Discussion about Depth and other movies

[ShadowDraft]

Well .. this transmission was rather disappointing. I don't even know why. I just don't feel the closure I was looking for. Now it really looks like the director ran out of time which shows in the last videos.

[Omnitool]

Nice, now we've got all of them
Thank You, Frictional! Great wotk with the game and the companion films!

Now it would be cool if a modder would actually integrate the movies into the game.
As you progress into the game, you could find them and play them from within an in-game computer console, along with the video and audio logs. Each area could have a video, that supposedly happened near or around that area, they don't need to necessarly be in chronological order. Would be really interesting and add to the immersive experience of the game!

[Romulator]

Now it would be cool if a modder would actually integrate the movies into the game.
As you progress into the game, you could find them and play them from within an in-game computer console, along with video and audio logs. Would be really interesting and add to the immersive experience of the game!

I don't know how possible this is: I don't think you can play "movies" in the game. Maybe pictures with the sound logs, but I doubt you can get the movies. Let alone, would be a painkiller to load xD

But the sound logs would definitely be a great idea!

About the movie:

Spoiler below!

I was really expecting Reed to go to Upsilon and sit in the pilot seat and close her eyes. Then we can pick up directly where Reed left off, considering we seem to be living in her body.

[aquilantiqua]

After having watched through all 8 transmissions, what seems clear to me is that it's likely that a feature-length film was produced, BUT several main concepts and plot points present in SOMA circa 2013 were worked out/changed by Frictional over time to the point that the film "Depth" diverged heavily from the finished SOMA project. These heavily edited "transmissions" are probably the attempt at cutting together the footage that didn't totally contradict the story of SOMA. Notice the "Inspired by Frictional Games' SOMA" at the beginning of every video.

BIG hats off to Trin Miller. Excellent acting skills, the best among the cast in my opinion (Truax had his moments as well though) and she left me wanting a film based entirely from Reed's point of view.

[Noisecode]

After having watched through all 8 transmissions, what seems clear to me is that it's likely that a feature-length film was produced, BUT several main concepts and plot points present in SOMA circa 2013 were worked out/changed by Frictional over time to the point that the film "Depth" diverged heavily from the finished SOMA project. These heavily edited "transmissions" are probably the attempt at cutting together the footage that didn't totally contradict the story of SOMA. Notice the "Inspired by Frictional Games' SOMA" at the beginning of every video.

BIG hats off to Trin Miller. Excellent acting skills, the best among the cast in my opinion (Truax had his moments as well though) and she left me wanting a film based entirely from Reed's point of view.

Agree....very much agree.... There was A LOT cut out of this film and it shows in some of places. Golaski and Reed look like they have an actual conversation before she kills him, as well as other points where there is a bit of confusion.

I enjoyed the mini series immensely.......... but I'm dying to see some of those deleted scenes, which i know will never happen.

[Kein]

But the sound logs would definitely be a great idea!

That's not bad, actually. I can see such mod that enchances the existing original game by incorporating some fragments of the Transmission Logs series into the game as data-banks, logs or/and pictures.

[Romulator]

But the sound logs would definitely be a great idea!

That's not bad, actually. I can see such mod that enchances the existing original game by incorporating some fragments of the Transmission Logs series into the game as data-banks, logs or/and pictures.

I'd take up the project if I wasn't so heavily invested in getting the wiki updated with new tutorials - it's definitely something to consider though. I'll add it to the list of projects I may start and hopefully complete, but won't be done for quite a while - so if someone does make a start, please do!

[caffeine4671]

Agree....very much agree.... There was A LOT cut out of this film and it shows in some of places. Golaski and Reed look like they have an actual conversation before she kills him, as well as other points where there is a bit of confusion.

I enjoyed the mini series immensely.......... but I'm dying to see some of those deleted scenes, which i know will never happen.

The Vertical Slice build was completely different but it was also back in march 2013, plenty of time since then (or even before march of that year) to have revised the script before they even started shooting the original ARG shorts.

It could just be that they're cut together lynch-style to give a dreamy impression. The table that the vivarium is on looks different as well, as well as a bunch of other different things in the vivarium room, but I'd chalk it up to being continuity issues and lack of fully funded production team to fix them.

[Omnitool]

But the sound logs would definitely be a great idea!

That's not bad, actually. I can see such mod that enchances the existing original game by incorporating some fragments of the Transmission Logs series into the game as data-banks, logs or/and pictures.

I'd take up the project if I wasn't so heavily invested in getting the wiki updated with new tutorials - it's definitely something to consider though. I'll add it to the list of projects I may start and hopefully complete, but won't be done for quite a while - so if someone does make a start, please do!

I'm happy you found the idea or incorporating the films into the game useful!

As a word of encouragement:
Actually even though very difficult, it's not impossible to incorporate videos into the in-game computer terminals.
As an example (I know we are talking a completly different game engine on a huge budget, this serves just as a proof of concept!), Alien: Isolation had one or two such films perfectly integrated, one of them was found in a lab where a doctor talks about how the newborn xenomorph escaped (can't find a youtube link right now but I am still looking for it), it was played as a video file on a in-game computer terminal, not as a cutscene.

HPL-3 is very mod-friendly so adding a freeware script to enable video playing should be possible... If you look in the SuperSecret archive, there is a development video showing how the developers were attempting to integrate a CCTV system (a console displays a live feed from a security camera) in the game, so a script for displaying video footage on an in-game monitor might already be in there somewhere

The films could be highly compressed, a 240p video format with 70kbps mp3 sound would perfectly do, as they are played from an in-game computer screen, and the low quality is perfectly plot-justified (the videos could have been corrupted by WAU or failing computer systems, etc), that should solve the problem with the large filesizes and long loading times.

If this is not possible, simple sound logs or sound and a simple pictures slideshow are still great!

[Romulator]

The engine wouldn't be able to play videos. It could play .gifs and sequences of images, but not videos.