DVD Games with Scenarist

[unistudent]

im looking to create a dvd game much in the same way as the who wants to be a millionaire dvd game was done and im looking for some advice. Ive looked through the forum and havent seen anything major on this topic.

Its gonna be a film based trivia quiz based on the wwtbam format and i want to know if its possible to use the seemless branching aspects to randomly select a question from those available ie.

intro sequence - randomly chose question - progress screen (ie how many points you have won) - randomly chose question -
progress screen etc etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

[zappppp]

yeah it's possible random value in gprm setting

[DaRat]

Yeah, it is possible tough it is a shitloads of work. I was thinking about the same thing: millionaire game on dvd. It is possible to make it all work but its a shitload of work too.. For example if you want a thing like the "audience help", you have to make all the results. If you use 20% scale bars it means 53 separate stills to cover all the possible results (tough i may be a bit wrong on the math side of this). Not to mention the headache when multiple helps are used together (any two would do, if all three is used in the same question you're done)..


And then we didn't spoke about the work you need to draw each and every still for the questions, the tremendous work needed for the layout (placeholders with the command sequence template helps a lot here but still way too much work), the limitations of 99 titles, pgcs, pgs, etc, the problem you can't give a button a "if... else..." like command, you have to route it to the post command > each question have to be a pgc itself, etc etc etc.. And we haven't mention sounds yet, how to add it, yadda yadda yadda..


But it can be done. :D


Anyway beware that most software dvd players (namely power dvd and windvd) won't handle the random number generation, always gives the lowest possible result (being "one" :D).

[unistudent]

Thanks for all the input.

well this is going to be my final year project at university and ive spent the past couple of months learning scenearist (which i have to use) so the complexity of it isnt a problem, in fact it will probably contribute to a higher grade. IF i pull it off.
ive spent this weekend throwing together a very basic prototype to illustrate what i want to do as i have a progress presentation due today.

I also want to illustrate the multi angle aspect of dvd as well as the seemless branching. i was going to include a special feature on how the dvd was made with a commentry and using seperate angles for each graphic layer (the presenter and the greenscreen background) similar to one of the featurettes on the Men in Black dvd, but this seems a bit weak. any suggestions?

[auenf]

as i mentioned in the original thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36674&highlight=millionaire), its just lots of menus, or lots of button over video, but on a largish scale.

good luck with the project, and just remember that once you have the basic structures in place, its just a matter of rinse and repeat.

Enf...

[unistudent]

found your post shortly after i posted myself, very helpful.

bought myself a copy of millionaire this weekend and went through it briefly, gonna spend some more time on it this week.
checked out dvd demystified from the library as well, amazing book shame we've only got the first edition, but i reccomend it to anyone serious about dvd authoring

thanks for the help and ill keep you posted on the developments.

[Lord of the Discs]

Originally posted by DaRat

Anyway beware that most software dvd players (namely power dvd and windvd) won't handle the random number generation, always gives the lowest possible result (being "one" :D).

This is wrong, at least for PowerDVD. My game, Mars attackers!,
uses random numbers and works perfect in both PowerDVD and my
standalone player.

[auenf]

Originally posted by Lord of the Discs
This is wrong, at least for PowerDVD. My game, Mars attackers!,
uses random numbers and works perfect in both PowerDVD and my
standalone player.

and with WinDVD, it does have a working random number generator, but it always gives the same sequence of random numbers ;)

btw, keep us informed about how your project is going

Enf...

[DaRat]

Originally posted by Lord of the Discs
This is wrong, at least for PowerDVD. My game, Mars attackers!,
uses random numbers and works perfect in both PowerDVD and my
standalone player.

Well, haven't tested it with PDVD5 but I'm pretty sure that v4 is bogus.. :D

[unistudent]

hey guys, i'd put this project on hold for a while as i had other assignments to be done.
Now im back i could do with a little help in how to apply the random value gprm settings in regard to this project.
its been about a month since i touched scenarist so im a tad rusty
(took me a whole day to work out why my sub pictures weren't working, i feel like a proper noob)

[auenf]

instead of MOV or MOD or etc, you should have a RND function which will give you a random number between 1 and the number you specify (inclusive).

Enf...

[Arky]

unistudent, it sounds like a great final year project, and I sincerely wish you all the best with it. It's always great to see someone pushing the boundaries of DVD authoring. I am curious though - how do you plan to implement seamless-branching?


Arky ;o)

[unistudent]

Well ladies and gentleman im back agin, all the assets on this project have been done and the random function 'appears' to be working one question that i hope you guys can answer.
in the original game once a lifeline has been selected its unavailable for the rest of the game (it has a red cross subpicture over it) i know its possible and maybe im being thick (havent slept much recently with exams and such) but how is scenarist able to tell its been used and deactivate the button.
Any and all comments are appreciated as always

ps heres a pic of the question template if your interested...

http://img30.photobucket.com/albums/v90/bartender/crap.gif

[DaRat]

If you put only one question per pgc (you can put more but it makes life complicated :D) you can make the same question 7 times, each time with different button config and with different subpicture. This way the used lifelines are _not_ selectable by any means. Anyhow if you go this way still draw a button around the "x"'s so you can have a different color scheme thus anti-alias for the "x".

You can also use seven different subpictures for the seven possible avail. of the lifelines but this time you have to link to post command and check to see if it was used already or not, then link back to begining, probably causing some problems (:D) and certainly making small pauses while the commands are executed, jump are made, etc. But this is a "time-effective" way I guess. Unless of course you have the questions themselves on different subpicture layers (what makes perfect sense imho), that way nothing saves you from doing it seven times. :D

Anyhow I think you'd write some neat script generating the whole dvd layout for you once you have one fully functional question.

[unistudent]

cheers man
at the mo ive got one question per pgc, each question level (100, 200 etc) on different vts's as well as the ask the audience and phone a friend.

the way i want to do it is and they way they seem to have done it on the original is have one question per vts with each cell coressponding to a part ie right wrong 50 50.

Each vts has a dummy random pgc with the pre commands
1. set gprm 0, random 10
2.link pgc if GPRM = 1
3.link pgc2 if GPRM = 2 etc etc
nothing too complicated.

after the correct answer it moves onto the next level vts or onto a seperate vts if they get the wrong answer.

the only thing im having trouble with is those subpictures (kinda worried now as it has to be in on fri).ill try what you suggested and get back to you later today

edit: how would you produce a script as ive just been doing it through pre, post, etc commands

[DaRat]

er.. When you finished with a pgc, select it in the layout editor and copy, paste into a text editor and you should get a script which definies every aspect of the pgc. So it's quite time efficent to generate the script containing all your pgc's in the vts and then paste them in.

[unistudent]

cheers man you learn something new every day