headkaze

Thanks null! I've updated the emulator profile and download for this.

Has anyone checked this out? http://supergcube.sourceforge.net/

Actually I just read over that article and they're not actually implementing the start menu at all. Grrr. Oh well 3rd party solutions it is then!

Microsoft Says It Will Bring Back the 'Start' Button for Windows

The feature is definately coming but you wouldn't want to use it for gif animations. That will be coming in a different form (texture animation). naborneo: I can't help but think we have hijacked your thread a bit. If you want I can split out all the compression discussion into a separate thread. Up to you.

The problem with alpha is once you apply a lossy video compression algorithm you end up with ugly artifacts. That's why I believe most alpha supported codecs would not perform any sort of serious compression. Either way, what I think will be useful for this, is GameEx intro videos that can be overlayed at startup. Thanks for the Lagarith example u-man; when I get some time I will do some performance comparisons. Also sorry I didn't get back to you in IM, I did read what you wrote though, and perhaps we can keep this sort of thing for intro videos only. There is also the chance we could use the video card and DirectX to either ColorKey or blend a color channel out. Although I believe we would likely encounter issues with artifacts.

Well the fact of the matter is apart from ProRes4444 all the videos work. So I guess there is no problem with people picking their own codec as long as it's supported in Shark Codecs. I just wanted to do a performance comparison. So perhaps u-man can download your PNG sequence and create a Lagarith version for my tests? Anyway the PNG format seems to be the lowest filesize but likely uses more CPU for decompression than Animation+. Anyway we wont know for sure until I can do some testing. In the mean time I will contact Tom and have a discussion about adding this feature now rather than having people wait for the new engine.

Hey guys so far the results are looking really good. Every video plays using the Shark Codecs alone and there is no problem with looping. The only video with an issue is ProRes4444 which is rendered without the alpha channel. I tried installing the latest version of QuickTime but it didn't help. I'm not sure if QuickTime installs DirectShow compatible codecs or not although admittedly I didn't reboot after the install when it prompted me to. Either way we don't want to force users to install QuickTime; we want to require the Shark Codec pack only. To get a better comparison it would be nice to have naborneo's video using the Lagarith codec. From there I will need to try some performance tests and decide on the best format to go forward with. Bottom line is we can use alpha video in GameEx using the Shark Codecs so this will definately be a supported feature

If you can't get a hold of the author I guess you could try CoinSound

Great work Adultery

A future release will allow you to scroll any text anywhere....

I can play the video with alpha from here using the Shark Codecs so perhaps this is the format to go for? The only problem is when the video ends and tries to loop there is a long pause. Not sure why. I will check out these other formats soon.

A video format is much better than an image sequence because they use compression designed for video. If you had a sequence of images it would be super laggy to load them from disk and transfer them to video RAM at 24 fps.

naborneo: Can you try posting a video of the animated logo with alpha channel support? If you like I can see if I can get it rendering in GameEx.

Thanks guys it's much appreciated

Tom in Global.cs for the Setup Wizard there is a constant in there that can be changed: public const int EXTERNALAPPS_COUNT = 25;

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Maybe!?

There will be no hard-coded layers in a future release... you will be able to put the video anywhere you want

If you want to be able to play videos with alpha channel then you will have to wait for a future release. I've been having a play and I've managed to get a video with alpha playing. Source video was from here

Texture Animation Generator 1.0 - Create texture animation sheets by importing gif's, swf's or a sequence of images. Supports color to alpha, trimming alpha and maintaining aspect ratio. NOTE: A future version of GameEx will support this animation format. Download

Tom it might be worth moving to Video.dll as that is going to be far better supported into the future.