Star_Dancer

OMG - After I finished my vid and got it submitted, I have discovered the absolutely COOLEST THING.

The CoX graphics engine actually has a GAME that you can PLAY!!!

It's a lot of fun, too...

2Cents, I liked your vid. I hope they don't nail you for being one lousy second over the 4 minute limit...

Stone, the time/light changes are just another good reason to use demorecordings. Changing the time to noon (or whatever you want) is really simple and makes it a lot faster to get your recordings without worrying about "losing the light".

Oooh, Miraj, I hope you don't get disqualified. I really enjoyed your vid. I don't play villain-side so I had no idea that voice was from the game. That whole "I can't understand a word you're saying" bit was hilarious.

I wish you had found our little virtual clubhouse earlier because I have honestly enjoyed the support and camaraderie here. Even though we're competitors, we've still watched out for one another and helped each of us to present our best efforts for this thing. I guess we're all heroes at heart, even if we do have our secret dark sides.

I can't wait to see the rest of the vids once GT gets their weekend backlog cleared up. I have no idea how I'm going to stay sane waiting a whole week to see who the top five slots go to.

Question: Do we know which of us (here) did "Babytoons"?

Honestly, what res you upload doesn't seem to matter. Nothing is getting through. Don't substitute an inferior product for your best effort in an attempt to (unsuccessfully) work around their back-end processing problems.

BTW - This "perma-compression" problem isn't new. The very first submission, by GrandConjurer, encountered the same problems. THEY (GT.com) had to fix it before it went through.

Oh, and the compression delay has NOTHING to do with the contest approval process. Don't let them confuse the two. If it hangs as a contest submission, it will also hang as a general submission.

Unfortunately, their "rules" reach the zenith of their retardedness with respect to this subject:

[ QUOTE ]
Time of receipt of the Video portion of an entry shall be the time when all elements of the Eligible Entry (as defined in Paragraph 3 below) are actually received by the Website, as recorded or documented by the Website’s operating systems. Proof that you uploaded, or otherwise submitted an entry does not constitute proof or evidence that all or any portion of your entry was actually received by Sponsor within the Entry Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sooooo... Their server logs are the last word as to whether you uploaded before the deadline. Even if you can PROVE that they received the upload in time, if their server logs (which are the logs of a server that is CLEARLY [censored]'d) are what really counts. Uh huh.

But my real question is this. Given that they aren't working this weekend (as evidenced by the lack of response to emails, and the absence of any new contest entries being approved since Friday), then...

WHY THE HELL DID THEY SET THE DEADLINE FOR A SUNDAY?????

I'm gonna kick their butts. I was going to build a machine to kick their butts, but I was afraid that the rule against "scripting" would get me disqualified from the butt-kicking contest.

Don't get me started.

D_R, why would your vid get disqualified? I didn't see anything in there that was against the rules.

Lubbed it, BTW!

Ya know, I think that those of y'all that bust your butts doing complex and spectacular demoediting are going to get shortchanged in this contest. We already know that this panel of "experts" isn't really familiar with the game and they're especially ignorant of how demorecordings work. I don't think they will properly appreciate the difficulty level of those things. They'll just assume that, for instance, toons can walk in the game. They won't know that it took a bit of work to accomplish that, so they won't give you guys the credit you deserve. I hate that.

WNxSoylentGreen, I really like your vid, but I'm afraid it is going to be disqualified. The problem is your mention of the car. I had the same idea but there is a rule against "commercial endorsement". I thought maybe they would make an exception for the sponsor's product, but when I asked the contest coordinator specifically about that, they said "No, that cannot be included." I posted that info back on page 20 of this topic.

Sorry. My heart just dropped when I heard that line in your vid.

Maybe its not too late to rework it?

Yeah, you need to ignore those comments. A lot of those posters aren't willing to put the effort into learning how to do this sort of thing, so all they do is cut down the ones that actually do it.

The rest are just naughty children scrawling bad words on a wall.

Pity we don't have a way to turn off comments, like on YouTube.

Anywho, the ones that get flagged as "Featured" are drawing the most poo-poo. The lazy ones only watch those.

And in the end, none of that monkey-flung stool counts as far as the contest goes. They'll be back in school by the time the voting begins, or they'll forget to take their Ritalin and won't vote anyway.

Tell Amanda that we loved her as Fusionette. Unless you know the character, you don't fully appreciate how well she fit the role. She was pretty darn good. Not the Hannah Montana singing though... Tell her to never do that again. Seriously.

You might also want to play with Balshor's demoeditor. Zloth's editor is great for many things, indispensable for some. But there are some other things that Balshor's editor does easier. The two together are great tools.

One of the nice things about Balshor's editor is that it exposes more of the low-level details, which helps you to understand how things work. Be sure to play with the wizards and filters too. You can launch directly from Balshor's editor, but Zloth's demo launcher give you more control over options.

Zloth's editor works from a little higher level and hides some of the inner workings, and it is the BOMB when it come to movement paths.

Woohoo!!! "Donuts" and "Infinite Dark" made it to the contest page!

Just out of curiosity, how many of y'all used that release form that I posted?

Todd, that was incredible. Good job! I don't mind losing when the competition is this good.

They better not disqualify you or I'll have to play the freaky-evil card on 'em.

Yeah, the more I see of y'all's work, the less confident of winning I become. Or, as Kat Scratch would put it...

{laugh}

LOL - Any misdirection was purely unintentional. When I signed up here, I had three toons: Goldstar, Nova Healer and Star Dancer. The other two names were taken, so I went with Star. After that, like you said, gender don't really matter so I just used the pic that went with the toon.

Next guessing game: My age and weight! {laugh}

Back on topic...

Wow! The number of views on Babytoons really shot up. Good vid, well deserved.

Does anyone know who gets to vote starting the 18th? Is it just anyone or do they have to sign up on GT? The answer's probably buried in that quagmire they call rules...

Starting to see some of the hard work we've been talking about here get posted. Still waiting for the rest of the entries that have been talked about here. I HOPE that those of you here that submit your entries there will clue us in as to which is yours. Some will be easy, since previews were posted here. Others (*cough*Michelle*cough) will be obvious because of a quantum leap in *style*. But the rest of you - tell us when you submit so we can support one another.

So.... Did anyone catch from my video's credits that I'm a guy? Just curious as to whether that came as a surprise to anyone.

UPDATE: My contest submission has been added to the list, so I'm guessing that I got approved. Woohoo!

Doc, its kind of hard to judge without any sound yet, but the visuals are good. That transformation/flame thingie is way cool. Looking forward to the finished product.

One suggestion: watch out for excess wasted space at the top of the frame. CoX tends to do that with the camera so you can see over your toon while playing. I remember you said that you don't know much about demoediting, but it is really simple to lower the camera a couple of clicks throughout a clip by using Balshor's Demo Editor. I think I gave a step-by-step back a ways in this topic. It may be a little late in the game to start learning new techniques, but don't be intimidated by it. Demoplayback is also the easiest way to get rid of the HUD stuff.

Keep it up!

Well, I've uploaded my entry. No word yet about the performance releases. Hopefully today.

I've also uploaded the vid to YouTube here so y'all can preview it. Video quality seems a little off, even in hi-def mode.

BTW - did you know that you can force YouTube to display in a higher definition mode by adding &fmt=18 to the end of the URL?

So, now I'm done. I hope. Lord, don't make me go all freaky evil on GT's butt because they denied my entry...

I just have a simple text credit at the end - "Music and Graphical Elements (c) City of Heroes / NCSoft"

Mine is rendering now. I'll upload it to GT and also to my YouTube acct.

Mine is called "Dark Star Rising". Look for it soon in a theatre near you...

LMAO!

Star Dancer: Kitty! Look out!
Kat Scratch: Oh, man...
Star Dancer: Oh my God! They killed Kitty!

Yeah, it's that kinda video...

EDIT: OMG - Leo! Get that thing finished, friend! But I'm gonna miss the original maniacal evil laugh for Fusionette: "Mwa ha ha ha ha ha -ha... OK. Mwa ha ha bah ha ha badah!"

[ QUOTE ]
Dueling chainsaws at twenty paces. I'll see the rest of you on the field at dawn.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL - I am so doomed...

Errr, excuse me. Dooooooooomed!

Well, it is well past "lawyers' hours" on the west coast and I haven't received the promised "get back to you" from Mr. Muehl. (Yes, he is the person I am dealing with but I didn't want to release his name until I was sure he was accomplishing anything positive)

Ex, thank you SO MUCH for going out of you way on our behalf. We lub you too!

I was really hoping to have some good news (i.e. - that the legal language I used - which is used by several entertainment organizations, BTW - was "good to go"). If that language does prove to be "good enough", the I'd suggest that the contest organizers certify it as "pre-approved" for getting a "group" entry cleared.

(hint - Ex, can you talk to David about that?)

Maybe the good folks at GT could even put that form (or something similar) on their web site as a way to assure that everything is to their liking.

Got a couple of things to tweak on my vid and I'll post it tomorrow.

Go Team Machinima!

OK, the latest contest entry, Babytoons, is pretty darn funny.

I've just receive the following response to my faxed releases. It is from an actual person (not the generic @GameTrailers.com address):


[ QUOTE ]
Got your fax. Can you please let me know your user name and entry title so I can keep an eye out for it.

Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

I replied and asked specifically if this means that my entry will be accepted. I also gave him some FYI about our frustration with conflicting answers and such. More as I know it.

And since my Performer Release Form seemed to work,here's a link to one that y'all can use. It is in MS Word format.

EDIT: Just got teh following followup:

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks, our legal is reviewing your releases and I will get back to you this afternoon.

Our legal team here prefers that all entries be by one person only and its up to their discretion to take in a "Groupe designate" from an entry that contains work from multiple people. It is easier on all ends if you stick to one voice

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL - Sometimes these delays actually help me out. I just noticed that in two of my shots, my main character's ears are hovering about a foot below her head! At least now I have time to fix that and re-shoot/re-edit.

BTW - In noticed that one of the contest entries ("Know the Council") is posted on YouTube. Is that allowed? If so, I might post my current version for y'all to critique.

I'm starting to wonder about these guys myself. They just don't seem to have their act together.

As for demoediting - I don't think, even if it is explained to them in excruciating detail, that they will be able to tell an edited recording from an unedited one.

Iranman, do you think they'll even know that the multiple characters you used aren't NPCs? They don't seem to know much about any of this.

[ QUOTE ]
2. Confirming that it's ok to have other people help record voices in the movie (so that all the voices don't sound like versions of the same person). NO- one person

[/ QUOTE ]

Todd, is that their exact reply or are you summarizing it?

The reply I got makes more sense, because it references the part of the rules where they make a provision for more than one person's involvement ("group" entries). There is no basis in the rules for the simple "NO" answer you say you got.

Is it possible that you misinterpreted them, or (even more likely) that they misinterpreted you?