Cinematics

[SpecOp9]

Could anybody please tell me if Half-Life 2 will support cinematics? I don't mean crappy chit chat mini cutscenes, I mean epic cinematics to give a mod a movie-like feel to it.

 

[MultiVaC]

What, you mean like pre-rendered? Or ingame? I'd say yes on both counts, though the limits of the game will still mostly apply for ingame ones just like they do in any other game.

 

[Majestic XII]

Simple answer: Yes

 

[simmo]

Majestic's right...an interview with gabe somewhere talks about this

 

[neozero]

Half-life 2 will do excellent in-game cinematics.

It's rumored that the same lipsynching and facial expression dec tools will be in the SDK.

Ask the Half-life 2 Machinima team, they're going crazy over it.

 

[IchI]

ye, quiet a lot of people are looking into cinematics. All I have to say is "File Size" I wouldn't mind a mod been over 1gb, but if you are making along game with quiet a lot of cinematic sequences it could really effect the mod. People wouldn't want to download a 1gb game if its only been rated as average. Its hard to judge really but its proberly one thing to watch out for.

In my opinion I would do it how they did in final fantasy X. Its got a nice flow to it and they use 5 different levels of models for cinematics (ingame) because the ps2 is not the most powerful of systems they have to keep the polgon count down, they do this by using different levels of models in the game. If the character is a lead character they will have a massive amount of polgons, if theya re far away and in the background they will have little amounts. Its kinda like the LOD system for hl2 but does not use distances to find out the level of detail. It is set by the person who makes the cinematics. The only bad part abount something like this is when I was playing the game and noticed a new character I could tell straight away they where going to be part of my team. Because the players u use ingame have so much more detail than your every day world characters.

I hope this helps even though I am jabbering on a little bit it helps fight the boredem at school u see

 

[SpecOp9]

Could I ask who the Machinima team is? Do they have a site?

 

[alco]

Do you already have some ideas for mini-series/films? Can we hear some of them?

 

[Murray_H]

You know the style of filming they used for the Omaha beach sequence in saving private ryan, how was that style achieved? It's kinda hard to describe, but it just looks really different from anything else (i think it happens when you film moving things with film thats meant to be used for people who are not moving very much)

Anyway, if you can understand that, i was wondering if that look could be achieved in Source/how would you go about doing it. I'm thinking about making some music videos with the default HL2 models and stuff but i would really like that style of filming to be in it

Thanks

 

[ukfilmer]

its a game dude, you cant expect too much from a game engine as of yet, go get maya and try real animation if your stuck for things to do.

 

[Delgarto]

What I want to know is with Machinima, is it all trigger actions? Or do people actually control the characters. I've heard conflicting reports. You could probably do both eh? Though, being a Film Major, I've always wanted to do machinima, and with HL2 I think I might, I have some cool ideas, and hell my brother is an animator.

 

[The Dark Elf]

What I want to know is with Machinima, is it all trigger actions? Or do people actually control the characters.

Both, though the older ones, such as those done on the quake engine were controlled by players most of the time because it was more complicated to script events in the beginning.

 

[tfg]

hey Pandragon --
just wanted to let you know that I am also moving forward with a HL2 machinima production. Check out this forum post:
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28546

 

[ukfilmer]

way to dig up and old ass thread