Downsides/Upsides

Downsides and upsides of having to do TLS again in Machinima Studio.

Downsides:

• I have to do it. Again.
• I need to re-create ALL the character models I'll be using.
• I only have 3-4 days

Upsides:

• This program is amazing and ultra fast
• It's basically one program connecting WoWmodelviewer, WoWmapviewer and Sony Vegas Pro 11 all in one
• IT WORKS! :D
• Its being currently updated, discussed, perfected, etc.
• Once I make a character within it, I never have to leave the program to do anything! I can simply add a background, add sounds, add animations, add effects, EVERYTHING. It blows my mind how fast and how GOOD these animations look!

Because, this is the first way:

• Create and save a character in WoW Model Viewer (can take up to an hour) 
• Load WoWmapviewer (if you can even get it to start) select which area and where you want to view it (if it even works in the first place) then record it with fraps. If you want the area to move in your movie, you have to move it while recording, timing it perfectly.
• Load up Sony Vegas and add the background movie
• Open your character again in WoW model viewer and choose which animation you want him to do. You have to get the angle and everything perfectly, because you can't change it later on. Once you have him running the animation you want, also record it with fraps.
• Add the character into Sony Vegas, play around to remove the green screen, open up a special program to zoom in, zoom out place him around the screen etc. (this is tricky!)
• When you have those two, and they look good, download a third program which will extract sound data files from sound.mpq in WoW's folder. You will then have a huge list of all of WoW's sounds and you can right click on any and save as an mp3.
• That mp3 can then be added into Sony Vegas and played/repeated on top of your animation and background.
• Remember that every new movement or correction that needs to be made, requires you to return to model viewer, load up the character, position him in front of a greenscreen and animate him precisely how you need him in the final scene.
• Once you have that, save the file and export the movie.

Now here's the same process within Machinima Studio:

• Load up Machinima Studio
• Create a character and put him in a new scene (right click, place in scene)
• The scene will usually be empty with your character.
• You can then load up any model for background you want in WoW. There's a list of all the models and places or you can search for them in the search box.
• Once you have a background, move it around with your camera, select your character again from the drop down list in the menu and place him where you want him.
• Click on (forgot the button... something along the lines of "animate") and you can choose any animation, you can choose more than one and he will do them one after the other, in the same place.
• You can of course move him in each, so he walks WHILE talking (something I haven't seen before in machinima ;))
• And then you can also right click and add a sound (All of WoW's sounds are there) (that's around 60,000 by the way...) or right click and add an effect (there's around 200 effect's....) or right click and add lighting, which you can move, control, etc, etc. Or right click and add a camera, a moving camera and a camera sequence (for example you set up a character to just dance in the center, and take 3 different cameras front, back, side and have them switch every couple seconds) or add more models, etc.
• Then when you're done, also simply click export scene and boom. It's done.
• Now this is just one scene, you will obviously need more than one for the final movie, these can simply be put together in any movie making program though (iMovie, windows movie maker as an example) Simply drag and drop the finished scenes into their place and export the movie. 
• Done.

You can see that the second method is so much faster and less time taking, it's a true blessing. I wish I ran across it before. The quality of the images is also insanely better. Really, lots, lots better. There is no greenscreen to deal with. It's pure, 100% the way Blizzard spent hours making each model. And animation. And it's just so simple and amazing to use.

If anyone is crazy enough to try dipping into machinima, I definitely recommend Machinima Studio.

Think about it, no $700 Sony Vegas. No buggy WoW model Viewer, no not-working WoW map viewer and no MPQ extractors to dig up the sound files. 

All that for $15!! It also has a lot of other functions, but I won't mention them as they don't have much to do with machinima, their more for proper film making, animating, or game creation.

With that in mind, I'm going to sleep (still recovering from illness) and tomorrow I will kick some machinima buttocks and get to work on it.