Packing AVI/MPG videos into EXE

[InCreator]

Question:
These AVI/FLI/FLC videos. They're not packed into any VOX or EXE file, right? (since AGS started to have a new version weekly, I've kinda lost the track what's implemented and what's not). Anyway, if videos are not packed-

Suggestion:
They could be packed into something. To ease video/ (-less) game distribution and other thing is that in a game where some cutscenes play as AVI video, it could spoil the fun, because players could check out all the cutscenes to get a hint what to do next. And for adventure games, which usually have low replay value, It's not very great thing.

[scotch]

FLC is packed into the exe, but the other video formats are not, they are put as seperate files in the compiled folder.. you can name them whatever you like, like video.dat to make it less obvious they are video files, but some way of packing them would be nice so people can't view them before they get to the right place in the game.

[Pumaman]

Because AGS uses Media Player to play videos, and MP does not support packing videos inside a data file, AGS cannot do it either, unfortunately. If you look at a lot of commercial games, you'll see they have their videos seperately in their game folders.

I'll move this to the tech archive in due course because it is asked regularly.

[Timosity]

just as another trick, you could make it a hidden file, but that also depends on the windows personal settings, ie whether they are set to 'show all files' or 'do not show hidden or system files'

the files will still be there but less chance of people noticing they are.

[Robert Eric]

Chris, maybe you could have AGS pack them when compiled, but UNPACKAGE them when the game plays as temporaries in the folder to be used by the game.  Then, when the game quits, it could delete them.

[Pumaman]

That would be possible, but because movies tend to be large it would also be rather slow so it's probably not practical. Good idea though.

[Dorcan]

And what if AGS juste changes the first few bits of the movie's data, so that MP can't read it, but when the movie must be played in the game, AGS would just have to replace the altered data by the original one...

[Scorpiorus]

And what if AGS juste changes the first few bits of the movie's data, so that MP can't read it, but when the movie must be played in the game, AGS would just have to replace the altered data by the original one...

...or just provide us with the FileWriteRawChar() function

[Pumaman]

Interesting idea, but the practicalities could get complicated. I'll have a think though, it could be an easy way to implement it.

[Dan2552]

all you need is to rename, for example bob.avi to bob.465
and then in the Ags script make sure it loads bob.465, that way not everyone would know it was a wacthable avi

[Ginny]

Hmm, I just thought, it could be nice to rename all the files to strange names and extensions, and then run them, but it would be difficult to remember what you named each thing. So, my question is, can you do this:

#define BOB1.AVI 4hs7.2j0j
or even
#define BOB1 4hs7.2j0j

where 4hs7.2j0j is the actualy filename?

Not too familiar with #define yet, so I dunno if I can define sctrings this way...

[Ishmael]

Yes, you could, so

PlayVideo(BOB1);

would play 4hs7.2j0j

I think

[Scorpiorus]

Yeah, that would work. Just surround it with quotation marks (since PlayVideo expects a string )

#define BOB1 "4hs7.2j0j"

[Ginny]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for other things. I'm starting to really lovbe #define.