Destination: Machinima
Loading ...Heres my silly attempt at Machinima using Second Life
I made it using windows movie maker, fraps, second life and wavepad. I read about fraps and WMM on the machinima forums over at machinima.com which was pretty helpful. Heres a basic summary of what each program did to help me make my “piece”.
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Windows Movie Maker: This program was really great and I didn’t even know I had it on my computer until now! It is very easy to use (I didn’t go through any tutorials) and you can upload video, still images and audio. I used it to combine all of the different audio and visual clips. It was great to use because you drag and drop the files you want into a timeline and you can layer, clip, edit and blend them very intuitively. You can also line up all the video clips you want and narrate them as they play which is what I used whenever you hear my voice.
Fraps : An application that can be used with any game to record your FPS (frames per second) and also take screenshots and videos at any moment. It can be downloaded here. It was also very intuitive to use, requiring only one keystroke to record. I used it to take screenshots and videos in SL over the built in tools of SL because Fraps only needed one key to either take a picture or video while the SL tools needed many clicks which would show up on the video.
Wavepad : This was the only program that I had experience with. It is also free (the trial version) here. I used it to edit and chop up the two songs I used (Earth Wind and Fire-Lets groove tonight and The Ventures-Wipeout).
Second Life : The pseudo-game. Available for free here. All of the gestures and animations I used came included with the game as downloaded. The only elements that were not, were the clothes my avatar was wearing. Someone else did Second Life so I dont need to go into too much detail. Second life was used as a graphical engine, providing the base for the visual elements for my machinima. However, some elements of it was also used in the content since my video is about second life.
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I had a really fun time making my silly little clip. It is very corny, mimicking most of the machinima that I’ve seen. I think that having the ability to make a short film like this using completely free programs is one of the greatest things about machinima. However, it was definitely more work than I thought it would be. The time it takes to take video, voice and music and get them all together is pretty huge. Just this 2 minute clip took about 4 hours in total to make. Although I’m sure that time will get shorter as you use the programs more. I only intended to make a 30 second clip but I kept thinking of more corny things to include in the video. One thing that I did not do, that many Machiamists do, is hack the game. This is done to get rid of the menus, control the camera with more precision and create your own sets. Another thing I didn’t do is include other actors. Everything was done with one second life account. I can definitely understand how hard it would be coordinating multiple accounts all at once. Second life has many machinima studio locations within it but whenever I visited, no one seemed to be around.
Well thats it! Now to find out who added that sex clip…
Comments
wow great work!! The movement of your character seemed even better than some of the Machinima I’ve seen on Halo and Halo 2. It seems in some ways that the SL interface is more suited for Machinima than Halo.
I love the way you matched your voice with your avatar’s movements! Hillarious!
It looks so complicated, but its awesome that you got to do everything for free. Because of this, I’m now interested in checking out my Windows Movie Maker to try new things with my home videos.
Oh yes, this is awesome. I’m surprised at how many animations you used and how you matched them up to the speech; obviously I’ve done SL too and I know that takes some effort. Needs more Kool Aid though.
@mushon
If the opportunity presents itself for a project, it might just end up being a series!
@erik
i think Sl is better suited for machinima just because it isnt designed as a shooter from the get-go. With enough hacking though, anything could be a great machinima platform. But sl is much easier to work will off the bat for sure.
@nick
I know I know. The Kool Aid factor was definitely lacking…as was the captain planet element. I thought it would be too much trouble to coordinate filming and this had to be as simple as possible. Next time for sure though, I definitely got a feel for the editing/filming.
coordinating the movements wasn’t as bad as I thought. I used the basic gestures and then spoke over them. You can tell that I did the vocals after the visual because I pause when I say “you” and have my avatar point to the camera by typing out “/pointyou”.
Thanks for all the positive comments!
I admire your skills in Second Life. I still need to figure it out. And I didn’t know NYU had a campus already.
Nicely done… and it is definitely apparent it is your first experience with SL
Do you think you’ll use this method to make more videos in the future?