4 replies to this topic

[Arkain]

Hi.

Some of the high level spells force the player to watch cutscenes everytime he uses them. While spells like Mechanus' Cannon allow the player to click the cutscenes away others (well, at least Deathbolt and Celestial Host) don't. I understand that it's most likely to stress how powerful and whatnot high level spells are and maybe it's just me but I always found it quite annoying that I, as a player, have to watch a cutscene I already know in and out everytime I cast a spell. So what I'm asking for is if it's somehow possible to make these videos either "clickable" (which is interestingly possible for the *last* Celestial Host part - at least on my installation) so that it won't "waste" so much time or if it's possible to simply... disable them.  Of course it would be mostly a convenience tweak.

Edited by Arkain, 28 June 2008 - 12:13 PM.

[Qwinn]

It's a good idea, I'll look into it.

I personally love the spell movies (the one for Celestial Host is awesome), but if you cast them a lot I can see them getting very annoying.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Well, I looked into it, and there's a few strange things going on.

Not all of the movie effects - including some that are clearly movies - are in fact normal movies. They don't appear as MVE files in Near Infinity.

For example, the only piece of the four short movies that you get when you cast Celestial Host is the last bit, the dragon part. That part you can click off. Mechanus Cannon is a normal movie too. Any of the movies that are in fact normal MVE files, you can click off.

But the others, the ones that aren't normal, you can't. That includes Deathbolt, and the first 3 parts of the Celestial Host movie. I can't find how they're actually being made to run, except that it looks like the game engine - the executable torment.exe - is what's doing it.

What this annoyingly means is - the ones that don't need changing, I could change and work with if I needed to. The ones that need changing, I can't. Nothing I can do, I'm afraid.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 28 June 2008 - 08:35 PM.

[Arkain]

Yeah, the movies are great. But it's like you said... annoying after the nth casting.

Well... that's unfortunate. So it's quite unlikely that one could change anything about it, eh? Well, maybe by changing the torment.exe it self or something... but that would be a little over the top. Makes one wonder why the developers made it this way. Gnah.

[Qwinn]

Wait, hold on. Maybe there's something.

I finally figured out where these effects are - and actually, turns out that some parts which -really- look like movies AREN'T actual movies. They're a whole bunch of .BAMs overlaid on top of one another.

For example - those first 3 parts of Celestial Host are an amalgamation of all the S091*.BAMs. Only the very last part is a real movie (the dragon one).

You can't even consistently view these .BAMs in Near Infinity. Most times, it tells me the .BAM is corrupted. One time I was able to view them in Near Infinity to confirm what they were, but I haven't been able to duplicate that.

These .BAM's -are- being directly called up by the torment.exe, and I tried to hex edit it to not call them up, but that just causes crashes. So, the other possibility is to replace those .BAMs with smaller ones that are only a single frame. That might make it quicker, but it's probably going to make for some odd looking effects too. And I have no clue how to edit .BAM's, so it's going to have to be something I can do with existing .BAM's.

Either way, I don't think there's any way to make them "clickable". Any such mod would basically have to shorten the spell effects consistently, by replacing the graphics altogether.

I'll keep this idea in mind, but don't expect anything regarding this to come out anytime soon. If someone else wants to jump in and make this a pet project of their own, please do.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 29 June 2008 - 12:21 AM.