War Zone 2 (Trailer)
 

I made a quick trailer that shows what I am imagining War Zone 2 will be like. There are no action scenes, so sorry to disappoint. There is dialogue describing the tone of the next movie. I hope you like it. I have not even started working on it, but I wanted to release a trailer showing what I hope it will be like. It will be more story driven. When you load it, it gives an error message for some reason. Just press cancel and it will still work fine. I hope you like. Please leave comments!

Looks good.

Any chance of getting an online video of War Zone 1? It is sorely needed by those of us who are trying desperately to convince our colleagues that Alice is more than just snow men and ice skaters.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/url]
Free programming tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/url]

[QUOTE=DickBaldwin;5097]Looks good.

Any chance of getting an online video of War Zone 1? It is sorely needed by those of us who are trying desperately to convince our colleagues that Alice is more than just snow men and ice skaters.

[/QUOTE]
Yea, this one looks better then the last one even. Also if Chris doesn't mind I can make it a video for you and give it to you if you'd like me to.

[quote=John_Clark;5098]Yea, this one looks better then the last one even. Also if Chris doesn't mind I can make it a video for you and give it to you if you'd like me to.[/quote]

That would be great. Maybe Chris will post it on his YouTube site along with the earlier Halo Starry Nights video, but I will be happy to take it any way that I can get it.

Thanks,
Dick Baldwin

No, I don't mind if you turn it into a video file. It will actually save me a lot of trouble. I hope it doesn't skip while you capture it. I can use that file and put it on my youtube account. Thanks.

Trailer error message - movie hangs up computer
 

I had seen the original discussed in the forum but hadn’t downloaded War Zone earlier. Went back and tried to look at it, but never got it to load (but added one more awsome for it anyway based on the trailer – really a nice visual piece of work and a particularly nice “voice over”).

The error message for the trailer indicates there are some sound files with formats that the program can’t handle – this also corresponds to the three “thunders” with question marks for time in the World sound list.

They obviously aren't used since I could drag and drop them into the trash without getting a warning. I resaved the world after that and it would load without the “error” message, which was actually just a warning in this case.

In addition to not being able to load the full movie, I also had a little trouble with the trailer hanging up on me when I tried to play it in a large window. Not unusual for large programs – but the trailer wasn’t that large.

Think the problem (other than my running on an older computer without lots of memory) is the large number of objects – particularly the 24 different versions of smoke. I put a number of them to “not showing” and it didn’t make much, if any, difference visually – suggest you look at eliminating most of them.

This isn’t really a problem now – but when you do the full movie, you’re probably going to need the all the memory you can get for essential items. Along those lines, it probably would be worth combining the fire animations into a single “do together” event rather than the separate ones you got just using multiple copies of the object.

Completely off the subject of the trailer and concerning the movie itself – I found it discouraging that just trying to load the movie was enough to completely hang up my computer. Personally, I’d be a bit careful about using this movie to demonstrate the “maturity” of Alice, even if it is as nice a job as it seems to be (can’t comment myself since it won’t run for me).

As an added note, just stopping Alice did not seem to fix the problems from the “crash” (actually it never did anything but just hang up) – I did not get everything else running well again unitil I completely rebooted.

This particular laptop isn’t the strongest machine around – but I had been watching American Idol on the TV card and rendering a fairly complex 3D animation in the background on it earlier in the evening. The background rendering was slow (several minutes) – but it completed correctly - and the sound/picture syncronization wasn’t the greatest when I was viewing full screen, but never was really bad. Trying to run Alice, on the other hand, was a disaster.

Update Note: I wasn't using my laptop this afternoon so I downloaded a fresh copy of the program did a fresh reboot, closed everything except Alice and tried to load and run War Zone. After well over 10 minutes waiting, the program had loaded. I was able to move around in the menu windows and do minor edits. When I tried to play the program however, Alice just quit completely - something I haven't seen previously. To be sure, I repeated the test (except for the fresh download) - same results.

Wow, I don't know why it would be doing this. This trailer took me 1 hour to make. It shouldn't be That complicated.

[QUOTE=Chris101b;5100]No, I don't mind if you turn it into a video file. It will actually save me a lot of trouble. I hope it doesn't skip while you capture it. I can use that file and put it on my youtube account. Thanks.[/QUOTE]

Ok no problem, I should have it by tomorrow as long as i remember. I may even have it today if I can save it.

[QUOTE=Chris101b;5108]Wow, I don't know why it would be doing this. This trailer took me 1 hour to make. It shouldn't be That complicated.[/QUOTE]

It wasn't the trailer that was giving me all the problems, it was the first movie.

Ok, sorry guys but due to technical difficulties of extreme lag/jumpiness I will not be able to create a video of War Zone currently... Sorry Chris.

Movie of WarZone is available
 

[quote=John_Clark;5171]Ok, sorry guys but due to technical difficulties of extreme lag/jumpiness I will not be able to create a video of War Zone currently... Sorry Chris.[/quote]

Chris:

I used BSR to make a video of your WarZone world while it was running. I have a wmv file and an avi file. The wmv file is about 6 mBytes and the avi file is about 68 mBytes.

It looks and sounds pretty good if it is played in a small size, but it does have a big BSR logo on the bottom-right corner. There is some mouse fiddling at the beginning where I was trying to synchronize the start of the movie with the start of the action. I may try to use the BSR editor to clean up the beginning if the learning curve for the editor isn't too steep. This is not something that I have done before.

I will be happy to send either or both files to you if you can tell me how to do so.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/url]
Free programming tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/url]

[quote=DickBaldwin;5179]Chris:

I used BSR to make a video of your WarZone world while it was running. I have a wmv file and an avi file. The wmv file is about 6 mBytes and the avi file is about 68 mBytes.

It looks and sounds pretty good if it is played in a small size, but it does have a big BSR logo on the bottom-right corner. There is some mouse fiddling at the beginning where I was trying to synchronize the start of the movie with the start of the action. I may try to use the BSR editor to clean up the beginning if the learning curve for the editor isn't too steep. This is not something that I have done before.

I will be happy to send either or both files to you if you can tell me how to do so.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [URL]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/URL]
Free programming tutorials: [URL]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/URL][/quote]

OK, I figured out how to use the BSR editor to trim the beginning so that it starts out right. Except for the BSR logo, it looks and sounds really good when played in small size. Let me know if you would like for me to send it to you and how I should send it if you want it.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [URL]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/URL]
Free programming tutorials: [URL]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/URL]

Hey, thank you so much. I am glad that you took time to record it, you can send it via email to [email]chrismags@aol.com[/email] or if anyone has any questions, feel free to send me an email. I will be happy to answer it.

[quote=Chris101b;5190]Hey, thank you so much. I am glad that you took time to record it, you can send it via email to [EMAIL="chrismags@aol.com"]chrismags@aol.com[/EMAIL] or if anyone has any questions, feel free to send me an email. I will be happy to answer it.[/quote]

Your work deserves to be seen by lots of people, so it was worth the effort to record it.

I zipped it and sent it via email. I don't know if it will survive the email gremlins due to its large size. When I edited it to clean up the front end, the size of the wmv version expanded to 9.3 mBytes. If you don't get it, let me know and we will find another way to send it to you.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/url]
Free programming tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/url]

I got it and it works perfectly.... Thank you!

[quote=Chris101b;5201]I got it and it works perfectly.... Thank you![/quote]

Every time I watch it, I marvel at all of the little details that you included, such as the thing that the ranger does to go over the top when he finishes climbing the robot's arm.

Once again, outstanding work. Be sure to post it on your YouTube account so that the world can appreciate it.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/url]
Free programming tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/url]

Thanks for doing it for me. I'm always doing this from the school lab computers for A+ because I'm helping out my tech teacher so the computers don't really have that good of hardware. So it was really laggy when I recorded with CamStudio. Oh yea, quick question Chris. Are you thinking of doing an entire series for War Zone? Or was it more of a spure of the moment great idea thing?

[quote=John_Clark;5214]Thanks for doing it for me. I'm always doing this from the school lab computers for A+ because I'm helping out my tech teacher so the computers don't really have that good of hardware. So it was really laggy when I recorded with CamStudio. Oh yea, quick question Chris. Are you thinking of doing an entire series for War Zone? Or was it more of a spure of the moment great idea thing?[/quote]

I was just sitting here thinking about downloading and trying CamStudio when your message popped up on my Alice Forums screen. I was looking for a FAQ but couldn't find one on the CamStudio website, so maybe you can answer a couple of questions:

1. Does CamStudio seem to work well for small Alice worlds (Chris101b's War Zone world is huge so that probably isn't a fair test for free screen capture software)?
2. It appears from the CamStudio web page that it is only able to produce AVI files and Flash SWF files. I know nothing about SWF files, but the CamStudio web page says there are bugs in the SWF files created by CamStudio.

My experience is that AVI files are very large and need to be compressed into a smaller format. Do you compress them, and if so what program do you use to do the compression?

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/url]
Free programming tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/url]

If you have a fairly good computer there is no lag for CamStudio also on the site they have a very good compression thing that really reduces the size of the AVI with out losing any of the quality, so I think it is a very good program to use and you can also change the size of the screen.

[quote=John_Clark;5219]If you have a fairly good computer there is no lag for CamStudio also on the site they have a very good compression thing that really reduces the size of the AVI with out losing any of the quality, so I think it is a very good program to use and you can also change the size of the screen.[/quote]

Thanks, I believe I will give it a try. Also, I would be interested in comments by others who have used it.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/url]
Free programming tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/url]

A couple of comments:

1. CamStudio works fine, however it seems to be really set up for capturing tutorials on screen. What little I've tried of that, I prefer Wink.

2. I really find the best way to work is to capture (or convert to) uncompressed .avi - which gives huge files, obviously - and then go into Movie Maker to reduce the file size. The first advantage is that Movie Maker has really good save options - including a save to file size option. The second is that this approach avoids most of the odd CODEC problems - which can really be bad if you try to do any serious post processing on the video.

Having to set aside a gig or two of disk space for even a short uncompressed video can be a pain - but USB hard disks are cheap and you avoid a lot of other, less obvious problems. Just remember to delete the big file(s) when you are done.

[QUOTE=John_Clark;5214]Thanks for doing it for me. I'm always doing this from the school lab computers for A+ because I'm helping out my tech teacher so the computers don't really have that good of hardware. So it was really laggy when I recorded with CamStudio. Oh yea, quick question Chris. Are you thinking of doing an entire series for War Zone? Or was it more of a spure of the moment great idea thing?[/QUOTE]

Well, as you might remember, last year I made the Halo 3 Starry Night Ad and many people liked it. The only thing is that because of copyright laws and stuff, they had to cut out the sound when they posted the vid online. Well, when thinking up what I could do for this year, I thought that would make an original movie to get around all the copyright stuff. Then, after making the first war zone, so many people have praised it, that it really motivated me to create another one. So, I will make the second one and see how it goes from there. It may be a little darker and more story driven than the first, but I will make it as good as I can. That is, when I feel like making it.

[quote=DrJim;5222]A couple of comments:

1. CamStudio works fine, however it seems to be really set up for capturing tutorials on screen. What little I've tried of that, I prefer Wink.

2. I really find the best way to work is to capture (or convert to) uncompressed .avi - which gives huge files, obviously - and then go into Movie Maker to reduce the file size. The first advantage is that Movie Maker has really good save options - including a save to file size option. The second is that this approach avoids most of the odd CODEC problems - which can really be bad if you try to do any serious post processing on the video.

Having to set aside a gig or two of disk space for even a short uncompressed video can be a pain - but USB hard disks are cheap and you avoid a lot of other, less obvious problems. Just remember to delete the big file(s) when you are done.[/quote]

CamStudio and Windows Movie Maker make a good pair. In addition to converting the AVI file to a WMV file, Movie Maker can be used to trim the front and back ends, which often have some trash resulting from having to record before starting the Alice world running and having to record a little beyond the end of the Alice world runtime.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/url]
Free programming tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/url]

Caution re .wmv for Mac users
 

If you are using a Mac and want to look at a .wmv file, I would suggest you use a viewer designed specifically for that purpose. (I know there are [B]good[/B], free ones - but don't have the names, not being a Mac user. Can anyone help with that? :confused:)

The .wmv and .mov formats seem to have major differences at the detail level. I suspect this is partly because of patent issues and partly competative issues - but converting between the formats is a real chore, and one that is not usually done well.

Okay, I was thinking about how I would make Warzone 2. I think I have a plan. I think that I am going to wait for alice 2.2 to come out and use the convert to movie format feature to my advantage. I will make the movie scene by scene and then convert it and edit it in a program. Not only does this mean that the movie will be smoother, but I will also be more available to people. Do you think that this is a good idea? I will be able to make it longer and more complicated without it slowing down the program. When does alice 2.2 come out. I know that the beta is out, but when does the actual thing come out?

little idea
 

i know i don't know much yet about real programming, but i noticed in Warzone 1 that they aren't always moving (like when one character talks to the other), making it look a little worse.

i suggest making a function that keeps making them breath a little so they are always moving in those 0.1s gaps...

thought you might want to try it, it would only take 5second to add...

p.s. WARZONE ROCKED!!!!!!!!

:D:D Rick :D:D

[quote=Chris101b;5901]Okay, I was thinking about how I would make Warzone 2. I think I have a plan. I think that I am going to wait for alice 2.2 to come out and use the convert to movie format feature to my advantage. I will make the movie scene by scene and then convert it and edit it in a program. Not only does this mean that the movie will be smoother, but I will also be more available to people. Do you think that this is a good idea? I will be able to make it longer and more complicated without it slowing down the program. When does alice 2.2 come out. I know that the beta is out, but when does the actual thing come out?[/quote]

Given what you were able to produce for War Zone 1, I can't wait to see whatever you try.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/url]
Free Scratch tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocHomeSchool.htm[/url]
Free Java/C#, etc. tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/url]

Okay, I am right now thinking up an interesting story ark for the second movie and will work on a script soon. I have decide to start working on it now instead of waiting for alice 2.2 to come out. My final plan is to make the movie one scene at a time and then when that scene is completed, I am going to record the movie from alice using a screen grab program, and then I will put it into a program and edit it scene by scene. What is the best free screen grab program to use that does not put a giant water mark all over the screen?

[QUOTE=Chris101b;6266]Okay, I am right now thinking up an interesting story ark for the second movie and will work on a script soon. I have decide to start working on it now instead of waiting for alice 2.2 to come out. My final plan is to make the movie one scene at a time and then when that scene is completed, I am going to record the movie from alice using a screen grab program, and then I will put it into a program and edit it scene by scene. What is the best free screen grab program to use that does not put a giant water mark all over the screen?[/QUOTE]

Awesome! Looking forward to that! =D

I would have to say the best screen recorder (in my opinion) is "camtasia"

Alright people, I officially began working on War Zone 2 yesterday, August 7. I built some scenery and now I am working on one of the scenes. I can't decide if I want the scene I am working on to be the openning scene or to be included later in the movie. Oh well, well see.

Have not worked on the movie at all in a while because school has really been getting to me (senior year). So I am going to get motivated and start working on it again. I decided NOT to do the whole scene-by-scene thing because I found out that the editing program I use really screws up the sound completely. So I will just do it the traditional Alice way.

Well, I have been writing original music for War Zone 2 and it is coming out very well. One song in particular is downright awesome. I don't mean to brag, but it is one of the best tunes i have ever made (I hope I am not sub-consciously remembering another song!!! That would be bad.) If you want me to, I could post the version that I played on the piano and recorded on my phone so that you can hear it. I can't actually play the piano, I play by ear. I am running into a problem though; at this point, recording the music on my cell phone is the only way to transfer the music from the piano to the alice movie and the sound quality is obviously low. The music I might post here was made when I was down visiting my dad in Tampa. He has a key board there, but here in Alabama, we don't have one, but we do have a piano. What do you think I should do? Should I get a keyboard here in Alabama? Do you think it is worth it? The problem is that the song sounds SO MUCH BETTER when you use the violin type sound on the keyboard than if you just use a piano. Any thoughts? And do you want to hear the music I have made so far? I have just typed it out on the piano, it isn't finished yet, this is just the core music and what you can expect it to sound like.

[quote=Chris101b;7226]Well, I have been writing original music for War Zone 2 and it is coming out very well. One song in particular is downright awesome. I don't mean to brag, but it is one of the best tunes i have ever made (I hope I am not sub-consciously remembering another song!!! That would be bad.) If you want me to, I could post the version that I played on the piano and recorded on my phone so that you can hear it. I can't actually play the piano, I play by ear. I am running into a problem though; at this point, recording the music on my cell phone is the only way to transfer the music from the piano to the alice movie and the sound quality is obviously low. The music I might post here was made when I was down visiting my dad in Tampa. He has a key board there, but here in Alabama, we don't have one, but we do have a piano. What do you think I should do? Should I get a keyboard here in Alabama? Do you think it is worth it? The problem is that the song sounds SO MUCH BETTER when you use the violin type sound on the keyboard than if you just use a piano. Any thoughts? And do you want to hear the music I have made so far? I have just typed it out on the piano, it isn't finished yet, this is just the core music and what you can expect it to sound like.[/quote]

Take a look at the Scratch site. The Scratch software has quite a lot of musical composition capability. Maybe you can use that capability to produce sound files of your compositions. Note, however, that I know nothing about music so I may be way off base on this. In any event, Scratch is free, so it's worth taking a look at.

Dick Baldwin
Free Alice tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocalice.htm[/url]
Free Scratch tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/tocHomeSchool.htm[/url]
Free Java/C#, etc. tutorials: [url]http://www.dickbaldwin.com/toc.htm[/url]

Alright, I was going to post the sound files on here but it wont let me, any ideas of how I can get them to you all?

Alright, i figured it out, I just put the songs into an alice file. Remember, the music is subject to change and was all written by me (unless I subconsciously copied someone else. But I really really really hope not) Enjoy and tell me what you think.

Oh and just to let you guys know, there are 3 songs in the video above. These are songs that I wrote for War Zone 2. The first one is quiet, then the second and third are loud, so roll down your speakers. Don't worry though, i warn you ahead of time in the video. Please tell me if you like the music. Especially tell me what you think of the last one. All the music was written and played by me regardless of the fact that I don't actually play the piano... you can probably tell though, the music isn't exactly Beethoven-worthy. I actually have a lot more songs that I have come up with but they are on my phone and you will never hear the current versions ever...... i am humming them into the phone (Hey, if you have a song in your head, you have to remember it somehow) Tell me what you think.

Okay, from now on, all information regarding War Zone 2 will be available on my album here:
[url]http://www.alice.org/community/album.php?albumid=19[/url]

Ill post pictures and information that you might want to know. Possibly back story and other things of that nature. Hope to get the movie out soon. And by soon I mean a really long time from now.

[QUOTE=Chris101b;5096]I made a quick trailer that shows what I am imagining War Zone 2 will be like. There are no action scenes, so sorry to disappoint. There is dialogue describing the tone of the next movie. I hope you like it. I have not even started working on it, but I wanted to release a trailer showing what I hope it will be like. It will be more story driven. When you load it, it gives an error message for some reason. Just press cancel and it will still work fine. I hope you like. Please leave comments![/QUOTE]


It says i have not commented, i have to say, you should of made it already, the first one was soooo goood!

Lol, I wanted to make something more original than War zone 2. Though Infiltration 2 is a sequel, I don't think of it like that as much as War Zone 2 would be. Infiltration 2 will be a lot better than the first one.

Hey Alright, im gonna talk with King Gamer and sdee if we should post the Demo for out project. Its not violent but does contain a gun. Ill give out warnings for the content(not that there is anything bad). Were gonna let ten people try it. X will be first