Vice City Replay Manager Masterclass

[Jason]

Covering everything you need to know to become a cinematics pro. 

https://youtu.be/BStllFsGMr8



Download Replay Manager Beta here:

https://mega.nz/file/oa8EXZ7C#yDuyCh5Kckc3f3gg7j2Xv8Es-iCLEjlhShigWMarPAA


Blender basics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NT_1BvV2yw

[VaNilla]

This is a game changer, thanks to Simon for the tool and Jason for the comprehensive tutorial! I hope this comes to SA some day too .

Just to make sure I've fully understood, I want to ask about the purpose of the camera path/position and the focus path/point. It seems that the camera path controls the movement of the camera's position, and by default, we simply track the focus to the player's position (represented by the sphere), and by doing this, we have a centralised focus point. This should be good when we want the camera to feel mounted perfectly to the player's position, just like Vice City's standard orbit camera, except that we can change the camera's position whilst maintaining central focus, and keyframe other details too like FOV (Simon says not yet ), time of day, weather, and more.

We also have the option to make a custom focus path and point (represented by the cone). Do we only need to do this when we want the camera's focus to be fully detached from the player's position, so we don't have to constantly stare at the centre of the screen? Finally, would it be possible to blend between focusing on the sphere and focusing on the cone, to create some interesting movements, such as blending from Vice City's standard orbit camera movement in replays to a custom camera position and focus point?

Everything seems pretty simple to understand otherwise, but I'm not sure if I understood this part correctly .

[Simon]

Just to make sure I've fully understood, I want to ask about the purpose of the focus point.

The imported focus point is literally just the point the camera orbits around when using the in-game orbit functionality. Which is pretty much always the players position. So that focus point is only gets imported as a reference to the player position.

if you make a custom focus point it is solely there for the camera to look towards it. You don't need it at all technically, it just might be easier to work with than setting the cameras rotation manually. Since instead of trying to think about how the camera is rotated, you instead think about where the camera is looking, which might be more natural to some people.

When you export, only the camera's location and rotation (scale too) will be used. It really does not matter how you make the camera do what it needs to do, as long as it does it. You could theoretically film a shot with your phone, camera track it, apply that track to a blender camera and have a 'live' camera move for the replay. Anything blender lets you do to make this camera move will be a valid. If the keyframes exist, they will be exported.


Something to note:
Currently FOV is not supported. It is not something that is saved in the replay file at all. However I have some ideas to include it anyway, and just add some stuff to the cheat table that sets it in the game. But it does not exist yet. The only reason Jason sets it to 70 is to get a more accurate representation of what the camera move will look like in the actual game.

[VaNilla]

I think I understand, thanks man . If anyone watched Jason's masterclass and felt slightly overwhelmed, here's a simplification of what Blender and Vice City Replay Manager do and how they work together (check Jason's masterclass for technical details) - I'm writing this for myself too, so please correct me if I've made any mistakes .


Features

Full control of Vice City's camera and time/weather in replays with keyframes. This is essentially a more complex version of GTA IV and GTA V's Rockstar Editor, with some differences in features.

Chase Cameras

When you watch a replay in Vice City and move your mouse, the game displays a chase camera that orbits around your player's location in the centre of the screen. To make a chase camera, create a new camera and parent it to the player's location (represented by the sphere). You now have a camera that follows the player, and you can keyframe the camera's location/rotation/scale to your liking - with tweaks to these values you could potentially make mounted cameras too, like a first person camera or a camera mounted to the side of the player's vehicle.

Cinematic Cameras

When you watch a replay in Vice City and don't move your mouse, the game usually displays a cinematic camera that keeps your player's location in the centre of the screen, and it can stay still or move along a path, but that path is separate from your player's location. To make a stationary cinematic camera, set the location of your camera where you want it without making a path for it to follow, while tracking the player's location (represented by the sphere). You now have a camera that stays still in the location you set, but constantly rotates to keep the player's location in the centre of the screen. To make a moving cinematic camera, make a camera path and keyframe the camera's location, while tracking the player's location (represented by the sphere). You now have a camera that moves separately from the player, but constantly rotates to keep the player's location in the centre of the screen.

Free Cameras

How do you make a replay camera in Vice City that moves and looks exactly where you want, completely separate from the player's location (represented by the sphere)? Firstly make a path for the camera's movement and keyframe it, like a camera on a dolly. Secondly make a path for the camera's angle and keyframe it while tracking it (represented by the cone), like a camera framing a scene. You now have a free camera, and it can basically do anything you want.

Note: I disagree with using this method and think it would be much easier and more powerful to make free cameras with a single path, by simply keyframing the camera's location/rotation/scale as demonstrated at the beginning of the masterclass. This would be just like making free cameras in GTA IV and GTA V's Rockstar Editor, and you wouldn't have to do mental gymnastics managing two different paths simultaneously .


I hope this post makes Jason's masterclass less daunting for anyone interested in making videos with these tools!

Side note: It think it might be best if Simon's tool was updated to change all mentions of focus (e.g. "replayname_focus") to player (e.g. "replayname_player"). I personally found this confusing at first, because I was thinking that focus represented depth of field controls (which this tool doesn't have of course), but it actually represents the player's location, this is just a small suggestion since Simon's tool is still in beta .

[Herrarge]

The player movement gets imported into Blender right? Does that mean stunting videos rendered in Cycles are not far off?

Edit: Oh it's just a representation nvm. Anyways great tool!

[Simon]

The player movement gets imported into Blender right? Does that mean stunting videos rendered in Cycles are not far off?

Theoretically possible, I think the hardest and most annoying thing to do would be character animation. Since in game there can be multiple animations playing layered together, all of which would have to be loaded, interpolated and blended for an accurate re-creation of the pose. Which would be really tricky to do, especially not being too familiar with their animation format, though definitely possible if I ever wanted to take it that far. However I think there's a real charm to the original game, so personally I would still prefer the in-game recorded stuff.

[Dannye]

Cheers guys for the tool and the tutorial! At some point I'll have to watch the Blender basics video as I've never used it before, but just watching the main tutorial for now was great and got me excited for all the possibilities of the tool!

[Reynard The Fox]

Amazing effort! I had a quick look at the python scripts to see what it does and what it reads. Love how this ties in with the blender timeline and frames.

It should be possible to make a small .ASI script for setting those addresses instead of doing it in CheatEngine everytime. This way you don't have to bundle CheatEngine and you can host this code on GitHub so that others could contribute if they wanted.

It shouldn't be too hard to create the same for San Andreas. I was able to read out the positions and transformation matrices for SA a few years ago, because I wanted to see if I could make a custom replay system in game. I always imagined setting some kind of advanced camera system in game, but never occured to me to do this in blender directly.

[Ezraph2001]

This will take me some time for me to master this however this is a definite W in my book

[toty]

This is fucking awesome gj Darkstar. Tutorial is excellent but where can I get the vice city map importer ?