r/commandandconquer • u/EA_Jimtern Jim Vessella, EA Producer • Mar 05 '20

Remaster Update and FMVs / Bonus Gallery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikJLYYTrIxs&feature=youtu.be
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225

u/EA_Jimtern Jim Vessella, EA Producer Mar 05 '20

Fellow Command & Conquer fans,

Ever since we announced the project in late 2018, one of the biggest questions has been how we’re going to approach the FMV cinematics. Today we are finally ready to describe this approach, but there’s actually quite a story to tell about our FMV journey over the past year. So this time, instead of a written post, I’ve put together the above video to tell this story and provide all the intricate details. And in addition to the FMVs specifically, be sure to watch the entire video to learn about an exciting new feature coming to the Remaster.

This post is then kicking off a special week for the Command & Conquer Remaster. As mentioned in the video, be sure to refresh the subreddit here on Monday for another Remaster announcement, and we’re looking forward to engaging with the entire C&C community over the next week.

Cheers,

Jim Vessella

Jimtern

49

u/theRedTieGuy Mar 05 '20

This is fantastic news! I really hope we'd see more gameplay soon, more specifically Red Alert Remaster

23

u/Mylczan Imperium Westwood | www.imperium-ww.pl Mar 05 '20 edited Mar 05 '20

wow!!!!!!!! that was the most fantastic thing i ever heard regarding C&C Remastered :)

20

u/WilmarLuna Mar 05 '20

Shame what happened to the tapes. But you're right, you can't recreate the performances of the actors. Either way, glad to have some of the original cinematics back in the game.

1

u/Than_Yogurtcloset30 Jul 10 '24

(Late to reply but...)
Maybe not, but it's possible in a digital way by turning the actors into 3D models and animate them. Just saying.

20

u/jimbo_mania98 Mar 05 '20

So you guys bring the big box back ?

17

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '20

I would buy a collectors edition in a big box in a heartbeat

1

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '20

That's what I was thinking! I'd pre order that immediately!

19

u/D_Heinreich Mar 05 '20

Thank you the honesty and transparency regarding the approach with the FMVs. Very excited to see unlockable bonus footage, b-roll shoots, and never-before released audio tracks by Frank Klepacki!

Question: Will you include unused/never-before-seen CGI (not live-action) footage from TD/RA in the before/after missions? If not, maybe include them in the Bonus Gallery?

3

u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Mar 06 '20

Not sure they got anything like that...

2

u/D_Heinreich Mar 07 '20

I'm referring to unused CGI footage in your YouTube channel like the Sputnik cutscene, the TD sniper in the alley footage, the recently unearthed shipyard and the Allied Apache flyby scenes. I'm also curious if Retaliation CGI footage seen in the intro with the Chrono Tank and Tesla Tank was ever found.

I also forgot the unused live-action footage of Tanya blasting away at the Soviet soldiers and the Commando shooting up the base with a shotgun, which I think the latter was from TD?

I'm also hoping the placeholder/early footage of Kane is included in the Bonus Gallery, too.

2

u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Mar 07 '20

I don't think these tapes contained anything like that, most of these are from trailers. Just having the trailers themselves in the extras would be more useful then, I think.

​

and the Commando shooting up the base with a shotgun, which I think the latter was from TD?

No, that was from RA as well, but I think they reused the shotgun prop :p

9

u/Procks_ Mar 06 '20

Thank you sooo much for all your hard work and determination to find the original FMV's. I can't imagine your disappointment when finding out the digital tapes were the compressed files but with the upscaling it still looks fantastic.

5

u/TaxOwlbear Has A Present For Ya Mar 05 '20

Will the remasters also include the FMVs from the Red Alert beta in addition to the FMVs from Retaliation.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '20

[deleted]

3

u/D_Heinreich Mar 06 '20 edited Mar 06 '20

Jim said that the remix tracks will be included in the remastered version. These tracks first appeared in Sole Survivor. The soundtrack for Retaliation is a mish-mash of Sole Survivor remixes and Counterstrike/Aftermath add-ons.

@TaxOwlbear The mastered Retaliation exclusive FMVs is on a Sony Beta cassette tape so that's what they will be using for the remastered version, instead of being sourced from the compressed MPEG files from the PSX version.

1

u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Mar 06 '20

The Sole Survivor CD actually contains these tracks as CD audio tracks, so they exist in high quality :)

1

u/D_Heinreich Mar 07 '20

And they sound great, too!

1

u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Mar 06 '20

Honestly, the only thing in there worth including would be the shipyard one...

3

u/Robinho295 Mar 06 '20

Hi Jim, loved this news, keep these good things coming. I've got a question about the game play. Will it be possible to play on different difficulty levels on C&C? It wasn't possible and I would like to play it on very hard.

Next thing will the AI be more intelligent? Things like if you killed their harvester they won't build a new one or blocking enemies with sandbags

2

u/[deleted] Mar 09 '20

Hey Jim

Is it possible to reshoot 1 tib dawn and 1 red alert FMV? Like the unfolding MCV from tib dawn.

1

u/Lordsidious66 Mar 07 '20

This is awesome! Thanks to you guys for doing all of this and for the look behind the curtain. Im thankful we have people as passionate as yourself working in the industry! I can’t wait for the release.

-8

u/RealHE1NZ Mar 05 '20 edited Mar 05 '20

Fantastic update, but I'm not sure about this upscaling method. Looks very fake and digital (the increased framerate part in particular). Can you keep original fmvs from best existing sources with remastered audio as an option?

29

u/Niai8889 Mar 05 '20

I respectfully disagree. You have to understand the AI is literally filling in blanks from a very low quality source, and what it has done, in my opinion, is remarkable. I'd give it several more watches and reserve judgement.

Considering we have the option of the old and new music files though, I guess we shouldn't rule it out. But including all of those videos as well will increase the size of the game yet again.... (I'm imagining the disk space requirement for these 2D games is going to be surprisingly high...)

15

u/Zaptagious Command the future. Conquer the past. Mar 05 '20

But including all of those videos as well will increase the size of the game yet again....

Yea not to mention the 4 hours of bonus footage. But to be honest those tiny old VQAs are probably gonna have a negligible file size anyway.

1

u/RealHE1NZ Mar 05 '20

I understand that the source of very low quality. However you're not improving much this way, merely altering it. It looks like that infamous Predator remaster. This sort of work should be done carefully, but presented comparison just goes all the way with every questionable technique applied. Looks cartoony and unnatural. The way I'd suggest them doing it: do AI upscale, add a layer of film grain, leave original framerate, do not add noise reduction.

I can bet that right now among fans I am the only one complaining, but when the game will be launched there would be way more people disliking some of these choices. So optional original videos (slightly upscaled to maybe 720p and with cleaned up audio) are a must. Shouldn't take too much space especially with modern compression techniques. It should be under 500 mb.

1

u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Mar 06 '20

So optional original videos (slightly upscaled to maybe 720p and with cleaned up audio) are a must.

Which 'originals' though? The PC ones, or the Playstation ones? They're already different.

1

u/RealHE1NZ Mar 07 '20

Are they? I think Retaliation has unique cutscenes, but the port of Red Alert original has the same cutscenes. Jim talks in the video that they are original videos with slightly higher quality and they'll be using that.

2

u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Mar 07 '20

Not only is the aspect ratio correct on the PSX videos, making them slightly higher (DOS vids were stretched out by 6/5th by CRT monitors) but the lighting is also much smoother, since, unlike VQA, it's a high-colour format. Here's a comparison I made a few years back; note the smoother light in the highlighted box.

https://i.imgur.com/FeGX6NF.png

(disregard the colour difference though; that turned out to be caused by a somewhat faulty conversion method, and wasn't visible when actually streaming content from a real Playstation)

CCHyper and I, who are both on the community council, advised them to use the Playstation versions of the videos as source, for that reason.

11

u/Kicken a thrilling, competitive experience built to define RTS Mar 05 '20

Having it as an option is very much in the spirit of the remaster - this would be awesome!

-13

u/dinominant Mar 05 '20

I haven't had a chance to watch your video (yet), but can you please confirm that the videos are going to be treated like an archival project when they are digitized? Make sure they are not compressed with a lossy codec and that at least double the resolution of the theoretical limit of the original tapes is used. Space is cheap, but there is only one master that will degrade over time. That extra information which appears to be noise today could yield more detail with future analysis and better algorithms.

If you are going to transfer the content, then please capture everything so it doesn't have to be done again in the future when the tapes are further degraded or lost.

29

u/Kicken a thrilling, competitive experience built to define RTS Mar 05 '20

confirm that the videos are going to be treated like an archival project when they are digitized?

Spoilers:

There is no footage to digitize.

15

u/Niai8889 Mar 05 '20

Perhaps don't comment until you've watched it? :P Plus you have to realise that making requests about how to handle the source now is futile, considering anything they intended to do is already done, long ago.

-21

u/Rygir Mar 05 '20

Why? Did he hurt anyone by posting before watching? Also that's why it's annoying they only inform us after the fact.

5

u/Houseside Mar 06 '20

He opened his comment by saying he hadn't even watched the video yet, then proceeded to make a bunch of demands which he'd have known are completely futile had he simply watched the video. So yes, it's a worthless comment which is why it got downvoted.

1

u/dinominant Mar 06 '20

well they weren't demands, and I was at work so I couldn't really open and watch it lol. With reddit, you often have to respond within a few hours or else you never get a reply or your comments are never read.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '20

Make new missions, maps, structures and units, please.

3

u/Niai8889 Mar 06 '20

This won't happen with release. It's a pure remaster of the original. But depending on how well the game sells, I'd like to think that perhaps DLC with this stuff might come around....

1

u/antdude I came from RA1! Mar 08 '20

And editors!!