Monday, May 28, 2007

011 - The making of "Sin City Azeroth: The Customer Is Always Right"


Originally I had the idea for SCA: TCIAR in late 2006. I tried filming it with humans in Stormwind. But I did not get the scenes and the overall idea functioning as I wanted it to so I scrapped the damn thing.

But this weekend I gave the idea an other go. I played the clip on my laptop and edited the machinima in my main pc according to the scenes from the movie. There was no point making a 1:1 copy, since the original Sin City has long shots which would be totally boring to watch in WoW. Mostly due to the lack of facial expressions.

For the actors I chose gnomes. Gnomes are imo one of the most controversial races in WoW - you either love them or hate them. They either are the comic sidekick or the next tasty, juicy meal of an undead r0ug3.

The machinima was made using only the viewer programs. I did not consider using an emulator this time, partially because getting one to work is hard at the moment (thanks to the 2.1.0 patch). There are workarounds but just now I did not want to bother :)

The advantages of using an emulator would have been a whole lot more realistic looking rain effect. The seen on the movie is made with Photoshop using two different layers. One for the back, one for the front.

In the end SCA: TCIAR was quite fun to make. It provided enough challenges and again I learned some new things.


What next then? No idea. I'm gonna keep a creative break till I get a good enough idea for something. The break shall last from 2 seconds to eternity.

Watch Sin City Azeroth: The Customer Is Always Right at warcraftmovies.com (clicky clicky!)

Saturday, May 26, 2007

010 - Stop press!

I think I should get a pair of new eyes. I just found out a few days ago that a "new" version of WoW Map Viewer (v0.6.1) had been released (in january or somewhere else in the beginning of the year :D).

So I'll take back some of my spanking towards that great piece of software. Especially since that particular version solves issues it had on my PC. Now the textures (on flags, trees etc) show up fine and there was quite minimal lagging when I was checking the Black Temple out.

As usual one thing leads to another and I got a new little piece of machinma under work. I think I can get it completed this weekend and release it next week. Currently I'm about halfway done.

The machinima itself is a spoof/remix of Sin City. It re-enacts the first scene (also known as "The Customer Is Always Right") with WoW.

Using gnomes.

I chose this particular scene 'cause it is fairly simple to replicate. But not totally easy. The challenge is to keep the scenes interesting and not repeat themselves much (but then again, the original version is also quite repetitive camera angle wise).

Here's a concept art thingie I made with Photoshop:

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

009 - Patchday Pewpew

Ah the patch day.. And everything has gone fine! Except the little minor annoyances.

Some of the damned addons need to be updated as usual but that's no big deal. Then.. another upgrade. The (oh noes) private server!

As the emulator/private server has become quite essential for my machinimaking (I no longer can't think of making anything without one) I o'rly-really hope that the emu devs get the things fixed and running again. Like I stated on my UEv2 description, the emus are no good for playing the game (imo - tho some people might be ok with a 'lesser' game experience) but for movie making.. a dream come true.

Using an emu with two computers allows to make better camera angle shots. When that is merged with WoWmodelviewed material the possibilities are almost endless. And besides, the emu works better than WoWmapviewer when filming background shots. Best of both worlds in one place - really great.

But then again, the big B does not love the use of emus methinks. It would be truely acebestestly pewpewingly great if the guys in the B office would give us machinimakers a tool.. Somekinda sandbox thingie which would allow us to run around and make the imbaest machinima ever.

Boobs.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

008 - It Is Done.



Watch "The Connections Are More Dangerous Than Lies", a music video by The Ataris
machinimated by yours truly :P

machinima.com


007 - Soosdon, Baron Soosdon (preview pic call incoming!)

Finally it starts to be ready.

Today, the release candidate 1 version of my movie to The Ataris machinima contest was rendered. Most of the movie was OK, but there were still some minor tweaking to do. So the finally final version gets rendered tonight and I think I'm gonna submit it tomorrow to the site unless there are more things to be fixed :P

But as I earlier promised, here are some preview pics (from the HD720p version):








This machinima of all my current works to date has taken the most time to render. The RC1 version took 5h 51min (iirc) to render. And that time does not include the time taken for the pre-rendered scenes.

The movie itself does not 100% relate to the songs (Connections Are More Dangerous Than Lies) lyrics but instead the song is used as a soundtrack for a machinima. When I listened to the three songs available, I knew that that one was the I'm gonna use.

What next then? :P

A little break (ranging from 0 seconds to few days) from machinimaking , then some planning for next Unlimited Escapism (it'll either be UEv0 or UEv3) and maybe two music videos.

And of course most importantly - LOL, Lightwell vol. 10!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

006 - I Have Seen The Light (tm)

I have seen the light. It came from the world's imbaest paladin - Shepiwot. Thanks to him, my future as a machinimaker and the style of my future movies is completely clear. Check out his magnificiently superacebestly excellent "How To Paladin"-series from links below!

How To Paladin
How To Paladin II - Revenge On The Bots
How To Paladin III
How To Paladin IV
How To Paladin V
How To Paladin VI
How To Paladin VII
How To Paladin VIII
How To Paladin IX
How To Paladin X

Enlightened by these genious machinimas, I had to make a tribute to him. Instead of releasing 9 separate movies (X was not out at the time of making), I made parts 1-9 into one movie. So lemme present to ya:

LOL, Lightwell vol. 1-9


Something is really wrong with that movie. People are liking it :o Will there be a sequel? Hell yeah. But first things first, I should start making the imba finale sequence for my entry to the Atari's contest and tweak the beginning up a little. After my next test render I'm gonna post pics about the project here. Pewpew!

Friday, May 11, 2007

005 - What will the future bring..

OK, first some pics:
(click on 'em to make bigger)






Those three pictures above are from my first model change ever. The idea behind them is a mutated and diseased Barrens (I named the project "The Barrens Biohazard").

My plan was to change Barrens almost completely and release a movie..

..but as usual, things go wrong. Like Al Lowe once said, "save early, save often". Well I did save often, but I guess not early enough. But then again, as I am still quite a n00hb considering the modelchanging this was to be expected.

The project is not completely wasted and gone, but finding the correct and functional files from the broken ones is a pain in the ass. A pain which I have no interest in suffering at the moment.

The modification was done under the WoW v1.12.1 client by simply editing the .MPQ files and replacing one model with another. Thanks to Snoman and Dopefish for all the help & guides!

Currently I'm still working on the contest video for The Atari' contest. The movie itself is about halfway done, but it still needs lotsa tweaking and designing. I even derived from my original script and plan a bit in order to make the movie work a bit better.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

004 - PEW PEW PEW LASERGUNZ!

Guess what people!

WoW is not the only engine that can be used to create machinima. O-rly really!

I mean, check out this kewlzors and psychedeliczors Halo-machinimation, "Bad Soda". It made me go WTF - in a pewpewingly positive way.

And on the other news from the AttentionWhore channel (tm), UEv2 broke the 40k download limit today. Also, I fucking hate murlocs.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

003 - The Unlimited Escape

Today Unlimited Escapism vol. 2 became the most downloaded movie of all my movies in Warcraftmovies. At the time of writing, UEv2 has been downloaded / streamed or whateverized 37 810 times. But then again, that is a small number compared to the real biggies on the site. But records are meant to be broken! At least personal records, that is :)

The second most downloaded is Project Sunset (I so dislike that movie now).

What I did not mention in the description of UEv2 at the sites that it is released, that the version which I put out is actually a second cut made from scratch. I had about four minutes of edited UEv2 version 1 done when I realized this was not it.

The first version was supposed to have three songs + something for the end credits. That was also something that did not work out as I wanted to, so baibai for them (Rank 1 - Symsonic (Original Dub), Super8 - Cre8, CLSM & Cube::Hard - See You On The Other Side) and welcome "Make U Mine" by David West.

No regrets on that decision at all!

I have no plans for UEv3 yet. First of all, I do not want it to be a repetition of the previous two. The third part needs to have something new and a bit different than just mixing up UT2004, WoW and movies. Whatever that is, I have absolutely no idea currently.

My next project will be the music video for the Ataris machinima contest (see post below).

After that it is time to enter the gates of Scholomance and see if that place could be renovated somehow..

Unless there are other machinima contests coming :)

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

002 - The Ataris & Machinima.com Contest

Machinima.com & rock band The Ataris are holding a music video making machinima contest. I am so going to join :D The Ataris offer the machinimakers three songs to use for the movie. The music is not bad at all. Maybe not my style exactly but still listenable.

The downside is that I have an exam tomorrow. From a subject which does not interest me at all, for the third time. And then I go and read about this contest..

Guess what's in my head right now?

Yes, indeed - ideas about new scenes and the plot for the movie I am going to submit. Plus all these small details about colourization etc.. Instead I should be reading that fukken exam book.

If someone is selling working, not much used self control plix send me one! Or a remote controller which can turn my internal machinimaking circuit just temporarily to the off-position. In exchange I promise to do everything to have the entire murloc population to be extinct by the end of the year.

I'll even ask Jack Bauer to help if I have to!


Should the ruless allow it (I'll do a more in-depth reading on them later) I will post progress shots and making-off stuff here.

But now, back to storyboard... no, no, no... open wowmodelviewer and edit char... NOO! ..just check some locations on map view... NO WAI! ..just one page of script.. GOD DAMNIT!