Done!

I think most the animations are pretty much done and all in place.
The machinima is 1min 8sec right now (yeah the last hour was just precise, short animations) but I know its going to get longer as the title, credits, and a few images are still missing. (Those will be added when I polish it)
And the machinima requires quite a lot of polishing. Quite a huge lot.
With that said I will take a short break and come back to sounds later!

Work friday!

Yes, it's time to work on the machinima!
From the last time I have 1 minute and 1 second done!
This means that another 20-30 seconds today and the editing part is done! *oh joyous day*
Right, and now to get on with the work!

Meeting w. Mr. Rawson

Updated Timeline:  (reverse Chronological)

Feb 1:  Completely Due
Jan 28:  Final report/writeup
Jan 14:  2nd Draft to Rawson
Jan 07:  1st FULL Draft to Rawson (EVERYTHING complete)
Jan 04:  Family/Friends Leave
Dec 21:  Leave Basel
Dec 18 - 20: Backgrounds / Polish
Dec 17:  Sounds / Voice / Music
Dec 16:  Finish Animations

Publish the Machinima through Youtube, Machinima.com, etc, and then ask for feedback. 

Hey everyone, I've finally finished the product!
Please take a moment to watch it and give it some feed back!
Feedback: I am specifically looking for ways that I could have improved, things I could have done differently, or a "new perspective that might be considered", as my PP advisor suggested that I put this is my written report. Please give constructive feedback, not simply "Well done!"  (better) 
 For your Process Journal, take 20 of your best posts / sketches / etc.   organize it and have it ready.

Make sure you check the Frog page for any questions on content/organization

Screenshot of my work

A screenshot of my working space. As you can see 43 seconds are done, and you can see what it´s like working on a machinima (It gets boring... trust me!) Anyway, just wanted to show the program Sony Vegas Pro and the good quality the movie will have (you can see on the top right, crystal clear!)

Story

As my sister walked in and asked me what the story was, I got the absolutely perfect idea.
Not to boast or anything but the story I just said makes me really happy and I quite like it.
I'll write it down below in white (spoiler!) so if you want to read it, highlight the text!


There is a group of people known as "Storytellers" who create stories, myths, legends, tales, etc to educate and entertain the people.
As new technologies start arising (I'll have pictures of WoW characters playing on laptops, listening to iPods, etc) the government wants to earn money from these products, so they (government) order the killing of Storytellers. They get slaughtered but one of them escapes (The Last Storyteller ;)) he runs away and settles in some place, hidden and safe.
As he walks one day he hears the sobs of an orphan whose parents have been mugged and killed. He takes him as his own child and takes care of the child. One day the troops arrive, they found the storyteller. He gets taken away from the child. At this point the screen goes black and you hear the sounds of dragging, dramatic music and an axe falling down. At this point my voice acting stops. The Storyteller has been killed.
But here is the twist! The whole story, the machinima, all the voice acting is being spoken right before the Storytellers execution. So he tells what happened, and as the axe kills him (the screen is black) you his words rising like magic and flowing through the wind, they float around until they reach the child. The child looks up at the words telling the tale of his adopted father that he never knew. The machinima ends with "dramatic" music as the camera zooms in on the child's face.

This will not change anything due to editing or the time it will take. The machinima will still be around 2 minutes long (I have 36 seconds of animations DONE (that's 20 seconds in 35 minutes of work)) and yeah. So there's the story if you want to read the spoiler. I just had to write it down in case I forgot it!

Today's plan!

It is 12:00 which means that work on personal project can officially start for this sunday!
I have sony vegas open (and running smoothly) all my animations are there, and the first 16 seconds are also safely in the timeline (some bits need editing/polishing) I plan to do maybe half or over of the animations done today!
Like I said in my previous post, when all animations are done, the next step will be backgrounds, then sounds and music then voice acting and then final polish. This shouldn't take more than 4 days of work (Christmas break I love you)
With that said, it's off to work!

*happy Jacek is happy*

In reply to Mr. Rawson's awesome comment (especially the last bit :))

I know now that everything will work, even if it doesn't want to. I have all the files on our old windows (which I will call windows 7 from now on) So basically what I have to do is take all the files, put them on my 32gb mem stick, copy them onto the new windows vista (on which sony vegas pro 11 is installed and WORKING.) and then just copy, paste and edit!
This actually makes me happy. Because technology would have to try really hard to make something go wrong now!
Starting saturday (since I'm away friday) I can just re-open my "Last Storyteller" file, which will already have 20 seconds done (as stated before) paste into the media browser all my clips recorded with FRAPS, and then edit (editing is miraculously boring but oh well..) add sounds and voice acting and done!
I can probably get half the editing done this weekend (hopefully) since I have to babysit later during saturday, I'll try to work saturday, but then there is always sunday, and christmas holidays starting with friday will be
Friday - editing
Saturday - editing / adding backgrounds
Sunday - Adding backgrounds / adding sounds
Monday - Adding sounds / voice acting
And then its done!
So there's that, the explanation that there shouldn't be any more issues!
Hip hip hooray!

Perfect solution for all my problems!

Just like the title says, I have found a fantastic solution!
Before I share it though, some background information/story is needed.
My friend asked me a month ago whether I wanted to buy his gaming PC. I obviously replied yes and he gave me the amazing price of 400chf. Now the idea didn't really work too well with my parents, they decided me having another computer is ridiculous and that was pretty much it. I told him to keep the PC in case I get them to change their mind.
Now here we are, The Avid Studio program sucked (couldn't move objects around the screen, chroma key looked awful.) 220chf for such program would be a waste of money, just like the $700 Sony program.
My mum asks "Can't you install it again?" I said that no, the program remembers the computer, leaves traces and you can't use it twice on the same machine. So my mum asks "What about our other windows?" (one very old pc (around 15 years) and my sisters laptop which crashes when you turn it on) I tell her that they wouldn't run the program as their too weak. So I tell my mum about my friends computer again, hoping she will agree.
And she did! So tomorrow or thursday I will go round his house, pick up the PC, take it home, install it, download sony vegas for 30 days AND FINISH MY MACHINIMA!
This is perfect as I already have all the movies, I have the started project (around 20 seconds of it) I literally have everything and now I just need to put it together, which I'll be able to do very very soon!
This is also great for me, because however much I love my mac, it is not a gaming device. And now I'll be able to play all the hottest games again!
Everyone wins, I finish my product on time, and we save about 400chf.
*Happy Jacek is happy*

HALLELUJAH! :D

I have found a program in Media Markt while searching for Sony Vegas Pro 11 today called Avid Studio. It costed 219CHF and seemed to have very similar functions to SVP11.
I told my mum that there is a trial available, so I will go home and download it, see if it works and if it does I can use the 30 day trial (and finish my product) without having to buy it.
I went home full of hopes and dreams of it working and me being happy. Unfortunately installation took me ~2 hours, and by then my hopes weren't quite as high. And I was right. Upon trying to add all the video clips I had, none of the avi files would load.
I researched on the internet, and their forum to find out why, and it turned out this "professional program" supports only MPEG movies.
I was furious, and in this madness downloaded and .avi to .mpeg converter. I converted the movies, but the quality sucked and it was only 70% of the video (honestly, what a stupid company... I wonder how many people BOUGHT their product with such awful quality and the millions of free converters out there.) Anyway, I downloaded another one which produced a crystal clear quality mpeg movie.
I added it to Avid and Hallelujah I was able to view it. I then proceeded to add the chroma key (remove greenscreen) and in this part the quality took a major hit in the face. You can see that this chroma keyer isn't even 50% as good as the Sony one :(
One thing left to see is whether I can move the object on the screen (zoom in, zoom out, position) if not, this program is pretty much useless.. If I can, I'll stick with this to finish my product. The quality may not be a $700 Sony product, but at least it works.

Sony Vegas Pro 11

Looking around on all websites & shops to find the cheapest deal.
I prefer a CD as internet downstairs doesn't work and I don't want to buy it and not be able to use it...
Plus $700 is a tad ridiculous, since you can get it on ebay for $200...
Searching and searching, will have it for next weekend, possibly earlier!

Unfortunately.

Unfortunately however great and simple trakAx is to use, it doesn't support the Chroma Keyer (the effect which takes away all sorts of green screen etc.) And WoW Model Viewer doesn't support a transparent background.
*facepalm* *rage*
I have to wait for my dad to get home to continue VIDEO EDITING.
Before that happens, I'll just record the script and the sound effects. >.>

Just throwing this out there!

http://trakax.com/software/pc/download/
Installing right now, I'll see just how good this is/whether I can use it at all!

Setback/software issues (again!)

I woke up an hour ago with one purpose:
Go downstairs and finish your machinima. Or work on it as much as possible, no facebook, no movies nothing. And so I walk downstairs, sit at my desk, double click "The Last Storyteller" and out of nowhere a pop up comes up saying "Your free trail is up, buy now to continue using" Well played Sony. Well played. No reminders, no such information (maybe somewhere written in font 8) to let me know how long the "trail" is. The full program costs 599$. This will be a fun conversation with my dad.
But before he gets home ill try and do anything else I can on this. I'm definitely not giving up and not letting software bring me down.
Oh and also:

Explanation and more progress

Just came home from Oklahoma (which was a great performance!) and maybe it would be best to explain the short notes I've written.
This is not an outline, nor is it the style of writing I will use in my final write-up!

I simply work much better if I have a sheet with a few key bullet points written down (obviously this required more than that, but you get the idea) and so below this post are the notes for each of the key areas I will explain in my write-up.

Progress - the first 20sec are 70% done (this was after 2 and a bit hours of work) and so this weekend I will try and work my "bum" off to finish as much as I can. If I get over 70% of the project done, I'll be a very happy bunny. I'll try to aim at the full 100% although that would be very difficult.
Right now I'm just taking all the animations, cutting them to appropriate length, adding them to a black background and making one appear after the other.
Once that is done, I will add backgrounds. With the backgrounds added I will fine tune anything that needs to be fine tuned (cut down more, moved around a bit, etc) afterwards simply adding sounds and the spoken track (which will be the shortest step) will result in a completed machinima!
But for now, sleep it is. My eyes feel rather heavy!

(SPOILER: I'm actually really proud of the script)

Rough Notes for Final Write-Up

Notes for Write-Up

Introduction

-Clearly state your goal; to make a movie using the recent developed technique of machinima.

-Talk about new and upcoming style of film making; machinima, mention your research and it’s beginnings.

-Inspiration: Since I watched TotP3 I was inspired to one day make a machinima. As I verged deeper and found more machinimators and more movies that made me laugh or that I really enjoyed, I simply knew that for a personal project a machinima would be my product.

-AoI: Human Ingenuity (I fully explained this on a handout, thus a small bullet point) Movie making is all about human ingenuity. The script, the actors, the costumes, the voices, they are all created to find a new form of entertainment for us as every movie varies, either in plot, special effects, actors, etc. Not only is machinima a totally new way of movie making on its own, my movie also focuses on the art of creating such stories and what impact it has on people!

-The format I selected is a machinima movie, and this was for a couple of reasons. Normal movies take too long and are too difficult to make over such a short period of time, I was fascinated by machinima since a year or two, allows me easy access to a later career (machinimators get payed quite a fine amount and their work is enjoyable) and because I love video games and anything relates to them, therefore the idea of a machinima excites me!

-changes: I had to change my script a several times. The main reason for this was time, there wasn’t enough time to make an advanced, fully voice acted machinima without any prior knowledge on the subject. After changing the script, I also abandoned the idea of a “live-action voice acted movie” meaning that the story would be told as a flashback by just one voice (me!) This is far easier and faster then having multiple characters acted by various people. There were also changes in the software, I ended up using other programs than I primarily thought I would use due to most of them not functioning correctly!

Description of Process

-       In here include the various youtube links, the guide from buffed (magazine) and interview with TauriMovies to clearly show how I found out how to machinimate, what it means and how it works.

-       From the various techniques that exist for machinima making, I used the WoW Model Viewer to extract models from the game, dress them up however I want and animate them with their preset animations from within the game against a green screen. Afterwards I put it together in Sony Vegas Pro, which is a very tricky and time taking process. I recorded sound with Garage Band, extracted it and added it onto the machinima. I then took sounds from the WoW folder using an MPQ extractor and added actual in-game sounds to the machinima. Lastly I took backgrounds from WoW Map Viewer and added them behind all the scenes.

-       There were many other techniques to use, but in my personal opinion none of them looked as good as the one I used in the end result. There was the WoW machinima tool which allows you to change around the game world while you’re playing the game, but I found that rather annoying as there is a very limited amount as to what you can do with your actual character in the actual place he’s in. Also you can’t equip him with any clothing, he must have the gear that you obtained in game. (And picking the clothing can take up to an hour per character)

-       AoI links, as mentioned above these are all listed on a piece of paper, I can scan it in and upload it to my process journal

Analysis

-Inspiration: TotP3, Oxhorn’s short shorts, Druidboyz, GiGi, Nyhm, The Hunt, and various other small comedy machinima skits (Who’s the tank, Do you speak English, how to not be seen)

-Reflect on methods used: I think that the method I used has a lot of positive sides but also some negative side effects. The positive sides are that this is the most widely used method for machinima making (WoW machinima at least), it is recognized as a standard if one wants to work for machinima. It is also the simplest way, where the user barely needs to research to know what he’s doing. The side effects are that most of the software one uses in this method are created by very small group of hardcore game fans and so the software will often have bugs and not function properly as the small teams do not have enough resources to spend on constantly improving their programs. That is definitely a major setback but nothing that can’t be worked out.

-I had to do a lot of changes to my original idea and I’m quite glad I did! My first idea for a script wasn’t as good as this one (in my opinion) and the various software changes I did, either from programs used or how I used them also surprised me in a positive way!

-Why I did things the way I did them: I wanted to create a machinima that would be enjoyed not only by gamers and young kids but also by adults. This required an interesting story and no gaming references. I needed to make the viewer feel as if he was watching a short movie, and not a video game montage. Therefore I have written a script, which in my opinion would interest people of all ages. The software doesn’t really require much explanation, I needed to put the machinima together, make it look good but also make sure it doesn’t take too long! I made sure to choose the fastest and most efficient ways to do so, with software I used previously (WoW Model Viewer) or software with plenty of online tutorials and such, so I wouldn’t need to buy a book or read the instructions manual.

Conclusion

-What I found difficult in my project was actually quite surprising. It wasn’t the multitude of software issues, or the fact that at first nothing wanted to work and a lot of time and money was spent on something which ended up a bummer. The biggest problem for me was to sit down and edit the entire machinima. Video editors know what it’s like. When all you do for several hours is stare at long, thin strips (timelines) and move them left to right, cut bits and pieces out, stick them together, etc, etc, it gets pretty boring. A machinimator has an even more dull task as the video he is editing has nothing already put together. This means he must add the backgrounds, add the characters, place the characters where he wants them, move the characters where he wants them to be, then edit all of that together and add sounds. It’s not necessarily more difficult, just very time taking and over a long period of time; dull. And that was the biggest issue for me, the rest I found easy, as creating a good scene or cut was quite fun, to play around with camera angles and feel like a director. But the repetitive nature of the production period kept putting me off slightly from continuing my work.

-AoI – once again, it’s all on a piece of paper!

-Strengths and weaknesses: As my first try in machinima (not in movie making!) I have to say that I’m quite pleased with how it’s turning out. Although as mentioned above, quite dull and repetitive, I think that it’s not the worst machinima I’ve seen. It could of course be improved and it isn’t on a level of Oxhorn or TauriMovies (two famous WoW machinimators) but for a beginner I’m quite pleased. To be honest I’m also happy about the script that I’ve written, and the response I get when I tell people my story or the script is always very positive and the person seems interested!

The weaknesses are definitely the short period of time I had to this (blaming myself and software) (although software just slightly) without such a time restriction I could study more on lighting, camera angels, successful usage of Sony Vegas and so on. This is the tricky part in machinimating, not only do you need to know how to machinimate, you should know everything a good director knows as well as you’re creating a movie. Other than that the only other weakness I have is that I wasn’t able to use all the settings that I wanted to, since WoW map viewer doesn’t work right for over a year now, and was never fixed.

-I always wondered what it would be like to be a machinimator as a career, and I found it interesting enough to consider a career (at least at a young age) but after looking at the general response YouTube has towards WoW machinima, the amount of time and resources it takes (forcing me to use a windows computer, ugh) I was put off slightly from the idea. I’ll see what my subscribers and fans think of the machinima, and if it receives positive feedback I might make another and submit it to machinima to earn money. I do not however see this as a career choice anymore, although I still believe that it is a very interesting, new and developing art. A new art form that is just rising and will be fascinating to observe how it evolves in the future.