Intro Movie

How to make an intro movie for Descent 3.

Interplay's movie file extension .mve

Not to be confused with a cut scene. An intro movie is included at the beginning of a level, for example, level 5's movie shows MD 1032 proclaiming to Kaitlyn Harper "... I even got my money... I'm going home!".

I can't recall seeing a fan level with a custom movie. If anyone knows of one please let me know. I would really like to know how it was done. I can get one of the original D3 movies to play, and I have some ideas for creating a movie, but I have been unsuccessful in converting from an .avi to the .mve format required. I have found tools made for Fallout movies, but I get no output from them. I have read that D3's .mve is 8 bit and Freespace's .mve is the same as D's but 16 bit.

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Apparently the MVL format used in D2 is a container file, much like a zip or rar, and containes .mve movies. From the Descent Network:
Introduction

The MVL file contains multiple MVE movie files, it is just an archive. Unlike the HOG file, in MVL first ALL "directory" entries are listed and then then data follows - in the same order as in the directory!

All available MVL files contain MVE movies only! However the format itself would support even other file types!

Note that there was a tool to extract and play MVE and MVL files called Descent Manager MVEEXTRACT32. However the tool had to be removed from our pages due to copyright problems with Interplay.


Comparison to HOG file format

So note the technical difference between HOG and MVL files: HOG files have the structure:
FILE_HEADER1 | DATA1 | FILE_HEADER2 | DATA2 | FILE_HEADER3 | DATA 3 |...

While MVL files have the following structure:
FILE_HEADER1 | FILE_HEADER2 | FILE_HEADER3 |...| DATA 1 | DATA 2 | DATA 3 |...


Format

The file format of MVL is quite easy... only the format of the files it contains - the MVE file format - is quite complex (and we don't have any specs for it...):
MVL File format - Written by Heiko Herrmann
char sig[4] = {'D','M', 'V', 'L'}; "DMVL"=Descent MoVie Library

int num_files; the number of files in this MVL

struct {
char file_name[13]; Filename, padded to 13 bytes with 0s
int file_size; filesize in bytes
}DIR_STRUCT[num_files];

struct {
char data[file_size]; The file data
}FILE_STRUCT[num_files];


List of MVL files packaged with Descent 2

The following MVL files are delivered with Descent 2 Commercial and -with less contents- also with Descent 2 Destination Quartzon:
INTRO-H.MVL containing Intro and ending movies in 640x480
INTRO-L.MVL containing Intro and ending movies in 320x200
OTHER-H.MVL containing escape sequences and entering-system movies in 640x480
OTHER-L.MVL containing escape sequences and entering-system movies in 320x200
ROBOTS-H.MVL containg the robots for briefings in 640x480
ROBOTS-L.MVL containg the robots for briefings in 320x200

The following MVL files are being added, when installing the Vertigo Series:
D2X-H.MVL containg the Vertigo robots for briefings in 640x480
D2X-L.MVL containg the Vertigo robots for briefings in 320x200

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As I collect knowledge on this subject I'll update this page.

Some external links:
http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Interplay_MVE∞

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