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Cinematics in FlightGear

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Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby Figaro » Tue Apr 10, 2012 1:16 am

As a FlightGear YouTube content producer, I strive to make the best videos I can, and I've had an idea for some features to incorporate into FlightGear. I'm happy to assist/do it, but I will need a fair amount of guidance.

The two ideas I've had:

1- to incorporate a "Spotter View" and a "Spotter View Look From" similar to tower view, it allows you to move the view position anywhere, so you can get some of those awesome end of runway shots you see on real life landing videos. "Spotter View" would be similar to tower view, in that it would "track" the aircraft.

2- To incorporate effects into the replay system. Such as a realistic camera shake effect, and that would shake, in search of a better term, more violently on/after touchdown.


Good lord the things I think about when I'm in the shower :shock:


Cheers,
Sam.
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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby snipey » Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:43 am

there is a script on the wiki that lets you place the tower anywhere by ctrl+ clicking on that place, this will create your spotter view i think
here is the wiki article that has the script in it http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:_Make_nice_screenshots
hope this helps and i cant really help you with number 2
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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby kyokoyama » Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:11 am

For the shaking effect, I'd think it's possible through some quick video editing in programs like After Effects or AVS Video Editor?
Look for "B-BIRD" "N127KY" or "AVA0004" -that's me.

Despite having over 1700 posts here, I am not even close to being the most skilled guy here... I'm just words and bad drawing, not experience. :P
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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby Figaro » Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:50 am

Snipey; I know about the click tower script, but what I propose is different. Where you can actually walk around, etc.

Keita; I've tried this before, but it's a whole lot more convenient if it was in FG itself.


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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby awexome » Tue Apr 10, 2012 5:17 pm

Hi,
connect wrote in Tue Apr 10, 2012 1:16 am:Good lord the things I think about when I'm in the shower...

you know ... my shower has this green button that when pressed will suddenly ...

I digress. But, yeah, I do enjoy the time and space travel while in that temporary atmosphere. Now then, ... about point 2 below,
connect wrote in Tue Apr 10, 2012 1:16 am:... a realistic camera shake effect, and that would shake, in search of a better term, more violently on/after touchdown.

will this be similar to the efects experienced when the 'HurricaneIIb' aircraft engine is 'break' dancing ;)

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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby Figaro » Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:58 am

A realistic camera shake would look like a realistic camera shake, one would think.


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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby awexome » Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:31 pm

Hi,

I leave that to the camera wo/man :)

we can only try to approximate 'realistic'; our tools for modeling, and knowledge of, realism are currently limited. But we continue to evolve.

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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby Figaro » Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:53 pm

Please try to contribute something useful to the topics you post on; whether it be feedback, 3D models, XML, coding, whatever, just try to contribute instead of these pointless "inspirational" sayings you try to pull off.

I'm actually really wanting to see the above put into FlightGear, if I had the ability to set the features up myself, I would.


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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby Hooray » Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:13 pm

if I had the ability to set the features up myself, I would.


Hmm, I don't know: I encourage you to do a little experiment: If you can "shake" the camera view by manually modifying the view properties in the property tree using the property browser, you could just as well use a Nasal script (setprop) to do that in an automated fashion - you could even assign events, so that camera shake can be sychronized (fly-by, fly-over etc).

There are many ways to skin that cat. This is really just about being creative: Even if you can't come up with all the Nasal code to do this yourself, you could just as well create 2-3 identical camera views (using just XML) with a little offset in each of them, so that rapid switching between these views will emulate a camera shake. Once you have a handful of "offset views", you can use a Nasal one-liner to switch between them.

http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:_Confi ... FlightGear
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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby Figaro » Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:25 pm

woooo; somethign useful, haha.
I'll try this tomorrow, but it's getting a tad late for me, so I shall best be off.

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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby awexome » Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:45 pm

Hi,
connect wrote in Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:53 pm:... instead of these pointless "inspirational" sayings you try to pull off.

it is sad that you have failed to inspire at this point. Never mind, there is always tomorrow.
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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby Hooray » Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:50 pm

connect wrote in Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:50 am:Snipey; I know about the click tower script, but what I propose is different. Where you can actually walk around, etc.


This is certainly possible, we already have a "walker" that allows you to walk around in the scenery, entirely driven by Nasal scripting.

Just take a look at the "bluebird" aircraft: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Bluebird
This can be reused, even without understanding all the scripting involved.
So you could turn that walker into a "camera man".

For example, see:
http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear- ... 21309.html
Detlef Faber wrote:I'm a simple content contributor with very little background in programming. When I made my first Aircraft (the bf109) I was confronted with the need to deploy slats automatically at a given speed. I din't want to embed C++ code or had such a complex script that the error messages in FG wouldn't help me and I previously only used a bit of python. I looked at some Nasal scripts and within a few hours it worked. I was impressed how easy it is to write even complex Nasal scripts. Later I started developing the walker feature that made it possible to walk around in the scenery, all with nasal. Stuart kindly enhanced the walker and added an animation system to it (see bluebird), again with nasal.


The "walk view" itself is even documented on the wiki: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Walk_view

Now, if you are really afraid of all the scripting and integrating it properly, you could just as well base all your work on the bluebird, where the walker is already fully integrated and available.

You could simply copy the bluebird to a new folder "bluebird-cameraman" and apply your changes there.

2- To incorporate effects into the replay system. Such as a realistic camera shake effect, and that would shake, in search of a better term, more violently on/after touchdown.

This is actually just a matter of adjusting the view during replay, either by switching between a handful of "offset views", or by using a Nasal snippet to apply an offset dynamically.

ThorstenB is the "de facto" maintainer of the replay system currently. And I talked to him about a number of related ideas a while ago, some of them related to video effects and better recording/replay control.

Straight from the core developer's mouth: :lol:
ThorstenB wrote:I'd also like to be able and connect views to certain points. Maybe even camera movements - to allow the camera to move smoothly from one point to another. And for recording videos, it would also be nice if one could automatically skip from one marker to another - or enter something like a simple "movie script" as a list of commands. Such as: if time reaches marker X, then move camera to position ..., or skip replay to time/marker Y, or change replay speed to slow-motion etc.
However, I think such things should go to a separate GUI, the original replay dialog should be kept as simple as possible - as most people won't need such advanced features. So, something like a separate "video assistant dialog" would be nice. Maybe you're interested, if you're recording videos often.


I already provided a patch to assign symbolic names to time stamps in the replay buffer - the same technique could be used to link replay "events" (i.e. timestamps again) to camera adjustments or other effects. Basically, all you need to do is watch the current replay time stamp and then set a property to "fire" an event - you could then use a conventional Nasal listener to call a code routine to do something, such as adjusting the current view, taking a screen shot - and so on.
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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby awexome » Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:32 pm

Hi,
after sweeping thru some Nasal code from the Docs, Nasal, xml folders ;), I reckon that this is not even a problem. Once again, this is a situation where the solution already exist here at FGFS :); you just need a 'hot' cuppa and some inspirational 'view' ... or just sit back and watch the 'shake'.

I reckon it will take less than half a screen-full of organic Nasal to whip up a camera shake. Most of it is already done! (if you look, slowly).

So, lets have a little race. Come on, it will be fun, and a nice 'view' too. I am sure you will be able to 'connect' to that.

A 'view' to a thrill.


!UPDATE!
I am ready to show hands! ;)

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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby Figaro » Thu Apr 12, 2012 5:09 am

If you're "ready to show hands" feel free to do so. I've been asleep all morning before going to the airport to see my parents off to Sydney for the weekend. If you've found a solution for introducing camera shake, share it; I can then focus my efforts on "spotter view"

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Re: Cinematics in FlightGear

Postby shadow » Thu Apr 26, 2012 9:07 pm

There is already a similar thing in FG: the pilot view movement due to G-force
You could use the G forces that the pilot suffers during touchdown as an input for the camera movement and there's your view shake effect.
I think you can probably adapt this anywhere from pilot's to anything else.
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