Game Guides Archive
Thread: The future of Machinima (real-time engine filmmaking) and SWG
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Mu_Nansen
Fri Oct 22, 2004 10:55 am
#1
Hello all and Devs (hopefully a Dev will read this at some point).
I've been away for a while, as I've been busy. Basically left SWG for a while to work on machinima, or filmmaking in real-time (most often game) graphics engines. Even if you've never heard of "machinima," I'm sure you've seen it. "The Ice Man Cometh" and that rapvideo with Bobba Fett's Vette were both examples of machinima done in the SWG engine. And of course there's the Red Vs. Blue series that a lot of you have seen.
SWG is already probably one of the most powerful machinima tools around. Although absolutely no modding of the game is possible, the game already has far more built-in options for character creation, animation, and costuming. It also has an extremely impressive graphics engine, with startlingly realistic alien worlds, AND IT'S STAR WARS. SWG really has the potential to become one of the top engines for machinima. (I know you won't comment on the rumors I've heard of an SWG Fan Filmfest in the works from certain sources, so I won't ask 
).
).So I just thought I'd post some thoughts here, along with the link to a paper I completed on the standard machinima toolsets that game developers could include to help the machinima makers out. It's basically a detailed wish-list for machinima makers. I wrote it myself with some input from some of the medium's big names like Paul Marino and Friedrich Kirschner, but someday we hope to have an even more in-depth white paper describing in detail the creation and usefulness of the various tools that could help us improve the craft. Here's the link:
http://www.machinima.com/article.php?article=423
For SWG in particular, I think just an improvement in the player's camera control would go a VERY long way to improving the machinima. Just the ability to have the camera looking any direction other than RIGHT AT the avatar would be a major step. Perhaps not letting the camera move away any further than it already can, but just allowing the camera to orient itself to look in any direction would be a major step.
The other main thing that comes to mind would be a simple animation set for simulated speech. Not anything like the in-depth lip-syncing controls of Unreal's Impersonator or HL2's Face Poser, but just something that would let avatars look like they were talking.
These are the changes that I thought would give the most creative revenue for the least programming cost. Of course there's a great deal many other things that game developers can do to help machinima makers, and I touch on a few of them in the paper. I hope that some of you will enjoy it.
Nathan "Mu Nansen" Moller
Message Edited by Mu_Nansen on 10-22-2004 03:19 PM
Barbonokla
Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:36 pm
#2
I'm so glad you made this post. I've been interested in Machinima for quite some time, and quickly saw the potential for SWG to be used as an excellent machinima tool.
May I add to the requests that even a simple lips moving animation was added - lipsync is obviously a bit OTT for the number of people that will appreciate it, but a clear indication of who is talking is always handy in machinima
And yes, added camera control would be a godsend. Currently in first-person mode its relatively possible to act as a camera, but obviously there's a lot of limitations to this.
I hope at some point these ideas are considered
May I add to the requests that even a simple lips moving animation was added - lipsync is obviously a bit OTT for the number of people that will appreciate it, but a clear indication of who is talking is always handy in machinima
And yes, added camera control would be a godsend. Currently in first-person mode its relatively possible to act as a camera, but obviously there's a lot of limitations to this.
I hope at some point these ideas are considered
Mu_Nansen
Fri Oct 22, 2004 2:56 pm
#3
Yeah, I already give props to SWG just for the simple fact that you can hit Ctrl-H and get rid of the HUD. That's a HUGE step that a lot of games don't have. The problem is that in order to get any height variation, you have to go into 3rd person. And with 3rd person, you'll always be the center of attention. Now, with some tricky blocking and camera work you could cheat around this a little bit, but it'd still be very limited.
So allowing a free-roaming camera, even if it was still limited to the same distances from the player as the existing camera, that would be a major step. And in my limited knowledge of programming, it doesn't sound all that difficult to program, either. Maybe just some clipping issues.
Anyways, in case anyone is interested to see what I've done with what tools already exist, here's Ours Again, the movie I did in BF1942. It was played on G4TV fora couple weeks.
http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=535
Message Edited by Mu_Nansen on 10-22-2004 05:57 PM
Mu_Nansen
Sat Oct 23, 2004 8:23 am
#4
am surprised there's not more discussion. Figured there's lots of SWG people interested in making videos. Maybe I'm in the wrong forum. Since the demise of the GenSWG, kinda tough to tell where to reach the "general" SWG community.
Mu_Nansen
Tue Oct 26, 2004 2:51 pm
#5
Speak of the devil, there's a production under way
http://swg.stratics.com/content/news/Bria.php#newsitem1098598047,47689
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