Possible Reforged campaign menu screen restoration [need help]

[Darkcranio]

So I discovered in reforge the campaign screens are stored in .webm formats, I already tried to change them and it works, a custom video can be played in the menus. Can somebody record an HD version of the original campaign screens without the UI? I think the OG is realtime rendered, so if someone with a software could capture the original screen without UI it could be modded in to Reforged.
In widescreen format. I could record it but I need to hide the UI somehow.

 

[Homor]

I've seen the Warmash guy already did this. Of course, when he did it, he was being petty and making a point about how it "wouldn't fix anything" iirc. The fact that we have people who genuinely want it kind of shows his point was wrong.

In fairness, even though it might look the same, it's still the stupid and buggy Chromium code they jury-rigged into the engine, and so it doesn't work as well as the in-engine menus from 2002.

 

[Darkcranio]

I've seen the Warmash guy already did this. Of course, when he did it, he was being petty and making a point about how it "wouldn't fix anything" iirc. The fact that we have people who genuinely want it kind of shows his point was wrong.

In fairness, even though it might look the same, it's still the stupid and buggy Chromium code they jury-rigged into the engine, and so it doesn't work as well as the in-engine menus from 2002.

I tried with other random videos it doest seem to worsen quality i just have to make to record it in 4k. In the while I found how to do it, gonna post soon with the tutorial I've found.
One thing I have to still figure out if it's possible with audio, cause reforge seems to mute the audio of the video.

 

[Footman16]

I tried with other random videos it doest seem to worsen quality i just have to make to record it in 4k. In the while I found how to do it, gonna post soon with the tutorial I've found.
One thing I have to still figure out if it's possible with audio, cause reforge seems to mute the audio of the video.

The original campaign screens are just models with a camera, so if you opened them up in RMS or maybe another modelling software, played it's animation and recorded that, that would probably achieve what you're looking for.

 

[Darkcranio]

The original campaign screens are just models with a camera, so if you opened them up in RMS or maybe another modelling software, played it's animation and recorded that, that would probably achieve what you're looking for.

It's not that simple, if I wouldn't have tried that I wouldn't have written here. I can open the MDX but some files/effects arre always missing, most is there but never the same as in game. Human campaign the light shaft, Frozen throne chilly wind effect etc.

 

[Retera]

most is there but never the same as in game.

This was true, but I am the author of Retera Model Studio. I like to believe I can do anything.

I happened to see this thread Friday night and I've been busy with other stuff irl but I tried to modify Warsmash so that it would incorporate the missing elements and more closely match the original game as far as I know. In particular, the only missing element I was aware of in my ability to render these files outside the official game was the Fog Filter, so I programmed in a Fog Filter. Then I played with screen recording software. And I did all of this on Linux rather than going back to Windows, so that I could be a rebel.

Now, if you really wanted to screen record these old menus in the easiest way, which I have done before as @Homor mentioned (I am the "the Warsmash guy") the easiest way to do these screen records on Windows that I know of is by using a setup I created but don't particularly want to share with folks, I guess. Essentially @StormKnight asked me for a technology to turn any custom campaign 3D background into a webm for this same reason as the issues you guys are facing, so I hacked up some old War3 install (probably a Patch 1.29 spinoff) so that the only thing the war3 install did was launch to a menu with an icon for each campaign, and when we click the campaign icon it launches to the menu background of that campaign from the Campaign menu but with all the buttons deleted off the screen. And, it probably also could load custom campaigns.

So that tech would be a near perfect way to get a 1 to 1 recording of these backgrounds, but I forget where I put it, and if I go into my backups and locate it still I guess I'm not sure that I want to be the one responsible for it and sharing it. I think I might've made @StormKnight agree not to say he got it from me at the time. Basically, I don't want to be a distributor of Warcraft 3 game installation files, because I want to be a distributor of the source code of Warsmash and one of the ways to be legally in the clear about being a distributor of the source code of Warsmash (as far as I know) is to be clear about the fact that I am not a distributor of the Warcraft 3 game.

With all that as it is, I spent my spare time earlier this weekend trying to see if I could help you in my own way that entertains me instead of digging up that modified 1.29 client that StormKnight might have, which would be the way that helps you the most in the way that you want most likely. For myself, I patched Warsmash and made its out-of-game render look even more like the original game.

I recorded Friday night a 1 hour video that talks about the evolution of my out-of-game rendering technology and how I can almost render this stuff without the game. Below is a sample of my out-of-game program rendering a few seconds of the Frozen Throne menu on a 4K display with the sides cut off to honor the original 4:3 resolution design:

But because I'm on a linux computer doing my own renders with the Warsmash program, not on Windows, and not using the Blizzard Entertainment warcraft 3 code, I have full control over the render to do anything I want with it. So, for example, I can render the same in 4K with the black side bars removed:

This creates the question: would we want the same visual with the sidebars removed? You can see where the water on the right hand side cuts off, and you can see that the two icebergs on the left are copies of each other and cut off past the 4:3 resolution.

Also, I am not a wizard. I do not know everything. I recorded these videos using OBS saving to mp4 or mov files, then used ffmpeg to convert the mov files to webm. This is not a lossless conversion. So although I am recording at 4K resolution with a custom program, I am not entirely capturing in a lossless way the full and exact output of that program. It might be that you don't care, or it might be that you want a more perfect (and probably much larger and slower to download) background video. I am using a weird Linux variant that cannot run Wine because it fights against proprietary software, such as Windows. This Linux variant also does not have as good of drivers for my graphics card. From what I could tell, trying to use a program like OBS to do a screen capture in a lossless way created lagged frames in the video and generally made things worse. To be truly lossless, I would need to change my OpenGL program that renders this visualization to render much slower than 60 fps probably, and render out to a video file of some sort, which would in theory create a perfect render that was perfectly lossless. Because the program creating these visualizations is not Warcraft 3, I have the access to make those changes. However, they might exceed my attention span.

Speaking of things exceeding my attention span, originally I had in mind that before I replied here I could probably prepare screen recordings of all RoC and TFT campaign backgrounds as 4K webm files, and maybe a second copy with those black bars inserted to make the video look 4:3. But I did not create those yet. It occurs to me that it might save me time to ask which one is preferable to you -- or if you would want visualizations produced by an independent program at all (rather than the game itself).

What resolution(s) would you want? 1080p? 4K?
Do you want black bars?


Edit: another short sample, trying to prove to you that out of game render can work (although for production I would make & convert longer renders than these):

Edit: I noticed that in the above render versus a picture that I found on the internet, the Z order decisions about blend mode components appeared to be incorrect in my render versus the original game. I found that with a trivial code change, I could modify the center-right palm leaves so that the Vines (Cliffside) doodad equivalent thing did not write over them visually and show on top in an insane illogical way.

 

[Darkcranio]

This was true, but I am the author of Retera Model Studio. I like to believe I can do anything.

I happened to see this thread Friday night and I've been busy with other stuff irl but I tried to modify Warsmash so that it would incorporate the missing elements and more closely match the original game as far as I know. In particular, the only missing element I was aware of in my ability to render these files outside the official game was the Fog Filter, so I programmed in a Fog Filter. Then I played with screen recording software. And I did all of this on Linux rather than going back to Windows, so that I could be a rebel.

Now, if you really wanted to screen record these old menus in the easiest way, which I have done before as @Homor mentioned (I am the "the Warsmash guy") the easiest way to do these screen records on Windows that I know of is by using a setup I created but don't particularly want to share with folks, I guess. Essentially @StormKnight asked me for a technology to turn any custom campaign 3D background into a webm for this same reason as the issues you guys are facing, so I hacked up some old War3 install (probably a Patch 1.29 spinoff) so that the only thing the war3 install did was launch to a menu with an icon for each campaign, and when we click the campaign icon it launches to the menu background of that campaign from the Campaign menu but with all the buttons deleted off the screen. And, it probably also could load custom campaigns.

So that tech would be a near perfect way to get a 1 to 1 recording of these backgrounds, but I forget where I put it, and if I go into my backups and locate it still I guess I'm not sure that I want to be the one responsible for it and sharing it. I think I might've made @StormKnight agree not to say he got it from me at the time. Basically, I don't want to be a distributor of Warcraft 3 game installation files, because I want to be a distributor of the source code of Warsmash and one of the ways to be legally in the clear about being a distributor of the source code of Warsmash (as far as I know) is to be clear about the fact that I am not a distributor of the Warcraft 3 game.

With all that as it is, I spent my spare time earlier this weekend trying to see if I could help you in my own way that entertains me instead of digging up that modified 1.29 client that StormKnight might have, which would be the way that helps you the most in the way that you want most likely. For myself, I patched Warsmash and made its out-of-game render look even more like the original game.

I recorded Friday night a 1 hour video that talks about the evolution of my out-of-game rendering technology and how I can almost render this stuff without the game. Below is a sample of my out-of-game program rendering a few seconds of the Frozen Throne menu on a 4K display with the sides cut off to honor the original 4:3 resolution design:

View attachment 467256

But because I'm on a linux computer doing my own renders with the Warsmash program, not on Windows, and not using the Blizzard Entertainment warcraft 3 code, I have full control over the render to do anything I want with it. So, for example, I can render the same in 4K with the black side bars removed:


View attachment 467259

This creates the question: would we want the same visual with the sidebars removed? You can see where the water on the right hand side cuts off, and you can see that the two icebergs on the left are copies of each other and cut off past the 4:3 resolution.

Also, I am not a wizard. I do not know everything. I recorded these videos using OBS saving to mp4 or mov files, then used ffmpeg to convert the mov files to webm. This is not a lossless conversion. So although I am recording at 4K resolution with a custom program, I am not entirely capturing in a lossless way the full and exact output of that program. It might be that you don't care, or it might be that you want a more perfect (and probably much larger and slower to download) background video. I am using a weird Linux variant that cannot run Wine because it fights against proprietary software, such as Windows. This Linux variant also does not have as good of drivers for my graphics card. From what I could tell, trying to use a program like OBS to do a screen capture in a lossless way created lagged frames in the video and generally made things worse. To be truly lossless, I would need to change my OpenGL program that renders this visualization to render much slower than 60 fps probably, and render out to a video file of some sort, which would in theory create a perfect render that was perfectly lossless. Because the program creating these visualizations is not Warcraft 3, I have the access to make those changes. However, they might exceed my attention span.

Speaking of things exceeding my attention span, originally I had in mind that before I replied here I could probably prepare screen recordings of all RoC and TFT campaign backgrounds as 4K webm files, and maybe a second copy with those black bars inserted to make the video look 4:3. But I did not create those yet. It occurs to me that it might save me time to ask which one is preferable to you -- or if you would want visualizations produced by an independent program at all (rather than the game itself).

What resolution(s) would you want? 1080p? 4K?
Do you want black bars?


Edit: another short sample, trying to prove to you that out of game render can work (although for production I would make & convert longer renders than these):


View attachment 467263

Edit: I noticed that in the above render versus a picture that I found on the internet, the Z order decisions about blend mode components appeared to be incorrect in my render versus the original game. I found that with a trivial code change, I could modify the center-right palm leaves so that the Vines (Cliffside) doodad equivalent thing did not write over them visually and show on top in an insane illogical way.

View attachment 467330

I am kinda stuck in make the UI dissappear so I'd very much appreaciate it to have them 4k without black bars. Basically I'd want them in 4k 16:9 (cause there is a widescreen mod up in Hive) without any black borders just like the samples you sent.
I think the graphics cutting off is not THAT noticeable, especially if you don't look for it. Also some of the UI elements will draw your focus off them. So I don't mind the cutting off graphics. Unless you are really bored and want to re-do them for 16:9 but I would not ask such thing on my own. A 4k 16:9 video of all the screens would do it with sound effects and without music.

 

[Bitterman]

if its possible to restore, i suggest using something like blender or Maya for it
And re-render the entire menu screen over its entire duration until it loops again.

Also, replace the footman with the one from iroquin's model instead of reforged, he decided to put that footman model on cgtrader.

 

[Darkcranio]

Well you can put a video in, and the sound is handled seperately in an audio file. So it's possible to do what you said, question is who is talented enough but also wants do it. Then record a video of the finished product and can be put right in. I mean other than polygons the old ones are really well put together with all the different fog and light effects.
Easier first to have just a recording of the old ones in 16:9, then if somebody willing to do extra, it's possible to put that in.

 

[Mint Blancmanche]

or you can let it go and make your own menu lol.
I'm waiting for someone to rip the bd to make a higher quality webm. this one was taken from youtube...
also changed the background sound to a loop of coins raining :S

 

[Retera]

make your own menu

I'm confused. Which is more of a parody of the state of the game, you making Reforged into a fiery inferno that's raining money or the fact that I am the only person who seems to be sitting on the technology to make solid video recordings of the original menus?

Although, for what it's worth, when I look at this video from 2021 years ago where I created basically the same thing requested here in this thread, but as a parody to use in YouTube videos and to link to people to say, "This fixes nothing," I notice that the lighting on the spire does not appear to exactly match my Linux-rendered version. Also, I left on a trip recently that has me away from my 4K PC where I was going to render these, so I haven't gotten around to rendering the full videos to post in this thread.

 

[Mint Blancmanche]

I'm confused. Which is more of a parody of the state of the game, you making Reforged into a fiery inferno that's raining money or the fact that I am the only person who seems to be sitting on the technology to make solid video recordings of the original menus?

Although, for what it's worth, when I look at this video from 2021 years ago where I created basically the same thing requested here in this thread, but as a parody to use in YouTube videos and to link to people to say, "This fixes nothing," I notice that the lighting on the spire does not appear to exactly match my Linux-rendered version. Also, I left on a trip recently that has me away from my 4K PC where I was going to render these, so I haven't gotten around to rendering the full videos to post in this thread.

4k or not, the original menu is still old. it will still look SD. I liked the frozen throne menu, but would not use it now.

 

[Darkcranio]

I'm confused. Which is more of a parody of the state of the game, you making Reforged into a fiery inferno that's raining money or the fact that I am the only person who seems to be sitting on the technology to make solid video recordings of the original menus?

Although, for what it's worth, when I look at this video from 2021 years ago where I created basically the same thing requested here in this thread, but as a parody to use in YouTube videos and to link to people to say, "This fixes nothing," I notice that the lighting on the spire does not appear to exactly match my Linux-rendered version. Also, I left on a trip recently that has me away from my 4K PC where I was going to render these, so I haven't gotten around to rendering the full videos to post in this thread.

In the while I managed to make the UI dissapear. So I'm almost ready with the 4k recordings. I wanted to reply so you don't start to work on it, UNLESS you can make the models reach to 16:9 lenghts by modifying them e.g make the water reach to the end of the screen. If you don't want to spend time on that I get it. But I have the recordings from the OG now, thanks though.

 

[Retera]

Hi guys, this morning I was compiling renders for this topic because I caught a break back at my big PC (been on a trip for like a month) and while it was doing the conversions to webm locally I found myself doing an internet search, and one thing led to another, I encountered the following image on wowpedia:

This appears to be a "night mode" Frozen Throne menu screen. Is this a picture from blizzard in-house or is this an asset that Warcraft 3 community has available for modding? Was just curious. I'm not sure I had ever seen this before, or if I had, I had forgotten. Thought it might be a fun alternate webm that I could upload if we find the files

 

[Mint Blancmanche]

...

 

[Retera]

Hey guys, today I played with some geometric edits to try to make the edges of the screen appear less broken when doing a 16:9 display, such as in above video. But most screens need this touchup, and i only had time to play with the Frozen Throne and with the Night Elf Expansion menu a little (didn't finish) before I got pulled away/busy with IRL.

But that's only if you want to wait for me to tinker and make custom art around the edges. if you're OK with just the originals being extended outward using their original geometry disregarding how bad it looks, I created webms for those like we said above but the zip of all the webms is 600 MB. I'm trying to see if I can make a pastebin out of that. I might edit this post with a link when it finishes uploading.

Also, it's not possible to chop off the videos exactly where the model's animation loops, because the GlobalSequences play many animations in parallel that are of differing lengths, so different visual things are happening in different places in the model and it's not a simple loop.