An OpenArena 0.8.5 video

[Cacatoes]

Yo,

I made a video [7m 30s], so here it is !

[mkv] (HQ, recommanded)
[wmv] (MQ)
[ogv-800kbits] [ogv-1500kbits]
[Youtube]


[the idea]

At first I wanted to make a simple video with a small demonstration of the soundpack I made some time ago. Finally I ended recording a few demos that same day, and quickly checked a few demos I already had, so don't expect good frags because that was not the goal of the project.
Then with 0.8.5 out I thought it was nice to spread the word, I couldn't hold myself from making a bit of propaganda. I show how OA is in its current state, that means how it's actually played, and not how nice it _could_ be, this is why you'll see a few aesthetically displeasing stuff in it.

The plan is:

• some standard match on Super,CTF with brightskins
• a little of wandering over some "sons débiles"
• some Allrockets CTF match, also with sons débiles on

Now I had one more idea which was to use material of a weird band which is named Bicarbonate (mauvais pour les yeux), hehe, these are improvised songs and are recorded live with one single mic in the room, there can be a bit of edition over it, and I also used parts of a song which was directly recorded from the computer. These songs are "public domain".

[the production]

I played a lot with linux video tools I had, and nearly got the result I expected with kdenlive, though the rendering was crashing, so I had to use Sony Vegas on some Windows 7 computer to produce it. Same goes with the encoding, I produced a few theora with ffmpeg2theora, but I noticed Windows produced ones can be buggy on some players.
The 800kbits 96kbits version was produced running Windows, and VLC can have a hard time reading it, though my iceweasel (firefox) reads it perfectly good from the browser !
The 1500kbits 128kbits version was produced from my Linux box, and VLC deals a bit better with it.
I wasn't able to produce some x264 video, my Debian box ruins my video setup if I install that encoder and libs from Debian Multimedia repository, and x264 crashes at the end of the encoding pass from Windows 7 64bits. I may try to encode that video from Windows XP later.
The WMV version is produced from Sony Vegas, and quality is okay. Quality of both Theora are very average, so I was a bit disappointed with free software tools.

I think that's about all, thanks to OA community in its whole, so that I forget no one, and hope you'll enjoy watching !

Edit: I'll add some .MKV (Vorbis 128kbits + x264 1500kbits) soon. I'll also play again with Theora to see if I can do better, and I may reupload my youtube video.
Edit2: MKV added, nice quality ! (recommanded)

[Udi]

Cool. I sense a HL2 mod inspiration with the soundpack . First I thought my VLC really has problems with the soundtrack, but then the effects were ok, so I guess the soundtrack is meant to be strange . If you render the demos in Windows, then you can show the new flares.

FFmpeg2theora makes really bad quality by default, but you have the --optimize and -v parameters which can help.

[Cacatoes]

Hehe, thanks for your quick feedback. Actually, the debile sound pack was produced like a year before that HL2 video, but I wouldn't say this kind of thing needs particular inspiration, it's just quite simple and fun to produce sounds without big means
I'm glad you thought your VLC had a problem ! Yes I suppose this is the music which is like that.
I didn't render under Windows, hell, the less I use that O.S. the better, if these nice effects had been ported to Linux then I'd had used them.
I used the --optimize setting you suggest with ffmpeg2theora, though I used a constant bitrate restriction rather than setting quality.

[Falkland]

The shotgun sound is made with part of a sample of Hocus Pocus , a gabber production of the early 90s

[Cacatoes]

Of course, I'll annoy myself to produce ONE single stolen sound when my friends and I produced dozens of others.
I could bring you the person who made that sound and film him, now I won't do that.
That confirms even with obvious proof you'll still find guys who can doubt about it, well, not much harm with that, but you may try to keep your feet on the ground.
This even sounds like a joke, so I'm not even sure If I'm right to take it as an accusation.

[Falkland]

Of course, I'll annoy myself to produce ONE single stolen sound when my friends and I produced dozens of others.
I could bring you the person who made that sound and film him, now I won't do that.
That confirms even with obvious proof you'll still find guys who can doubt about it, well, not much harm with that, but you may try to keep your feet on the ground.
This even sounds like a joke, so I'm not even sure If I'm right to take it as an accusation.

Naaaa ... it's not an accusation ... I just noticed that the shotgun sound is part of a sample used in a gabber production of the early 90s ... and anyway it's highly probable that they've stolen the entire sample from somewhere else , since the house/techno/rap music between the end of the 80s and the begin of the 90s was quite always a stolen samples fest.

BTW , just for reference : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFK4ktaGdgI

[Cacatoes]

You're totally right to say there is a huge rip-off tradition in music, sampling and stuff. Reminds me of some link I saw some time ago. [files still here].

You guys have some cultural references, and I think this is normal if you link things together, although there are links which are relevant, and some which aren't that much, and I try to be exigent on these matters.
Now I'm not sure if the problem is the form or the content, but I would prefer something like "oh, this reminds me of Hocus Pocus", which would be totally correct and would only engage yourself, than "you made that shotgun sample from a hocus pocus song", because now this is untrue, because I myself know how this shotgun sound was done and I know the process. I also know what is my own tradition, my influences, and to what I may be connected, and I don't connect that well with that 80's/90's hip hop era, even if this is a part of music history which I find very pleasant.
Now about the joke-side of it, I'm not sure if I'll teach it to you but you have some kind of instrument which is your voice, you can use it, record it, process it, but undoubtfully it can come from you and it's pretty straightforward. So, as a free software addict, and because I like myself to be creative, I sometimes like to use my friends (if they agree) and my own voice. You don't always need to collect 90's sounds, download them from the internet, process them so that they look different the original, etc, etc. You can simply put your mic on, and record a wide variety of sounds (wish I kept the whole track uncut, I can't find it and this is sad), this is simpler, this allows you more freedom, and the only thing you steal is your vocal cords.

I'm not sure I understood well what you mean by "being a part of a sample", after Iistening to your song I'd even be reluctant to say "it sounds like", but I hope I was clear enough so that in your mind you now know "this shotgun sample was recorded with Cacatoes's mic, and was not either sampled from Hocus Pocus nor processed from some even more original sample which Hocus Pocus might have eventually sampled back etc etc..."

Maybe this board should relax a bit with stealing accusations, but I'll accept that tradition for now.

Btw, thanks for making me discover that song, sounds oldschool indeed

[Falkland]

I am sorry for this "issue" , but when I heard the shotgun sound, it immediately reminded me to Hocus Pocus ( at the beginning when "Hocus Pocus" sound is played ...well your shotgun sound seemed like the "Hoc.." sound , the incipit of the sample ) ....

about the sampling thing : I meant that at the end of the 80s and the early 90s it was usual to use samples of old music , but it wasn't necessarily a negative thing ... quite all those productions followed their own way mostly being almost original

I've used explicitely "stolen" because there were many legal causes in those years about "illegal" use of samples. That didn't allmost absolutely mean "copying" , rather only using samples to produce something different or new or totally new without the permission of the original owner.

For example ... I remember a legal cause prosecuted by the producer of Loleatta Holloway , Danis Hartman , against the italian dance musicians group of Black Box , for using samples taken from Love Sensation of Loleatta Holloway for their Ride on Time . If you get a look at the wikipedia page of Loleatta ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loleatta_Holloway ) you can see Ride on Time inserted in the set of her songs but if you hear to Love Sensation and Ride on Time , you could hear that both are different songs.

And anyway , the problem of the samples was born in those years also because of the introduction of the very first digital recorders for Djs which had a very low memory capacity and that were called "samplers".

[Slash]

Well done!
Can you tell me what great music is playing @ 4:50 ?

[Cacatoes]

Of course, all the songs are from the same band, Bicarbonate (mauvais pour les yeux), though you won't find much reference of them on the internet because it's a local band which hasn't official releases yet
I uploaded the song you are referring here.

It's from an album which was named "Assassinat prémédité d'un violon - volume 1 : prémonition de la mort de la bête".

If you want more songs from it you may PM me.