The Improv Engine: A call for help with the world's first Machinima Mod

[OTCS Bryy]

Hello Folks.

My name is Bryy, I produce/write a machinima series called Over the Counter-Strike (http://otcs.vugaming.com) and like you, I love what the Source engine offers. However, we'd like to implement this further, and make an actual mod that allows people to make their own machinima in the Source engine.

Think about it. A mod fully geared towards film making. Humans controlling actors, specifying themselves through the interface who they're looking at, what body emotions they might be expressing, custom animations, being able to "play" faceposer .wavs to express facial emotions and lip synch. Certainly seems a bit ambitious in scope doesn't it? Right now, Improv is only being made for CS:S, but we will expand to other mods as we see fit. We're still in the concept phase, but as a guy who is still putting out episodes of Over the Counter-Strike, I am certain we're going to make this mod.

I know jack-all about the Source engine's code, so I would like to talk to anybody interested in the project who has alot of experience with making these mods.

We currently need modellers, skinners, and anything else. If you have a specialty in modding, we want to hear about it. This is not a total conversion of a game, rather, a mod of a mod to allow better accessibility when it comes to filmmaking

Shoot me over an email at [email protected], or the director, Tykell, at [email protected] if you're interested or come visit the OTCS forums for more info.

We also pay for experience, if you're an extremely talented artist when it comes to models, skins, or coding.

P.S: We realize that a cinematic editor will be released in the full SDK. We feel that machinima is more fun and less complicated if human actors are controlling the set.

 

[IchI]

Hmmm.... Half-Life 2 doesn't edit in real time unlike Unreal, sorry. but thinking about it. I don't think its practically possible. Also a mod like make your own movie style of thing would get very old very fast. I can see it just been like one of those flash games people play with to have a little bit of a laugh then give up.

Anyway, http://www.redvsblue.com/ is much better Red Vs Blue is the next best thing to anime. Thats saying something!

Good luck with your project and I hope I am wrong.

 

[OTCS Bryy]

No, we're talking about something to help US and OTHERS film machinima. Just some way to impliment the Source features into the game. We would be filming in FRAPS, not the game itself.

The possibilities of Source in machinima projects are endless.

 

[RabidJester]

I've done a lot of thinking about this concept in the past.

The ideal way to go about it would be have keybindings or chat macros that would launch triggers to activate vcd scenes with the proper facial expression or animation. The mapping would be crazy, as each and every action you wanted included would need a trigger. Now, I'm sure there's probably some inventive method within the coding to trigger these expressions, or even a vgui method to go about it, but I haven't looked into it.

-Brian

 

[OTCS Tykell]

Are you saying we can do this without mods?

If not, it's nice to know there's a way of doing this. I've contacted Valve to see if it's possible to obtain the CS: S source code, but I doubt it's going to happen. We may need to get creative.

 

[RabidJester]

My first machinima piece in Source, called "Civil Disorder", is going to be made completely using stuff from HL2, minus the voice overs we're doing. So you don't really need to make a mod to do it.

As for actually creating the content...

You use Face Poser and SceneManager (programs not yet released with the SDK) to create facial animations, timing for speech, lip-syncing, and movement cues, and export those out as a VCD scene file. Then you go into your map, place your characters and your marks for move commands. You create a trigger and have that trigger activate the VCD. Once you go into game, you do whatever you do to activate the trigger, and the characters begin the animation, moving, speaking, etc. Then you just place your camera (or use the demorecord function to alter the camera movements) and record.

It's all in all a really streamlined process, and doesn't require a multiplayer environment to create complex scenes.


As for the system you guys seem to be describing, it would be taking that concept and placing it into a multiplayer machinima "stage" of sorts. The proper way to do that would be to have triggers for each small scene or expression or voice over tied to a keybinding, so that the "actors" could activate them on cue.

It could reasonably be a cool thing, and something they should look at for Sourceworld as well.

 

[bliink]

Are you saying we can do this without mods?

If not, it's nice to know there's a way of doing this. I've contacted Valve to see if it's possible to obtain the CS: S source code, but I doubt it's going to happen. We may need to get creative.

Is there a reason you want the CSS source, when you could probably just drop the css models into hl2 and do a pure hl2 mod instead? that way, you already have the source code. Technically, isnt CSS a hl2 mod anyway?

 

[RabidJester]

I think they are technically two separate games on the source engine with similar structures.

Either way, it would be easy enough to move the resources over to HL2 and drop them in there.

I'm actually rather curious to check out the possibilites of this now.

 

[OTCS Tykell]

Our series is in Counter-Strike: Source, hence why we would like to first do the mod in CS:S

 

[OTCS Bryy]

But doing an extra scene in HL2 is not really a problem.

 

[RabidJester]

Unless the CS:S source code comes out, I'm not sure how it would be accomplished.

Then again, I haven't taken a deep look at CS:S's structure and how similar it is to HL2

 

[Ennui]

there are a few minor mods for games like Battlefield 1942 that allow you to create machinima more easily.

This isn't a very realistic idea and even if it could be implemented it wouldn't be worth it in the long run, since it would take just as much effort to make a movie with it.

I lead Prospekt Films, another Source machinima team, and we're going to be doing it the faceposer/map trigger way.

 

[OTCS Tykell]

there are a few minor mods for games like Battlefield 1942 that allow you to create machinima more easily.

This isn't a very realistic idea and even if it could be implemented it wouldn't be worth it in the long run, since it would take just as much effort to make a movie with it.

I lead Prospekt Films, another Source machinima team, and we're going to be doing it the faceposer/map trigger way.

This is not possible with CS:S, which is our issue right now.

 

[OTCS Bryy]

Were we making it out to seem like we were? We're just asking for help, not blabbing about our conquests.

 

[RabidJester]

Were we making it out to seem like we were? We're just asking for help, not blabbing about our conquests.

I believe he is referring to the thread title:
"A call for help with the world's first Machinima Mod"

How's the progress going on this?

 

[Dekstar]

I believe he is referring to the thread title:
"A call for help with the world's first Machinima Mod"

How's the progress going on this?

Owned.



(I love OTCS)

 

[OTCS Tykell]

Audio, I am still interested in talking to you about this technique you plan to use. I've added you to my MSN

 

[RabidJester]

Owned.



(I love OTCS)

Didn't mean to own anyone. I actually just saw OTCS for the first time, and I like it. It's good work that I can't wait to see moved over to the Source engine.

Mostly, I seriously was looking for a progress update to keep up to date on how they are doing.

 

[OTCS Bryy]

For our third episode, since Source is still unstable at this point, we are actually doing a scene in a completely different game, then later we are hoping to replace it with Source-based animations.