Hi Folks

In my last post to this blog, I gave you a quick overview of some World of Warcraft screenshots, fan art and most importantly in game movies called “Machinima” created by some very talented people.

One of the most creative of these people that I mentioned is Baron Soosdon who makes his Machinima productions under the name of Nublock Movies, in this post I wanted to focus a little more on the world of Machinima, how it is created, the tools used and some idea of the amount of effort that goes into making one of these productions, this article is just a beginners guide and hopefully it will help you on your way if you wish to begin creating your own movies.

Machinima

So what do you need to get yourself going on making an in game movie? Well for starters you need to ensure that you have something like the list of tools shown below to actually capture, edit, render and manipulate your production, from in game recording to model manipulation and rendering to adding effects to your final masterpiece itself, there are ways of making Machinima very cheaply as some of the software you need is either free or very cheap, however as you get better at this art form you may want to invest in some of the more professional type tools which can run your credit card bill up quite seriously.

Here is a list of the tools you will need.

Game Engine Video Capture
Fraps
http://www.fraps.com

Game Cam
http://www.planetgamecam.com

World of Warcraft Tools
WoW Model Viewer
http://www.wowmodelviewer.org

Video Editing
Windows Movie Maker
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx

Adobe Premiere Pro CS3
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/?promoid=BONSM

Sony Vegas
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/vegasfamily.asp

Virtualdub
http://www.virtualdub.org

Effects and Further Editing
Adobe After Effects CS3
http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/?promoid=BONSP

Adobe Photoshop CS3
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshopextended/?promoid=BONSA

Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo 2
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/gb/en/Product/1184951547051

There is also a WoW map viewer but it seems that this is no longer being updated at this time so I would not recommend messing around with it unless you really want to spend some time trying to get it to work.

My personal preferences on these tools are Fraps for video capture, Sony Vegas for editing, WoW Model Viewer (obviously) Adobe After Effects and Corel Photo 2, this software can set you back a small fortune but you can start out using free software such as Microsoft’s Movie Maker, it does do a descent job but lacks a lot of the tools and functionality of Vegas or Premier Pro, Virtualdub is also free and has some nice capabilities to it as well so you will want to check that out if you are just starting out but do not want to spend huge amounts of money at this stage, you can also download the 30 day trial software if you want to try some of the better packages to see what they offer but also to see if you like them or not.

Learning, Tutorials and more

Once you are armed with your tools the next best thing is to go frequent some of the Machinima message boards or Machinima IRC channel, there you can ask people who have been doing this a while about how best to make your movie, there are also a lot of well written tutorials on the subject on these sites and as Machinima is growing as an art form, more and more resources are popping up every day, also go visit youtube.com or even the Divx Stage6 site and search for Machinima tutorials or Sony Vegas tutorials, you will find a gold mine of information that will start you in the right direction.

When you are starting out, do not be afraid to post questions to the various Machinima message boards, many of the best such as Baron Soosdon frequent these places and will reply to your questions, I know this for a fact because I have done the same thing and had some great replies, so go ahead, ask what you will about Machinima you will not be disappointed.

Here is one link to a quick start Machinima tutorial on the myndflame website by Oxhorn who is another great Machinima producer.

http://www.myndflame.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1271

Ideas & Inspiration

No amount of software tools or model viewers will a Machinima make unless you have an idea of what you want to create in the first place, sure all these tools are essential but unless you have some idea or inspiration on what you want your Machinima to be about you are not going to gain the results you are looking for.

What kind of movie do you want to make? Music video? Dance? Drama? Comedy? First come up with what you want to create, then get to work on your story board and script, oh yes, these are just as essential to your production no matter how small or short your movie will be, also take time to visit warcraftmovies.com, myndflame.com, youtube.com or Divx Stage6 and spend some time looking at the movies that are already out there, pay special attention to the movies that have won competitions.

Plan out what you want to happen and when, how many characters are involved? What music are you going to use? Background? Lighting? Effects? Will you need a voiceover talent? Plan everything that you can, this will help you keep on track in your production, do you want to see if you can collaborate with other Machinima producers or directors? Can they bring skills or ideas you lack to your movie?

Begin thinking along these lines and get yourself a notepad and pencil and a scrap book and begin noting everything down and make little drawings for your storyboard, where do you want the characters to move, how, when, what are they going to do? The list goes on but you get the idea, plan as much as you can as this will pay huge dividends in the long term.

By now, you should have your software all lined up, your story idea laid out, music or voiceover worked out and how you want your production to look and sound, remember that all these things are changeable, if you do not like something or you want to change some aspect of your work, you can.

One last item here, think about what game engine you want to record your movie in, many use World of Warcraft but there are others that incorporate other worlds such as Unreal Tournament and other game engines, consider which one you want to use primarily or if you want to use a few of them together to make one movie.

How to start

Begin by making a short movie, something that you can use to begin building your skills, be critical of your own work so that you can make improvements, luckily my wife studied new media and art at University so I have a great critic, get family or friends to look at your work and ask them to comment, the best critics to help you however are the guys on the Machinima message boards, use their feedback to improve on your next movie, do not be worried about experimenting or trying out new ideas, trying out adding new or different effects when you are editing your movie, work with different soundtrack ideas, just play around and see what works best for your production.

From here you can go on to create more movies and as you become more familiar with how its all done and how best to achieve what you want from your work the more comfortable you will feel about what you are creating.

Time

Good Machinima takes time to create so do not worry about how long something takes you to make, as the old saying goes “if its worth doing, its worth doing well”

If you are collaborating on a project with a group of other producers, remember that they may not have the same amount of time as you to work on your collaborative production, more importantly; they may be adding something to your production that is worth waiting for.

All things technical

Along the way you are going to stumble on some technical issues, one of the favourites is getting the best out of Fraps to record the best quality it can, sometimes this means tweaking the Fraps frame rates configuration to get a nice result from your recordings.

Other items that I see posts about are video file sizes before they are processed, remember that raw video before compression can take up a lot of your disk real estate depending on how long your recordings are, however your tools will help you with this and after your movie is completed and compressed down, you will be happy with the results.

Make sure your PC has the latest drivers for your graphics and sound cards; this will help you a great deal, defrag your hard drive and try to ensure that your PC is running as smoothly as possible.

And finally

In this article I have tried to point you in the direction you need for you to begin down the road to your first Machinima movie, this is just the beginning though and as time allows I will try to post another article which goes into further details on how to make a Machinima production and focus more on some of the people who create great movies, in the meantime, if you have the time give it a try and see what you can create.

Have fun!

Until that next time.

Resources
http://www.myndflame.com
http://www.warcraftmovies.com
http://www.machinima.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima
www.machinima.org
www.machinima.org.uk
www.machinimaeurope.co.uk
www.youtube.com
www.stage6.com

This is a shortlist of sites related to Machinima, there are many more resources to look at, just type in Machinima on google and see for yourself.