Alternate Vlarion 3 - Echo of Time

The infamous AV3. I'll leave the discussions and debates over the long-suffering, poorly aged format of the Vlarion series to the Original Release Thread, which is heated, informative, embarrassing, painful, and hilarious all at once. Despite the seismic changes and revisions in the format I was used to, long-standing and poorly thought-out decisions made this a tough watch for anyone not invested in the series and not prepared for its "quirks". That aside...

This was where the alternate storyline asserted itself as something bigger and bolder than just a gimmick, which is all that I had in mind when I created AV2. I was curious to see what a version of the story without "certain events" in Vlarion 2 would look like, and the original story path would've looked like a fuller, richer, yet nonetheless familiar retread of the same general plot points. The decision to make the characters gradually become aware of the time shift, and search for its cause and a way to stop it, came somewhat early on in production.

The first third of the movie is still somewhat devoted to the events of Vlarion 3, a necessary evil, but when things get cooking at the halfway point, well, to this day I don't think I've topped that moment on Megoda Hospital's roof (I am obsessed with that fucking roof). You need the full buildup of the previous installments and you've gotta be invested in the characters to understand what's going on here, but I've never been more excited about what I was doing than when I was unfolding this story.

Original Series
Vlarion 1- The Elemental War | Vlarion 2 - Darkness Gathering | Vlarion 3 - Carrier of the Light | Vlarion 4 - The Heavens Crumble

Alternate Series
Alternate Vlarion 2 - Dark Anticipation | Alternate Vlarion 3 - Echo of Time | Alternate Vlarion 4 - The Heavens Collide

[The Chinese Jew]

aaah yes. I remember the contraversy of this film's initial release, and the pages and pages of arguments of Andres and I vs. Greg and Aaron.

[Aaron Haynes]

I'm glad you liked Vlarion 1 2006, btw. That's the version I would have done in the first place, if that kind of thing had been possible in 1999. :/

[Salter]

I don't think I actually did see this, Aaron. I can't remember what was "Alternate."
It's on my to-do list.

[Bown]

MY FAVOURITE PART OF THIS MOVIE WAS THE GIANT SWORD AARON HAYNES

[Ben Rice]

That really long sword move in the final fight, I thought that was fantastic.
Btw Aaron, if it's okay to ask, is Vlarion 2 still in production?

[Jack Bz]

You put a download for AV2 in the download links section, by the way. :O

[Aaron Haynes]

Fixed, thanks.

[Jim Raynor]

This is hands down the best Vlarion movie ever made.
(Excluding the V1 remake.)

[Born Zealot]

post it in a youtube. cmmmmon.

[Aaron Haynes]

It's not a youtube kinda movie. It's very long, with lots of long shots of nonmoving scenes and text dialogue.

If you're at all interested in checking this series out, though, Vlarion 1 (2006) has a streamable Flash version. It's much more casual-viewer-friendly.

[Griffon]

AV3 was always the peak of Pre-V3DMM... 3dmming. Everything in AV3 blew me away! Dark Ultima has become my fave attack from that film! Love it!

BTW, how's V2 coming along? (if it is? heh)

[Aaron Haynes]

It keeps drifting off and on the radar. I've got too much to worry about with my school stuff to do much other than think about it right now, but if I can get texture-baking on scenery to work, that'll go a long way to convincing me to picking it back up.

The ZIP is corrupted whenever I try to open it.

EDIT: I found a working ZIP on 3dmm Studio, but this ZIP simply does not work for me.

[Roadkill Dave]

Originally Posted by Aaron Haynes

It keeps drifting off and on the radar. I've got too much to worry about with my school stuff to do much other than think about it right now, but if I can get texture-baking on scenery to work, that'll go a long way to convincing me to picking it back up.

I saw that post. Then I saw the date. True story.

[Jim Raynor]

Any possibility of a wmv of this? I want to watch it again, but vista fucks midis up, and that kind of ruins the movie.

[HMC]

Was it seriously necessary to bump EVERY SINGLE Vlarion thread to convey this? Come on, Jim.

[Aaron Haynes]

I'm not sure if the text would be legible except at very high bitrates, making it very impractical to do this. It'd be far easier to convert all the midis to wav and redo the movie's music like that. I'll get started on that at some point or another.

Does the midi sound stopper not do anything?

[Compcat]

I actually think that does fix it. Sometimes midis seem to end fine on vista, and usually I see a note on the blue slider thing or whatever at the end of a scene when that happens, but I haven't bothered to check yet.

Edit: ok, nevermind, just checked, I'm wrong.

[Jim Raynor]

Originally Posted by Aaron Haynes

I'm not sure if the text would be legible except at very high bitrates, making it very impractical to do this.

I just tested this out, and the text is very legible at only 700 kb/s video bitrate.(I don't know if you'd consider this low bitrate, I do because I'm used to using a 2 MB/s bitrate for movies.) I have the windows movie maker custom profile you can use.
The filesize shouldn't be much of a problem. The .wmv version of Community Clash 1 was only 33.5 Mb for 9 minutes, and that was at 2 Mb/s.

Does the midi sound stopper not do anything?

It stops the midi, but certain instruments will be stuck on the last note they played before the stopper.

[Pogo]

Doesn't AV3 do that anyway? I've never been able to watch the whole thing on any computer without the midis fucking up, playing the wrong instruments, or not playing at all about halfway through.

[Aaron Haynes]

There's one moment during the Grascadax fight where a fire loop keeps playing until the end of the scene, because I couldn't find the object I put it on, but I can't remember any specific MIDI trouble I've had.

[Jim Raynor]

Are you sure? I never heard a never-ending fire loop.wav in that scene.
Pogo:
If that happened on your non-vista computer(s), it's definitely a sound card issue.

[Dark Figure]

I love the giant sword, must've took you quite a while!

[Bown]

hahahahahah * forgives you for bumping TOO MANY FUCKING THREADS and hugs you, while aaron seethes with rage in the corner *