Machinima Learnings from Namara: Episode 1 Part A
Before I get too far into working on Episode 2, I want to give a brain dump on everything I learned from Episode 1. I plan to do this after every episode, so anyone can learn from the things I discovered during the process.
Spot on Choreography Is Awesome
First and foremost, this was the first real machinima project I got to use the Spot On Choreography tools for and it was insanely important for pretty much -every- action sequence you see here.
Monsters chasing our heroine down the trail? Spot On. Perfectly timed monsters flinging back with the big black magic thing when the hero arrives? Spot On.
I’m not gonna lie - the learning curve was steep with this tool, but 100% worth every moment I spent learning how to use the tool. I used both the Choreography Tool and the Director’s HUD to control what animations the avatars were doing when, and then because it was all set up, I could literally just push a button and the scene would play over and over again. It was a thing of beauty, and made getting different angles possible because it was easy for me to ‘replay’ the scene again without any real set up time.
Machinima Takes Multiple People / Computers
It’s either that, or a level of planning/preparing that I don’t know that I can reasonably do. The shot I did where I made a ‘rotating prim seat’ to get the camera angle I was going for wasn’t even possible without two computers. I needed someone to push buttons on an animation HUD to make him change the position he was holding the sword WHILE I filmed.
I learned pretty early into my filming explorations and ‘multiple viewers’ that one of them goes ‘dormant’ when you have it minimized, making filming that particular window glitchy and weird. There is likely a way to turn this off somehow, but because I’m pretty lucky and my filming partner is my actual real life husband, we just talk and film on two separate computers in the same room with each other. That being said, film makers like Huckleberry Hax should really be praised because the amount of collaboration needed to make a film TOTALLY virtually - with no face to face interaction and only voice- would be so hard. The amount of ‘standing there and waiting’ for the actors is alot more than you know, and with me getting to share the experience with my husband and standing there in the same room in real life really makes the entire process much easier.
Luci Hollyberry is an Epic Life Saving Professional
I’ve been collaborating with Gonje for awhile now, but I got to do my first 100% Second Life virtual collaboration on this project too - and HOLY MOLY did it end up way better than I ever could have thought. I met Luci through Twitter and we spent some time in the same clubs a few months back. We aren’t close, but I’ve always found her to be really friendly, super nice, and very comfortable being on voice. She’s also been really inclusive to me, inviting me to events or voice chat groups. I know that can be hard to do with me because I’m a MASSIVE introvert and I’m pretty much always building or working on creative projects.
I’ve been working on the Aether project for awhile now and mentioned it to her (literally out of the blue), testing the waters to see if she might be interested in taking on a voice role. She mentioned she had the gear to record the audio, and then MONTHS later at the last minute, I kind of begged her to help me out by narrating Romy’s inner monologue for the story. Literally - I was obnoxious and gave her a 24 hour deadline with barely any notice because my actual Blog deadline was looming in the very near future. I explained the predicament I got myself into and asked her if she could help, and boy, did she deliver.
Not only did Luci totally understand the project, she really committed. She sent over THREE different versions of her reading her part, and for a first attempt, she nailed the voice acting. I’m so thankful for Luci’s professionalism and quick turn around. I got sooooo lucky. So, if you don’t know Luci - you should. :) She’s kindof the coolest.
VOID Makes the Coolest Magic Stuff in Second Life
Gonje & I have been slowly collecting VOID HUDs over the last few months for our various filming accounts - The ‘creepy blackness explosion’ was a VOID HUD effect that I was really excited to use. I could gush and fangirl out over how cool their products are, but this meme below just seemed right…
