Seamless transition between normal graphics and video?

[Isegrim]

Hi!

I sometimes want to play a movie between two rooms, in order to make a smooth transition (e.g. Player opens door, movie shows camera flight through door into next room.)
There's one minor annoying thing with that: Whenever the movie starts up, a green flash apperars, then the movie starts. I'm using AVI videos at the same resolution and color depth as the game and have tried several codecs which all cause the green flash.

If there is a way to avoid it, I would be grateful

[After]

That's a very nice idea you have there.

Apart from suggesting that there may be remapping or transcoding issues, I can't think of anything that'd help. I know that green flash is quite a common symptom (why only green? I don't know).

Anyway, it'd still be worth doing even if the problem persists in my opinion.

[Pumaman]

Does the green flash appear if you play the movie in media player? If you watch the intro to KQ2VGA, it uses PlayVideo and achieves a smooth transition from game to video - perhaps you could try a different codec? MPEG-1 works well, although the file size is rather large.

[Isegrim]

Although there's no green flash in Media player when I play my DIV-X movies, it is there in the game. Using MPEG works without the flash (the screen blackens for the fraction of a second, but I think that's ok) but sadly the file size is almost twice...

Still, thanks alot!

Hm, I just got an idea: would it be possible to have video overlays?

[Ishmael]

Yeah, blocking ones atleats. Making 'em by self... I could try, but I don't have time nor need for it now....

[Pumaman]

hmm, perhaps an option for AGS to skip the first 1 or 2 frames of the video might help here? would that cause problems for anyone's videos if it did that?

[Isegrim]

not for mine, but I honestly doubt that this would help...

[Pumaman]

It's hard to tell without experimenting - I suspect that the codec starting up may be outputting a green first frame for some reason, so if AGS skipped it that could solve the problem.

Have you got a small example video that shows the problem which you could upload?

[Isegrim]

Sure thing. Here it comes:
http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/divxvid.zip

[Pumaman]

Hmm, I tried that out and didn't get any green flashes. What version of Windows and Media Player have you got?

[Isegrim]

I've got Win2K and Media Player Version 9.0.0.2980.

[Pumaman]

What colour depth is your game? I'm using Win2k and Media Player 6.4 and the video plays fine in my test game (16-bit colour), no green flashes anywhere. Could someone else test it out perhaps, see if it happens to you?

[Nixxon]

As for skipping the first 2 frames, you could always impliment a GetVIDEOPosition?