/frames, yes that could be an option, perhaps this would work well because I could perhaps preview the frames in the editor, so it could be good for editing the game events being able to see individual frames, what is the working method of this frames idea, how does that work, how do you run that, whats it under, I havnt seen that object, which one is it.
is this under. create new object - Graphics and animation- Active.
You can make the avi object display as a backdrop...
Make the object itself invisible, then give the background beneath it the color 0,0,1 (I think, might be a differrent color)
Insert new object
background - backdrop
double click, then place item in scene.
Double click it, bow opens with settings, press clear to delete the picture then load for the avi, then wait a bit as its slow loading it in.
When its loaded we get a bunch of settings.
On options we have transparent colour, its default is 000, or solid black, so it appears it wants to name parts translucent, that's not needed, we want all our film, this isn't a sprite or something that may need an alpha or mask.
The its says box mode
import selection
import as a selection, I don't think we need these so don't check the boxes.
Press OK.
Its now in its menu thing, you can flip the image or crop it or paint on it or a part that has transparency, again we don't want any transparency but we cannot turn that off.
Click OK
its back to our frame viewer, image is a bit funny, so lets go to the properties backdrop, check transparency to off. That's made it right.
Run the game and the movie is not playing, its just stuck there not doing anything.
Have I done this right, why is the movie not playing.
Sounds too hard, I picked this up like last week, I normally use 3d engines so this is new to me, plus I do not code, though I can do absolutely everything else, so coding is out of the question for me to do.
You can make just about anything in MMF2 with little more than basic mathematics.... However to get some of the really cool stuff to work, more complex algorythms are required. What Bibin was suggesting is not really that hard to DO, its just hard to EXPLAIN. It requires no coding as such, just a lot of patience.
I still think converting the movie would be the easiest way to go, however probably not the BEST way to do it.
QUOTE- I still think converting the movie would be the easiest way to go, however probably not the BEST way to do it.
Converting it to what, I don't know the method you mean, I picked up the prog this week, though I am experienced in 3d editors, this one is new to me, so what is obvious or shorthand is not obvious to me so it has to be spelt out, what is this technique you have mentioned a number of times, I have no idea of what the method is you are talking about as its too brief, saying export the frames out then back into the editor can mean a million things, so I don't know what you are suggesting as its too brief/vague
Do you have Adobe Photoshop? If so, then you will also have Adobe Image Ready (it comes with Photoshop).
Image Ready can import movie files, and break them into individual frames. You can then save the frames as seperate images (numbered 1, 2, 3, etc) which can then be easily imported back into MMF2 as an animation (using an active object).
If you don't have Image Ready, perhaps you can send me the movie file and I can convert it for you into seperate images... as long as the file isn't astronomically massive.
ahh got you.
yes I have PS, you can also use paint shop pro, I think Dogwaffle will also do the job, I think they have a free version for those on a budget.
active object, thats not the best way, my movie files are 3-5 mins each, plus that would not give the sound, you may as well import as a normal animation, that does it fine as I said before, just doesnt give sound, but no matter you can import the sound on its own.
@Bibin - One of the other new features I'm not experienced with yet obviously . I came from TGF straight into MMF2, I'm still finding my way around so I probably do things the LOOOOONG way still lol.