Premiere of The Strangerhood

ack154 writes "As previously mentioned here, the guys and girls over at Rooster Teeth Productions (the creators of Red vs Blue) have started a new series based on the Sims 2. As of last night, Episode 1 has officially hit the download servers. Currently available in DivX, WMP, and QuickTime formats, the first episode weighs in at just over 5 minutes. " As a big RvB fan, I'm looking forward to seeing where this one goes.

Comments

Lip syncing still a problem

[Japong]

Just watched the first episode, and I have to say Halo was a good choice of game, because everyone was a master chief, with a full helmet on. Facial expressions and lip syncing were blissfully bipassed and we didn't really think much about it.

This new show doesn't seem to do so well, the Sims 2 probably has some of the most expressive characters for a popular video game, but they still seem to be a little off in matching up faces, expressions and voices... IANAprofessional commedian, but not having them synced makes comedic delivery of dialog far less effective, as those brilliantly funny moments don't hit all at the same time.

Everquest?

[ajs]

It seems to me that EverQuest is ripe for this sort of thing. Advantages over Sims or Halo:

• Hundreds of very unique locations which, in turn, have dozens of nooks and crannies to shoot in. Some areas will be too difficult to get to yourself for "shooting", but if you've ever played EQ, you know that the places with nobody around are in the majority, even in "popular zones"
• Wide varitety of looks (easily numbering in the thousands of easily distinguished combinations) from race to gender to hair/eyes to armor (including user-selected dye) to weapons.
• Ability to use a practically unlimited number of "puppeteers" (players) at once
• Spell and particle effects are very nice for all sorts of "special effects".
• A rich existing mythology if you wish to draw on it
• Thousands of available "extras", many of whom would be happy to help stage events for the show
• Availablity of scripting for actors (though such "macro programs" are technically a bannable offense in-game).

I would think this would be the place to do such a movie (though any popular MMORPG would have the same advantages).

The down side is having to pay a monthly fee per simultaneous actor.

Re:Just watched it

[s4m7]

Hear Hear.

This was actually one of the most painful things I have had the displeasure to watch in a long time. And I say this as a fan of RvB.(heh ok that was mean) I'm really disappointed.

Someone should inform the guys at rooster teeth that the first episode of something is supposed to set up the scene for something, and maybe introduce you to some characters. The thing that first episodes should explicitly NOT do is have the characters plaintively asking who they are and what they are doing here. THAT IS THE POINT OF THE FIRST EPISODE... to TELL us this stuff, not ask.

Sorry rooster teeth, I love some of your work, but this is utter and total crap, and it will take something really special to draw me back.

Re:Eh.

[marktaw.com]

Oh, and making movies like this is fully sanctioned by EA, and they even give you the video to use at the end Made with The Sims 2

Re:Eh.

[WWWWolf]

Wow! This from the company that truly stompeth on the Ultima remakes and other fan projects.

There's no consistency like inconsistency. Will I ever learn to understand EA?

This was really neat!

[wrinkledshirt]

Okay, granted, the writing and Friends-style music sucked, but the production quality was pretty good.

I've got some questions, though, for anybody who's played this game and/or dabbled with machinima. I really want to buy this game just for the machinima capabilities...

1) How much of the content do you think was script first, production second? Hopefully all of it, but some of it gives the impression that they found some neat in-game animations and threw some voiceovers onto them to (try to) make them funny.

2) How did they get that guy to gesture with the hand guns in each of the rooms? Are gestures like that scriptable?

3) I understand Sims have their own language, but some of the mouth animations and postures actually looked like they matched English dialogue pretty well. Now, while I realize some of this might be related to #1, but is this movie indicative of Sims2's ability to make an English-dialogue scene?

4) Any idea how long a movie like this would take to produce?