Adding and extracting movies

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This tutorial is split into two parts: The first page will deal with the process of getting a custom movie ingame. On the second page, I will show you how to extract the existing movies so you can watch them in your preferred video player.

The tools you will need are mentioned at the top of each how-to and the corresponding links can be found at the bottom of the page.

This tutorial assumes that you have basic knowledge about setting up a mod, installing programs on your computer and operating the command line.



Adding a new movie


Requirements

- VirtualDub
- VP6 Codec
- VP6 Builder by Siberian_GRemlin
- Sound Exchange
- A text editor
- A video in the AVI file format


Setting up the tools

First, download VirtualDub from SourceForge and install it. The next step is to download the VP6 codec and installing it as well. This should be really easy.

I advise that you create a dedicated folder in which the converting will take place. Download and copy the VP6 Builder and Sound Exchange (also the GUI version if you want) executables into that folder.


Converting the video

Find your movie file and place it into that same directory. I have chosen to use the intro of the infamous A-Team TV series I had sitting on my harddisk, called ATeam_Intro.avi

Start VirtualDub and open your movie file with it. In the menu Video -> Compression select VP60 Simple Profile. If you wish, you can hit the button Configure to fiddle with the compression settings.



Once you have done that, go to File -> Save as AVI and export the file. I have chosen the name ateamintro.avi for mine.
Depending on how big your movie is, encoding and compressing will take a while, but a window pops up that shows the progress.

You should now be left with a video in AVI format, encoded with the VP60 Codec.

Next, launch the VP6 Builder (VP6Converter###.exe) and select your VP6 AVI file in the Input video file field. You can just ignore the option to add an audio file, as C&C3 keeps the audio data separate from the video data anyway. Hit GO! and sit back as your file is being converted into the EA VP6 format. My new VP6 video file called ateamintro.vp6 was soon there, waiting to be included.




Converting the audio

Note: If there is no audio data in your movie or it is irrelevant, for example because you want to replace the (soundless) video in the Main Menu, you can move on to the next step.

In a first step, you will need to extract the audio data from the movie, so open up VirtualDub again and load your movie. Select Audio -> Full processing mode. Then go to File -> Save WAV to save the complete audio data in a .wav file. Choose the same name you chose for your video file (in my case ateamintro.wav). For more detailed instructions on this step go to http://www.videohelp.com/oldguides/virtualdubaudio .

Now it's time to convert this WAV file into the format EA used for their SND audio files. Fire up SoundExchange GUI (SX_GUI.exe) and select your WAV file as Input file. Adjust the Output file so that the file ends in .snd (or just rename the file afterwards).

Note: In order to use SX_GUI.exe you will need sx.exe to be in the same folder, as it is just a wrapper.



If you prefer to use the command line directly, navigate to your folder in cmd.exe and run:               

Code

sx.exe -sndstream file.wav -= file.snd

where file.wav is obviously your file.

In either case, you should now be left with a VP6 file and an SND file with the same name, in my case ateamintro.vp6 and ateamintro.snd. You are now ready to include those files in your mod.


Including video and audio

Go to your Mod folder and in the folder data create a folder called movies (that means you now have MOD SDK\Mods\YOURMOD\data\movies) and place your VP6 and SND file (if you have audio) in there. Then go one level up back into data and create a folder called ini if you don't already have it.

In the Mod SDK you'll find all the original INI files in the INI folder. The one you'll need is called video.ini, so copy it into your mod's ini directory and open it with a text editor. The format is really simple:

              

Code

Video EALogoMovie     Filename = EALogo     Comment    = "This is the EA logo movie"     Volume = 35 End

The Filename is simply the name of the video file without extension, the case doesn't matter. Seeing as it was exactly this movie I wanted to replace, I just had to edit the Filename to the one of my movie:

              

Code

Video EALogoMovie     //Filename = EALogo     Filename = ATeamIntro     Comment    = "This is the EA logo movie"     Volume = 35 End

That's almost it!
A last important thing you need to know is that both INI and movie files need to be copied to the BuiltMods folder of your Mod SDK, more precisely MOD SDK\BuiltMods\mods\YOURMOD\data\ini\ and MOD SDK\BuiltMods\mods\YOURMOD\data\movies\ (where YOURMOD is, you guessed it, the name of your mod), before the mod is compiled. If you don't have a custom buildmod.bat script which does this for you, you will have to do it by hand.

You're done. Now start your mod and enjoy watching your own movie ingame!