Pre-rendered/FMV Video Support

The question has come up from time to time for 1x and 2x branches of jME, and I think that the question for the 3x branch should be made "on the ground floor" as it were. 



Will the 3x branch have any sort of native/core pre-rendered/fmv video support? 



I think that this is a feature that many would like to have.


Could you maybe find, collect and link to any past discussions of great relevancy to this one, so that members unfamiliar with the debate could catch up more easily.

not very relevant to this question but someone packaged up the jme2 video renderer quite nicely, if u still use jme2, that is ucan find src and binary package at http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/jmeforum/index.php?topic=11094.0

erlend_sh said:

Could you maybe find, collect and link to any past discussions of great relevancy to this one, so that members unfamiliar with the debate could catch up more easily.


Oh, I wouldn't call it a debate.  I'd call it Q&A (with really confusing and/or difficult A). 

Here's a few links grabbed with the awesomely complex search on the search term "video":

http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/jmeforum/index.php?topic=2908.0

http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/jmeforum/index.php?topic=8021.0

http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/jmeforum/index.php?topic=10561.msg80750#msg80750

Personally, I haven't tried to do any fmv yet simply due to the disparate and/or low quality/framerate solutions, but I do have some ideas for using it.  I thought by asking the question here, that perhaps it could be roadmapped for jME 3.x or set aside as being not a part of the master plan.

This is the right board to make wishlist requests, right?
ashtonv said:
This is the right board to make wishlist requests, right?
Yes.

Momoko_Fan is actually implementing this feature already ^^ He had some code from a previous project that could be reused.
erlend_sh said:

Momoko_Fan is actually implementing this feature already ^^ He had some code from a previous project that could be reused.

That is great because every serious game project needs at least an intro video, even if it is only the developers logo.
I mean.. have a look at Q3A: You start the game, there is this short cool animation and it puts you in the right mood for the game.

What erlend said is right.  :)

I have written a java binding for FFmpeg about a year ago for another project and it should be quite easy to use it in jME3.

Momoko_Fan said:

What erlend said is right.  :)
I have written a java binding for FFmpeg about a year ago for another project and it should be quite easy to use it in jME3.


Excellent!

Perhaps you can give us a bit of a technical taste of what it is capable of (or what you are thinking it will be capable of in jME3).

It's great that this is coming up…  llama put a lot of time and effort into this one so we aren't that far off from having it easily usable… Most problems with the pieces built by llama is that it has multiple steps which aren't all controlled by us… (FOBS, for example)



If it were 'built-in' so to speak, I think the feature would be much more usable…  I was frustrated as all hell originally trying to get it up and working, but now I'm happy as the proverbial clam

If this functionality is to be implemented, the main focus should be on making it as independent/standalone as possible.

I suppose if advanced codecs like AVC or MPEG4 are to be supported, then native code will be needed (I have tried some Java-based decoders and their performance is too low for high-resolution videos).



The problem with trying to make it independent is that most java media libraries were designed to work with JMF, sometimes they require the user to install components on their system. So you can't just use the library…

Momoko_Fan said:

If this functionality is to be implemented, the main focus should be on making it as independent/standalone as possible.
I suppose if advanced codecs like AVC or MPEG4 are to be supported, then native code will be needed (I have tried some Java-based decoders and their performance is too low for high-resolution videos).

The problem with trying to make it independent is that most java media libraries were designed to work with JMF, sometimes they require the user to install components on their system. So you can't just use the library..


Yeah, anything needing JMF I would consider about as useless as the JMF abandonware itself..  What about Theora&Ogg-Vorbis or something else open? (Xvid, even?)

I was looking through an effort some time back at getting Xvid on Java. I think there was progress but it was never soup.

I did, however, just come across this: http://www.flumotion.net/cortado/

GPL'sJava Applet for playing Theora/Ogg-Vorbis.  I'll take a look while I'm at work tomorrow and see what/if I can hack out..