FIRST GUIDE OUT!

Breaking news here! The first tutorial is now out! I literally just found this out, I haven't even seen the finished product myself yet! Here's a link to it here:

Machinima Choreography Guide

Being a real cheapass myself, I admit the price seems little high. I didn't set it, plus this is a VERY comprehensive guide. I wrote the whole thing targetted for people with NO experience with the Source SDK. An incredible number of hours went into this, so for all that do buy this, you have my thanks. You can read more about it on the page, but here's what this guide will cover:

-Setting up your scene
-Character movement
-Character animations
-Lip syncing
-Beginning usage of Hammer (enough to get you started with machinima)

To sum it up, this is the technical end of machinima-making in Source. If you want to know how I've done a lot of the more elaborate animations in Civil Protection, this tells you how. This guide definitely teaches you everything I knew when I created "Friday" , and more beyond that.

However this guide does NOT teach things like camerawork, demo recording, audio/video editing, motion blur, all the other things related to making a video. That will be covered in the NEXT guide, which I'm still scrambling to get done.  Also since creation on this began before HL2: Episode 2 existed, this is all done using HL2: Episode 1.  However, easily 90% of what's taught here is applicable to any Source engine game. 

EDIT:  I'm trying my best to get the episode out on Tuesday, though it's possible the audio processing might add another day.

quick update

Well I've gotten some good responses about the coder position, so I think we'll be seeing some progress in the future. Problem #2 is still going to be a little bit daunting however, so if you think you can help with that, please contact me.

Progress is going well on the next episode. This one won't have much action (don't worry, that won't be a new trend), though it should be more of a treat visually. This one will involve a lot of different maps, many of which I'm taking from existing custom-made maps online and will be crediting the various authors. Right now the ETA on this is under 3 weeks. It would be sooner, but I'm still juggling the last half of Noesis with this.  As always, once that's over, then things are really going to start moving.

NEW POSITION OPENING: CODER

It's becoming apparent while working on this episode that someone who can add code to HL2 could make things go a lot easier, so we're now looking for a programmer familiar with the Source engine. Before you jump at this, let me give you a rundown of the things we're looking to be able to do:

1. Add new weapons: Provided we have the models and animations (for the weapon and character), I want to be able to add new weapons to the HL2 world. So if we wanted to be able to give Dave an AK-47 from the game Counter-Strike Source, we would need your help on making this possible. This would include stuff like making sure things like firing animations are played, ejecting brass, adding muzzle flash, etc. All the animations, graphics, and models will be provided for you, but you would have to make them work together as an actual weapon.

2. Have NPCs fire weapons on command: Right now the only way we can make an NPC fire a weapon is through AI use, which is unpredictable. This can be a good thing, but other times I want tighter control over when they fire. I want to be able to tell an NPC exactly when to fire his gun and when not to, or to empty his entire clip without pausing, reload, then keep on firing. I'd prefer doing this via some sort of input command in Hammer, but a hotkey I could press in-game would be adequate as well.

3. Create new NPC's out of other character models: Right now getting a model from another Source game to behave like an NPC can be a real annoyance. Generic_actor entities are unreliable and swapping out models for other npc's only works for some situations. If we had all the animations already available, we'd like to be able to have the model behave like a regular NPC for most situations. Right now this becomes a hack that doesn't always work. I don't anticipate any exotic needs here. Mainly just walking, running, and firing a weapon. If they could behave like an npc_citizen, but simply use a different a model, this might be all we'd need.

If you think you can help us with this, please email me at rscott31@radford.edu. Some of these functions won't be needed until later episodes, but others we could get you started working immediately for the next episode. As always, this will be volunteer work, but you would get your name in the credits.

EDIT: I originally listed particle effects, but it looks like that won't be the issue I thought it was.  The other functions are still desired however.

update

Well I arrived at my new destination, but I may move again as I'm going to need a place where I can be sufficiently loud to do recordings. One of the animators helping us is going to be quite busy too, so I'm afraid that means we're going to postpone the 20+ minute long episode again (yeah, I know).

The good news is that I'm going a little batty from not working on anything more creative, so I've decided to start a shorter Civil Protection episode that will be easier to animate. With everyone helping on it, it should be out sometime mid to late September. After that, I'm going to do everything in my power to finish the original episode I meant to release for Halloween 2007 I ended up postponing; except now it will be in time (hopefully) for Halloween 2008. This one is already partially completed, but there's still a lot to do on it. It will be at least 15 minutes and I hope will be the scariest episode of CP yet.

For everyone waiting on Freeman's Mind, it's still going to be kind of sparse until I finish the Noesis tutorial, then you can expect a big increase in its frequency. Thanks again for everybody's patience, we're going to be producing some good stuff over the next couple months.

Moving

Hey everybody; well as I mentioned before I'm going to be moving, except it's going to be quite soon now. Starting Monday I'm going to be driving over 1000 miles to seek my fame and fortune, or at least to get into a situation which will allow me more time to make videos. I'm really hoping my car won't break down by the side of the road and I get killed by raiders, but we'll just see what happens. Assuming I make it to my destination, my internet access will be kind of sketchy for a little bit until I get everything straightened out.

The first part of the Noesis tutorial is done on my end, I'm told it will be coming out soon. I was hoping to have them both done at about the same time, but it looks like there may be a couple weeks delay. This one coming out will definitely be the more technical one. It's going to cover how to animate with the Source SDK, the other guide is going to cover everything else I do in machinima EXCEPT that. I'll give more details about them once they get closer to release.

My new mantra is going to be "August". August is when I plan to finish the Noesis guide by, and will consequentially be when I really start getting back to work on CP again. I'm excited about this since it's been on hold forever and now I've got more good people helping than ever before. I'm not making promises at this point, but it is my goal to be producing at LEAST two videos a month once the tutorial is done. Most of these will just be Freeman's Mind, but it's my goal to get all the groundwork done on the CP episodes, let other people take over the animation/mapping work in different areas, then while they're working on it, I should have time for FM.

Finally the new website is making progress, but the person helping me with the code is going to be moving too and won't be available to work on it again until mid-August. If I'm lucky, we should have the website up in late August, but it could take as long as September depending on how everything goes.

FREEMAN'S MIND - EPISODE 4

Youtube Version

640x480 WMV download link (66MB)

EDIT: Download link now fixed

Well I'm still very busy with the Noesis tutorial, but I made enough time to get another Freeman's Mind episode done. This will be the last video I make before I finish the tutorial. I realize things have been pretty slow, but once the tutorial's done you can expect a BIG increase in the frequency of video releases. Speaking of which there's going to be so much covered in the tutorial it's actually mushrooming into 2 different guides. One will cover nothing but Faceposer and Hammer, the other will go over everything else (writing, sound editing, camerawork, etc.).

Also I was interviewed a month or so ago for an online magazine article. I've been informed it's been published and you can check it out here. I thought it was a little odd that he seemed to focus most of his article on my stuff, but he mentions some other good machinimas in there as well. Notably "The Monad" by Sam Goldwater (which is the best machinima drama I've seen) and "Hey Shipwreck!" by Patrick Hrabe, of which I really enjoy his series.

Finally I haven't forgotten about the website, subtitles, or Civil Protection itself, I just have a big juggling act going on with all the work I have to do. Good things are coming.

updates

I know some people are anxious to get updates, so here's what's happening: Work's still being done, but I've gotten through what I consider the hardest part of the tutorial. There's still plenty more to keep me busy though. In the meantime progress has been made on the new website. I've been designing it and someone else has been helping to code it for me. Here's a preview of what the CP episodes page might look like, I'm pretty happy with how it's coming along so far:



For the subtitles, here's my current plan: I've received several subtitles in various languages and I do plan to post them up on the new site. However, I think it will be easier for everyone involved in translating if I can get the English subtitles up first. The advantage to this is that I'll know that the English you're working from is correct, and also the subtitles can be color-coded so that they correspond to the right speaker. This will also make things easier for the people doing the subtitles as they'll have pre-existing timing tags to work off of. So I want to concentrate on getting the English subtitles finalized, then we'll move on to getting the ones to other languages up. Right now I only have the English subtitles for CP episodes 1 - 3. If someone sent me others, I've probably lost them, I apologize, I've been disorganized with email. So if you wish to create English subtitles for Civil Protection episodes 4,5, and the special, or any episodes of Freeman's Mind, please contact me at rscott31@radford.edu. I do have the scripts for the Civil Protection episodes, but have no scripts for Freeman's Mind as I only used loose notes to create them. If you wish to transcribe those, that would also be welcome. I can verify any of the lines being said.

There won't be any new Civil Protection episodes until after the tutorial is made, but the 20+ minute long one is still in production and it's the one I plan to release next. I'm not making any promises, but I may try and get the next episode of Freeman's Mind out before then as those are less time consuming to produce.

EDIT: A volunteer submitted the English subtitles for CP episodes 4 and 5, so I'll be sure to put those up with the rest once the new site's up.