Art and design resource consolidation

[Ramsus]

Here's a big version of the CE logo from my sig.

Edit: The ship has been inserted in the latest patch: http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php/topic,5209.msg146025.html#msg146025

That logo's amazing. I'll be sure to put it to good use.

[FaustWolf]

Oooh, pretty, thanks '99! ZeaLitY, thanks for the guidelines. I'll take a gander (er, a listen) at/to the audio you suggested too.

Yeah, I'll definitely edit in the logos. Given that there's going to be a full teaser site, I'm skiddish again about using copyrighted music (though I'd absolutely love to do so). Obviously I'd start out the videos with something along the lines "This is a non-profit fan creation. Chrono Trigger and all associated property are copyright Square Enix," yadda yadda. Whether we incorporate copyrighted audio or not, I'll credit the audio sources too.

[justin3009]

That is one seriously kick ass logo!

[FaustWolf]

I'm roughing out a teaser trailer concept. Here's a proposed audio track.

My plan is to draw the audience in with mysterious visuals, then freaking blow them away, in under three minutes.

Teaser Trailer Concept
00:00 ~ 01:19  Mysterious visuals, no dialogue or battles. Should make the viewer feel unsettled yet intrigued. We use this opportunity to overlay things like "Kajar Labs Presents..." "A Temporal Flux project," "A new entry of the Chrono saga," etc.

01:20 ~ 01:35  Unveiling of the CE logo and artwork according to these suggested keyframes:


01:36 ~ 02:36  Show the viewer some epic battles, new techs, and maybe an intense dialogue with some important enemy, possibly misleading the viewer into believing that said enemy is really the main antagonist.

02:37+  Release date and assurances that the project is a non-profit fangame and acknowledgement of copyrights.

As for the audio, the clip used from 00:00 ~ 01:19 is zyko's intro as ZeaLitY suggested and from 1:20 onward it's "Sauron's Grip," an obscure track often credited to Magic Box Music. I've never actually heard it on any Lord of the Rings trailers, so it's a pretty fresh piece.

If this concept becomes the teaser trailer, the "Time's Scar"/"Ladies and Gentlemen" combo would go into a longer preview. If ZeaLitY wants the "Powah" concept to be the teaser, I'll toss zyko's leadup into another, even longer preview of 5+ minutes.

[ZeaLitY]

Ah, those would be only 15-second long throwaway pieces. Earlier today, I listened to Ladies and Gentlemen and conceptualized a video to that, but I can't see it going on longer than the end of the first chorus of the song. The buildup would have the party in less-important situations, then the part before the chorus would have scenes of the party running through locations, and then BANG, when it finally hits, the screen would pan up to this shaking / vibrating image of the Atash Kedah. You can imagine how intense that'd be, hah...

[FaustWolf]

those would be only 15-second long throwaway pieces.

When you said that, the word "micropreview" popped into my mind. We could churn out little ads like short television spots. And hack them into Hulu.com videos, where they would replace the commercial breaks. ...or not.

"Ladies and Gentlemen" is 03:39 by itself. If used on its own, it's short enough for a teaser I suppose. Do we want "Ladies and Gentlemen" for the teaser? If so, I'll toss zyko's music into an extended preview vid.

[ZeaLitY]

Hm...I'll let Ramsus comment. Whatever works best for crimsonechoes.com; perhaps Ladies and Gentlemen would have a stronger effect on people.

[Ramsus]

those would be only 15-second long throwaway pieces.

When you said that, the word "micropreview" popped into my mind. We could churn out little ads like short television spots. And hack them into Hulu.com videos, where they would replace the commercial breaks. ...or not.

"Ladies and Gentlemen" is 03:39 by itself. If used on its own, it's short enough for a teaser I suppose. Do we want "Ladies and Gentlemen" for the teaser? If so, I'll toss zyko's music into an extended preview vid.

Not to limit your creativity, but I want something very Chrono Trigger for the trailer site's music. There won't be any game information on the site until the release, so there needs to be enough with the video to make it obviously Chrono Trigger-related and get people excited, but vague enough to stir up the rumor mill.

Starting out with the Crono and Marle song with the video appearing out of a completely blank page, and then transitioning to something more dramatic was what I had in mind, followed with the video fading out into silence and the site's background image appearing. Other than the Crimson Echoes team logo and the Kajar Labs productions logo, there won't be any extra graphics or text in the video -- only game footage until the video fades out at the end. Then the background music would stop and after a bit of silence, turn into the Lavos heartbeat in a continuous loop with a timer counting down to the release date.

[FaustWolf]

So a basic, no-frills teaser video would play automatically upon site loading? What length are you looking for for that? Also, would you be willing to consider tracks from Chrono Symphonic? Or, would you rather go with all in-game audio? Might lend the opener an authentic feel.

Do you need other videos for site content, or just the teaser opener? I'll make a few anyway and upload them to Youtube or something, under a new account if the team wants to obscure connections to the Compendium.

[Ramsus]

After the real site goes online and Crimson Echoes is released we can consolidate them all into a video library on the site, but other than that we'll only have one video on the site at a time.

We could also make a few videos that are loaded at random on the trailer site, so each time the viewer visits the site it's something different. We could also match the music that plays after the video to it as well (i.e. Magus-like music for a video that features more of a Magus-theme).

Also, length-wise, it's whatever you can put together that has the most impact going memorable, dramatic, dead stop with it, and that'll just depend on the music you choose for each video as wells as what scenes you want to throw in.

[FaustWolf]

I absolutely can't stop myself from carrying out the concept I mentioned earlier, but first I'll tackle a much simpler, no-frills (as in no text overlays) video for the site opener. Since there's no text to appear in this very first opener, I'm ruling out use of copyrighted music, excluding videogame music. The length will be determined by the track or tracks used.

If I limit the music to in-game music from CT and CC, and fan remixes, anyone have any suggestions? Ramsus wanted it to start out with Crono & Marle's theme, which can transition into something more energetic easily enough.

[ZeaLitY]

King Zeal's operative theme is "Ocean Palace", in the way that I believe you mentioned you like it (I like it that way too; whenever you hear it pop up in a Chrono series setting, you KNOW something reeeeaaaally precipitous is about to happen).

I need to start fixing the CT Wikipedia article, but I can go ahead and try to pick "CE-inspired" versions of each song that we're definitely using in Crimson Echoes later. It'll be fun. Expect something by tomorrow.

[FaustWolf]

Kind of an odd question I guess, but Ramsus, do you have a preference on the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the video? I can capture video of any dimensions, I'd just prefer to not have to resize the frames after the AVI is made.

I'm thinking about capturing a video with frames of size 512x448:



However, if you really prefer a smaller video (due to file size issues, for example), I'd go with 256x224:


Also, let me know if either of those dimensions seem wacked out; I'm staring into one of those monitors that's really long horizontally, so these appear more natural to me than 480x360, for example, which I would have gone with had I been working with my old monitor.

[Ramsus]

Use the largest size you feel comfortable with, as long as the pixel ratio matches that of the original SNES. If it ends up being too big, I'll make a scaled down version for streaming on the site.

My two biggest concerns are avoiding compression artifacts with the original video (use high quality video codecs, and opt for bigger sizes), and having really smooth footage, but if you have to reduce the size to capture higher framerates, then higher framerates and smoother video comes first.

[FaustWolf]

Oh, I forgot about framerates. You want 30fps, 60fps, or something else? And do you know the original aspect ratio of the SNES offhand?

Just found this from the ZSNES site:

Please note that the internal resolution of the SNES is 256x224. Certain special high-resolution modes can produce up to 512x448 resolution. You may notice that the internal resolution has an 8:7 aspect ratio. SNES video output is not intended to be viewed at this aspect ratio, however. The 8:7 video signal would normally be scaled to a more-typical 4:3 aspect ratio when viewed on a television.

Based on that, should I go with an 8:7 aspect ratio or a 4:3 aspect ratio?