Cinematics for Dummies - The Uber Tutorial

This Thread Is For Tutorial Information Only. All Non-Essential Replys Will Be Deleted. If You Post An Error Of Mine I Will Fix It And Then Delete The Reply. I Want This Thread Clean. ---Insaniteus


Alright since a lot of people are asking me to put up a tutorial on cinematics, well here it is! I'll post some more about other topics but for now, let's concentrate on the cameras.


Basic - Moving a camera around
Before beginning, you need to know that cameras will move from one to another, so you will not create the cameras using triggers. In order to move from a camera to another, use

Camera - Apply Camera Object (Timed)

Let's say you want to apply a camera automatically, and then move it to another's position, here's how to display it in the trigger editor:

Camera - Apply "Name of your starting camera" over 0 seconds
Camera - Apply "Name of your second camera" over x seconds
wait x seconds

The "wait x seconds" is there to make sure the camera isn't interrupted by anything else.

in this situation, the second camera movement would be ignored because the third camera is instanly issued a command. You would have to display it like this:


Giving cameras good locations
If you've ever noticed, you can move the World editor's camera around by holding the CTRL button, clicking the right mouse button and move around. This will be very helpful when placing your cameras more precisely. You can also move around with a simple right click/move.

Lock the Camera Orientation
This one isn't really complicated. Let's say you want to lock the camera's orientation to a unit:


The first camera command is to give the location of your camera. Then you will issue it to fix a certain unit. so this way, your camera will not move, but will always be looking at the designated unit.



That's it for now.

SPECIAL EFFECTS:

Ok, for starters, I HONESTLY want everyone who is really determined to make good cinematics to at least LOOK at every single Model in WarCraft. There are alot of great models with infinite possibilities, as I proved in the DBZ scene of IC.

To do this, get UMSWE and go HERE! That site owns, pics of everything! To test in WE, just change the Peasant Model path to everything on the list one at a time.
--Sure, you can use any unit you want, or a custom unit, but tradition clearly dictates that this should be the peasant, since everyone I know including myself picks on this loser lol.
--DON'T include the .mdl(x) extension here, WE adds that on its own.

Write down the Model Paths that you think can be something cool in your cinematic.

FAQ: Where are the Chain Lightning/Mana Burn/Finger of Death Models?
A: They don't exist. Blizz needed these to be any size, so they did some fancy smancy thing that creates it in the map without a model file. To use these effects, I'm afraid you'll have to use the respective spells.

Now there are 3 ways to use special effects.

1: Attach to unit.
--Use the trigger "Special Effect - attach special effect to unit"
--use the MDL path you chose earlier here. MUST have ".mdl" or "mdx" at the end.
--Choose an attachment point. There is a big list that comes with UMSWE. The most common ones are:
overhead (never moves or goes away)
head
arm
foot
origin (Never moves or goes away)
--You can add "left" or "right" to the above where applicable to be more specific.
--The attachment points MUST be lowercase.

====>IMPORTANT: Save this effect to a Special Effects Variable, because there is NO WAY to remove it if you don't and it will be perminant.

2: Create at location.
--Use the Trigger "Special Effect - create special effect at point"
--Enter your mdl extension etc etc.
--These are fun, because they affect an area and aren't stuck on some guy. If you want an explosion, us this.

Tip: Most effects on units stay forever, where alot of effects on points vanish after the first showing. If you just want a singel showing of an effect, like an Infernal Meteor or a Thunderclap, use point.

Tip: Something I learned after I was done with IC is that while the effects on points are invisoble, they still "run" which can deplete memory. It's best to remove them after they play.

3: Use Custom Units
--This is only viable in Cinematic Maps, but is by far my favorite option.
--Using units, you can resize and recolor the effects, make them transparent, and move them at will to anywhere.
--You can fake a unit attach by running a periodic trigger to instantly move the effect unit to position of normal unit.
--some effects, Like Purge aka Psionic Storm lol, will only work as units.
--The only way to play different animations of special effects is through units.

Tip: Giving the units the ghost ability makes units ignore it as regaurds to pathing.

Ok, that's all for now.

-Insaniteus-

Enabling Skipping of Cinematics.

The following is a Copy/Paste from something Trav said, which answers the question here.

-----------------------------------------------
Basically you do this:

Event - Cinematic is Skipped
Set (Boolean) variable Skip = True
Turn off this trigger
*Proceed to run all relevant stuff that may have been in your cinematic trigger here*

Now in your cinematic trigger, you should have it set up like so:

Cinematic stuff
Wait X seconds
If Skip is equal to True then Skip Remaining Actions else Do Nothing


Throw a lot of that If/Then into your cinematic trigger, and make certain that you are careful here. Have the cinema skip trigger initially off, and have it turned on right after cinematic mode is turned on in your cin. trigger. Leaving out relevant things from your cin. trigger in your skip trigger can cause problems such as perma-paused units, freezing in cin. mode, etc. So make sure you double check your placement.
-------------------------------------

That should help people who want in-game cinematics as opposed to a full cinematic map.

CAMERA FIELD SETTING

This is something that I have litterally been asked over 20 times, so I figued that I'd put it here.

Ever want to adjust a setting of a camera in game without having to create a new camera object? Use the following action:

Camera - Set Camera field ___ to #.

This trigger allows you to set distance, Far Z clipping, rotation, roll, and more all to any number you wish. This can be very usefull when using moving cameras.

That's all for now.

-Insaniteus-

TIPS FROM THE MASTER VERSION 1.

This is just a collection of little bits of info that I feel is important. I'm sure that I'll forget things, so I named this Version 1. Hell, Daemonkiller should add some of his here too.

You can never have enough Camera Objects
To make an extreme closeup, place the unit on the map and line up the view in WE to what you want, then make a camera there.
The very top and bottom of your cameras will be invisible in-game (letterbox), so it's best to put your target area away from the edges. Test using "X" in WE.
Never get TOO close, or you'll be inside the unit and that looks stupid.
There is a limit to how close you can get to a unit. If you want to focus on a person's eyeball it won't work...unless you do this lol: Create a custom unit of the same model, and set size to 10. Focus on the new unit's face, and then just delete or hide him when you're done.
The secret to good Cinematic Maps is faking things. Nobody cares about the norm, you have to make it look like you're doing the impossible.
The "Move unit" trigger makes a great knockback effect when used in small amounts in a periodic trigger :D.
Doodads can be risen by selecting them and holding ctrl and pgup. pgdn lowers them. Try things like lowering flowerpots to only see the flowers, or raise rocks to make spires. You cna even make a floating tree it you're weird lol.
Doodads can be moved ignoring clipping also, by holding ctrl and hitting one of the numpad directions. This is cool.
To make custom buildings by combining several other ones, make them ALL units using building models and turn and position them as you see fit. You can also add doodads, and even lowers and raised doodads to make a pimping shack :D.
Watch movies and TV, and then try to imitate the special effects and style they use. If it's good enough for the big screen, it's DAMN good enough for War3 lol.

Ok, that's it for now. I'll make more I'm sure.

-Insaniteus-

Make fake stuff if doodads can't give the results you want

Create units and give them doodad models. This is very useful for city buildings since they cannot be rotated without being resetted by War3. Making them a unit allows you to scale it up to 1000% and rotate it the way you want.

This is very useful too using fire doodads. If you make them bigger, they will look very different. here's something I've done using fire units, that's a kind of exclusive shot of a new project I've got with Electromancer, not really a project but anyway.



Make fake stuff with player controlled buildings too

Do the same for normal buildings (Player controlled buildings), they cannot be rotated either, so make them units also! Sometimes merging them with doodads or other buildings give unexpected results. I've used this technique in COTN Part 4 Scene 2.



Cinematics allow you to create tons of "fake stuff" as I like to call it. so explore! Try everything! Use all the features given by the World editor. I personally discover new stuff for every map I create, new tricks, they seem to be limitless! use your imagination, that's the key to succeed.

Ok, let's plase try to keep this a Clean Thread, so no comment posts (this means you too Daemonkiller ).

And to Loony, I added the mdx comment now, although I really didn't think it was that important lol. Back on topic...

TIP FROM THE MASTER VERSION 2

The secret to timing things to your music is writing down marks on a peice of paper of what time each good part in your song is.
Once you have the time after playing, you can count the amount of Waits you have and make them equal. If a song gets heavy at 32 seconds, make your wait periods equal 32 seconds etc.
Rather than guessing how long it'll take for a guy to walk somewhere, it's best to make a seperate trigger with "unit enters region" event. This can be modified to suit all situations, but you get the idea.
Playing unit animations infinitly makes dull conversation parts more interesting. If no animations suit talking, just change the cameras around like they do on TV.
Fade Filthers own! You can use them for pratically anything. Some examples that I've used are normal fading out, 50% transparency to look like the lights are out, flashing yellow to look DBZ-esque, sniper scope, pain, 1st person veiw, reality warping and more.
To make the world shake, use the Camera - Sway Camera Target trigger. Sway Camera Souce does a similar effect and you should see both to figure out which is better for you.
Setting unit transparency with the Animation - change unit vertex coloring trigger can make cloaked units or ghosts out of anything easily. You can also make someone flash multicolors like a crazy rainbow if you're weird.
Turning off unit collision can be a double edged sword. It can allow greater movement abilities etc, but sometimes they will walk right through a building or something and look retarded.
Hidden units can still cast spells. This is REALLY good for having Infernals appear or to bloodlust somebody or make a Blizzard or even a Tranquility rainstorm and more. Abuse this wisely.


That's all for now.

-Insaniteus-

FADE FILTHERS:

Fade Filthers are quite simple actually. They simply mask the camera with 1 of their designs.

Basics: Color can be changed using the color values. If you change the color of Black Mask, however, it will be really dark. White mask is used for normal colors. White mask is only actually white when the color is set to 100,100,100 .

You can also set the transparency of a fade filther. So many times I see scenes meant to be night that are as bright as day. TIP: Black Mask at 50% transparency = Instant Nighttime! There are many other options with them. Few people know what all of the Fade Filthers look like, so I reccomend looking at them all. Some of my favorites are Snipe (sniper scope) and Slash (FPS pain effect). They also have a Panderan pictre, but it's the dumb one from their site and is pointless in Map making.

TIP: Some nice flashing effects can be done with periodic triggers and these too.

FM_DraX wrote a tutorial on custom Fade Filthers in Map Development, so check it out there.

-Insaniteus-

IMPORTING SOUNDS:

This is a very general catagory, but since cinematic users are usually the ones working with custom musics the most I'm putting this here.

TIP: Always use MP3 format, there is NO reason not too.
TIP: There are many ways to shrink the filesize. The best are lowering bitrate to about 64K and timing your cinematic and then importing a song that lasts just 1 second longer than what is required so there is no wasted space.

I've heard alot of people ask about how to import MP3s, but the easiest method is just Sound Editor Import Sound/Music.

TIP: Music files silence other musics, but sounds don't. sounds also tend to be louder. Do some experimentation here.

Also, sometimes your map will become corrupted thanks to adding an MP3. I don't know WHY this is other than it's a file format issue. Download a new version of that song and try again.

CREATIVE TIP: Try to use rare musics, not ones that everyone on Earth has heard 50+ times. LotR music is about the only exception here, but even that is getting really old. Search for some OTHER songs made by Enya and Enigma, classical artists like Mozart, or even bands aint nobody heard of before. Sometimes searching for a TYPE of music can help you discover an awesome band that nobody knows about lol.

-Insaniteus-

*TIP* I've noticed that some people make their unit transmissions way too long(except DaemonKillar and Insanteus, they do it perfectly), so this is how I time it:
On WE when you typ in what the unit is going to say you should always take the length of the message (depending on the lines) and times it by about 2.5 and convert it in to seconds.*EXAMPLE* unit says: hello, what's up. This takes up about 1/3 of a line so I would make the waiting time about 1 second long (it's OK to round off, but it's better to round off upwards, remember that if you are a fast reader that not all people read as fast as you).

P.S. This works more or less for me, but it might not be completely accurate, Insaniteus or Daemonkillar, you can delete this and make a new one if you want, since you guys would definitly know more about it than me, right?;)

Here's a list with hotkeys for WE!
It can be very helpful when doing maps/cinematics!
I believe this list is complete! If not, tell me and I'll add the ones I'm missing!

################## Start of Guide ##################

A - Show Palette
B - Show camera Bounds (ON/OFF)
C - Lock to Game Camera (ON / OFF)
D - Go to Doodads Layer
E - (Un)hides Weather
G - Toggle Grid ( None / Small / Medium / Large )
H - (Un)hides Blight
I - (Un)hides Units Info Display
K - (Un)hides Sky
L - (Un)hides Lightning
M - Go to Cameras Layer
P - (Un)hides Pathing
R - Go to Regions Layer
S - (Un)hides Shadows
T - Go to Terrain Layer
U - Go to Units Layer
W - (Un)hides all Water
X - Toggle Letterbox Mode

SPACE - Toggle selection Brush
PRINTSCREEN - Take a Screenshot (WE stores this in you Warcraft3\Screenshots\ folder!)

HOME - Makes the Selected Doodad Wider
END - Makes the Selected Doodad Narrower
PageUp - Makes the Selected Doodad Taller
PageDown - Makes the Selected Doodad Shorter

F3 - Terrain Editor
F4 - Trigger Editor
F5 - Sound Editor
F6 - Unit Editor
F8 - Object Manager

ALT+F - File
ALT+F4 - Closes WE
ALT+E - Edit
ALT+V - View
ALT+L - Layer
ALT+S - Scenario
ALT+T - Tools
ALT+M - Module
ALT+W - Window
ALT+H - Help

CTRL+1 - Set Brush size to 1
CTRL+2 - Set Brush size to 2
CTRL+3 - Set Brush size to 3
CTRL+4 - Set Brush size to 5
CTRL+5 - Set Brush size to 8
CTRL+[ - Set Brush Shape to Circle
CTRL+] - Set Brush Shape to Square
CTRL+A - Select All (depends on what you're working with: units/doodads/etc.)
CTRL+C - Copy
CTRL+D - (Un)hides all Doodads
CTRL+F9 - Test Current Map
CTRL+M - View Camera Objects (ON/OFF)
CTRL+N - New Map
CTRL+O - Open Map
CTRL+R - View Regions (ON/OFF)
CTRL+S - Save Current Map
CTRL+SHIFT+C - Snap to Game Camera
CTRL+T - Toggle Terrain View (textured / Wireframed / Hidden)
CTRL+U - (Un)hides all Units
CTRL+V - Paste
CTRL+W - Close Current Map
CTRL+X - Cut
CTRL+Y - Redo
CTRL+Z - Undo

CTRL+NUM1 - Moves a Doodad/Unit Down and to the Left (ignores collision!)
CTRL+NUM2 - Moves a Doodad/Unit Down (ignores collision!)
CTRL+NUM3 - Moves a Doodad/Unit Down and to the Right (ignores collision!)
CTRL+NUM4 - Moves a Doodad/Unit to the Left (ignores collision!)
CTRL+NUM6 - Moves a Doodad/Unit to the Right (ignores collision!)
CTRL+NUM7 - Moves a Doodad/Unit Up and to the Left (ignores collision!)
CTRL+NUM8 - Moves a Doodad/Unit Up (ignores collision!)
CTRL+NUM9 - Moves a Doodad/Unit Up and to the Right (ignores collision!)

CTRL+PageUp - Increaes the Flying Height of a Unit/Doodad (Walking Units have a Flying Height of 0)
CTRL+PageDown - Decreaes the Flying Height of a Unit/Doodad (Walking Units have a Flying Height of 0)


################### End of Guide ###################

-- Nuladion --

Cinematic Skipping 101

By LrdSlothPaladin

In "Cinematics for Dummies, the Uber Tutorial " they tell you how to skip a Cinimatic but heres an EZer guide if you still have a hard time...

Step 1: Make your cinematic trigger (You need to know how to make cinematic and variables before you read this!)

Step 2: Create a new trigger called “name of old trigger Skip� and uncheck “Initially On�

Step 3: Set the “Event� for “trigger Skip� to Player Skips a Cinematic� and set the blue text to the player that is viewing the cut scene (this skipping is not great for multiplayer maps)

Step 4: Now the fun begins, create a “Variable� and name it what you will (I generally name it the name of the trigger) and set its type to “Boolean� (Named after Robert Boolean for inventing Boolean math!) and set its initial value to “False�

Step 5: Now in your original trigger make the first action that happens “Turn On Trigger� and set the blue field to “trigger Skip� (or whatever you called it)

Step 6: In the “trigger Skip� set the first action to “Turn off Trigger� blue field = (This Trigger)

Step 7: For the next action use “Set Variable� blue text 1= “name of your variable� blue text 2 = “True�

Step 8: In your “cinematic trigger� make a new action after the first action that takes time aka (Wait, Transition from Unit, ext, ext) it needs to be a “If/Then/Else� action where IF blue text = “Boolean Comparison (blue text 1 = “name of your variable� blue text 2 = “True�) and the THEN blue text = “Skip Remaining Actions� ant the ELSE blue text = “Do Nothing�

Step 9: Now copy the action you just made and paste it after every action that takes time (e.g. Wait, Transition from Unit, ext, ext) until the Point of No Return. This is Essential! (This point is the part were the cinematic is over but things like units that were talking there last talk before death die, units that told you they would join you change player, you know what I'm talking about) and then add a command that turns off the “trigger Skip�

Step 10: Finally we made it! Now all that's left to do is copy all actions that are after the Point Of No Return into the “trigger Skip� this is vary imported, for example if you have a movie where some troops join your side but you skip it you still want the troops joining you. Check to make sure that every action that is needed is in this trigger so that it does not get skipped!

There you go, just a warning, test your triggers before you release them to the public, I was making this trigger where a witch turned into a crow killed a unit and then flew to a different location on the map in the middle of a cinematic and what I had to do was instantly move unit to location to make sure she was not still around when the cinematic ends- what I'm saying is you need to watch for stuff like that and make sure your trigger skipping does not interfere with the way your map plays. If I misinformed you on anything let me know,

LSP

By the way here is map that show everything I showed you, if you want to see how to make a repeating trigger look at the “Repeat� trigger. The “Skip Intro� even has a action at the end demonstrating what actions you need to copy from the “Intro� trigger to the “Skip Intro� trigger.

EDIT BY INSANITEUS: I moved this here, where it belongs.

Create your own fade filter is very simple as long as you know the basics of skinning.

Size of your image:
The warcraft3 screen properties are 2:1, so for a 800x600 resolution, you would get a 800x400 screen. So in order to have a proportioned picture, build your original in a 2:1 resolution.

Once it is done, resize it to wether 512x512 or 256x256 px, if you're using Photoshop, you'll have to uncheck "Constrain proportions" in order to resize your image properly.

Save your file into a TGA 32 bits pic and convert it to a .blp file using the image extractor.

Include the screen in your map:
This is just like normal skinning. What you'll have to do is to replace an original fade filter screen with your own.
path of fade filters:
ReplaceableTextures\Cameramasks\file.blp

Example: if I replace "Panda-n-Cub.blp", I'll type it like this:
ReplaceableTextures\Cameramasks\panda-n-cub.blp

In the world editor, I'll use the Panda-n-cub fade screen and here it is! The screen is summoned!

I was working on this cinematic and I had about 40 cameras problem was after the first camera the others did not play at the right height, for example many of them were underground, in my frustration I deleted all put the first one and the triggers associated with them (the stupidest thing I could have done, never take your anger out on World Editor :knife: ), but when I made new cameras they still played underground, when I cooled and thought about the problem I remembered fixing something similar long ago, if this has happened to you its because your camera is looking up at the map from underground and will get locked there unless you create a “reset game camera” action after you switch out of the underground cam, I hoped that saved some of you new cinematic artists the headaches of the unknown 8)

While I was working on a cinematic was really displeased with the choppiness in the camera motion, after playing around with it for awhile I discovered that the motion can be much smother if the wait command is .2 seconds shorter then the transition to camera.:ggani:

Yeah drax has a good way of doing it , but it can get tricky using custom text....this is what i did..in my opinion this way is alot easier, But there is more u can do with drax's way.this is a tutorial on how to make a splash screen for not so experienced mapmakers.

--First open your Image extractor II
--Go to veiw listveiw
--Next find ReplaceableTextures\CameraMasks\Panda-n-Cub.blp
--Save that image as a .tga
--Close image extractor II then open the Newly saved .tga file in PS or PSP7 or whatever u are running (I use psp7)
--Next get rid of that panda-n-cub picture and put the picture u want in its place..u can either cut it out or paste the picture as a new layer or whatever...
--Once u have done this go to file then save.
--ok now reopen image extractor II and then open your picture and save it as a .blp
--Create a trigger in your map using a cinematic-Fade filter fading out using texture Panda-n-cub with colors(100,100,100) and 0% transparency...close ur map when u are done
--Last u want to open winmpq
--then open your map with winmpq
--Next go to add and add your image...then put the original file path ReplaceableTextures\CameraMasks\
--And ur picture will now replace the panda-n-cub picture in game

*hope this helps
*there are a buch of other ways u can do this
*i just tried saying it in a way that it doesnt get too confusing..cause custom text get way to hard for my little brian..lol
*also this will only work for 1 image unlike drax's method u can use a bunch..i think deamonkiller used 3 or 4 in cotn i am not sure but anyway i hope this helps somewhat