What I've been doing this December

If you regularly keep up with my blog, then you've probably noticed that I haven't updated very much this December. Well, how's this for an explanation?

Yep. It may be hard to believe, but that is my own completely* original creation. I used reference images from the internet and modeled it by hand, just like I did with the Warrior of Light. "Why make such a complex model?" you might ask. Well, I made it for a relative who loves cars. I asked him what the best car was, and he told me that the Pagani Zonda was his personal favorite. So this was a Christmas present for him. Unfortunately, I am still trying to explain to him that I made it, and it's not from Gran Turismo 5 or some such racing simulator. Anyway, I feel really great about this project. It obviously turned out spectacularly. I did not think I would achieve this level of awesomeness in Blender so quickly. Oh, and it was rendered by Blender's internal renderer. No Yafaray or Luxrender here. I tried them, but they were too grainy and they rendered too slowly. The render time for this Full-HD image was 4 hours and 30 minutes. Oh yeah, and the scene contains roughly 1 million vertices.

I'll be getting back to Axis Mundi after my break. After working on this up until the last minute, I definitely need one. Merry Christmas!

*I got the tire rims from a generous fellow who posted them for download. It was the last thing I had to do, and I really didn't feel like doing any more modeling.

Tweaking Animation

It's been a while since my last post because I've had a lot going on with Thanksgiving and various other family activities, but I have been able to successfully import my WOL animations into RCT3. The weight painting worked well in blender and transferred to RCT3 fairly seamlessly. At the moment there are still a few bugs to be ironed out, and there are also my other assets that I am still modeling, so I'm not quite ready to start filming yet. I am also not going to show any character animations because I don't want to spoil how it looks. I'd rather you see the characters in action for the first time in the film. However, since I am confident that the character animation thing will work out, I have decided to make this little teaser:

As always, once I make more progress, I'll post here about it. Sorry if it seems like this project is dragging a lot, but sometimes you just have to wait so that the technology can catch up with your artistic vision. Hopefully after all of this research and development, I can produce something amazing.

Rigging

I have been rigging the Warrior of Light today. He is almost fully rigged and ready to be animated. I just need to do a little more weight painting. I also worked some more on my other assets that will remain a surprise. I don't feel like screenshots, sorry.

New Blender Video

So, in addition to working on Axis Mundi, I also spent the last few days making my first scene with grass in it. It is also the first scene that I have done which uses multiple layers in blender for compositing. I had to use multiple layers because the "firefly" particles kept getting rendered underneath the grass. So I rendered them in a separate layer and composited them on top of everything else.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Texturing Completed

Woo! The rest of the texturing went by at warp-speed! And I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!

Prepare for awesomeness in 3... 2... 1 AWESOMENESS:

It look so close to the original! I am extremely pleased. Now I just need to finish my other ...secret... assets, and I can start animating some action scenes!!! Yaaaaaaaayyyy!

Completion of the Upper Body

So it turns out that I was a lot closer to finishing the arms than I thought. Now The Warrior of Light's upper body is completely textured. Check it out!

Here's a look at the UV map:

Like I mentioned in my previous post, it's kinda like patchwork. And allow me to take a moment to emphasize the WORK in patchwork. This was definitely a challenge for me, because I had never done any UV mapping before this. There was a lot of editing in Photoshop, then looking back in Blender then editing in Photoshop then.... You kinda get the picture. Anyway, hopefully I'll get better at it and the whole process will speed up a bit.

Patches and Patchworking

Today's title is actually a little inspired compared to the usual, because I spent my afternoon texturing today. UV maps are kinda like patchwork, and I just so happen to be working on a UV map. Unfortunately, progress divided by time is definitely less than one today. I still haven't finished the arms. Once I get some noticeable progress, I might post an updated screenshot. Until then, rest assured that you're not missing much. Just look at the last picture I posted.

The "Patches" portion of today's post deals with Call of Duty: Black Ops. It's been a week since I bought COD 7 for the PC, and I still have not played through more than 10 minutes of the campaign. It's just no fun with the slide-show framerate. I hope that Treyarch will release a patch that ACTUALLY WORKS.

Soon.

Please.

Thank you.

Slow Texturing

I did some more texturing today. Very slow going. Perhaps it is because it is really hard work. Maybe it's because I'm not motivated. Who knows? What matters is that I did what I could today. Tomorrow I might try and work some more on it, but I'm also planning on picking up a copy of COD: Black Ops, so we'll see how things turn out.

Blender/Axis Mundi Update

So I got bored enough with making my new model that I started texturing the Warrior of Light again. It is slow going right now, because I am doing the most difficult part of his upper body: his arms. Since his arms are the least flat part of him, it is harder to take a picture and just use it without any editing. It was easier with the chest, for example, because the chest is relatively flat. Another thing that makes the arms more difficult is that they are the least cleanly unwrapped part of my UV texture. This also stems from them being less flat.

As for the fore mentioned "new model," I am still not ready to fully disclose my progress so far. I'm debating on whether or not I should keep it a secret until the final release.

More Blender stuff

I've been working in blender some more, creating assets that I'll use in The Battle for Axis Mundi. I don't feel like giving away everything as I make it, so I'm not going to post pictures of any of these models. Just thought I'd let you know that I was making something. As far as the Warrior of Light goes, I'll work on him some more when these new models start to become boring to work on. But for now, since I've got something new to work on, the newer models are more exciting.

Texturing

I made a little bit of progress texturing the warrior of light today. I'd say I'm almost halfway finished with his shirt; I got his back and the sides of his chest done. Now I need to do his sleeves.

I don't want to over do it with the screenshots, so just picture it in your head.

2 year anniversary!

The title says it all! My blog is now 2 years old. I think it has been all that I've wanted it to be. I know I don't exactly have a huge audience, but I still feel like I have done a consistent job with updates on my projects. Hopefully it will be more of the same going forward. Thank you everyone for your support!

SCAD Film Challenge results

So they finally managed to post the results of the SCAD contest. Unfortunately, I was not one of the top 3, nor was I one of the top 20. And neither were either of the videos in my previous post. It seems that the judges must have very different cinematic preferences than me. Either that, or they did not pick the finalists based on actual merit, and instead chose the films which best suited the genre that they wish to promote at their film festival. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

To give an example, they chose this atrocity to be a part of their top 20. Now, I honestly can't see why they would choose this film over Caleb Diaddigo's "A Bigger Picture."

Another example is this film, which seems of markedly lower quality than the brilliant stop-motion animation "Being," by Isabela Dos Santos.

A final point of confusion for me is that not only are many of the top 20 films of lower quality than their non-placing counterparts, but a good portion of them also use copyrighted music! I don't understand. The way I see it, they are punishing originality, and rewarding cheap, lazy behavior. Well, some of the judges were from apple.

\rant

SCAD Film Challenge Update

It turns out that it didn't matter that I was gone for a few days, as they have decided to push the announcements back until Monday. So, tomorrow I'll post again with the results. For your entertainment, here are the other 2 videos (besides mine, of course!) that I would choose if I were one of the judges:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg10Fi17GOs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flMKfOTr55g

Not surprisingly, both of my picks are animation. For some reason, live action is almost always inferior to animation, unless the live action is done by professionals. At least that's my view.

So, yeah. Waiting till tomorrow.....

Good news, and bad news.

The good news is: tomorrow I find out if I placed in the SCAD Film challenge. The bad news is: I won't be here to tell you the second that I find out the results. I'm going to visit a college over the weekend, so I won't definitely be able to announce it until Sunday or something like that. There's always the possibility that I will use a foreign computer, though.

Texturing

I've started to texture the model. It's definitely a learning experience for me, because I really haven't done texturing as serious as this before. Not that this is anything close to professional. It's just more complex than what I've done previously.

Here's a screenshot from blender:

There are still a few kinks to work out with the bit that you see here. This process is going to involve a lot of tweaking.

Oh, and yesterday when I said that it was the last day that they were accepting entries for the SCAD contest, I meant today.

Another update bites the dust.

Latest Model Update

Good news! The importation of the Warrior of Light model into RCT3 has been an absolutely smashing success!! I would say that the model is 90% accurate to the original. In most shots, the peep looks identical to it's CSO doppelganger:

It is only in shots where the two are juxtaposed that you can see any real differences:

This means that I should be able to switch the "stunt double" for the actual peep, and you really shouldn't notice a difference.

Another great thing is that UV mapping works properly. In order to test UV mapping compatibility in RCT3 without going to the trouble of actually texturing the model how it is supposed to be, I rendered an Ambient Occlusion pass to a UV image of the model's unwrapped mesh. I then used that texture as the model texture. This meant that if the model looked like AO was applied to it in RCT3, then UV mapping works. If the texture looked like a garbled mess, that would mean that UV mapping wouldn't work. 

As it turns out the texture mapped properly. As you can see, there are indirect shadows on the model below, which was rendered in RCT3. Notice the area on his forehead behind the right eyebrow. See how it is dark right behind his eyebrow, and gets lighter farther away? This is the effect that Ambient Occlusion has when rendering. Since the UV texture was mapped properly, these "indirect shadows" show up in the correct places.

As for the SCAD Film Festival: today is the last day that people can submit their films. Then on the 15th the winners will be notified and the online voting for the "viewers choice" will begin.  So......... yeah. Still waiting.

That's all for this update.

Done with the model

I have finished the replica of the RCT3 Peep who plays the Warrior of Light. Here's a comparison:

The guy on the right was rendered in RCT3, and the guy on the left was rendered in Blender.

Now I just need to texture it, and get it rigged up so that I can animate it. I hope that RCT3 handles the mesh deformation properly. So far I have not deformed any meshes in my tests with animated CSOs. I'm also not sure about UV mapping. In order to get the textures on him properly, I may need to use UV mapping, but I'm not certain if RCT3 supports that or not.... I think it does. And it also probably does support mesh deformation. I just don't know if it supports weight painting, and I don't know whether I will need to weight paint or not.

Anyway, sorry for all the 3D jargon. I'm kind of thinking out loud right now.

In other news, the SCAD Film festival stops accepting entries in 9 days. After that, it will be a week until the winners are notified. So keep crossing your fingers!

Modeling progress

I have now finished the upper body of the model.

Here's a look from one angle:

And from another:

And here's what it looks like when it is overlayed onto one of the reference images that I am using:

I may get to work on it more today... we'll see.

Modeling progress

I've been modeling some more today. Here's how far I have gotten:                                                                                

And of course, I am still waiting for the results to come in from SCAD. I'll find out if I made it on October 15th... a little over half a month from now.

Another short update

Another short day today... I've started modelling the WOL's body, starting with the collar of his shirt.

Modeling

I got to work on my Warrior of Light model for 5 minutes today. Now he has a neck. Pretty short, I know, but I figured I might as well post something.

Warrior of Light Model

Right now I am smack dab in the middle of waiting for my submission to the SCAD film festival to be judged. In the meantime, I have been making a model of the Warrior of Light, for me to animate and import into RCT3. This of course will be used in The Battle for Axis Mundi.

Here's a screenshot from Blender and a screenshot from RCT3 in a side by side comparison:

Pretty close, eh? I modelled it by hand, based off of reference images that I took in RCT3. So far I have only completed the head, but once the entire thing is finished, I'll be able to import it back into RCT3. It should look exactly the same as the original peep, but since I can animate it, it will be able to kick bad-guy-butt in a spectacular, cinematic fashion.

SCAD Film Festival

Recently it has come to my attention that Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is including highschoolers in their film festival this year. They want original film submissions that are no longer than 4 minutes. All you have to do is upload your entry to YouTube and give them a link. There's a whole process where they judge your film and people vote on it and stuff.  I'll focus in on those details later, but for right now I am going to have to do something rather unfortunate. I want to enter Radical Racer's Run in this competition, but I want to submit a more tweaked version, and I don't want to have two different versions of the video on YouTube. That means the current video will come down.

The actual animation has not changed at all. The only difference is in the text. I feel like it needs to be perfect, and right now there are a few spelling mistakes, and the text that is used for the credits does not match at all with the theme of the video, so I am just changing it a little. Unfortunately, this means that all the awesome comments you guys have left will be erased. It also means that the upload date of Radical Racer's Run will no longer be the 3 year anniversary of the Hugest RCT3 Crash on YouTube. Oh well.

On the bright side of things, if I win the SCAD competition, they will pay for airfare and hotel expenses in order for me to come down for the film festival, which would be freaking sweet. I'll post more details about when the results come in later. I also think there's an audience choice section where anyone on the internet can vote, so I'll be sure to let you guys know how to vote for whatever film you like best... hem... ;)

Peace out.

One shot

I got one shot filmed and edited today. It was another pretty complicated shot. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I feel like I should post a picture, just so you can see that I am indeed making something. Recently it's pretty much just been me saying that I have been making stuff, and not showing anything.

So here you go:

Hope you like it.

Chunk

I got to spend a good chunk of time on Axis Mundi today. About 4 productive hours. I bagged a few shots and recorded some dialogue. So it was pretty good.

Yep.

RCT3 Animation Demonstration

As I said in my last blog post, I have managed to import Animated CSOs into RCT3. And while it is great to see even just a simple little thing like the green ball swinging back and forth, I want to emphasize how useful Animated CSOs can be for much more complicated animations and models. That's why I made this video yesterday. It shows how you can create your own character designs, and fully animate them. I am proud to say that this video only took me a few hours to make, from initial idea, to uploading to YouTube.

Animation in RCT3

OK, so recently there has been a really big development. I have finally managed to import animated custom scenery into RCT3. This opens up A LOT of potential. I am working on seeing how much I can integrate this new ability into Axis Mundi. I also decided to create a tutorial of exactly how I managed to do the importing. Half so that I can remember, and half because a forum member over at the LG Machinima Community requested it.

Here's the tutorial, if you are interested:http://gulk.bplaced.net/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=629

And here is an example of what I have been able to import into RCT3:

It may not look like much now, but I fully intend to blow your mind with some crazy animations later on.

Some Axis Mundi Progress

I've managed to get a shot filmed for The Battle for Axis Mundi today. Yes, just one. If you recall, my mantra is "You can't rush art." That's definitley still going to apply, but I might be able to get on a more regular filming schedule in the coming months. So just keep waiting as usual.

I do have a few random screen shots from filming today. They are just screenshots of the greenscreen set. There's no way that you will be able to tell what the actual shot looks like from these.

I hope that you guys haven't lost your patience yet on this one. Enjoy the random, meaningless, pictures!

Return of the Filmmaker

Hey everyone! After 5 long weeks away, I am finally back, and I've started working on The Battle For Axis Mundi again. It's nice to start fresh after a long break, actually. It's helped me to cut some garbage out that was dragging the film down. Now that it's sleeker, I'll be able to stuff more action into the middle.

So yeah, I'm back. Hooah.

Last post for a while

Well, I am leaving in a few days and I won't be back for a long time. This will be my last post until I get back. I haven't been doing any real work, just been kinda messing around. I have enjoyed all of the positive comments that you guys have given Radical Racer's Run. Leave plenty more for me, ok? So yeah, not much new except.... bye!


OH YEAH! I almost forgot. Toy Story 3 is totally freaking awesome, so go see it. Like, now. Go to a movie theater. NOW. Steal someone's car if you have to. Just kidding.


But not really.

Radical Racer's Run

I finished editing my Blender animation, and it's rip roaring to go, so go ahead and watch it.....

Done? Hopefully you liked it. I must admit that I really enjoy a lot of aspects of doing CGI in Blender. You have complete control over everything. You can make absolutely anything that you want, and make it do anything that you want. You don't have to try over and over again to nail a shot. The only thing that limits you is... rendering time. The rendering time for this film wasn't all that bad. Most of the time it took between 2 and 10 minutes to render each frame. Near the end, however, something went wrong and rendering took waaaay too long. We're talking 2 hours per frame, just for that red debris at the end. I probably could have fixed it, but oh well. It's all done now.

I just realised as I was writing this that today is the 3 year anniversary of my most popular video, "Hugest RCT3 Crash on YouTube." It's a bummer that "Radical Racer's Run" almost certainly won't even come close to a fraction of the views that the "Hugest RCT3 Crash on YouTube" has.

But who knows? It's possible that this new video could have 85,000 views in 3 years.

Not.

Short Post

Still working on the video. Should be up really soon.

A new video, and then 5 weeks of nothing

I am close to having my latest Blender animation finished. It will be released sometime between now and June 19th. On June 19th, I am leaving for a pre-college summer program, and I won't be back for 5 weeks. That means that-most likely-I will not be posting anything for more than a month. So just get ready for that. And like I said, expect a new video before June 19th.

New video soon

I am getting close to having my Blender animation done. However, I am afraid of what it will be like if I upload it. I am still concerned about all of the fans of my RCT3 videos... Since those are the people who are subscribed to me, should I even upload my animation? I mean, it's audience will not appreciate it, so why bother even putting it out there? In any case, all comments pertaining to Mechanics Vs. Aliens, or complaining in general about the lack of RCT3 videos, will be immediately removed. If you would just watch with an open mind you might like what you see.

I would appreciate people letting me know that they understand. If you are a YouTube user who does not regularly comment here, I'd appreciate it if you would comment here-just once-to let me know that you pay attention to my blog AND my YouTube channel. Perhaps I should start making announcements on YouTube as well, so people know what is going on.

Lots of Stuff

Lots of stuff is going on in my life right now, including preparing to go to college-hopefully to study film and animation. In order to apply to many film schools, I need a portfolio. So, I am currently producing an animation to go in this portfolio. It's not taking long to make, so I'll be back to The Battle for Axis Mundi soon. I am also including clips from Axis Mundi in the portfolio, so I am kinda working on a billion things at once.

If anyone out there has a problem with all of these other projects - specifically, fans of Mechanics Vs. Aliens - then please: I am sick and tired of people whining about it. I can't stand all of the "where's MVA ep. 6?!11?!" comments. If you are truly a fan of the series, could you have a little patience, and just be happy that I have said that I am going to make more? If you can't do that, then please just don't say anything. Thank you.

And now for the few people out there who care about more than just Mechanics Vs. Aliens, here are some screen shots from my animation:

As you can probably tell, it is about a car racing.

That's all for now.

Little by little

I managed to do one line of voice work for Axis Mundi today. I also was figuring out how I wanted the edit to go. It wasn't very much progress, but at least I got to work a little bit on it.

Also, I have recently discovered some really great tutorials for FL studio (the ones that are made by NFX of www.warbeats.com), that do a great job of explaining the basic elements of music. Since Mixcraft is a DAW just like FL Studio, I have been able to apply the principles from the NFX tutorials to my own music in Mixcraft. I wish that I had found his tutorials earlier, because they have helped me get much more natural sounding music. The result of this is that I have been able to make a really nice sounding song for my Mom, for Mother's day. I guess it's a good thing that she doesn't read my blog, hehe.

Making cuts

I have been making some progress on "The Battle for Axis Mundi." I'm still working on a new pre-action sequence. The total video time is actually getting shorter, which I guess is a good thing, because I am removing long, confusing stuff with short-and-to-the-point stuff. Hopefully that means it will be easier to understand, and more entertaining overall.

Oh, and I got a new monitor. It's sweet.

Progress, and a one-day video

I got to work on the voices for Axis Mundi today. I also filmed a couple of green screened shots, but I have yet to film the backgrounds for all of them.

After all of that, I had time left over to fool around in Blender a little, which is always somewhat educational. You can always learn more about Blender. Anyway, this fooling around resulted in me finally figuring out how to tile textures, and discovering a way to produce a natural-looking sky:

If you ask me, it looks a lot like Crysis. In fact, if I didn't know that it was made with Blender, then I would think that it WAS made in the CryEngine 2.

EEkkk

Don't ask about the title. I just felt like it.

Anyway, I did some voice work today, and I'll probably be perfecting it for a while. It's for the beginning of the film. I have yet to shoot the footage that the voice overs will, uh, go over.

So yeah. Very small progress.

Lazy

I am too lazy to think of something different, so here is the update that I have been posting in all of the Axis Mundi discussion threads:

Lately I have been working more on the story. I have been spending a lot of time just sitting around and thinking about this project. I like to call this "mental production," hehe. Hopefully the fruits of this "mental production" will be obvious in the final product. I am, however, getting close to filming and editing some more. I will let you know when regular production starts up again.

Better Progress

Yesterday I felt like I did a good job of getting stuff done. Technically I only recorded one shot, but it was a hard shot (like most of the action shots), and I also added a ton of sound effects to the action sequence. Before that it was pretty silent. I also solved my opening text troubles. Now the very beginning of the film is much more awesome.

The Axis Mundi discussion thread at Atari Forums has been pretty successful. I decided to post an update there today. In it I mentioned that I was 3 Minutes and 33 second of the way through the film. Of course, I still haven't made music for all of the 3:33, and I need to do some tweaking to make the story more understandable, but it is getting closer to being 100% polished.

Sniff....

Recently I have had a cold, and today is my first day being healthy enough to work again. I have been able to make some music, although I don't think it is all that great, so I will probably will not use it. I don't know why, but this project is going extremely slow. It is really starting to get on my nerves, because at the rate that I am going, it will take a miracle for me to finish.

Oh, and to follow up the post about the Atari forums: they aren't closed, they are just re-organised. Now all of the old threads are archives, and there is a new forum that looks almost exactly like the other one. I have decided to post an Axis Mundi discussion thread there. It is a good thing that I didn't do so before everything changed, or else I would have had to start it all over again!

Here is the thread: http://forums.atari.com/showthread.php?t=3791

Atari Forums

So, apparently the RCT3 section of the Atari forums is down. Not down as in totally crashed, but down as in no more new topics. I don't know whether it will be permanent or not. I find it kind of weird that I just started visiting and talking about the Atari forums right before this happened. I will find it especially weird if it ends up that the forums will not come back. I hope that this isn't the case, but only time will tell, I suppose.

Breaking Through

I didn't film at all today, but I had a couple important editing/compositing breakthroughs, so I feel like I accomplished enough. I can now skip all of those steps that I showed in those screenshots the other day, and I'll end up getting a higher quality result, since my new way of doing it let's me skip rendering and re-rendering; a process that degrades quality.

WHAM!! You just got UPDATED!!

The Conch Shell of DEATH

Hey, here's something kind of random that I did in blender today. I call it The Conch Shell of DEATH!!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Axis Mundi discussion thread

I have started a production thread for The Battle for Axis Mundi over at the LG Machinima community. I may also post one over at the Atari forums. For now, here is a link to the LG Machinima thread:

http://gulk.bplaced.net/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=576

I hope that I am not releasing this info too early. I have never really done one of these threads, so I hope that it won't be a disaster.

Yay!

Today has been a lot better than the past few days; I actually feel like I have been making progress. I recorded a few shots and then spent a while editing them. These greenscreens can be tricky. Here's a sample of some of the compositing that I did today:

Step 1: The greenscreen

Step 2: The original video

Step 3: First overlay attempt

Step 4: Greenscreen artifiacts are removed by changing the white balance of the overlay

Step 5: Change lighting to match greenscreened image, add Depth of Field effect, render video.

Step 6: Restore rendered result to original lighting

So there you go, that's your update for April 1st. And it's no April fool's joke (or is it?).

The Future of RCT3 Machinima

I hope that you have all enjoyed March Madness! Sorry if it didn't seem "Mad" enough, but at least I have set a record for the most posts in one month on my blog! I haven't gotten to work any more on The Battle for Axis Mundi since my last post, so no new info on that, but I think I will take some time and talk about the future of RCT3 Machinima, as aptly requested by CZsWorld.

Currently, what I am striving to achieve is what I believe the future of RCT3 Machinima to be. Namely, I want to utilize custom scenery, custom fireworks, and green screening, to the point where RCT3 is mostly just a rendering engine for various particle simulations and 3D animations. Once we get to this point, the only thing separating RCT3 Machinima from true Hollywood films will be rendering capabilities, quality music, quality actors, etc. But basically, it might be possible to get any shot you could possibly dream of-rendered in RCT3.

That's a pretty good summary of what I believe might be possible. Now let me break it down into why I think these things.

1) The only limitations to RCT3's FCR Editor is that it cannot tilt or zoom. Shaky-cam shots are possible through manipulation of the coaster-cam, so that almost covers every camera move imaginable. A lot of the time, I'll be watching a Pixar film, and the camera movement feels jut like it would if the shot had been produced with the FCR Editor.

2) Since RCT3 is designed to let you do most kinds of terra-forming, you can create whatever landscape you need. Granted, there might not be as much detail as might be desirable, (pebbles, grass, and other small objects come to mind) but it basically gets the job done.

3) Particle effects can be used to create many special effects, and can also be used to add atmosphere to sets. Fog, smoke, waterfalls, starscapes, even (theoretically) snow can be created with the Advanced Fireworks Editor.

4) Green screening can be very effective and useful in RCT3, and is yet another tool that can help to create spectacular sets and effects. However, the usefulness of green screen for special effects and moving otherwise static objects may be made obsolete if you consider the possibilities of the next section. For this reason, I think it is more appropriate to use green screens for set backdrops.

5) Since it is possible to import custom made 3D models into RCT3 (custom scenery), you can create whatever set pieces you need for your film. There is also animated custom scenery, which has the most potential, and is also what I am most speculative about. In theory, animated custom scenery would enable you to bring any character that you can create in a 3D program into RCT3, and have it do whatever actions you wanted. This would open up a whole slew of possibilities. The problem is that I have yet to import my first animated CSO into RCT3, and I also have no idea if RCT3 would be able to handle complex animations, which would be necessary in order to make really good films.

Those are the techniques that I feel compose the core foundation for the "future" of RCT3 Machinima. I'll list them again, just to be painfully clear:

Camera movement

Terraforming

Particle effects

Green screen

Custom Scenery & Animation

I underlined animation because it has the most potential. To help you understand what I hope to achieve with animated CSOs, take a look at this film made with World of Warcraft. The film is composed of custom animations by the filmmaker, and it really speaks to the power of importing animations instead of relying on what the game provides. I am not sure if this level of animation can be imported into RCT3, but it would be a shame not try.

Now to tie in all of this speculation with the reality of today. I consider The Battle for Axis Mundi to be the cutting edge in terms of green screening and particle effects. Technically I used a green screen in Mechanics Vs. Aliens episode 5, but the level at which I did so is far less impressive than what is in Axis Mundi. Same thing goes for custom particle effects. I used them briefly in MVA ep. 5, but they are basically the backbone of the action in The Battle for Axis Mundi.

There you have it. That's how I see the future of RCT3 Machinima.

Another stagnant day

Today was a really bad again. No progress at all. I feel like crap. Bye.

The Plot Thickens

Yesterday I showed some of the early scenes of Axis Mundi to my Mom, and she said that the plot was difficult to understand. I really want this film to be one that everyone-not just RCT3 fans-will enjoy. So, right now I am trying to come up with a way to make the plot easier to understand. We'll see what happens. Usually, whenever I go back and rework something, it turns out a lot better than before (this has happened before with Mechanics Vs. Aliens). Hopefully this will be one of those times, and it will turn out really well. Cross your fingers.

Why I didn't work today

As I mentioned in my previous post, I didn't work on my film today. However, I had plenty of free time today. "Why didn't you work on your film then?" you might ask. Well, I just installed "Trackmania Nations Forever," today because I found out that it was free (I had previously seen it on YouTube and thought that you had to pay for it). It is pretty awesome. It reminds me A LOT of the recent "Speed Racer" movie, which I really liked. So yeah. I'm going to play it some more now.

Working Titles

Well, I didn't work on my film today even though I should have, so to make up for the lack of news, I guess I will announce a few working titles that I have been thinking about. I am thinking maybe "The Battle for Axis Mundi" or just "Axis Mundi." I know that it is pretty hard for you guys to comment on whether or not you think those titles are appropriate, since you know next to nothing about the plot, but if you have any thoughts on the general vibe that the title gives you, it would be great to hear what you think.

Not so great of a day

Well, I spent way too much time doing way to little for my film today. I "worked" on the opening credits the whole day, yet I still can't decide exactly how they are going to work out. So, yeah. Really cruddy day as far as progress is concerned.

All the same stuff

Today I got to work on my RCT3 Film some more. I recorded a couple shots and worked them into the edit. Still not totally finished editing what I have so far. I haven't finished all the music for all of the video so far, and I also still need to add sound effects. Besides all of that, I am also working on the opening titles.

Very hard shot

Yesterday I filmed a very hard shot for my RCT3 film. I have decided to show some screen shots of the process, because I used very strange techniques to get the shot, and they don't give any of the plot away.In case you were wondering, the dune buggy is not part of the film. I just had to use it to get the shot.

This terrain formation was also used to get the shot. Don't ask me why I had to do it. It is way to hard to explain, and even if I did explain it, by the end you would probably be bored and not care anymore.

So, yeah. That's what I did yesterday. I can't work on it today, though.

What I did today

I got to work on the RCT3 Film more today. I added in some of the special effects, and I tried to work on the music. Unfortunately, today I completely whiffed in the music department. It is really annoying that I can't do things as easily as I was just the other day.

An interesting observation

For some reason, I have started to see more FCR Editor tutorials than I saw before I had made my Machinima tutorial. Some of these "new" tutorials actually did come before my machinima tutorial, and I didn't see them because they weren't popular enough. But one of them caught my attention today, since it is almost a carbon copy of the first part of my FCR tutorial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaWFr_zl6T4

I think it is neat to see that you have had an influence on people like this. When you see something that was directly inspired by something that you did, it gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

Made some music today

I made some music for my RCT3 film today. I usually don't get as much of a song done as I did today in the same amount of time, so I guess that it was time pretty well spent. That's about it.

Mainly Editing

I have been making progress on my RCT3 film. However, I have mainly been editing the footage that I filmed last August. So far the video is 3min 13sec. I am still not totally finished editing what I have so far. Once the 3:13 is truly edited (right now it doesn't have music, I still need to apply some effects, etc.) I will start filming again.

A History of RCT3 Machinima

OK, so I feel like I am off to a bad start with my March Madness postings, seeing as how it has been 2 days since I announced it, but hopefully I can make up for the lost time, eh?

So, this post is titled "A History of RCT3 Machinima," because I wanted to talk about the early days of RCT3 Machinima: how (and where) it all started, what it was like back then, and what it has become today. Here we go!

The earliest true RCT3 Machinimas were before everyone posted their videos on YouTube. The Atari forums were at that time the main venue for RCT3 Films. Video authors would share their creations via download links! Yeah, I know, it sounds like a hassle, right? Well, it apparently was not too much of a hassle for all of the people who left positive feedback! Some of the RCT3 Machinimas posted in the Atari forums around 2005-2006 have the most insanely positive reviews that I have ever seen. The Atari community really had a passion for these RCT3 productions.

A separate outgrowth of RCT3 Machinima has occurred in the past few years with the popularity of YouTube. YouTube superseded places like the Atari RCT3 Forums, because it provided the all-in-one ability to distribute and discuss videos. Here Death Parks and Peep Bowling videos found huge audiences. Millions of people watch, rate, and comment on these popular videos. However, the same passion abundant found on dedicated message boards like the Atari forums is missing, due to the somewhat shallow nature of these videos, and more importantly, YouTube its self. I am NOT bashing coaster crash videos (heck, I have made them myself). But the fact is that mowing over people with derailed Roller Coasters does not stimulate the kind of intense discussion and careful critique that would be more suited for, say.... short films.

Now introduce RCT3 Machinima to YouTube. RCT3 Productions published on YouTube tend to get much more exposure than if they were only posted for download, like in the olden days. On the other hand, they also tend to get less detailed reviews, because of the aforementioned "shallow" nature of Youtube. Youtube comments are also limited to 500 characters or less. That's not very encouraging to those wanting to deeply critique a film, is it?

The natural solution to this problem is to post your videos on YouTube AND share them on forums. Unfortunately, for the past few years this revelation has evaded me, and I have used YouTube as the only place in which I post my videos. Fortunately, a very small band of YouTube RCT3 Machinimators have taken residence at LordG1gabyt3's RCT3 Machinima community, which has started to provide the kind of deeper discussion that filmmakers long for. Of course, the Atari forums are still a great place to post Machinima creations as well.

Now let us consider how RCT3 Machinima has progressed technically since it's conception at the Atari RCT3 Forums. The best works of those days came from BitterJeweler, Klinn, Vodhin, and DarkSim, among others. For the most part, these tended to be lacking in detailed stories; they were definitely Machinima, and were definitely very creative and technically amazing (for their time). However, many only had general themes. One exception to this was the nearly 30 minute Machinima "A Midsummer Nightmare," which I believe was a collaboration between Vodhin and DarkSim. This had a plot and voice acting, but was only semi-entertaining, in my opinion. Some modern RCT3 Machinimas, such as "King Kong" by Birou006, blow the classics away in technical terms. The modern trend is also to include more complex story lines. I have always wondered what creators like BitterJeweler would do if they used the kind of techniques found in these more modern Machinimas, but I suppose that this scenario is a pipe dream, since most of the classical creators have been dormant for some time.

This may seem like a fairly fruitless rant to some, but I personally love the way in which RCT3 Machinima has matured, and I just wanted to share my thoughts on the classic RCT3 Machinimas of yesterday, and my hopes for the exciting advances of the RCT3 Machinimas of tomorrow.

If you have anything to contribute to this "History of RCT3 Machinima," as it were, or if you feel I have made any inaccurate statements, or left out some important point, please feel free to leave your comments. I believe that the encouragement of the community is the greatest tool we have in our quest for creative awesomeness!

Progress

I've made some progress on the RCT3 film that I am working on. It has mostly been editing and composing, but I have done some filming as well (only about 3 shots, though). This is probably the best RCT3 film that I have ever made. Which means that it is probably the best film that I have ever made, considering that most of my non-RCT3 films aren't that great.

So yeah, there's your update. I'm thinking that I might go mad with posts in March, to make up for the lack of posts in December, January, and February. It's.... MARCH MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back to normal work

I am now back to working on my RCT3 Film projects. If everything goes perfectly, then I'll be able to release at least one of the 2 projects that I am working on sometime in the summer. Of course, the number of times that things go perfectly for me seems to be decreasing exponentially.

So far I've worked about one hour (that was yesterday). As always, you can see the number of hours that I spend in RCT3 weekly, as well as total, at the bottom of the main page of my blog.

I still exist

Hey everybody, just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive and I still love to make films. I just don't have anything to share right now. Peace!

The low-down

I know this month has been fairly sparse with the postings, but it is for a different reason than in December. In December I was just busy with it being the Christmas, but now I am working on an important film project. I'm not going to post anything about it on the internet; so just because I haven't been posting on my blog does not mean that I am not working. Someday I will show you guys what I am working on, but not yet. It's a kind of important thing, and so I'm going to take it easy, and not post all the information I have the instant it is available.

So anyway, just thought I would tell you why I hadn't posted much this month (again).

Update (for lack of a better title)

Sorry that it has been a while since I posted. I just had a lot going on during Christmas and New Year's, and I decided to allocate my time to other areas of my life besides updating the blog.

So anyway, I have been working on MVA episode 6 a small amount during the past few days. So far I have filmed, edited, and scored nearly two minutes (1minute, 52seconds to be exact). This time around I have been composing using virtual instruments instead of Mixcraft's loops. It's not really like I have a choice anyway, seeing as how I used a good majority of them on Episode 5.

The other thing I have been trying to do lately is gain more ability in Blender. Here is a model of a light bulb that I modeled recently with assistance from my father:

And here is the same light bulb, but rendered as if it was screwed into a socket and turned on:

The bulb and the base were both modeled by me and my Dad in Solid Works. The floor and the lighting/rendering were done by me in Blender.

So, that's pretty much all that I have been up to lately. Hope you like it!