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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

A Preliminary Intro


Guest Maverick

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Guest Maverick

Shadowhawk posted this a while ago...

 

Since it is late at night, and I get kinda creative (and crazy) at night, I felt a little inspired to write up a vision of a possible intro to the game that I had. Departing from the cartoony atmosphere of the original, my idea was to create a Monologue on a background of vivid imagry ala the Fallout series of games. So here's a draft of what I had in mind. As always, comments are totally welcomed.

 

 

(Black screen, begin some appropriate background music)

Life. Death. Survival of the fittest.

 

(fade in to picture of earth viewed from outer space)

Throughout history, the Unification of competing military cultures seems to have required either the complete conquest of one by the other or the emergence of a powerful, new, foreign invader.

 

(img-medieval map of Europe showing divided provinces)

The kingdoms of Europe were unified not through the structures of religion or economy, but through the might of a sword. (superimpose Bismarck’s quote about unification through blood and iron on background) On occasion, these alliances would form to combat the encroaching hordes of raiders and heretics once threatened with complete and utter annihilation.(img-unified Europe)

 

For the squabbling nuclear powers of Earth in the new millennia, fortune would deliver such an opportunity.

 

Fate, it seems, has always decided to temper humanity with tests of its abilities.

 

(img-Reagan’s quote about space aliens being required to unite earth on black background)

 

(img-sectoid type creature)The aliens had long been a quiet menace on earth. Sending scouts (img-Rosswell, New Mexico). Scanning fields (img-crop circle). Mutilating cattle (img- Cut Up Cow). Even abducting humans (img-person being beamed up) for their own fiendish experiments.

 

(img-ezekial bible passage referencing aliens on a monolith)

The prophets of the world had long been predicting the alien invasion. Some predicted a human metamorphosis and unification with the aliens. Others predicted human annihilation (img--Bible passages showing predictions of apocalypse). Yet still, others predicted a nearly unending struggle between the forces of good and evil (img-human looking angel fighting an alien looking demon)...

 

(music trails off)

 

 

A splash screen type of intro can follow (probably with XENOCIDE written in large, impressive letters.)

 

So I took the idea and ran with it. I have a 153 kb .swf file (which is a flash 5 video file) that is a preliminary intro. You need Flash 5 to view it, so if it won't play for some reason go to macromedia.com and download the free flash viewer. If you are still having a problem I'll try to find a different format to upload it in. You can find the intro here and it should play in your browser. To download the intro, right click on the link and choose "save as".

 

I need sound to add to it. Like music. So if you can think of good music post the name of the song (as much info as you can get, even how big your version is) and I'll play around with it. I'm also looking for someone who has a really good hidden voice (like the guy in the gundam wing series who narrates) or a girl with a good accent to read the words. If I should really push forward with this intro (this version is more of a teaser) I'll put together an official script and put the whole movie together with sound and everything.

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Shadowhawk posted this a while ago...

 

So I took the idea and ran with it.  I have a 153 kb .swf file (which is a flash 5 video file)  that is a preliminary intro.  You need Flash 5 to view it, so if it won't play for some reason go to macromedia.com and download the free flash viewer.  If you are still having a problem I'll try to find a different format to upload it in.  You can find the intro here and it should play in your browser.  To download the intro, right click on the link and choose "save as".

 

I need sound to add to it.  Like music.  So if you can think of good music post the name of the song (as much info as you can get, even how big your version is) and I'll play around with it.  I'm also looking for someone who has a really good hidden voice (like the guy in the gundam wing series who narrates) or a girl with a good accent to read the words.  If I should really push forward with this intro (this version is more of a teaser) I'll put together an official script and put the whole movie together with sound and everything.

 

Couldnt download the .swf it sais that hotlinking is not allowed on free accounts, you can upload it directly into the forum if it is only an archive or just zip it and upload the zipped archive. If you dont know, when you post look under the "Post Icons" and you will find a "File Attachments" edit box...

 

Im anxious to see it.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

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I had to register to be able to use the file attachments aspect. Who'd of thought it? Anyway, this is actually version 2 of the intro (extremely minor changes) I still need someone who can draw fairly well. See, I can't draw for crap and I can only do 2d animations. So I need to find someone who can draw me a picture to start from and then I can animate it from there. Also, think of any friends you all might have that has a good voice to read that stuff. I think it would be a lot cooler if someone said the words than if the text just appeared. If anyone is talented with music that would be appreciated too. I can't use anything I find on here, i can only model mine after something from the net.

 

rundown:

-I need either a guy with a cool voice or a girl with an accent (sorry to non-accented females)

-I need an ORIGINAL composition of music

-I need artwork of any kind that follows the theme of the intro put forward by shadowhawk (not just those things, things that fit in those categories...get creative)

 

OK, after all that crap, here's the file

intro.zip

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:birthday: Wow, this is looking very impressive. I'm loving this. :birthday:

 

I'll start searching for some good pictures and interviewing a few of my friends for the voiceover position.

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(Black screen, begin some appropriate background music)

Life. Death. Survival of the fittest.

 

(fade in to picture of earth viewed from outer space)

Throughout history, the Unification of competing military cultures seems to have required either the complete conquest of one by the other or the emergence of a powerful, new, foreign invader.

 

(img-medieval map of Europe showing divided provinces)

The kingdoms of Europe were unified not through the structures of religion or economy, but through the might of a sword. (superimpose Bismarck’s quote about unification through blood and iron on background) On occasion, these alliances would form to combat the encroaching hordes of raiders and heretics once threatened with complete and utter annihilation.(img-unified Europe)

 

For the squabbling nuclear powers of Earth in the new millennia, fortune would deliver such an opportunity.

 

Fate, it seems, has always decided to temper humanity with tests of its abilities.

 

(img-Reagan’s quote about space aliens being required to unite earth on black background)

 

(img-sectoid type creature)The aliens had long been a quiet menace on earth. Sending scouts (img-Rosswell, New Mexico). Scanning fields (img-crop circle). Mutilating cattle (img- Cut Up Cow). Even abducting humans (img-person being beamed up) for their own fiendish experiments.

 

(img-ezekial bible passage referencing aliens on a monolith)

The prophets of the world had long been predicting the alien invasion. Some predicted a human metamorphosis and unification with the aliens. Others predicted human annihilation (img--Bible passages showing predictions of apocalypse). Yet still, others predicted a nearly unending struggle between the forces of good and evil (img-human looking angel fighting an alien looking demon)...

 

(music trails off)

 

 

A splash screen type of intro can follow (probably with XENOCIDE written in large, impressive letters.)

Hmmm i got a brainstorm, now this will only be possable if we get someone to do the Graphical eye candy

 

(remove Xenocide title here)

 

(cool batte music starts as screen fades back, showing a flying intercepter in clouds)

 

"Sir i dont have a visual"

 

"Ok, you are ordered to fire on sight"

 

"Yes, Sir"

 

(intercepter flys for a secound then a Large Scout appears out of the clouds only 20-30 meters away)

 

"Ahhhhhhhhh"

 

(Intercetper fires 2 Avalanche missles wildly, one flys pass the UFO, the other glanses off the side of it, as the Intercepter starts passing under the UFO, 2 green beams fire from it, the first flys above the cockpit, the other leaves a scorch mark on the bottom of the Interceptor

 

"Ive Made Contact, I made some Serious Contact"

 

(The Interceptor loops around, and as it levels you see 2 avalanche missles Aim)

 

"You messed with the wrong planet"

 

(another green beam Glances the Interceptor, smoke coming out of the Scorch mark, a secound later the Avalanche missles launch, streak to the UFO, and Explode. The next view shows the UFO Falling to the ground, 2 large holes in it, both spewing smoke and fire)

 

"Bogey down, im a bit banged up here but i can fly, we also need a Skyranger over here"

 

"Got it, Return to base, also, Good Work"

 

(Screen fades to black THEN showing the Xenocide Logo)

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I can work on it..... That one will take a while because I have a lot (and I mean a lot) of superimposing to do (flash only lets me do 2d graphics...and I don't really have the time to learn how to use a 3d animation program) Also, if anyone can help me find 2d or 3d models of a large scout/small scout/medium scout (heck, any alien ship) and an X-com ship. If I can get that...consider the movie child's play (translation: i can do it, but time will go into it...ie several weeks) If anyone knows an easier way (other than a 3d animation program) lemme know and I'll take a look at it.
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How yah like it?

Personally, I find it a little cliche. We should avoid the things like catchphrases and stuff if we want to create a somber, gripping storyline.

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Also we need someone to do the voices, also you did not say if yah like it or not :P

:blink: Well, I just don't think it quite fits with the theme we're trying to create at the moment.

 

As for voice actors, what's likely to happen is that I and several other web people will submit a recording of the intro and then sooner or later we'll figure out who has the coolest voice.

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Also we need someone to do the voices, also you did not say if yah like it or not :P

:blink: Well, I just don't think it quite fits with the theme we're trying to create at the moment.

 

As for voice actors, what's likely to happen is that I and several other web people will submit a recording of the intro and then sooner or later we'll figure out who has the coolest voice.

As i said we can always change it

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Well, good and bad news here. The good news is that I can do that second style intro (or movie for that matter) using two different programs: Flash (like I've been using) or the program that they used to animate Shrek (its the program ILM uses) The bad news is that I have to learn that program which will take time because it is wireframe and texture, and it will take a long time to render because even though my roommate has a 3 ghz computer, even that will take a while to do. I may have to animate independent 3d objects over stationary textured backgrounds....(it will look like counterstrike...but still more believable than flash) And we could actually do both...the somber beginning (when you click "new game") and a first load, action-packed intro movie....lets just see who wants what and the overall demand for each aspect.
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I may have a good guy to do the voice acting, he works in a local radio and i had hear some demos he had made and he do an amazing work. The only thing is, that i couldnt make it work cause i had installed the flash plug in and couldnt find a way to make the .swf to open directly, if anyone knows how to embed the .swf in an html page to make it work, send me an html file and will modify it to work in here.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

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well red knight, if you upload the .swf file to a website and access it directly the flash plug-in should handle it as a website itself. (there are ways to use javascript to insert a window...but if for example you went The intro in a webpage it should work unless bravenet doesn't allow you to have incoming links. Basically, create a free account somewhere and upload the file; then directly access your page.

 

account name host file being accessed

http://th391228.bravepages.com/test.swf

 

that's the url for the link up top.

 

good luck...what is a good movie formatt that is usable to you guys?

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Aww, poopies. Still can't unzip the dang file.  :crying:

Then do WinRAR, it's far better than winzip anyway. (www.rarlab.com)

 

And for the intro: I would like the text to stay a little while longer before fading, being able to read it 1.5 times would be better in case I (or someone else) misses a word or something.

 

Red Knight:

This is far simplier code then I ever would have written otherwise, but it works. :P

 

<embed src="intro.swf" width="100%" height="100%"></embed>

 

edit: and PLUS! it gives you fullscreen! :alienoooh:

 

well rar doesn't have all that great support on other platforms whereas zip is supported on virtual every platform out there.. might not be a problem because the source code will probably also be released as .tar.bz2

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Wow, this is looking really awesome.

 

 

Before we go out and get cool radio voicemen to narrate, we should of course make sure that we've roughly finalized the text of the intro. Keep up the good work!

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pretty soon I'm gonna come up with the finalized text, and I may end up leaving flash if I can find a better program to make this in. It is becoming tiresomely complicated with the number of layers I have to use to do it. (plus this kinda has a commercial feel to it...like its gonna be played tomorrow night on fox....I haven't figured out what's missing yet, but I will) regardless, that piano music IS copyrighted, so that was just to set the mood...i still need either non-copyrighted music (ie more than 80 years old) or an original composition to include...

 

Remember this is the preliminary intro...the final may look nothing like this, but it will have the same mood...same idea...etc.

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Is the map copyrighted?

I dont know, probably, but after some major editing who'll know?

otherwise you could draw one when having this one in mind

well :) one thing this forum is like a gigantic record. If a copyright owner thinks we are using their stuff they can always come in here and find out. This project should stay clean. No use of copyrighted material is required. And it doesn't help when people say well that legal and this isn't unless they're a lawyer and know the law not just in the united states but also how copyright laws in other countries could effect the project.

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Is the map copyrighted?

I dont know, probably, but after some major editing who'll know?

otherwise you could draw one when having this one in mind

well :) one thing this forum is like a gigantic record. If a copyright owner thinks we are using their stuff they can always come in here and find out. This project should stay clean. No use of copyrighted material is required. And it doesn't help when people say well that legal and this isn't unless they're a lawyer and know the law not just in the united states but also how copyright laws in other countries could effect the project.

Then how about the admin kills the post? ... will that lower my postcount? :whatwhat:

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I'm one of the admins in here so I can delete posts. :) problem is finding all of then since there thousands of posts. Other problem is offending anybody when deleting a poist. Me I got limited time and just now am catching up a bit reading some of the messages. I've deleted 1 post in this forum cause it was like someone was on crack :) and we need to stay on focus.
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*tiptoes away from gangsta*

 

 

 

But, hey, I got a crime to report. I previously uploaded a VERY big image in that thread about the logos. Can you please delete it? pretty please? (just the first one, I posted it again and the second post was succesful.)

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Guest stewart

Okay, I checked it out! I looks pretty cool. It might be good as a trailer to get people interested.

 

The inevidtable "What I'd change":

 

1) If there are any music majors here step forward. I'd like to see (hear) what it would be like if the music started out as plain-old pretty diatonic stuff, then as the intro builds closer and closer to the peril the music begins to dengerate via chromatic to twelve tone to micro-tonal stuff. Paralelling that the begining of the intro is about people and the ending about the aliens. So the diatonic music represent people and micro tonal "ugly" stuff represents the aliens.

 

I'm not sure if the metre should remain constant or start from an ordered 2/4 or 3/4 or 4/4 and then degenerate as well, that might be too much. However if some talented person can make it work then great!

 

2) The Greek was cool! I'd be inclinded to leave it, but then I'm a nerd. Im not sure if chi represents c (I think it's an H actually). C I think is represented by a varient of sigma which looks like a C ending with a small curve back at the bottom (think of the letter S and make the top half really big.), I forget what the variation is called though.

 

3) We may get people hating us for using 9-11, might want to use something else.

 

Good effort though!

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This version of intro is dead. The 9-11 thing was a stretch, included for several reasons, dropped for better reasons. I can't help with music, but I'm trying to convince someone in my dorm to help out with that. I didn't even understand what you were sayin bout the music, but that is neither here nor there.

 

I actually just changed XENOCIDE to ms symbol to get that effect at the end. The idea was that it didn't look like anyone's specific language, even though it closely resembled languages that are considered old...(perhaps hinting that aliens had influence in historic events...ie written language) And I was aware that the greek symbols there do not represent their corresponding letters. What I'm sayin is they weren't supposed to. Anyway, I'm still going through some new programs and such (like flash 6 woohoo!) to see what I can do. I've heard that flash 6 supports 3d animation (which is what I was dying for in flash 5) So check back in Intro v2.1 to find out what its becoming.

 

Thanks for the input.

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Guest stewart

The music stuff wasn't nessessarily intended for you, more as a worm to fish in a music guy. I never studied music formally but I think I have a pretty good grounding in the theory.

 

As for the greek letters they "all" matched correctly. Chi is a kh sound (one of those Klingon/Orcish throat clearing consenants), some people "hear" it as a "c" ie "k" and no doubt the person at MS did too or was told to hear that way at any rate. Perhaps it's just me who thinks it's an "H". The French "hear" it as an "R" by the way, but then they've marched to a different beat for some time now. Since the "C" makes an "S" sound in zenocide then chi is inappropriate, but then so is a plain old "S" or sigma (circle with the line to the right of the top), thats why I think the special one is required.

 

On the other hand the chi looks cool and looks like an X which is a letter thats had a certain amount of discussion tagged to it 'round these here parts lately.

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Hey Stewart!

 

Answering here for your post in the other thread...

 

I think it would be best if I just went on producing whatever I had in mind so you guys would at least see what I am capable of... Even if the track is not kept in the end...

 

As for my background, I've been using trackers since 1996 and currently using tracker which is a VST host with a tracker-style sequencer...

 

I'm also undergoing musical study with a private teacher since recently, I started the whole music interest when I was about 8, I am now 22... I cannot guarantee the "semantics" of my music but I think I can put a feel to it.... anywayz, as I said before I'm gonna work on this even if you refuse every single track I make for you guys `;P

 

seriously though, I started making a little something for the intro (this is why I requested the approx time of each scenes) if you were to analyse what I did and give your comments, I would gladly take direction from you.

 

BTW there are two other people interested in the music making process being me, one of my friend who has better musical background (we will work together) and another user here named Ghormak. All of us are using modular tracking technology (which is great for dynamism as stated in another thread...)

 

I have some experience in SoundMaking too and am looking forward to work on any sounds you guys might need...

 

 

What do you think?

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Guest stewart

LOL and good for you! No, I'd never say someones piece sucked (even if it did). Suck or no suck if I don't think it works where it's applied, I'll say why I think so and try to help. I have a certain degree of knowledge about DSP and the various ways that signals are raped by sound effects devices, and I think a pretty good sense of sound "color".

 

Sounds like it'll be fun.

 

As for me, I'm just a cantancorous old fart, but the nice thing about putting on the years is that you learn more and more stuff, that's why I'm right in there in all the aspects of the project: coding, music, sound, artwork, et cetera; one of those Jack of all trades kinda guys.

 

Just take your best guess for the scene lengths, make your first draughts and we'll go from there.

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Well i have finally been able to view the intro. A few things on my mind are:

 

- The text was going to fast, remember, that a lot of people will be playing the game to, that are not so good in english. I was just able to read the first text block, but couldn't think it ovcer. The rest was to fast.

 

- My opinion is that the LIFE and DEAD pictures good be a whole lot better. First of all, i don't think a baby resembles life perfectly and the picture of the WTC, well lets say i'm not an American and there is a whole lot more in this world then just the WTC.

I personally favor nature-pics or something. The human being is so cliche.

 

JUST to be sure: I'm not meaning to offend anybody.

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i have to agree with u on that :). looksy me signature .... it says all that needs to be said!!

 

edit: hey no offence and it wont happen again ... i promise :D

 

edit2: removed the quote thou i cant see why we r making such a big deal out of it

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Guest stewart

Sorry guys politics, religion, and those kinds of discussion should not be in this forum. We have one called off topic. I would politely ask that such discussion not occur there either. There are formus else on the web specifically for these thing. I've seen other forums on internet be completely distroyed by such discussion, as they inevitably disintegrate into flame wars, threats, and stuff like that. Which leads to people getting banned, which leads to member accusing the moderators of being nazis, which leads to the forums sucking as it's just fight after fight after fight.

 

I'll leave your posts for now and would ask you to edit them, if you can, or I'll be forced to delete them.

 

Don't get me wrong, in absolute terms what you said isn't bad, but I'm concerned about where it can lead.

 

To anyone offended by them, please let me deal with them.

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Stewart, i am bit diapointed by your reaction.

 

What i said was to point out what i'd like changed in the intro-movie. When i saw the reaction from fatal error, i thought of stressing this again.

 

I'll state it again:

 

I would like a different picture in the movie at the "DEAD"-point. This because there is more in this world then America, if this project is going to be worked on by ALL volunteers, there shouldn't be such a nationalistic subject in it.

 

Finally i will remove the last sentences from my previous post if you REALLY want that. If so please tell me how to edit a post....

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Hmm easy solution for you guys: Maverick has made V2.1 of the intro and there is no WTC nonsense in it ;)

 

Move on to the next thread! LOL

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