3371-Alpha wrote:Have you considered changing playback to instead just save the file as a standard video (mov, mkv, ogv, ect.). That will also make uploading youtube vids & live streams easier.
Video export is such a good idea, I went back in time and added it to Aleph One a couple years ago. Hold down Option when you choose Replay Last/Saved Film, and you'll be prompted to save a WebM movie suitable for YouTube. Let the film play out (it will play without sound, and slowly on an older machine) and you'll have a portable movie once it's done.
Films as recorded keystrokes have a number of advantages, so we will not be abandoning them. The file sizes are orders of magnitude smaller, so you can save hundreds of films without worrying about disk space. Rendering video is CPU intensive, so trying to do that while playing could lag your game. Multiplayer films have every player's actions stored, so you can switch viewpoints at will -- you'd need up to 8 synchronized videos to get the same effect. Last but not least, you can re-render the same film with different graphics settings, so you can create a higher-resolution movie (or one with bloom, etc.) later even if you didn't play with those settings originally. I use this quite a lot when tracking down graphics bugs: I record a film and play it back under different renderers to see which ones show the problem.
3371-Alpha wrote:I'm willing to learn if you're willing to teach.
Lua scripting is a surprisingly good way to learn the engine. The API is well documented, there are lots of good scripting examples from the simple to the complex, like irons' Co-op.lua, and plenty of features you can build in Lua, like weapon reloading. Pick a single task, like loading a new clip when you press the microphone key, and see how far you can get. Plenty of people here can give suggestions if you post your code as you progress.
To do anything useful on the C++ side, you'd need a computer capable of running and compiling the current Aleph One. Until your programming desire outweighs your hardware fetish, there's nothing I can teach that you are willing to learn.