What is this new thing?

[ingie01]

What are these movies that use game engines?
Where do I go to find out about them?
Is it something that could be used with Moho?
What kind of formats do the game movies use?
pheew, I could go on and on with the questions but enough all ready!

[Jus_Me]

I thought they used standard formatts, Maybe im wrong?

[bupaje]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinma

may be what you mean.

[ingie01]

Jus me-bupaje thank you- I am clueless when it comes to using the Web.
I started my learning when I retired so I have a lot of catching up to do.
(my web site shows this lack of knowledge)

[bupaje]

Hey ingie. Don't sell yourself short. The look, colors and logo of the website work very well together. I tend more towards boxiness so I might center it. Are you using software or an online editor for this -or notepad?

Nice images in your gallery.

[ingie01]

bupaje, I am using Yahoo site builder and my images for the index page I made from a screen capture from moho. I use PhotoshopCS2 for my photography work.
I want to know how to do interactive stuff and animation on the index page I think it's called the home page.

[bupaje]

Your best bet might be to save something from Moho as flash format. Other than that Yahoo has some prebuilt stuff you can add in. What exactly do you want to do on the main page? Lots of pages try to be flashy but I think the flash needs to serve a purpose -in other words if you have a slide show of your images that's one thing. Blinking lights, flashing buttons, music blasting and so on tends to be annoying. What exactly do you want to accomplish with the site? What is its purpose? With a plan then you can decide which features make sense. Its like a cake, all frosting and no cake may look nice but be unappetizing; all cake and no frosting might be too dry.

[ingie01]

What? I have to put some effort into this?
bupaje I would like to have at some point in time a link to my animations (when they are ready)with a brief animated descriptor on the home page.
I couldn't agree with you more about the glitzy. Many that I have seen look like the webmaster was playing with every new and different thing possible.
Thank you for your quick response and concern.

[bupaje]

I don't use Sitebuilder but when you get to that point I can probably show you how to add that link to your animations and preview on the front page. You can save it as a template of sorts and then just cut and paste a new block in every time you want to post another. I am off school for a few more days, will have a little free time late evenings Thursday/Friday so if you do get one animation ready and tell me what you want I may be able to at least walk you through the basic steps so you can set it up.

[Rasheed]

What are these movies that use game engines?
Where do I go to find out about them?
Is it something that could be used with Moho?
What kind of formats do the game movies use?

I think most of your questions (except the question about Moho) will be answered by the Machinima article in Wikipedia, and of course, Machinima.com is an obvious place to look as well. In essence, machinima is machine animation created by using one of the many game engines.

To use it in Moho, someone should have to write an interface between the game engine and Moho**. It is much more likely that someone has written an stand-alone filmeditor interface to use the game engine for cinematographic uses.

**) In theory this should be possible, because the Moho user interface is based on an application script language, which by itself is able to interface with general purpose languages (C, Java, Python, etc.), which could interface with the game engine. If some programmer is prepared to create and maintain such an elaborate construct, you could use the Moho graphics engine and a special purpose user interface to create Moho machinima.

[ingie01]

Thanks, bupaje I will do that--(I'm not in a hurry)
Rasheed, I was thinking of using the mov or avi produced by the machinima as a background layer for animations in moho- do you think this is possible?
How much soft ware and time do you suppose would be involved if this is in fact a possiblity?

[Rasheed]

Rasheed, I was thinking of using the mov or avi produced by the machinima as a background layer for animations in moho- do you think this is possible?

Yes, I guess so, as long as Moho can import the file (which means the originally used codec is available on your computer).

How much soft ware and time do you suppose would be involved if this is in fact a possiblity?

I don't know. Putting theory into practice isn't my strong point.

[bupaje]

In theory it can be as simple as installing some sort of screenrecorder and going into a game in 'God mode' and walking around and recording. In practice you'd probably need to create (or find copyright free) levels and models. You'd also have to learn the level editor so you can place lights and so on. If you need more control then you'd need custom scripts.

There are options around. For example I did a search for "make your own movies" and found this http://www.themoviesgame.com It looks like the movies can be used as long as you don't make money with them -see here http://movies.lionhead.com/faq.html

I know there was a kids Mickey Mouse studio at one time but don't remember the details.

Also check out this product I mentioned previously. Might be a good match for Moho if the files could be moved back and forth; it is for creating adventure games but I think it would be very cool to be able to use this with Moho. Need someone smarter -like the scripting gurus on the forum (hint hint) to take a look and see if a work flow could be used to work these tools together.

http://www.gmacwill.com/lassie/

[ingie01]

bupaje, Thanks again- boy I think I opened a can of worms, there is a plethora of stuff(animation, moviemakers etc.) out there!
So how do you know what to use? Trial and error I suppose because each person has his/her own idea of ideal.
Cheeze, you could spend all your time just researching.
That's why I love this forum- people here seem to know what they are doing and also seem to love it.
Soooo- THANKS EVERYONE!

[webe3d]

PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:33 pm Post subject: What is this new thing?
What are these movies that use game engines?
Where do I go to find out about them?
Is it something that could be used with Moho?
What kind of formats do the game movies use?
pheew, I could go on and on with the questions but enough all ready!

Hey ingie01,

Looks like you got plenty of answers. I had this question a while back and did some research and learned this:

- you've heard of "indie film makers," who make movies on the cheap? Well machinima is even cheaper - no actors. You just use games or game engines and "Play" each scene and record it, then edit it with something like Final Cut.

- they have film festivals for machinima, but they aren't taken very serious - yet. The reason is they just aren't that good.

- you can take a game engine like "OGRE" or "Torque," and build your own sets, create your own characters, and animate them to behave they way you want them to, AS LONG as you have some programming or scripting skills, and know how to create and texture 3d models and landscapes. If you're starting from scratch, allow at least two years to have the programming and 3d skills.

I don't think Moho would be considered a tool for machinima because it's ... well, animation.

What formats you ask? Once all is set up, you and your friends (if you used a multi-player game engine) could play the scene while you have your DVD burner recording, or a screen grab on your computer. Then you would just edit it like it was raw footage shot from a camera.

Bottom line: it is pretty hard to do, but I predict someone will create a point and click type game creation environment which would allow any of us to "make our own 3d movies." The closest and easiest program I found is called pre-viz. But I don't think it renders out as nice as a game engine.

So get back to Moho - it rules!