Mechanized Assault & eXploration Reloaded

Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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Well, it's up to you guys. It seems that Volition has said you can do what you want with it as long as you don't charge for it - they gave the source to an open-source project, and it's been going on for some years.

There are alternative routes to the same end, though.

Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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iirc FFmpeg can play mve files, too.

Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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It does; I just can't compile it under Win32.

Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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Let's keep that in mind. If we come in question about mve we can still write a nice mail asking for details, right?
True, true.

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Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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I have the file description and code that all other MVE implementations that I'm aware of are based on. It was done anonymously, no doubt to avoid problems with Interplay when it was released (back in 2002 or so). You guys want to use it?

Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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To play the original intro video would be cool But I don't know how complicated the MVE Format is.

There a basicly two ways: To implement the codec on our own or to use a library like ffmpeg. I don't know which is the better way.

Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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Well, I have independently implemented the audio decoder - it will play the MAX movies. I am about to dive into the video decoding. This is taking me a long time because I know nothing of audio and video processing, and have had to reteach myself how to program. I don't know how pretty the code will seem; I am certainly not a sophisticated programmer.

I may attempt to rip out the FFMpeg video decoder, but the original anonymous stuff is elegant.

Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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Update:

Here's the current status of my project. I think I'm around 90% finished. Some video decoding routines have not been implemented. It does not presently work with the Baldur's Gate movies, nor the 16 bit MVEs floating around.

And you don't need to tell me it's ugly code and that I should have used more compartmentalization. The guy who hacked the MVE format created code that is ideal for this.

The delay has happened because there was extraneous data attached to the video stream that the original hacker did not bother to document.

If I have done my job right, the code *should* compile and run without alteration on any Intel system.

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Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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Ok, all video decoders have been implemented. It's not perfect. There is an obvious bug or three somewhere in the decoding routines. I'll probably re-write the decoders again. There are also palette issues that I can't figure out; however, some of the palette issues are shared by a different MVE player I've been able to compile on my system.

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Subject: Re: MVE player of interest?

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I *think* I have all the block decoders correctly implemented now. The palette issue is my primary focus.

Comments are welcome.

(All known MVE format descriptions are wrong in matters small and great.)

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