OrenVideo is Online

Hi all

i'm still kicking and coding...
last few months i worked on my videos solution:
* create online site.
* code and make it robust.
* add documentation.
* test it with real application/games.
etc

and now its ready to by shipped, the site is ONLINE!

spread the word: now you have alternative and can use videos in your game/application without emptying your pocket!
please check out: http://www.orenvid.com

thanks.

My Video Solution Used By Super Splatter!

Hi all

long time i didn't update, same old song, busy busy and no time to update...
anyway, remember the last posts about video solutions etc, pricing and stuff? well guess what?
my own video solution is out and used by the game "super splatters" which is cross platform pc/mac/linux game, and a really cool one!

some background info, these guys used to use other cross platform video solution, and they was happy with the results, until one day i came and say, hey wana check other solution, with better performance and less $?
they said, it can't be, you can't make something better than what we already use now.
i told them try and you will see.
so they did, and they never went back :)

btw: this game is very nice and cool, using in-house physics engine, really cool effects and next gen ui system uses lots of videos (smaller/bigger you name it), you can read more about it here: super splatters

few words regarding my video solution:
name: OrenVideo
platforms: pc/mac/linux/android
speed: lighting fast, super splatters team checked it against top of the line solution and mine was better.
memory: less or equal to anything you know or used.
integrations: easy as hello word app ;P

soon enough i will be ready to launch my video solution site, meanwhile if you have any questions related, feel free to ask here...
cya

Fair Price For Cross Platform Video Solution?

Hi all

since my last post i'm working full power on publishing cross platform video solution.
first stage it will be:
1. pc
2. linux
3. mac
second stage will depend on sells so eventually i will add top consoles:
1. xbox 360 (future 720)
2. ps3
more platforms will be added based on customers requirements...

now for the important stuff: Pricing

from my last post you already know that it a pain in the butt to create such a solution and at the same time making it fast enough to run multiple hd videos at 30 fps game...

i'v added a poll at the top left corner so i could know what do you think:
YOUR VOTE COUNTS!
believe it or not, but your vote will have a HUGE influence on the price.
pool keywords:
indie = independence/independent
comm = commercial

so... if you have friends, colleague or people who might consider buying such a solution, get them here to vote...

thanks and cya.

Generic Video Solution for Games

Hi all

this time i will talk about the video in your game..
well, first i will say that this issue was back in my head for long time, but recently, after i talked with my friend who has to buy video solution for their game, it popped to my head again...
why is it so complicated to make video solution for games?
my friend answer was, if you are going to make a cross platform game, want real-time speed, alpha channel support then you don't have any alternatives but to buy bink.

for these who don't now, bink is a cross platform video solution developed by rad game tools, its fast and easy to use and the quality isn't so bad either.
so what's the problem you ask? well, the price! its too expensive, 8500$ per platform per game, yes yes you read this right.

so for example, if you are a small indie developer and you are going to make a windows and xbox360 game, you will have to pay 17,000$, that's a lot of money for indie! hell, its a lot of money period!.

besides, most of the games will need to play video only at the beginning of the game, for example, some game story video, hardware video (nvidia, havok, amd) etc.. and for that its a real pain that you need to pay that kind of money.

anyway, what else you can do? well, you can create you own video solution for both xbox360 and windows.
for windows: use windows vfw lib
for xbox360, use xmedia lib

but this will take time, and you will have to design some nice lib to have same functions in both windows and xbox360 for the same/different features you have in each platform, and that's if you have 2 platform, it gets really dirty for more.

in my experience, if you need to create your own video solution for the ps3, you are unlucky, in the past i created video solution for an in-game ads company, and i used libsail that comes with sony sdk to support video playing on the ps3, let me tell you that in one word: nightmare!

lets say you want to play videos without sounds, lets say for explosions, menus etc... and the sound comes from your sound system (that you already licensed) triggered sounds when needed.
well, you don't have any kind of solution for this one too... same problem as i said above.

so it turns out that you don't really have any generic video solution for you game, that doesn't rip your wallet...

so why don't we have anything other than bink for games you ask? well i can't really answer this question, as i'm asking it myself for some time.
i turn out that even if you think you have what it takes to write something like bink, it is very difficult to do that, thats because its not so easy, and there is a lot of patents around video/audio compression that you need to carefully walk around so you won't land on a mine.

so maybe you ask yourself, what all these words, i already know that, so don't walk on my wounds...

what if tell you that there is an alternative!
maybe not so complete unit as bink (not supporting all the platforms etc), but will support:
* popular platforms and will add new ones in time.
* alpha channel in videos
* real-time speed
* good compression ratio.

and the crazy thing about it, it won't cost 8500$ per platform per game!

so the real question is:
will you be interesting in such solution?
if so, please write a comment to this post and i appreciate if you could write what features you want in such solution, how much do you think it worth paying for etc..

thanks and stay tuned, cya

Flying Camera

hi
quick update...
this time i added support for flying camera, or spline paths.
what this means, is that i can place path nodes inside the editor, and make the camera follow it.
the reason i add this 'not so important feature' is that i wanted a way to capture videos and not capture me walking inside the scene, so every time i change something i could use the same path and see the new look with the same angles/pos etc...
anyway, here is a video showing flying camera in my scene, enjoy!

Another Bokeh Technique - RM Video

Hi all, just created a quick video of the new vs technique, compare it with the quality of the ps technique from the previous posts and see how good it is, as for the numbers, check out my comment from the prev pos, enjoy:

Another Bokeh Technique

hi all

last post i talked about bokeh effect done inside pixel shader using special bokeh kernel, this time i will talk about more generic technique for doing bokeh.
first lets talk about whats wasn't good in the pixel shader technique.
in my engine i say i have film dof effect, what this means is that i can set almost any size of kernel per pixel! this means i'm not suffering from depth difference and stuff like that.
i can set one pixel to be blurred by radius 5, and the next pixel beside by radius 100, without any artifacts... (as long i will not get crazy with kernel radius)

anyway, because the ps technique is some kind of blur technique, if i will inject it to my engine on top of my dof, it will 'erase' my 'perfect' blur technique, because it is a blur, but not smarter than what i already have.

so if you don't have any dof/blur solution yet, it will probably be good for you, if you have some kind of smart blur, it probably wont.

so is there any thing we can do to add bokeh effect without dx10,11?
yes there is...
on the last post i said few words about a technique to generate bokeh using vertex shader, here i will write some detail about it and show some images from the engine.

this new technique uses the vertex shader to generate bokeh sprites/billboards, the steps to do this is:
* create big vertex shader containing 4 vertices per pixel!, yes you are reading it correct, 4 vertices per pixel...
* inside vs, you generate the quad vertices based on some math, this math will actually use some circle of confusion values and your current image, so you can set bokeh color and size.
* inside ps, you just sample your bokeh texture, can be any shape you like, and use the color you output from the vs, to set its intensity etc.

technique pros:
* very easy to do
* support any bokeh shape
* dx9 hardware (shader model 3)
* work hand by hand with any dof/blur technique
* very fast

technique cons:
* takes lots of vertex memory (depends on your size)
* vertex shader heavy (basically not a problem as we are more ps heave than vs)
* can be slow if you won't filter them in a good way, you don't want to generate bokeh for every pixel in the screen, this can be nasty! i got blur screen on win 7 ;)

here is few screenshots (not compressed) from the engine that's shows it in action, you could also see the film dof effect with very large coc to enhanced the effect (kernel radius of 80 for far pixels)

orignal image (no dof, no bokeh)

film dof (no bokeh)

pentagonal bokeh

hexagonal bokeh

circle bokeh

star bokeh

that's it, very simple and very fast! cya until next time...