replay at end of game: export to flash!

February 26, 2001, 18:45

see this http://www.geocities.com/history_of_...pprogress.html

perhaps not flash but whatever kind of replay feature civ3 will have(and please, i dont even want anyone at firaxis thinking that there wont be such a feature!!

), it should exportable to some common format. if there is text involved(your achievements or everything else that has been suggested) is should be exportable to a text file. if there is animation then animated gif or even better flash!

cause in the end, what's a good civ worth if you cant show it around?

yin26 · February 26, 2001, 19:52

And if we could combine that with a text file of every move and stat of each player by turn, we'd really have something. I'd say let us watch the whole game visually, but that might create a HUGE file, not sure. At any rate, the community would be able to learn and enjoy from the best players around.

Fiera · February 26, 2001, 20:23

Did you make that animation, MarkG? Just curious...

[This message has been edited by Fiera (edited February 26, 2001).]

eNo · February 26, 2001, 21:53

Sweet idea. Maybe there could an option of exporting a "history" file, something that is smaller and independant of the savegame files and records the rise and falls of the civs. Level of detail could probably be tweaked too depending on how much disk space you want to devote.

Dr Strangelove · February 26, 2001, 21:56

Is it nearly definite that there will be an end game replay feature for Civ3? If so, Hooray! The last I heard, many months ago, was that opinion was very much against such a feature.

Does anyone have an idea what the final victory condition will be? It had better be something other than a space ship, an alien child or "transcendence".

Zealot · February 26, 2001, 23:26

Flash sounds good. After all, I want to know how good civers are!! But I ope it has a cheater's protection!!

tniem · February 26, 2001, 23:27

quote:

Originally posted by Fiera on 02-26-2001 07:23 PM
Did you make that animation, MarkG? Just curious...

I don't know for sure, but judging by the fact its on geocities and not on an Apolyton site, I wouldn't think MarkG made this. If he did, he would be pretty dumb not to put it on his servers and put ads on it so at least he got a little income from the work. That's just my opinion.

February 27, 2001, 06:31

quote:

Originally posted by Fiera on 02-26-2001 07:23 PM
Did you make that animation, MarkG?

nope, it's from a site for a diplogame(see the civ2-multiplaying forum)

(btw, of course with freeciv you can have similar exportable animations for some time now)

[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited February 27, 2001).]

Adm.Naismith · February 27, 2001, 09:03

As was debated in History book as an ending of game HTML save should be perfect (more than plain text, IMO). That will let include any animated or static Gif and Jpeg (from game graphic library), Flash animations, link to game cut-scene and movies (not the whole movie, just the link, saving space)...

Good Code Generation is not an easy task, still having the history of epic games reproduced as "ready to publish" web pages... wonderful!

Zealot, about cheater protection: who cares?
Any leader in real world "make-up" history to put him/herself in better light!
Simply another realistic feature added to Civ III

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

Urban Ranger · February 28, 2001, 12:34

If endgame export is to be the case, I don't think you'll get Flash or anything else for two reasons: file size and complexity. Flash is good for vector-based animations, but you don't get that in Civ 3. Flash files increase in size very rapidly when you put a lot of bitmapped images in them. You are also asking Firaxis to write a whole section of code just to write out Flash files. That's just too much work for a little bit of extra. Both GIF and MPEG are simpler but they have their own problems. GIF is copyrighted, so Firaxis needs to pay royalty. It allows only 256 colors and is not instrinsicly suitable for compressing Civ map. MPEG generates smaller files, but you lose the details.

Generating a text/HTML file is also bothersome, since around 80% (or even more) of the time units will be just in the wilderness somewhere. Who knows where [1399, 512] is?

The only real workable solution is to have it's own file format, and put a section of code in Civ to play these files like films. There are three advantages to this:

[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited February 28, 2001).]

March 1, 2001, 01:01

quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 02-28-2001 11:34 AM
If endgame export is to be the case, I don't think you'll get Flash or anything else for two reasons: file size and complexity. Flash is good for vector-based animations, but you don't get that in Civ 3. Flash files increase in size very rapidly when you put a lot of bitmapped images in them.

when i'm talking about exportable "replay at end of game" i'm mainly talking about two things: the civ "evolving" world map and charts(power, population, military, etc). both CAN be vector-based

Adm.Naismith · March 1, 2001, 05:24

Urban Ranger, I see I didn't explained my thought well.

I'm nottalking about a move by move replay. Please take the time to read my suggestion into the post "History book" I linked before.

The annnounced replay feature for Stars! Supernova Genesis game is a good hint about a true implementation of our "paper concept"

Back to CIV III, I'm talking about a brief summary, with space for a few player notes. Packing it with PNG images, grabbed from the game graphic library, and a reproduction of "political map animation" as MarkG suggested is not a problem, IMHO.

edited wrong url, sorry
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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant
[This message has been edited by Adm.Naismith (edited March 01, 2001).]

Adm.Naismith · March 1, 2001, 05:45

To add more fuel to the "HTML replay or not", I think appropriate to quote an interview with Jeff McBride, Lead developer of Stars! Supernova genesis (the full interview can be found here

For better understanding, please note that "Chronicle" is the equivalent of "history book and replay" we mention about CIV III

quote:

Q: Is the incorporation of HTML in to Stars! Supernova Genesis a feature that was planned originally? Also, how do you think this will enhance the
play aspect of the game?

A: Stars! Supernova Genesis evolved over a significant period of time. The early spec work on "Stars! 3", looked nothing like what you see today. It was far closer to original Stars!. The embedded HTML stuff was a natural reaction to our decision to go with a more polished look. As it turns out, it was one of the best decisions we could have made. It gives us an unprecedented level of interconnectiveness between areas of the game. In Stars! 2, when you received a message the Goto button took you to the subject of the message. We, as game designers, had to guess in advance what action was appropriate for each possible message. By shifting to an HTML display of messages in Stars! Supernova Genesis we can now have as many links for each message as we want. The HTML interface we are using allows us to filter the links and handle the ones that ought to make the game do something rather than just be HTML navigation links. In other words, a link can select an object on the map or open the Tech Browser or the Ship Designer or whatever. Every reference to every object that you get in a message is a link to that object. So if you get a message that says that the fleet Foo has bombed the Fungaloid colony Zap then Foo, Fungaloid and Zap are all links. We can also log the HTML messages in your Chronicle so that you have a recorded history of your empire. [i] (bold added by me - Adm.Naismith).
The links stay active as long as the object they refer to still exists. The
embedded HTML mechanism turns out to be, perhaps, the single biggest improvement in playability over Stars! 2.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant
[This message has been edited by Adm.Naismith (edited March 01, 2001).]

CapTVK · March 1, 2001, 15:44

quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger on 02-28-2001 11:34 AM
If endgame export is to be the case, I don't think you'll get Flash or anything else for two reasons: file size and complexity. Flash is good for vector-based animations, but you don't get that in Civ 3. Flash files increase in size very rapidly when you put a lot of bitmapped images in them. You are also asking Firaxis to write a whole section of code just to write out Flash files. That's just too much work for a little bit of extra. Both GIF and MPEG are simpler but they have their own problems. GIF is copyrighted, so Firaxis needs to pay royalty. It allows only 256 colors and is not instrinsicly suitable for compressing Civ map. MPEG generates smaller files, but you lose the details.

Generating a text/HTML file is also bothersome, since around 80% (or even more) of the time units will be just in the wilderness somewhere. Who knows where [1399, 512] is?

[This message has been edited by Urban Ranger (edited February 28, 2001).]

Is the GIF format copyrighted!? I always thought the gif format was patented, not copyrighted. It's just a graphic compression format, how could you get copyright on a compression algorithm? In fact, I think this patent might be reaching the end of its license in a few years. Still, that means some royalties will have to be paid at this moment.

My preference would go to a animated gif map. I used animated maps with succes in "tales from the front-II" myself. And the benefit of a universal graphic format is that you can edit the pictures afterwards, no in-game- only endgame for me please.
For the rest of the info it should just generate a formatted textfile with the years, city founded, demographics etc...With this we can quickly import it stuff into a spreadsheet and do our own evaluation.
[This message has been edited by CapTVK (edited March 01, 2001).]

Urban Ranger · March 1, 2001, 22:29

DUH! You're right.

I was going to fix it too, but you beat me to it.

Anyway, yes. GIF is patented. Commercial users must pay royalties to Unisys. Burn All GIFs website.

Urban Ranger · March 1, 2001, 22:40

Markos, Admiral,

Okay. I see that a summary of major events is doable, and so is a map showing influences and such a la Civ. In such a case I reckon using HTML would be the best way to go, since it has a limited - very limited - ability for page layouts, has hyperlinks (duh!

) for maps and stuff, and is universally available for free.