Machinima - "City 16"

[hugepedlar]

First of all I'd like to ask if anyone knows of some decent, episodic HL2 machinima. I haven't looked for some months, but for a long time I was sure I was the only person doing any. If anyone can show me where to find some I'd be very interested.

Anyway, as soon as the SDK came out (about a year or so ago?) I invested myself in creating a new machinima series, provisionally titled "City 16". After weeks of learning how to map and facepose etc. I got the first episode ready and lined up some scenes for the next couple of episodes.

Unfortunately the tedium of actually shooting each scene got the best of me and I pretty much gave up. I spent this last week going through my HDD looking for stuff to keep before reformatting, and came across the bones of my first episode.

So for what it's worth, I've stitched together the content I created a year ago and put it on my website. The end product isn't great - you can tell where the music is obviously missing and there are bits of missing dialogue and the editing needs tidying up - but in the interest of showing what could be done when no-one else seemed to be doing it, here it is:

http://hugepedlar.com/download.php?view.17

 

[Beerdude26]

Downloading now.

There aren't any episodic HL2 machinimas that I know, but "A Few Good G-Men" and "Still Seeing Breen" are popular HL2 machinimas.

You call that "stitched together"? It ****ing rocked! I lol'ed at the pizza boy part And that was some VERY good faceposing there, I haven't seen anything better.

 

[rosseh]

Lol, just watched this now. It's quite impressive and good for a few giggles. The voices are brilliant :E.

 

[Dekstar]

that was awesome.

"I nicked it didn't I!"

Brilliance.

 

[hugepedlar]

Hey thanks, guys! I almost wish I hadn't given up on it now!

 

[rosseh]

So do we!

 

[Dekstar]

MAKE MORE!!

And teach me how to do it :E

Also: If you ever need the voice of a welsh-ish 16 year old with a breaking voice, just ask

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Sweet jesus swiveling around on a stick, "something I stitched together" eh?
Some of the voices was weird but the faceposing, the editing, the camera angles, the story and all was top notch! Goddammit, I spent a whole friggin' day in the faceposer trying to get him to move his lips! This is grade A stuff dude, you *should* do another one!

 

[Beerdude26]

There are some Machinima guys around here I think, maybe you should team up with them. They're looking for more members.

 

[MultiVaC]

Heh, I love the Vortigaunt's voice.

 

[D€vIL²]

Dl'ing now... sounds like its gonna be awsome.

edit: it was pretty figgin cool man, good work. Nice shots, voice overs...

 

[Dekstar]

Heh, I love the Vortigaunt's voice.

Yeah it's like the vorty took on an English accent while he was on Earth.

 

[Sodabus]

First of all I'd like to ask if anyone knows of some decent, episodic HL2 machinima.

The only thing close to episodic was Select-Start, but the host took down the movie and I couldn't find any mirrors. It's a shame; the writing was good.

I'd upload my copy, but I'm stuck on dial-up.

 

[Billtcm]

lol i had the movie minimized and I thought the squeaking in the intro was my front door. Any way nice movie man, looked like it fit together perfectly.

 

[Darkside55]

This is good stuff, hugepedlar. You should definately do some more; the way it ended seemed like you planned a lot more to happen. You should make a series of it.

 

[tfg]

this was very good. I would like to work with you in the future some day.

 

[Vourdex]

Aww, to bad you didn't go further. You have potential! Anyway, good job indeed.

 

[hugepedlar]

Damn... All this praise. I'm beginning to regret losing all my source files now. If I was to start doing some more I'd have to begin from scratch again - plus I've probably forgotten how to do everything.

Maybe I'll think about doing some short, 2-3 character sketches, rather than a whole ambitious series.

 

[CyberPitz]

That was rather excellent. Good Job, hugepedlar! You know, anything apart from what you're currently doing with it, nothing, would be great!

Hope to see something more from you in the future!

 

[spinn]

I go into these things with pretty low expectations, because there's not much good hl2 machinima/posed comics out there. But this was pretty good. I liked the intro with the logo fade into the lights. A little pointlessly swoopy with the camera right at the beginning, but eh.

And, actually...probably any complaints I could make would be nitpicky about pacing and angles. If I didn't stop a few seconds in saying "christ this sucks" you've already won. The characterization was pretty good--you set up the different personalities without being overly pushy about it. I'm more about story than visuals, and the way you presented the different people, I could look forward to seeing how they get together.

Yeah, neat. Made me wish I had the patience for machinima myself.

 

[RabidJester]

I'm kind of old school in this realm, and I've been somewhat depressed that more people didn't take up the banner, but this is good work.

I understand what you mean when you say that it's difficult to stick with. I have the good part of a first episode done, that perhaps, one day, will bring the Zero Point Films logo back to grace this forum.

 

[Ennui]

It's pretty good.

 

[RabidJester]

Man, did I really join that long ago?

 

[tfg]

Damn... All this praise. I'm beginning to regret losing all my source files now. If I was to start doing some more I'd have to begin from scratch again - plus I've probably forgotten how to do everything.

Maybe I'll think about doing some short, 2-3 character sketches, rather than a whole ambitious series.

hugepedlar, please give us some other form of contact information. I'd like to speak with you. Catch me on IRC if you use it: Gamesurge, #gwfilms, "gw|daniel" is my name.

 

[MiccyNarc]

That was awesome.