Chock - pointers please on The Movies

[SUBMAN1]

Hey - care to share any tidbits on the movies? I feel so limited when dealing with 'sets' to make a flick. I want a landscape or something unlimited then having to worry about camera angles.

-S

[Chock]

Have you got the 'Stunts and Effects' add on disk? If not, it's probably worth seeking that one out, not so much for the stunts and effects it adds (although they are a plus) but more for the fact that it adds a 'free camera' capability which allows you to place a start and finish location for the camera manually, thus making pretty much any crane or tracking shot you like possible instead of relying on the preset moves. I'm pretty sure you can find the 'stunts and effects disk' add on for about a tenner.
Next you want to get into creating your own backdrops, this is easy to do with a picture editing programme, you simply add a .dds format image file into this folder:

Program Files\Lionhead Studios Ltd\The Movies\Data\Textures\Backdrops

Sometimes I do 'matting shots' with an animation programme to further tweek stuff, essentially what this involves is making the movie, then importing it into an animation program and then adding further zooms and pans on the clip as it plays via the animation program's capabilities. For that I tend to use a program called Moho, but that's quite old and the latest version of it is called Anime Studio or something like that, although there is nothing stopping you from using any 2d animation program or an editing programme which can do a similar thing. If you watched that 'Hunt for Red Hot Coders' movie which I made that was recently up on the Subsim front page, you'll see one of those types of shots in it (the one where a FRAPS movie from MS Flight Simulator of the SeaKing helicopter is joined to a FRAPS movie of Dangerous Waters and then has a guy on a winch hanging from the chopper animated over it in Moho). so, it's essentially three moving images spliced up to make one shot. with regard to DDS pictures for custom backdrops, there's a couple of those in that movie too, the one with the two guys talking in front of the helicopter on the deck of the Enterprise and the backdrop of the Russian submarine interior, which is just a screengrab of some picture I got off the 'net with a bit of red paint airbrushed on it to extend it out a bit, saved as a .DDS file, chucked in the folder I mentioned above anfd then used on the tiny stage set in the movies with the camera position placed manually using that 'free camera' you get on the Stunts and Effects disk, although I bet you could get away with not using it in that case.
One important thing to try when you are making a movie with it is play around with the 'shot duration' options settings over on the right of the screen, worry about getting it all to fit nicely in a video editing program such as Windows Movie Maker rather than trying to make it all work within the Movies game itself, so, kind of like emulating true movie production in that you get the shots and then sort them all out afterwards in the editing suite and post production.

Hope that helps a bit, PM if you need more info.

:D Chock

[SUBMAN1]

I think its going to take a bit to get the hang of it. I see some mods that allow you to put actors where you want them. i think that could be useful after I figure out what stick figures do what! :D

The shoot and sort them out later idea is probably where I should be concentrating, but in another sense, doing the voice overs may get screwed up like this.

Looking at this site for inspiration: http://www.machinima.com/

-S

[Chock]

Well, I've used the same scene I shot to put two different voiceovers on it, that's the beauty of the program in that you can do stuff like that. You can see an example of that in 'The Hunt for Red Hot Coders' too. The bits where I'm doing the stupid Sean Connery accent on the Russian sub commander are the same scene with different voice overs lip-synched in the post production bit of the Movies, I just exported a movie file from post production and then exited without saving changes, that way I could do the same thing again with different voice overs, all it required was a bit of alteration of the scripting dialogue and timing of the phrases to get them to match the body movements, and it doesn't have to be that great.

You'll notice that I also cheated a bit on that Red Hot Coders movie, with some of the dialogue going over external shots of the submarines, which meant I could do those bits really easily, as long as you don't overuse tricks like that it will be fine.

If you can find a copy of this book, I'd really recommend it, it's got some great tips on composing camera shots and narrative flow:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Directing-Camera-Checklist-Video-Technique/dp/0950758221

:D Chock