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8.0 Movie Insertions

The following chapter and all of its contents are deprecated as of release 3.0.
Movies can now be uploaded directly to Web Renderers.
Please see Chapter 9 for information on setting up a Web Renderer.

8.1 Overview

The content of this section was based on the wiki page16 content found on the Chainsaw development community website. The reader should first refer to section 7 on Insertions in order to have a basic understanding of how insertions work before focusing on movie insertions.

Embedding a video in a web.alive level consists of the following steps:
  • Convert the video to the Bink format.
  • Add a MovieTexture to render images sequence of the video.
  • Optionally add a volume bar (MovieVolumeTexture) to provide visual indication of the sound volume.
  • Optionally add video playback controls (various LookAndUse triggers) to allow users to control the playback of the video.
  • Add a MovieActor and associate the MovieTexture and optionally the MovieVolumeTexture created previously to it.

The MovieActor is responsible for controlling the playback of a video. It does so by handling a set of special 'events' (see the "Triggers, Events, and the Insertion Actors" section for the list of events). A MovieTexture by itself does not do anything since it needs instructions from a MovieActor. For that reason, it must be associated with a MovieActor.

Immediately after the video is loaded, the MovieActor instructs the MovieTexture to render the video in an endless loop. Thus, providing the playback and volume controls by users are optional. A MovieVolumeTexture and various LookAndUse triggers can be used for that purpose.

8.2 Video conversion

Currently, only the Bink video format is supported in web.alive. You have to convert your video using the RAD Video tool from www.radgametools.com. Download the conversion tool and use it to convert your video.

Conversion parameters
  • You could set the compression rate to a percentage of the original video if it is too large and you want to reduce its size.
  • Make sure that your audio is mono (8-bit or 16-bit) since Unreal can only process 3D sound with mono channel.
  • Make sure that your video dimension is in powers of 2, e.g. 256x256 or 256x128 ...etc. Otherwise web.alive won't render the video.

8.3 Adding a MovieTexture

Open the texture browser, then create a MovieTexture in your ChainSaw Editor as follows

Open the MovieTexture properties window by right-clicking on it and select Properties. Make sure that the following properties are filled out correctly:
  • ActivationVolumeTag
  • bSynchronized
  • MovieFilename
  • RelativeOrAbsoluteURL
  • DownloadingTexture
  • ErrorTexture
  • StopTexture

*ActivationVolumeTag *should be set to the PhysicsVolume's tag when you want to control the rendering of the video, including its audio channel, based on the PhysicsVolume. Listeners outside of the specified volume's tag would not hear the sound.

*bSynchronized *should be set to true if you want synchronization of the video among web.alive clients.

*MovieFilename *is the name of the Bink file that was converted in previous steps.

DownloadingTexture, ErrorTexture, StopTexture, and *SynchTexture *are textures that will be displayed when the MovieTexture is in one of those states. These must be set and the size of these textures must match the size of the media.

Add a Static Mesh or a BSP object to represent the movie and set its display texture to the newly created MovieTexture.

8.4 Adding a Volume Bar to a Video (optional)

The content developer can associate a volume bar with the movie texture. Creating a volume bar for a movie requires the following steps:

  • Create a MovieVolumeTexture using the same steps to create a MovieTexture. All properties of the MovieVolumeTexture are optional.
  • Add a Static Mesh to represent the movie volume bar and set its display texture to the newly created MovieVolumeTexture.
  • Associate the MovieVolumeTexture with the MovieActor in the MovieActor properties window (See the step below)

8.5 Adding playback controls to a video (optional)

To allow the user to control the video playback, special type of LookAndUse triggers are used. To add a LookAndUse trigger, open the actor browser and select one of the LookAndUser trigger, e.g. PlayMovieLookAndUseTrigger

Open its Properties window and make sure that the 'Event', 'Tag' and 'TriggerAction' properties are set properly. Take note of the values set here so that you can use them later in the MovieActor.

Repeat the above steps for other movie's LookAndUse triggers.

8.6 Adding a MovieActor

To create a MovieActor, open the Actor browser and select MovieActor.

In the Level, right click on where you want to place your Video sound source. Then select "Add MovieActor Here"

To link a MovieActor to a MovieTexture (and optionally the MovieVolumeTexture), select the MovieTexture that you've created by left-clicking on it.

Open the Property window of your MovieActor.

Click on the Use button of the MovieTexture field in the MovieActor Properties window.

Repeat the above steps for the MovieVolumeTexture, if you've created it. The MovieTexture and MovieVolumeTexture are now linked to the MovieActor.

If you have created LookAndUse triggers for the movie and took notes of their parameters, assign them properly to the 'events' properties of the MovieActor.

8.7 Adjusting the sound parameters of a video

Finally, the following sound parameters of the video can be adjusted:
  • SoundRadius
  • SoundVolume
  • VolumeChangeIncrement