World of Warcraft - Part II

Yesterday I posted an article on the highly successful MMORPG World of Warcraft created by Blizzard, today I wanted to share with you some pictures and movies that have come from the game itself.

Since the beginning of World of Warcraft there have been a number of players who have recorded in game movies while actually playing the game, on top of that Blizzard allowed the user community to access the World of Warcraft models used in the game via a piece of software called World of Warcraft Model Viewer, there is also a map viewer which allows you to play with and manipulate the landscapes as well.

The Model Viewer allows you to take any model from in the game and use the different animations of the models as well as exporting them as a movie file which you can then chroma key onto a green screen to create your own movies.

Over the past month Blizzard have been showcasing some of the best work created by these players and their creations are superb, this kind of movie making is known as Machinima.

Baron Soosdon?

Out of all of the Machinima creators, Baron Soosdon is by far one of the best, he is extremely critical of his own work and like all things, this work takes more that one person to create the final movie sequence after all the principal shooting has taken place and model rendering and animation chroma keying is complete.

The main tools used by Machinima makers are Fraps, for general in game recording, Sony Vegas for editing, chroma keying, mixing and more, other tools are used for adding effects.

There are a large number of tools and software packages out that allow you do carry out the kind of work needed to create a Machinima masterpiece, my favourite work from Baron Soosdon is a movie called I’m So Sick, it uses the music from Flyleaf which was remixed for a different movie but the Baron has made it his own, please note that when you watch this movie not only has the Baron used World of Warcraft for the models, the band and backgrounds but also incorporated maps, images, models and other material from 2 other games as well.

http://www.stage6.com/user/BaronSoosdon/video/1746573/I’mSoSick

There are whole web sites dedicated to the Machinima world and you can find a majority of them here

http://www.warcraftmovies.com
One of the funniest movies I have seen takes its music from a stage production and the lyrics have been re-written for this particular movie, it shows you just how well these movies can be done.

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=11070

On the http://www.warcraftmovies.com  web site you will find many examples of PVP play and in game action which helps you the player to hone your skills in whatever class you have chosen, trust me when I tell you that there are always other players out there that are better than you and just when you think you have become good at what you do, another player comes along and makes you realise that you have to rethink your strategies for whatever class you lost against.

This is one of the dynamics of World of Warcraft and what keeps the game alive and breathing.

Screenshots and more

The game allows you to take screenshots in game, when you are flying between cities or riding from one zone to another, you will see some truly awesome sights created by the developers, sun rises, sun sets, night shots and live real time weather changes, oh yes, it rains and snows in Azeroth too!

Here are a few shots to get you going, but there are so many on the Blizzard site which will see on the site some are extremely funny as well as deadly serious.

Blood Elf Mages

The Swamp of Sorrows

The novice Undead Warlock summons her first Demon

The Tauren Warrior

There are so many more screenshots to see so head over to the World of Warcraft web site and have a look.

And Finally – Fan Art!

There is a healthy world of players out there that are also talented artists and Blizzard publishes all of them to their sites but the most talented are placed on a specific site to showcase those that are the best.

Here is one example below, click on the link to view it, you can find more at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com

The Day is Coming

I hope that you have enjoyed this post, here are some links to some more great stuff from the game, including the latest TV commercials shown by Blizzard across the world, even South Park has its own episode called “Make Love not Warcraft” if you google that episode name you will be able to navigate to one of the South Park sites where you can site and watch the episode for free.

Until that next time.