HW 2 Avi Codec

[LogicSequence]

hey guys.... i was wondering where i can get the avi codec used for hw2. i'd like to play the animatics outside of the game, but it keeps telling me basically that i don't have the codec. i DL'd the latest divx package... Nothing.... i've tried multiple players... Nothing. and i've heard others are having np problems playing the files... so... any help/ideas? :)

[ZuiljiN]

its a custom divx codec made by relic...you will have to wait until they release tools on september 26th

[LogicSequence]

hmm i wonder how others are watching them already?? maybe they're lieing, LOL

[LogicSequence]

by the way, if anyone starts up a Babylon 5 mod for hw2, i'd be willing to help... i already work for one (link below) so it's only natural :)

[Black Emperor]

own codec? So why does setup offers to install DivX 5.0.5? Or did Relic add a special codec to that DivX release?

[Crook]

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

You could try this....

[oneyouknowleast]

Just chanage the FOURCC code of the animation from DXGM to DX50 and you file will play in any media player.

Only catch is that audio is not included in the file so you will only get video.

Im guessing EnglishSpeech.big is where the audio will be.

[Pavonis]

The background music is in music.big, believe it or not. The thing is that it has the sound effect sans voices overlayed. It was disconcerting to extract the music files, start listening and hear hyperspacing and sensor pings in the background.

[LogicSequence]

Originally posted by oneyouknowleast
Just chanage the FOURCC code of the animation from DXGM to DX50 and you file will play in any media player.

Only catch is that audio is not included in the file so you will only get video.

Im guessing EnglishSpeech.big is where the audio will be.

how does one do this?

[ZuiljiN]

make a copy of the movie you wanna se...open it with ultraedit or any hex editor...change the two DXGM to DX50...you will find it in the first few lines...then save and watch :)

[UFO64]

now we just need music =)

[oneyouknowleast]

I have a little utility I ran across called avic along time ago. Let you change the FOURCC code of a avi file.

I can e-mail the file to you if you like.

And yes the audio from the animation is in there, but its cut up into 10 segemtents.

Its going to be a really pain combining all that into 1 audio stream to join with the video, plus you need to add the background music of the animation also.

[Opacman]

Unfortunately, video, music and speech for animatics are in three different files. While video is in avi format, music and speech are stored within the BIG files. Music is no problem, since it's just one music file per cinematic, but speech is a very different thing altogether, since it's fragmented into several files for each cinematic. This was done probably in order to avoid having to encode the long silences between speech parts, or maybe to allow independent volume settings for music and speech in cinematics. Speech timing seems to be scheduled by lua files, but since I know nothing about lua, it could just as easily be scheduled in chinese. :p A shame, since if speeches were in just one file per cinematic, they could be easily mixed with the music files using any wav editor.

As it is right know there are only two options (until RDN tools are released, that is):

1)Extract music files from BIG files and convert to wav with winamp. Then use virtual dub to join both video and music files. Youll have videos with music and sound FXs, but no speech. At least that's more than nothing.

2)Use a sound recording program, start recording and then start homeworld 2. Once in the game, replay the videos from the main menu. Then quit homeworld and stop recorder (bear in mind that wav files take a lot of space so you'd better record just one movie at a time). Now edit the wav file cutting out the parts that don't belong to the movie and use virtualdub to join video and sound files. I must confess that this last method might sound a little stupid since you must have already unlocked all movies in order to be able to record their soundtracks, and I guess most people want to see the movies outside the game because they are not able to unlock them or are too impatient to finish the game. In any case, this is just an idea. Just one last hint: this last method con be done even more easily if you have two computers and the proper cable to connect the sound cards of both computers.

Have fun recording. :)