Leaving Quake 2?
I don't know, afterall, it was a question.
But really what I mean is I'm giving serious thought to now moving on from it.
I've always known it was technologically inferior, even in its opensource state, no one was ever gonna code it to be as badass as Doom 3 or Half-Life 2. That wasn't so much a problem. Visuals for me have always come after ease of use. The ability for me to tell the story has been at the front.
However, Things have changed. Story is still paramount, but I'm getting tired of a great many things in the Quake 2 engines. Opensource is great, but I'm not a coder, and I'm VERY tired of having to rely on community coders. Not only are they as rare as rain in the Sahara, but they usually have so many already existing coding responsibilities, it's hard to find coders that can really commit to a project.
With the way things are changing here it BPS it's no longer viable to rely the Quake 2 coding community.
It's becoming more and more common for games companies to support their game's communities not only with tools, but documentation to mod for, and create Machinima.
In Quake 2 I've had to do unheard of things to go AROUND the limitations the engine has (yes there are limitations despite the sourc ecode being open, it's a long story) and not only is it seriously impeding it's ease of use, it's becoming less fun.
Mapping is a great example. I can't put up with the crappy Q2 bsp format. I would like to make shapes other than cuboids. There have been ways around some of these limitations, but they where just stop-gap measures. It's possible to use Q3 maps in EGL now, but this is also unsuitable, for more reasons than I have time to state.
Looking at *some* of the new tools available in modding has really been great. I've always been a fan of 'World Craft' rather than the Radiant family of editors so Valve's 'Hammer' is really great.
Yes, I'm giving serious consdieration to Half-life 2. A great many things will have to change, and I'm not happy with EVERYTHING about it (lip synching will never be easier to do than it was with Q2) but I do believe that in the long run this will be better. It was a toss up between UT2k4 and Half-life 2. HL2's Machinima process is more like The Quake 2 proccess I used, than any other game (that includes subsequent Quake titles). We won't be leaving Quake 2 entirely. Some things will still be better done there than anywhere. What this decision does do though, is start a possibly very large change in direction for Binary Picture Show.
Lets just hope it all goes well :-0
tag: machinima
19 Comments:
No, do not go to HL2. Save yourself. Unreal's probably your best bet. Check out Friedrich's Movie Sandbox app.
MotionBuilder. Please try if you aren't before. People often forget that it is based on real time engine. Incredible software, all my future work will be in it. Expensive in start but no license and copyrights problems, you are owner of your work. (Yesterday I discover real time lipsinc capability!? Beautiful.)
Awaken, Motionbuilder is hot, theres no doubt about it, It's just the price tag. fuckin' dirty (I'll need to probe you about the real-time lip synch that you speak of).
Mu, Friedrichs Movie does indeed look hot, but I only ever saw something about it once, and then nothing since (I admit, I havent searched). Do yoy have a particular reason why HL2 is no good, or just prefer UT?
HL2 source is a terror. They trick you into believing with all the potential, but then when you get to unleashing that potential, it's like the machinima version of the Bush administration. Makes no sense.
If you're choreographing a scene in a level, you actually have to re-compile the level after EVERY change, no matter how small. Even the simplest level takes 10 minutes to compile. The average HL2 game level takes up around 3 hours. We've done some very simple sets that take nearly two hours.
We haven't finished yet, though. Maybe we'll discover a secret or something, but so far it's the least efficient machinima work flow I've ever worked with. We'll see what kind of final product we can squeeze out of it.
Hey Doc, in case you'Re interested, Moviesandbox is in open Beta stage and can be downloaded from www-moviesandbox.net.
I also have a wiki up for requests and bugs and i DO have easy to use lipsyncing, though i still have to make up for it on the documentation front...
Apart from that, i totally agree with Awaken. If you're serious with realtime animation, Motionbuilder is the wayto go. I worked with it once and it's amazing!
Mu, Thats some scarey stuff you say. I'll definately give UT another look now. I thought HL2 was perfect for most of my needs but the famed demo smoother seems a *little* bit retarded (I'm serious).
Feizi, I'm going to check out your tool in more detail, though I first also have to spend a day going through much of the UT2K4 documentation to get a better feel.
Motionbuilder IS and has for a long time been the best Machinima tool IMO- hands down.The PLE versions are like a second girlfriend to me, I'm just finding it difficult justifying spending all that money, EVEN it's for something I'm this pationate about :-(
If I got it I would have to gaurantee I make some money with it, and nothings a gaurantee.
+it'd take me yonks to save up.
I'm gonna get my wisdom teeth taken out as part of some medical research, but even the money from that wont do diddly shit towards a Motionbuilder fund.
Yes, go to a more modern engine. You'll get much better reviews out of it.
NWN was the best choice for BloodSpell, but we took a kicking for using such old technology.
Everything I've heard about HL2 says it's an absolute bastard to work in - looks like it *could* be great, but I've yet to hear anything positive about it as a platform.
Have you considered talking to Matt Kelland about becoming a beta-tester for his new software? It sounds like it'll be awesome.
Actually, while the Demo Smoother is one of the least-intuitive pieces of software I've ever used, at least it works and it works pretty well. Once you figure out the quirks, you can do some great stuff.
The level compiling is the real nightmare. Potentially crippling to a production. Once we're done with our production will be able to give the definitive word, but so far it's been very frustrating.
Like we said, MotionBuilder is THE Machinima tool, and I don't want to work in anything else anymore, but I must say Source isn't THAT bad. I have a quite good experience with Source; Smoother work, Faceposer too, Gmod is godsend for Machinima... Compile times can be cut down with Tazzoo compiler and some planing. For some not very basic stuff I work on from time to time it is matter of seconds and couple minutes, not hours. Mayor drawback is difficulty of importing models. And this is unforgivable.
Btw, try "Anymation" technic from Tom Jantol :)
and where is this Tazzoo found? Google gives nothing.
Sorry, it is TAz00. Here is link with readme and download:
http://taz00.com/content/software/TCG/TCG-Readme.htm
Ah yes, now I remember finding that one before. The last patch broke it, and the site has no mention yet of a fix.
In the meantime I went check couple things - I didn't open HL2 for two month . and it seems that couple serious things are broken; custom compiler, studiomdl, some things in Garrymod.
Without these, I don't want to touch Source again.
$4195.00 for MotionBuilder looks cheaper every minute...
First of all thanks for all the advice and discussion from everyone.
U'd think this would be an easy decision for a veteran, but it's so not.
Hugh, I'll be getting in touch with Matt immediately. By recomending I contact him are you sugessting the software is already at beta testing stage?
Munansen, The reason why I said I found the smoother retarded is because it does some things very well, and makes certain other simple things very complicated. The reason I'm just not impressed with it is because I felt I had much more freedom camera-wise when I used Keygrip 2 for Q2 yet I've heard many a praise sung for the smoother. For example getting the smoother to do straight cuts seems more complicated thn it has to be.
Also this thing about tools breaking in HL2 is another thing that is really turning me off. When I finally get something working I like it to stay like that. Motionbuilder is as stable as a house. PLE 7 works like a dream. Like Awaken, I think I have no choice but to save up (but also maybe borrow some cash). The question is what am I going to use in the meantime?
I've looked at Feizi's tool again, and it does indeed look great. I'm just slightly apprehensive of the as-yet to be completed documentation, as I don't have that much time for trial and error in my old age. However my choices are severely limited, so for now I'll try and investigate some more.
Don't be suprised if I just snap and start using 'The Movies'.
Yeah a straight cut would be a pain in Smoother I can imagine. I don't do any editing in-game, though, so it hasn't been a problem. It's agreed that Smoother's retarded, I just find it less retarded than other parts of Source.
Might wanna talk to fiezi first, though before you blow a couple grand on MB. He talked to me about working with directors to help mold the application. Not sure if that would help you or ot.
I believe that Matt's app is in late alpha, but it should be ready soon.
Your other option would be Softimage XSI. £500 for the cheapest version, last time I saw, and it's got everything you need to make it into a Machinima toolset (yes, you can do puppetry and live recording). Plus, you can then render using Soft's renderer.
Just to add couple things; Autodesk abandon developing of Standard version (about 1000K grands if I remember correctly) with version 6.0. There was, and still is, huge amount of complaints and petitions, threats with lawsuits so Autodesk start to talk about some changes in this department. Difference between standard and pro are minor for Machinima users (cleaning mocap data, lua scripting..). Further more, I found MB 7.0 on eBay couple days ago for 750 dollars. What I want to say, there is some options for
getting MB without selling house, car, bike and gold medal from olimpics.
Of course, this is still expensive but idea of OWNING you own movie is unbeatable.
Yeah, I would cut off someone elses arm for Autodesk to take up the same pricing structure that Kaydara had.
And your right, Awakwn, there should be a way I can buy it without having an operation on my mouth.
Hugh, XSI sure does have a purty price tag. Thered just be muchos more learning. Again, I might end up with little choice.
Someone emailed me suggesting Atics, but the lighting capabilities seem basic.
I've just recently signed up for the early adopter program for antics 2. The regular price is $995 US, but if you sign up for the EA v2 program it's only $249 US. This only lasts till Aug 31 however. Unfortunately, it's still in a beta state so you will see some bugs. Some bugs I saw were some jittery animation & camera not doing exactly what I set it to--but it looks to be pretty good so far. They'll also send you the final version once it's ready. I'm still just learning it so I haven't played with the lighting all that much but it seems pretty easy to me. If all else fails, you can always use After Effects or Vegas to adjust the fx & lighting. Their site is antics3d.com.
darkwolfe
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