Mechanics Vs. Aliens episode 5 is totally finished.

Oooooiiiiii yyyyyeeeeeeaaaaaa!!!!! It's all done. Everything. All the music. All the sound effects. All the video. The credits. The "Hard Core." Mechanics Vs. Aliens episode 5 is, as I type this post, being rendered into a 1024x768 lossless quality .avi file with 5.1 surround sound.

So, the only remaining question is: who will watch it....... FIRST? The answer is: ME!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!! first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first first!!!! Wooahahaha! EAT THAT, FOLKS! I saw it FIRST! Ef eYe ArE eS Teee!!!!!

Ok, you can obviously see that I am excited to have this project done. Now I'll give you some statistics on how long it took to make it. I started in about mid-October (close to when I started this blog) and went through November and December, so that means it took me about 2 1/2 months. Now that I think about it, that's not all that bad. Episode 4 took not quite twice as long to make (4 months), and it is not quite twice as long as episode five. (by the way, the final time for episode 5 is 9 minutes and 40 seconds).

I got Xfire around the time when I started filming, and it has on record 99 hours of me playing RCT3. All of that is filming, by the way. It might seem ironic, but I never technically "play" RCT3 anymore. I'm serious. If I'm in it, it means that I am filming something. I haven't used RCT3 for its intended purpose for.... gee, I can't remember the last time that I played it just for fun. The normal game just seemed to get boring after I started making videos.

Anyway, I'll get back on track. Here are the stats in a more organized fashion:

To make MVA episode 5:
2 1/2 months; October through December

99 hours in RCT3

10-30 hours editing (that includes making the music)

9+ times that I have been asked "When/will episode 5 come out?"

Alright, it's getting late, and I need to get to bed. The rendering is still only at 76%. I guess I'll watch it in the morning.

Possibly episode five's last update

Well, there is not much work to be done now. I have gotten the rest of the footage recorded, and added it to the video. I just need sound effects and music now, which shouldn't take long.

The only reason I'm telling you this is because now that I have the video portion done, I have a better idea of how long the video will be, and it's turned out longer than I expected. It will be over 9 min. long. It is 8:53 right now, and that is without the credits. So it will be snug up against the YouTube 10 minute limit.

Just 3 days until the release! (And Christmas! Woohoo!)

The best thing ever, and some screenshots.

First off, the best thing ever:

Pretty cool, eh? I think that the number of fan-made Mechanics Vs. Aliens videos is starting to approach the number of episodes made by me! I could never have imagined that people would like something that I made so much.

Now, for a couple of foreshadowing screenshots:

Those are both the same thing from a differente angle. But I guess you knew that without me telling you.

I have a release date

Alright, I have one more scene to shoot and edit for Mechanics Vs. Aliens episode 5. Everything else is edited and scored. Without the final scene (and the credits), the episode is 7:00 minutes long, so expect the final episode to be anywhere from 8:00 to 8:30 min.

Alright I guess you want to know when it is coming out, eh? Christmas day, Dec. 25. Yep, one week from this post.

The next thing that I am going to be doing is a live-action short film for the Highbridge Film Festival, at Asbury College (that is in Wilmore Kentucky, by the way). The due date is probably in somewhat early March, so I'll basically have 2 months to get it done. I'll post stuff about it as I make it (hopefully).

Some progress

Hello everyone, here's a quick snapshot.

The primary progress that you can see here is in the beachfront houses, but there is also plenty of detail added to the city: a park area, completed roads with working cars, and a tram system that transports peeps from one building to another throughout the city.

As for the episode itself, editing is going pretty well. I have edited about 5:30 of the episode, but there is more to go. I am thinking that the scene that has the city in it will be relatively short, but don't worry; I will be fleshing it out much more in later episodes.

Oh, yeah. I'll also be adding palm trees by the beach houses, and looking at this screen shot, I'm thinking that maybe I should make some of the skyscrapers taller, as they are pretty much all the same height. Let me know what you think about the buildings.

RCT3 Machinima is on the map

Today I searched, as I do many days, for "RCT3 Machinima" on youtube. Usually the resulting list is fairly small, consisting mainly of RCT3machinimas that me and a few others have made. It is pretty rare for me to find a new RCT3 Machinima.

But today was a little different. Today, when I started to search for RCT3 machinima, it was a suggested search term.

Check out the proof.

Oh yeah baby. Sweetness.

Building a new set for Mechanics Vs. Aliens

I am moving into a new phase with Mechanics Vs. Aliens episode 5. I'm building a new set, which is a city that is kind of on the coast, and kind of like New York City. In fact, when I originally started building it, it was supposed to be NYC, but now it will just be a generic skyline with a beach next to it, and a slightly suburban area behind.

Here are some screen shots:

The skyscrapers and office buildings.

                                              

A long shot of the skyscrapers.

A small park area by the sea/lake/bay (I'm not sure which of those it should be).

A long shot with the beach on the right, and the skyscrapers in the background.

Looking past the trees toward the watery expanse.

I'm sorry that a lot of these had the graphical user interface in them. I was trying to use Solo play to get the screenshots, but I kinda messed it up in some of them.

The only real problem I have been having so far is that the skyscrapers make the game go slower than a turtle with it's feet glued together, pulling a Boeing 747 full of fat people up Mt. Everest. Think about that for a minute. Want to know what that is in frames per second? 

Zero.

Yeah.

ZERO Frames per second. 

Ok, to be technical its not ACTUALLY 0 frames per second. (If it was, then the game would stall on the same frame forever. And it doesn't do that.) That's just what my Xfire FPS counter says; I am assuming it is really more like 0.25fps or 0.1fps or something, and it is just being rounded down by the counter, which only displays non-decimal frame rates.

Anyway, since it is totally impossible to work in>1fps conditions, I have to do everything with the building draw distance set to zero. Doing that makes the frame rate normal for me.

I hope everyone likes these screenshots, I'll post more once I have made significant progress.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, not much going on with me right now, ecxept turkey. And sweet potatoes. And mashed potatoes. And corn. And cremed corn. And honey rolls. And cranberry sauce. And chess pie. You get the idea.

I really don't have any news. My main reason for writing this is to keep me used to posting so that when there IS news, I'll be used to making blog posts about it.

So just go eat. Then sleep.

Here's the glitch

Alright, I got the glitch video up today! This happened when I grabbed one of the camera icons (in the FCR Editor) to try and make the route faster. It's ok if you don't under stand exactly how it happened, the main point is that it made the camera go waaaaaay far away, so far that EVERYTHING'S draw distance was exceeded.

By the way, I filmed this in 720 by 480, (instead of the usual 1024 by 768) to cut down on the filming, rendering, and uploading time. I don't know if anyone will be able to tell, but I just figured I'd say that. I also put in a bit of music that I made for the actual episode.

Silent November

If you have been checking my blog this November, then you probably have noticed that I haven't posted hardly anything at all this month. Sorry. I have been actively working on things, I just haven't made any posts.

Anyway, things on my agenda for this 25th day in November are getting the glitch up that I mentioned a looong time ago, and working on Mechanics Vs. Aliens (that's usually on my agenda, if you're new). So, hopefully, I can get those things done.

I'm not promising anything (because if I did, then I would be jinxed for sure), but I will say that the glitch is a pretty straightforward thing to film, so it really shouldn't take long and I may have it up tonight.

A cool test video by LordG1gabyt3

I was pretty surprised this morning, when I saw that LordG1gabyt3 (aka jabamklug on youtube) had completed and uploaded a visual effects test that he had been working on Friday night. He used a greenscreen, along with custom scenery of an airplane (from a top gun CS package, I believe) and achieved a really cool effect. See what I mean below.




I was chatting with him over Xfire when he made this last night, and made a few suggestions, which must be why he put me in the credits (that was very flattering, thank you LordG1gabyt3).

In other news, I stumbled across a really wierd (but cool) glitch in the FCR editor on Friday, I'll try and get something up, either a video or screenshots, to let you see what it was.

Does anyone have problems viewing this blog?

A couple of my computers at home can view my blog fine, but one of them has a solid green background instead of my intended panoramic RCT3 background. Let me know if you have any problems similar to this, or anything else, and I'll do my best to fix it.

Some non-spoiling snapshots

Here are a couple of screenshots I took today while working on Mechanics Vs. Aliens. I tried to take them from angles that wouldn't give too much away.

I hope you like these!

Moving on with Episode 5

Well, I have decide to actually NOT do the darvhoten contest thing, until more people enter it. I have been significantly discouraged from entering lately, because "darvhoten" deleted his account and made a new account called "Deadfox777." This new account has almost nothing to do with RCT3, and the new contest video is... well, let's just say that "Deadfox777" is not exactly concerned about making a quality contest video. See what I mean here:



Soooo, quick poll: how many of you would be excited to enter a contest after seeing that video?

Hhhhmmm, I don't see anybody raising their hand. That could be because NO ONE EVER LOOKS AT MY FREAKING BLOG, or it could be because nobody wants to enter the contest after seeing that contest video.

But I digress. My main point is: I'm not that thrilled about entering the contest anymore, and the only reason that I am still considering it is because I said I would enter. I DON'T like to not follow up with what I said, but at the same time I feel like this could be a waste of time. Unless more than a couple people enter this thing, I'm out. Deadfox777, if you read this, seriously: no offense. I am not trying to talk you down at all; I'm just explaining my thinking so that you can understand my actions.

Since I may not be making a contest video, I have been working on MVA Episode 5. No screen shots this time though, I don't want to give away the best parts. Suffice it to say I'm working more with the AFE, and I think it's gonna be pretty freaking sweet.

"MVA Randomness"

Today Ultima9345 uploaded a video entitled "MVA Randomness," which had a kind of Haloween theme to it... I think. Maybe. Or maybe it's just a coincidence that it says "Happy Halloween" at the end. I don't know.


Anyway, the general idea I got from it was that 2 Aliens were getting into mischief, so the Robot Supervisor turned them into pumpkinheads. Something like that. It's kinda hard to tell what's going on, I know, but I loved it since it was based off of my own work (mental note everybody: you get HardCore brownie points if you do interpertations or spoofs of my work [haha, somehow I don't think anyone would really WANT "HardCore brownie points"]).

Sorry people

Well.... eh. I know I have said to at least one person that Mechanics Vs. Aliens episode 5 would be the next thing to be uploaded, but I haven't entered a contest in a while, and davrhoten just put up a contest video in which he mentioned me. He said (reffering to me) at roughly 4:20 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oR6LzF0l00

"...he might actually do a couple scenery items of, coasters crashing. That would be funny,"

I thought that was pretty funny how he thought of crashes when he thought of me, and I also figured it would make him happy the more people entered, so I will most likely be making some sort of park video that has something crashing in it, along with a few normal coasters and things to meet the contest requirements.

I hope this doesn't take very long, I really don't want to put off MVA episode 5 any longer, but this looks like a fun opprotunity. Se la vie.

Hum de dum de dum

Not much happening today... at least with me. I did watch another episode of a new RCT3 Machinima, called "Science Experiment Gone Wrong," by leeannwester. It makes me very happy whenever I see a RCT3 Machinima, even when it is just someone recording their computer screen.

You can see episode 2 of this series here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTs0aZSVW4M&feature=PlayList&p=DBC538D45DA85BE2&index=6

(That's the one that I watched today).

Speaking of RCT3 Machinima that isn't made by me, there are a couple other videos of interest that are relatively new that you might want to check out. One is "JAILBREAK!" by czstealth, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLTCv-aDHL8&feature=PlayList&p=DBC538D45DA85BE2&index=5

which has an all original musical score.

Another is a trailer for an upcoming machinima by jabamklug, AKA LordG1gabyt3, called "IMPACT!"

http://gulk.bplaced.net/exclusive/trailer.php

Hmm, a theme perhaps? All capital letters, and an exclamation point? "JAILBREAK!", "IMPACT!"? Nah, probably just a coincidence.

MVA ep4 alternatley edited scene

This is an alternatley edited version of a scene from Mechanics Vs. Aliens episode 4. This was the first version that I edited, the version that is actually in the episode came 2nd. I hope you find this interesting.

Working on MVA today.

I am working on a custom firework for MVA. It is for transporting the Mechanic's Boss in the teleporter-thing that James Hunt made. I know I said in my machinima tutorial that I didn't know how to use the AFE, but after I made the tutorial, I started fooling around with the AFE, and so I might start trying to use it more often. 

Well, this is my first post.

Day 1 of my blog, I guess. I think I prefer a blog better than some other website, e.g. something like freewebs or..... I don't know. Freewebs is the only thing I can think of. Just seems like those websites usually end up feeling really junky. No offense to anyone who likes freewebs, it's just not my cup of tea.

Anyway, I hope someone finds this interesting. I'll post stuff here regularly about how projects are going, for example, I may post a screenshot and comment about something I worked on in Mechanics Vs. Aliens, or let everyone know I'll be going on vacation. Something like that.

Check back regularly, I hope to make new posts very frequently.