=================================================================================== Making Movies in Ulead Videostudio with multipass Divx encoding, By Jason Otto 9/30/2004 =================================================================================== Starting Babble: Small movie clips are really cool, people love trying to edit together a video briefing or a preview clip for thier missions. One of the ways of doing this is with video editing software and Divx encoding. The original Thief movies were encoded using Indeo, however Divx provides better quality videos through the use of multipass encoding. =================================================================================== What is Divx? Divx is a hacked version of the MPEG4 codec that allows for DVD quality video at much smaller sizes than other encoding methods. A Divx file can produce DVD quality video at 1/10 the size of a MPEG1/2 file. For more information on the codec visit http://www.divx.com =================================================================================== Step One: Video layout is not something that is easy to explain. The simplest movies are a series of still frame images set to music. To this end gather up a collection of screenshots from your project that you wish to use. Images can be edited using a paint program such as Paint Shop Pro. It may also be useful to produce title cards and credit cards in paint shop as images. Try to keep the text large so that it is readable if the video is compressed. =================================================================================== Step Two: Find a soundtrack file. Thief had several good sound tracks in its movies that can be found by searching the internet, any music file in MP3 form also can be used. =================================================================================== Step Three: Open ULead Videostudio and start a new project, the type doesn't matter because we will be saving using the custom option. In the storyboard view you can insert images previously collected. In the top right portion of the program is a box that can be used to browse for useable media, browse for images. Drop the images into the storyboard in the order you would like to see them in the video. =================================================================================== Step Four: Switching to Overlay shows the video tracks and audio tracks side by side. In this view it is easy to add the audio track to the storyboard. =================================================================================== Step Five: Switching back to storyboard its time to add transitions between the images. The default collection of Effects include your basic wipes, fades and F/X style transitions. Select a transition and drop it between two images in the storyboard, this effect will transition the two images. When transitions have been selected for all the shots you can preview the result in the window above. The default collection lacks two of the best transition effects, crossfade and fade to black, both can be found for free on the internet with a search. =================================================================================== Step Six: Switching back to Overlay its time to adjust the duration of each shot. Select an image in the layout, in the top left part of the screen is a timer, this can be used to define how long the image will be displayed. Some transition effects can effect the time, so the image may need to be set to a longer time. Adjust each images time setting until the images and soundtrack are about the same length. Its useful at this point to have a concluding title card. This is because such a card can be stretched to take up excess time at the end of the video. That is, if all the images and transitions take 50 seconds and the soundtrack is 60 seconds the title card can be displayed at the end for 10 seconds. This is actually a common trick employed by Hollywood in producing motion picture trailers. =================================================================================== Step Seven: After a lot of tweaking the video should be completed. By no means assume that the above instructions can relate the artisitic element that goes into this project. Its now time to encode the video. Select Finish and save the project, then select Finish and select Create Video File, select custom from the options. The custom video will be an AVI file, give it a title and selection options. =================================================================================== Step Eight: Under options there are a lot of things to do. The settings for most Thief movies are 640x480 resolution, 24 bit color, 22050 8 bit stereo sound (though 22050 4 bit mono is just as good) IMA ADPCM sound, 15 frames per second with a key frame every 15 frames. There may be other settings, but they seem to do little in terms of file quality. Under Advanced Options the target drive play back speed, data check speed can be used, recompress can be used and interleave audio and video can be used. It may be helpful to pack audio data to every 1 frame. What really matters is the Divx options. Select Divx from the list of available encoders (if Divx is not available you really should get it now) then press the configure button, this opens the Divx options. =================================================================================== Step Nine: There are a lot of options under Divx, its really best to use the default settings. Set performance/quality to standard, and choose multipass, 1st pass under variable bit rate encoding. At the bottom check log file if it isn't already selected and mvfile. Encode the first pass. The file produced IS NOT A VIDEO, its a temporary file. Give the movie a new name and return to the Divx options, change the variable bitrate encoding to multipass nth pass leaving performance/quality on standard and save again. This is a video. Repeat this process as many times as you wish choosing a new file name each time. The process should produce better quality videos each time. On the last pass change the performance/quality selection to slow or slowest and save the video. Realistically the video quality doesn't get significantly better after the second pass and a total of two pre passes and one final pass are sufficient. =================================================================================== Result: The process of multipass encoding saves information each time that is used to improve the quality of the next pass. The resulting file should be small. A 60 second video at 640x480 resolution can be made as small as 4megs with this method. =================================================================================== Application: This method of video making can make reasonable quality videos for use as Thief briefings while keeping the file size small enough to not bloat the mission by distributing them with the file. It is common for missions with briefings such as Calendra's Legacy to distribute the mission and briefing videos separately from each other to save on bandwidth and cut down on download times. =================================================================================== Other Issues: If the player does not have a Divx codec installed they will not be able to view the video file. It is useful to included notes about this fact in the mission readme file along with a URL to the Divx homepage, http://www.divx.com Over time experiments in video filters can yield nifty effects, the included suite of filters can cause light effects, and distortions of all types. Filters are available to zoom in and out on a shot while rotating the image, just like in the original Thief movies. Such filters can be found using an internet search.