Play Videos in Warcraft: mp4 to w3x converter

[Crigges]

What does this tool?

The tool takes some mp4 file and convert's it into a map. So if you start the map you can watch the movie ingame.
The ingame resolution is 96*48 with full color depth.

How to use?

Just download the tool below and select a mp4 file you want to convert. Now select a save location and press convert.

Other stuff:

-You need java to run the converter and at least 1GB Ram
-To long videos can crash wc3 because the mapscript is to heavy
-If there is no conversion process or it stops before end the mp4 file is damaged
-The conversion process can take even on good computers a few minutes
-Don't start wc3 with -opengl, if you do you won't see anything
-Use the arrowkeys to position the cammera, don't move the cam to low, otherwise everything gets black.

Demo Video:

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Download

 

[Rheiko]

so.. is this like Warcraft 3 movie cutscenes?

 

[Crigges]

Ofc not, the wc3 cutscenes can't be displayed ingame. Also the quality of the cutscenes is much butter, but one cutscrene takes over 100MB and uses a good codec.
With my tool you can create movies up to 2 min under 8MB.

 

[bhusta]

This might be the most useful tool for warcraft

 

[Crigges]

@bhusta i will embed the video if that is not problem for you.

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Maybe i will convert your video to w3x xD

 

[GhostWolf]

Completely useless, yet extremely cool.

 

[muzzel]

This wasnt intended to be useful, i guess. But yea its cool.

 

[Adiktuz]

I wonder what use can I find for it... it doesn't seem to be so much useful if the video becomes a map in itself... it would be better if someone can make a tool that will actually allow you to play a movie inside a map...

 

[Crigges]

I wonder what use can I find for it... it doesn't seem to be so much useful if the video becomes a map in itself... it would be better if someone can make a tool that will actually allow you to play a movie inside a map...

Well the main problem is, most parsers can't handle this realy big generated jass files, so i injected the mapscript directly. But i plan a version where you can generate a wurst package which got some simple api.

Overall this is not intended to be useful, as muzzel already said

 

[PurgeandFire]

Haha, that is just awesome. I love that bhusta chose powerpuff girls of all things as well. Neat!

 

[Dr Super Good]

Someone beat you to it long long ago. I remember back on WC3Search hearing people who encoded a music video into a WC3 map. Sure it was not as high quality as yours but it was certainly a lot smaller.

 

[PurgeandFire]

Someone beat you to it long long ago. I remember back on WC3Search hearing people who encoded a music video into a WC3 map. Sure it was not as high quality as yours but it was certainly a lot smaller.

I'm guessing you're referring to the bad apple - wc3 make?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lffyYhxzFBk

Although, it wasn't a system. Plus, this one supports color (according to bhusta's video).

 

[bhusta]

Haha, that is just awesome. I love that bhusta chose powerpuff girls of all things as well. Neat!

I choose them because their art style is very simple and there isn't much movement in the background
The quality drop is immense and there is no sound yet, but Crigges said that he will improve this little project if he has time.

 

[Crigges]

Someone beat you to it long long ago. I remember back on WC3Search hearing people who encoded a music video into a WC3 map. Sure it was not as high quality as yours but it was certainly a lot smaller.

Not so fast. First of all the bad apple map was just desinged for bad apple, this means just 2 colors instead of 16.581.375. So ofc the mapscript is smaller.

My tool also uses a kind of codec, so if you convert a 10h video which just got white frames the map will be pretty small. The filesize depends realy hard on the movie, not just the length matters.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Not so fast. First of all the bad apple map was just desinged for bad apple, this means just 2 colors instead of 16.581.375. So ofc the mapscript is smaller.

My tool also uses a kind of codec, so if you convert a 10h video which just got white frames the map will be pretty small. The filesize depends realy hard on the movie, not just the length matters.

Which is what we expect over 7 years later...

 

[Ralle]

Haha that is so cool!

 

[bhusta]

If this converter would just create code and there would be an importable system, it wouldn't be as "useless" as it seems to be in its current state.

For example anime maps could have some kind of video at the beginning of a game whereby pre-load systems are running.

 

[Statharas]

I'll ask a stupid question. Are you using planes with teamcolor?

 

[Crigges]

So teamcolors would mean 16 different colors, but i got 16581375.

I use images with a size of 128*128, so the borderglitch will just appear on the top and on the right side, so i can create a raster with the size 96*48 (4300 images / pixels). This images i recolor on each frame.

 

[Statharas]

You could reduce the fps and increase the resolution, imo.

 

[Crigges]

You could reduce the fps and increase the resolution, imo.

Well this is not so easy...

More resolution would mean a bigger filesize and even atm the filesize is pretty big.

But even if we ignore the filesize for the moment. Increasing the pixel amount is not so easy. The map got a size of 256*256 and the cammera distance is 10000. If zoom out even farther everything gets black.

An other possibilty is to create smaller pixels for example 64*64. But this is also a problem because the Borderglitch would appear now in each direction.

So why i don't use a transparent border, to prevent the borderglitch? Images with a alpha channel are slower than images without.

As you can see this is not as easy as it looks. But muzzel told me some cool way, and iam sure it will work.

Iam also looking for some better way/place to store the huge frame data. The mapscript is a realy bad place for this.