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Best Tools for Machinima?
wrinkledshirt asks: "As a former Creative Writing major with a huge interest in film, I've been thinking about trying to get into Machinima (com, org, and wiki sites -- basically, using game engines to make movies). Probably the most famous use of it for the Slashdot crowd right now is Red vs Blue, which makes use of Halo, but up until recently, most of the other options have involved FPS game engines, which would require a huge investment in time so as to create non-FPS-genre content for non-FPS-genre movies. Now that Sims 2 is here with its video-recording feature (and the promise of more contemporary realism in the expansion packs) and with Pete Molnyeux's The Movies coming out in 2005, is it possible that an amateur writer could make the Machinimatic movies of his or her dreams? Plus, what would the best tools be? What machine would you need? Would any single game engine help you create your own Citizen Kane?"
Would any single game engine help you create your own Citizen Kane?
Not right now, but I'm sure this is a direction the video games creators are contemplating because it's an area of expected growth. It would certainly make the creation of cinematics much easier for dev teams if machinima was considered part of the engine.
The problem is that in games like Doom 3 for example, the creation of cinematics is scripted heavily and designed into the levels. Models take weeks to build correctly and integrate, and you have to have strong modelling skills to achieve that. There is no separation of set and action or actors, for the most part. I understand that Half Life 2 has changed this kind of static nature, but it's still very early.
The games would have to have quick modelling system built in, or methods for generating random characters and skins, and voices.
I'm sure that in the next twenty years, this is the direction of video games. It would be a smart approach, IMHO.
You also have to consider the comparison between video game sales and box office/rental sales. Video games are beating the movie industry to a pulp, so film as a medium of expression is likely on the way out, unless the business makes some changes and continues to grow and support new vision. Indy film will always be of a higher quality than blockbusters, IMHO.
Look at the reviews for Alexander. Ebert said the film was crap. That's a film they spent $150mil to create!
With games like Halo 2 grosing $100 mil on the first day, for a much smaller budget compared to Alexander, the bottom line is clear. The age of movies is waning.
Quality of film has declined heavily as far as dramatic content, with the exception of films like LotR. I'm seeing the film expression as being played out for the most part.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The sims? Realism? You're kidding right?
We're talking here about simulated "people" who will quite happily beat the crap out of someone one second and talk about the weather to them the next. "people" who will moan and whinge when the bathroom is in use when there are three other free ones in the house. "people" who will happily stuff their faces whilst their kid is crying it's eyes out after shattin itself. "people" who, when they see a fire, go as close to it as they can manage and burn themselves to death instead of calling the fire brigade as any sensible person would do. "people" who play *exactly* the same game of chess every time (technical limitations, I know)
The actual actions they do are vaguely convincing but overall the sims is *not* realistic!
You were right though, it does have a video recording dooby which the strangerhood has used and with some fiddly work you could create a story.
To create any movie you'd need to know what the engine(s) can do inside and out, and if you're using existing characters, you'd need to know their capabilities inside and out too. So to answer, I think anyone could create something half decent but you're looking at a lot of studying and some very careful planning to get it just right.
Oh, just as a complete sidenote and to make this post as worthwhile (debatably) as possible, for anyone who's interested fraps lets you record pretty much anything happening on your screen such as games etc. so you're not limited to in-game recording to capture footage.
Get paid to search..It's geniune and
is there even anything out there that can do voice simulation?
People.
KFG
Your not an actor are you? ;)
No, but I play one on TV.
KFG
Once you got the rough layout, you can start tweaking for more realism.
The funniest (real-time) use of voice-to-animation I have seen till now, is in (the original) Counter-Strike.
Counter-Strike has voice-support built-in ; and when one speaks, the mouth is (roughly) syncing on it.
THe first time i saw this (they introduced it , i think, two version ago, 1.4) , i laughed my arse off :)
Haven't checked yet if they left it in Counter-Strike: Source.
The unreal engine has wonderful abilities to create machinima pieces (I'm sure other engines do as well). I created some cinematics for a video game using the engine and I can tell you that the hard part is not having the animations and sounds that you need. Setting up the scenes is not difficult (relatively) once you know the tools and if you have all this stuff handy, or have the time or a person to do quick animations: "Hey Jon, I need an animation of Captain Zer0 scratching his butt...".
:P
Think about it; for a long "movie" you would need an incredible amount of motions, sounds and voices, even when you modularize them as much as possible (walking, looking left/right, radio chatter, ambient nature noises, blahblah). The beauty is in the subtleties, a quick glance, a raised eyebrow, a certain cock to the shoulders when someone starts to talk about a subject that changes the characters mood, etc. Plus, since voice acting is just as important as how cool the models look, you pretty much need a cast, even though it's "ghosts in the machine"
I really want to see the movie about the intrepid '@' and his adventures in a world of dangerous 'D's, obnoxious 'o's and ravening 'r's. The scene where he's backed into a dead-end '#' by a swarm of killer 'b's, with nothing but a ')' to defend himself, and then his faithful 'f' saves the day, should have audiences laughing and cheering.
:)
Heck, there's no way it could possibly be worse than Dungeons & Dragons: the Movie!