Since I've come back on late Sunday morning, I didn't have much time to work on my personal project. Monday was taken up by a chemistry write-up, and during the four day weekend I had no access to a computer or anything I've done so far. But today was spent straight on working on personal project, and I'm actually quite pleased with how much worked out!
I have the first 20 seconds of the video 80% DONE! All the animations are in place, one or two of them need a bit of editing (very easy, which is why I focused on other things) and I think they will fit quite nicely with my voice acting!
Right now I only have the characters moving to a black background, and the scenes are literally just chunks (shows one guy talking, then 4 people casting a spell, then some characters dying, etc, etc) but using movie transitions (lighting, speed of movie) it will look fantastic when done with it!
I will then add backgrounds and sounds (plus of course voice acting!)
I am now sure I can finish this before christmas!
For the past 30 minutes I have also been working on notes for my report.
Now notes because I hate writing things twice (I barely ever edit any of my work.... even essays and such) This is why I'm making notes which will be a huge help to me in writing my final report!
Maybe not everyone would say the same, but when I have simple and general notes based on a subject I know a lot about, it's very easy for me to hugely expand on them, add detail, refer to my knowledge and research, etc.
Therefore, notes.
Right now I have the goal and the AoI done, meaning I still have some work before uploading the notes on here on Thursday!
With this small entry, back to work it is!
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Saturday, 19 November 2011
Short video showing what creating machinima is all about!
I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to film this... Fraps wouldn't exactly do the magic since it always recorded WoW Model Viewer in full screen, thus making the other applications... not show.
Quitting it wasn't an option FYI.
Finally after many youtube videos (which didnt really help) I decided to just take my macbook and record my pc's screen.... which worked... except the video is backwards. Meaning everything on the screen is the other way around. *sigh*
Ah well it was the best one I've done from the 5 different tries, and I think it explains everything very simply. (Mr. Rawson if you advise me to film it again properly, I will figure out a way)
The video is currently extracting and ill upload it here as soon as it's done.
I also have all the animations finished (as mentioned before) They are all added to the "project library" awaiting editing.
To be honest though, I think I'll record the sound first (Just 2 minutes of me speaking basically) and then over that add the animations... This because I will be able to focus more on what the characters are meant to do, Ill be able to make them move during what I say, and instead of having to fit in the whole story component (talking) to the video, I think it's better to have the whole story told, and on that add video footage... Simply easier!
I guess this means my task for now is write a monologue... Well off I go to do just that!
Small checklist:
Quitting it wasn't an option FYI.
Finally after many youtube videos (which didnt really help) I decided to just take my macbook and record my pc's screen.... which worked... except the video is backwards. Meaning everything on the screen is the other way around. *sigh*
Ah well it was the best one I've done from the 5 different tries, and I think it explains everything very simply. (Mr. Rawson if you advise me to film it again properly, I will figure out a way)
The video is currently extracting and ill upload it here as soon as it's done.
I also have all the animations finished (as mentioned before) They are all added to the "project library" awaiting editing.
To be honest though, I think I'll record the sound first (Just 2 minutes of me speaking basically) and then over that add the animations... This because I will be able to focus more on what the characters are meant to do, Ill be able to make them move during what I say, and instead of having to fit in the whole story component (talking) to the video, I think it's better to have the whole story told, and on that add video footage... Simply easier!
I guess this means my task for now is write a monologue... Well off I go to do just that!
Small checklist:
- Animations [x]
- Sounds [x]
- Background []
- Voice-over (story) []
- All programs working [x]
- Research [x] <-- most likely done, I keep adding new links to my bibliography but yeah.
I think that's pretty much it except for
- PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER []
Well, off to write the monologue!
(I'll upload the video upon completion!)
Sunday, 13 November 2011
sounds -> success!
I got the sounds! They work! You can listen to them and they work!
Downloaded two different programs till it worked, but at least its all good now. I looked through the sounds and they all seem to be there! So that's a success for sure!
WoW map viewer still isn't working however and that makes me very angry.
Jacek smash!
Downloaded two different programs till it worked, but at least its all good now. I looked through the sounds and they all seem to be there! So that's a success for sure!
WoW map viewer still isn't working however and that makes me very angry.
Jacek smash!
hair pulling.
Im about to do what it says in the title.
For no reason now, WoW map viewer won't start.
sweet jesus have mercy,
Technology, Y U NO WORK?
grrrrrr.
Right. Erm. sounds. that's it.
Ignore the backgrounds atm.
For no reason now, WoW map viewer won't start.
sweet jesus have mercy,
grrrrrr.
Right. Erm. sounds. that's it.
Ignore the backgrounds atm.
more on the map viewer story
Since the last post been looking for ways to get map viewer to work.
I also have a list of all the *small* maps that work:
I also have a list of all the *small* maps that work:
- Stormwind Jail - a jail
- Wailing Cavers - large caves
- Uldaman - an old "egyptian" like ruined city
- Gnomeregan - a very techy, lots of cogs and mechanisms, etc place
- Sunken Temple - fairly obvious, a temple underwater
- Blackrockspire/blackrockdepths - a huge underground scary dungeon place... yeah.
- Onyxia - another large underground cave
- Mauradon - underwater and underground caves and tunnels
- Deeprun tram - similar to gnomeregan-> a very techy tram station
- Orgrimmar instance - a fiery cave connected to the lower, underground part of orgrimmar (the horde's main city) has a few small huts and houses MIGHT could MAYBE be useful
- Diremaul - a large jungle arena with a few tunnels -> could be useful
- Alliance PVP barracks - a part of a human town -> could be very useful, but has a lot of "black holes" i.e. the map is incomplete.
- Horde PVP barracks - just like the one above except in more of huts, desert style. If I use orgrimmar instance this could be useful. More likely to stick to alliance pvp barracks though.
Here is what I found on the official map viewer forum as a response on how to get it to work:
Map viewer isn't usable with 4.x content, and it wasn't great with the 3.x content... It's really buggy, and hard to use. You'd be better off going in-game to get your backgrounds.
And this was posted on friday. 2 days ago.
^**#&!%)@%..1!!
Rage.
Right so unless I can make my machinima using these few background (which aren't exactly great for my script but they could work...) I will have to use the WoW machinima tool. Which means that when you open up WoW, the machinima tool allows you to control all the background, characters, fog, flying, etc. inside the game. The only weak point is you have to physically be there with your character, then you can fly around the area. I however only have one character I really play and if he tries to go to the place that I need for filming, I would get *pwned* by the other side.
I could always make a second character and walk him there (won't take more then 15 minutes) and from there film, except that I would have to do this on my mac as my windows internet still doesn't work and you can't play WoW offline. The issue with that is I have no clue how to record on mac without spending money.....
WAIT! no!
Ahh the joy! WoW on mac has built in recording for machinima!
This could be a way to do it....
*joy joy joy happy tears*
And the WoW machinima tool DOES work, 100% and is constantly updated with new features!
...but does it work on mac?
Let's check...
No. Seems not.
Oh my god.
*rage*
I swear I'll get this to work.
/log off
*sigh*
After a lot of googling, forum searching and downloads I managed to get a version of WoW Map Viewer that actually opens up.
Now the first map I clicked on opened immediately and I was really happy that I managed to get it to work.
I exited that map and tried a different zone, unfortunately the only thing that showed up was the skybox and a vague outline of the mountains.
My excitement died out and I started looking for ways to fix this issue.
On the official issue forum for the program I found that a lot of users are having this problem since October. And that it hasn't been fixed *stabs self* There are a few maps that work and that I could use, so if I can't get it to work, and it doesn't suddenly, magically get updated, I can still do the film (thank the lord!) However this is a huge pain you know where.
Argh.
I hope Im more lucky with the sound program....
Now the first map I clicked on opened immediately and I was really happy that I managed to get it to work.
I exited that map and tried a different zone, unfortunately the only thing that showed up was the skybox and a vague outline of the mountains.
My excitement died out and I started looking for ways to fix this issue.
On the official issue forum for the program I found that a lot of users are having this problem since October. And that it hasn't been fixed *stabs self* There are a few maps that work and that I could use, so if I can't get it to work, and it doesn't suddenly, magically get updated, I can still do the film (thank the lord!) However this is a huge pain you know where.
Argh.
I hope Im more lucky with the sound program....
Animating...
I am currently in the process of animating the characters.
And for once I have good news as it's taking way less time then I thought it would take.
Besides if I notice that I need an animation while putting the footage together, nothing is simpler than opening up WMV and animating it within seconds.
Happy Jacek is happy!
Now let's think...
I have all animations for the slaughtered storytellers
I have all the kid's animations
I have the animations for the Storyteller's capture
I have the storyteller walking, crying, begging, casting spells...
Ah! I need the other storytellers casting
I need books
I need the spells they cast
I need the government created and animated
And I think those could possibly be all the animations I need! :D
I'll write a script after breakfast *final final version* as it has been going through my mind for a while. It will be ~1.5 minutes of me talking (I'll record it to check) and over my talking I'll add the animations, sounds and background. Once I finish the animations today I'll get map viewer to work and then I'll get all the WoW sounds!
Back to work it is!
And for once I have good news as it's taking way less time then I thought it would take.
Besides if I notice that I need an animation while putting the footage together, nothing is simpler than opening up WMV and animating it within seconds.
Happy Jacek is happy!
Now let's think...
I have all animations for the slaughtered storytellers
I have all the kid's animations
I have the animations for the Storyteller's capture
I have the storyteller walking, crying, begging, casting spells...
Ah! I need the other storytellers casting
I need books
I need the spells they cast
I need the government created and animated
And I think those could possibly be all the animations I need! :D
I'll write a script after breakfast *final final version* as it has been going through my mind for a while. It will be ~1.5 minutes of me talking (I'll record it to check) and over my talking I'll add the animations, sounds and background. Once I finish the animations today I'll get map viewer to work and then I'll get all the WoW sounds!
Back to work it is!
Friday, 4 November 2011
Nov 4th meeting with Mr. Rawson
A look at timeline (reverse chronogical):
Better to have a shortened product and a better report
human ingenuity
WOW map viewer isn't working ... hmmmmm grrrrrr . OK another software issue ... how many software issues have we had by this point? 5 -- ish? Probably? How long has the software set back my productivity? 1 month / 2 months? This is an element for reflection .... ahhhh yes.
Without map viewer, we can do the animations of teh charactres, but it won't have any background. Can we create the whole character animations bit, and INSERT backgrounds later? YES. OK good, so what we're going to do is focus on the character animation and deal with the backgrounds later. SO -- conclusion, we are doing animations and NOT backgrounds. done.
Sounds - another program? Getting the sounds will hopefully take 1 hour. After 1 hour I should be able to play/insert any sound I want. I'll blog about this once it's done.
Steps/Goals. Today is Nov 4th : Hope to have ______ done by ______:
Christmas break is the production HARD deadline. Product is second to the report.
- Feb 1st = Final Draft due
- Jan 1st = MUST start writing at latest!!
- Dec 31st = product must be done
- Today we have 2 months left
- no voice actors, 1st person reflection voiceover
- less characters
- more audio, less visual
- what are the only movements that I need?
- what can I reuse / duplicate / loop?
- can I cut some flashbacks? and make it simply a voice comment?
Better to have a shortened product and a better report
- what about a trailer?
human ingenuity
WOW map viewer isn't working ... hmmmmm grrrrrr . OK another software issue ... how many software issues have we had by this point? 5 -- ish? Probably? How long has the software set back my productivity? 1 month / 2 months? This is an element for reflection .... ahhhh yes.
Without map viewer, we can do the animations of teh charactres, but it won't have any background. Can we create the whole character animations bit, and INSERT backgrounds later? YES. OK good, so what we're going to do is focus on the character animation and deal with the backgrounds later. SO -- conclusion, we are doing animations and NOT backgrounds. done.
Sounds - another program? Getting the sounds will hopefully take 1 hour. After 1 hour I should be able to play/insert any sound I want. I'll blog about this once it's done.
Steps/Goals. Today is Nov 4th : Hope to have ______ done by ______:
- Animations, Mon, Nov 14th
- Put together in Vegas : before I leave for England
- Sounds: Dec 5th
- Voice over (not perfect) Dec. 12th
- Titles, final edits (possibly subtitles): By START of christmas break.
Christmas break is the production HARD deadline. Product is second to the report.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Video footage from the first 20 minutes of using Sony Vegas.
I'll be honest. I opened up Sony Vegas and was clueless. I didn't know anything. There were a lot of options, a lot of buttons, moving thingies and STUFF. I was lost. Very lost.
But I looked up 2 tutorials and boom, this is what I "created" in 20 minutes.
Basically now that I have the characters animated and ready for one scene (this is not it, this has 3 people, the original scene has 6 and a background)
So, I imported the 3 character animations and a spell animation. I removed the green screen from the background of each animation. Then I moved the object where I wanted it to go, and then I played around with the time till everything was correct.
Now, I talked to my mum and she said buying fraps is not a problem (yay) so I will get rid of that annoying little white writing above EVERYTHING.
For some reason, I can't get WoW Map Viewer to work, so in this particular teaser there is no background.
This was a first, rough try.... without further adieu, here it is
Like I said very simple, very basic, no sound effect and no background. Just to see how the program feels.
And I must say it feels good, it's a joy using it!
I also have a bunch of annotated pieces of paper with character placing, how long each animation has to be for a scene to work with the voice acting, etc.
I can also tell the the guy on the left (the storyteller with the blue hat) is moving slower then the other two. But I'd have to re-record the animation and I just wanted to get this first try off my chest!
This wasn't as hard as I feared it would be... Thank the lord!
Now bibliography for the videos I used (in case I need them later)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdSLDD7RWyA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxhNf175I9I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZy2KuwPQmM
Not all of them are great quality, but hey, they were on top of the list!
But I looked up 2 tutorials and boom, this is what I "created" in 20 minutes.
Basically now that I have the characters animated and ready for one scene (this is not it, this has 3 people, the original scene has 6 and a background)
So, I imported the 3 character animations and a spell animation. I removed the green screen from the background of each animation. Then I moved the object where I wanted it to go, and then I played around with the time till everything was correct.
Now, I talked to my mum and she said buying fraps is not a problem (yay) so I will get rid of that annoying little white writing above EVERYTHING.
For some reason, I can't get WoW Map Viewer to work, so in this particular teaser there is no background.
This was a first, rough try.... without further adieu, here it is
Like I said very simple, very basic, no sound effect and no background. Just to see how the program feels.
And I must say it feels good, it's a joy using it!
I also have a bunch of annotated pieces of paper with character placing, how long each animation has to be for a scene to work with the voice acting, etc.
I can also tell the the guy on the left (the storyteller with the blue hat) is moving slower then the other two. But I'd have to re-record the animation and I just wanted to get this first try off my chest!
This wasn't as hard as I feared it would be... Thank the lord!
Now bibliography for the videos I used (in case I need them later)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdSLDD7RWyA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxhNf175I9I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZy2KuwPQmM
Not all of them are great quality, but hey, they were on top of the list!
Sorry for mistake!
Kept saying Adobe Professional when in fact it's called Premiere.... it's been a long day!
Also working on the first scene as we speak! I will have something very small to post here soon, I just need to figure one thing out!
Also working on the first scene as we speak! I will have something very small to post here soon, I just need to figure one thing out!
And now video editing...
So it turns out that I can't edit my video with Adobe Professional... my windows is 32-bit, and said program requires 64-bit. Is all hope lost? No!
There are two.. competing programs on this market (for windows) Adobe Professional and Sony Vegas. Thank god sony vegas runs on both windows, AND has a free trail too! And now thanks to my fast internet the download is done.... let's see how this will work out!
There are two.. competing programs on this market (for windows) Adobe Professional and Sony Vegas. Thank god sony vegas runs on both windows, AND has a free trail too! And now thanks to my fast internet the download is done.... let's see how this will work out!
Video recording
Right, after a couple of mishaps with the WeGame client (basically it had to be online to save the videos, and the internet downstairs isn't working causing the videos to... not work.) I decided to go classical and simply download fraps. Now there is a minus using this software. The file sizes of the movies it creates are MASSIVE. A 5 second clip is 10MB, which might not sound like much but get a whole movie of several characters and environments and you have lost many GB's.
The other minus is the writing on top of the movie (www.fraps.com) is always there. Perhaps there is a way to edit it out, but if there isn't I could always buy fraps (27 euros..)
Other then that the software is extremely easy to use and it should be easy to edit as well.
So, let's put some green screen magic to work and record our characters! I'll post a sample on here when I have a couple!
The other minus is the writing on top of the movie (www.fraps.com) is always there. Perhaps there is a way to edit it out, but if there isn't I could always buy fraps (27 euros..)
Other then that the software is extremely easy to use and it should be easy to edit as well.
So, let's put some green screen magic to work and record our characters! I'll post a sample on here when I have a couple!
Ugh! *frustrated*
Nevermind what I said about our internet downstairs, it still won't work... *deep long sigh* thats working with memory sticks then... at least it's an okay speed on my laptop.
Right, back to downloading the recording software then...
Right, back to downloading the recording software then...
Long silence, but good news!
Haven't been updating/working on my personal project for longer then I would have liked to.
There are some personal reasons, but now that the issue is over and done with I can say what's new, what I plan to do and when!
What's new, well finally we have fast internet! Instead of 25kb/s, the speed is now ~8mb/s which is a MASSIVE improvement. (I love it.) This might sound like little news, but the fact is that the computer (Windows 7) downstairs on which I must do my project used to have no internet at all, no idea why, but it simply would not work. Now the issue with that is that I would need to have a laptop or some iOS device with me whenever working because I couldn't check anything or download necessary software. Now that this is fixed, I can freely work downstairs with no issue (the connection still gets disconnected sometimes but hey ho..)
What's coming up;
Wednesday, Friday and the weekend (Sunday at least, I'm away Saturday) will be Personal Project dedicated days (in this week) Meaning that I will start recording every single animation. I have a list of which animations I will need from every character, so now all I have to do is the easiest thing.
I select the movement I want my character to do from a drop-down list
I record the movement
Aaaaand that's it. How simple is that? When all the movements are done, I will open the video editing software, insert background, which I will get from this handy program: http://wowmapview.sourceforge.net/ Then I can simply add the animated character, move him into the place I want him to be (my machinima has no big fight sequences or action filled moments) and then as a last step add the music and voice acting. (MAYBE I'll add subtitles too, as I know that voice acting can often be a pain to viewers...) If however I don't have enough time (I don't know how long this process will take) I will only add subtitles and no voice acting, making this a "musical" piece.
Because however simple it sounds, it's a tedious, time taking process. Ah well.
Also, dear Mr. Rawson when would you be available for a meeting? I'm good on wednesday and thursday and friday... Basically the rest of the week!
A little note aside from personal project; I think I might continue to make machinima when this is done... I just.. like it!
So there's that.. Off to work now!
There are some personal reasons, but now that the issue is over and done with I can say what's new, what I plan to do and when!
What's new, well finally we have fast internet! Instead of 25kb/s, the speed is now ~8mb/s which is a MASSIVE improvement. (I love it.) This might sound like little news, but the fact is that the computer (Windows 7) downstairs on which I must do my project used to have no internet at all, no idea why, but it simply would not work. Now the issue with that is that I would need to have a laptop or some iOS device with me whenever working because I couldn't check anything or download necessary software. Now that this is fixed, I can freely work downstairs with no issue (the connection still gets disconnected sometimes but hey ho..)
What's coming up;
Wednesday, Friday and the weekend (Sunday at least, I'm away Saturday) will be Personal Project dedicated days (in this week) Meaning that I will start recording every single animation. I have a list of which animations I will need from every character, so now all I have to do is the easiest thing.
I select the movement I want my character to do from a drop-down list
I record the movement
Aaaaand that's it. How simple is that? When all the movements are done, I will open the video editing software, insert background, which I will get from this handy program: http://wowmapview.sourceforge.net/ Then I can simply add the animated character, move him into the place I want him to be (my machinima has no big fight sequences or action filled moments) and then as a last step add the music and voice acting. (MAYBE I'll add subtitles too, as I know that voice acting can often be a pain to viewers...) If however I don't have enough time (I don't know how long this process will take) I will only add subtitles and no voice acting, making this a "musical" piece.
Because however simple it sounds, it's a tedious, time taking process. Ah well.
Also, dear Mr. Rawson when would you be available for a meeting? I'm good on wednesday and thursday and friday... Basically the rest of the week!
A little note aside from personal project; I think I might continue to make machinima when this is done... I just.. like it!
So there's that.. Off to work now!
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