Discussion: Matrix Machinima Contest

FYI, for those of us/you whose videos have not yet made it onto the GameTrailers.com site - as soon as they DO appear (hopefully on Monday when the folks at GT get their act together), I promise I will comment and rate just like I have with everyone else's.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Shout out to 2cents! I won 2nd place Best Comedy in the 2005 contest ("Cease-and-Desist"). I think we're the only old vets this time.

I loved Cease and Desist! That was just so clever and fun! I have it saved on my hard drive somepalce. What was the name of the hero at the end of the movie? That made me laugh so hard!

Mine is still sitting there compresing... Anyhow I uploaded a version and sent the link to that with a note to those two addresses. I hope that helps a bit. Never got an answer back about the help messages I sent to the site though. Still I am grealy looking forward to seeing all the remaining movies online! Hopefully mine will appear there as well!

[ QUOTE ]
Hey, I'm just glad the thing is done.

Now I can get back to work on my eleven other video projects.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto on the it being over part, but I think I'm going back to drawing stuff. I'll say this, after playing with MovieStorm I think I'll definately add that to my tool list. It's a lot of fun, and free.

For those that don't know, feel free to check out my CoX art at my DeviantArt site ToddWorld's (8 Baller's) DA site.. I ususally hang out with the fanart crowd.

Todd

Thanks, WNxSoylentGreen. I liked Dark Advice and see that we have a similar sense of humor! Good luck!

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I don't think I've heard anyone get past the compressing stage on the site this weekend. My guess is something's hung up on there side. The fact that the videos are 'compressing' on their side should mean you guys are perfectly save (since ya know, the files are on their servers).


[/ QUOTE ]Indeed, the videos should be safe because it even says above compressing when they were uploaded.

I guess it is back to creating fire in After Effects. Part of the energy effect in my video, as well as something in SG-1 Ark of Truth, gave me this idea of creating artificial fire and it actually looks interesting so far.

[ QUOTE ]
Zzzzzzzzz.........

A Doomsday Warning is in Effect

must. sheep. i mean....

zzzzzzzzzzzzz...



[/ QUOTE ]

No to be mean, but that's a pretty good description of your video right there - Lots of long stretches of boring pointless announcements and introductions.
You should redo it for the contest and cut down on most of the useless extended scenes.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Zzzzzzzzz.........

A Doomsday Warning is in Effect

must. sheep. i mean....

zzzzzzzzzzzzz...



[/ QUOTE ]

No to be mean, but that's a pretty good description of your video right there - Lots of long stretches of boring pointless announcements and introductions.
You should redo it for the contest and cut down on most of the useless extended scenes.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you want to see useless scenes, check out mine

My video is still "compressing". :/ It's been like that for half a day now. And today is the last day to submit!



I hope it gets through. I really want to have my shot at this too....

no fair. *tear*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1NToeay_tg

at least it works on youtube. ._.

Hey! Thanks for the shout out and right back! We old school video vets need the support! 8)

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

no clue. but that voice was perfect for that. :3

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Zzzzzzzzz.........

A Doomsday Warning is in Effect

must. sheep. i mean....

zzzzzzzzzzzzz...



[/ QUOTE ]

No to be mean, but that's a pretty good description of your video right there - Lots of long stretches of boring pointless announcements and introductions.
You should redo it for the contest and cut down on most of the useless extended scenes.

[/ QUOTE ]

that's quite alright.

Thank you for watching and giving me your honest opinion.

I just found this forum (I'm not much for forums or I'd have found you all sooner). Those videos are all fantastic. I did the Babytoons one, but they just emailed me saying I will be disqualified if I don't send in a new one without Recluses Voice in it. I just figured it for a sound effect but I suppose it falls under the dialouge within the game category. I should have been more careful. Hope I got the new one in on time...

The competition is amazing. I've started watching some of the videos you all have made before the contest and they're great. Are some of you in editing professions?

Welcome Mirahj. Better late than never

I'm glad they contacted you about the voice, I hadn't caught that (I wasn't aware there was any in-game voices in CoX. None come to mind.

I loved your video, very funny stuff...and very nicely done on top of that

Good luck in the contest.
Todd

Hey all, just dropping in to say that everyone's entry is awesome and that our video community as a whole is amazing. I unfortunately didn't get to enter the contest after all because of school. I have to create a 3D game by myself this month for my Structure of Game Design class and it's been an incredible amount of work. I just couldn't budget the time for the contest over the time I needed to make my models and code for my game

Hopefully there will be another contest sometime soon. I plan to finish the video I started for the contest at some point later on, but I'm not sure when that will be. Heck, I still have to finish my Boom De Yada vid

Best of luck to you all!

yeah, the sound effect of recluses voice in grandville... I had pulled that from the game, and they said it wasn't allowed. I'm not certain I got the revised version in on time. I love the visual effects of Infinite Darkness. How the hell did you get that mushroom cloud???

And the doughnuts just cracked me up. An hour later I thought about it and laughed in the middle of work, which made ppl look at me funny, but who cares

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.

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Heck, I still have to finish my Boom De Yada vid

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. You most. Certaily. DO!

Mirahj, yeah, that bit on in-game voices is from the self-contradictory section of the detailed rules. To summarize, it says that, except for in game elements, no in game voices may be used. <rolls eyes>

[ QUOTE ]
I love the visual effects of Infinite Darkness. How the hell did you get that mushroom cloud???

[/ QUOTE ]While I don't know how 8baller did his video, I know how a cartoonish look like in his video can be achieved. The easiest way is a a free effect plug-in called Cartoonr that offers a variety of settings to give different cartoon like looks. Another way that I did it before I found that plug in was an effect that found edges and darkened them while making everything else white. So that it had the same color I would blend it with the original and then adjust contrast and brightness so it looks similar to the image while still having the dark lines. This was the actual result of that method.

When I was contemplating different looks to add to my video, I considered putting that look on mine but decided that the video was fine without it.

[ QUOTE ]
How the hell did you get that mushroom cloud??

[/ QUOTE ]

Hehehe, that's my nod to Mr. Speilburg. I always loved the effect in Close Encounters and Poltergeist. I did it very much the same way he did...just digitally. He dropped dye into a glass container filled with water and shot the whole thing upside down with the camera. I used a fluid system in Maya in a 3d container...and shot the whole thing upside down with the camera. I figure he can't be wrong

Then I composited it into the city scene and added lightning and bounced the levels of the cloud around to 'show' the flash off the clouds. Then ran the whole thing through the same series of filters to get the art effect I wanted. It was the same 'look' I used in 8 Baller's comic...it just made sense to stay true to that.

Actually that was a lot easier than the "Zombie Road" shot. My head still hurts from that one.

Todd

p.s. there's also a couple of inspirations from Roland Emmerich's "Independence Day" in there.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Zzzzzzzzz.........

A Doomsday Warning is in Effect

must. sheep. i mean....

zzzzzzzzzzzzz...



[/ QUOTE ]

No to be mean, but that's a pretty good description of your video right there - Lots of long stretches of boring pointless announcements and introductions.
You should redo it for the contest and cut down on most of the useless extended scenes.

[/ QUOTE ]

that's quite alright.

Thank you for watching and giving me your honest opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

It might have gotten good, but I just couldn't get past the droning on of the announcer. Don't have the patience for it today.

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Another way that I did it before I found that plug in was an effect that found edges and darkened them while making everything else white. So that it had the same color I would blend it with the original and then adjust contrast and brightness so it looks similar to the image while still having the dark lines.

[/ QUOTE ]

Full marks Doc! I duplicated the original layer, ran levels on that (which I used to control the next step), then "find edges", then "Hue Saturation" (to kill the saturation almost totally), then set the blend mode of that layer to "multiply".

Most of the time I could leave it at that, but occasionally it was to much and I had to pull back the opacity.

Originally I also posterized the original layer...but that seemed a little over the top so I killed it before I was done.

Todd

[ QUOTE ]
I just found this forum (I'm not much for forums or I'd have found you all sooner). Those videos are all fantastic. I did the Babytoons one, but they just emailed me saying I will be disqualified if I don't send in a new one without Recluses Voice in it. I just figured it for a sound effect but I suppose it falls under the dialouge within the game category. I should have been more careful. Hope I got the new one in on time...

The competition is amazing. I've started watching some of the videos you all have made before the contest and they're great. Are some of you in editing professions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not professionally trained as a video editor, but I'm becoming known as a rather prolific CoX videographer. Hoping to be able to do this professionally (if NCNorCal were to oblige me at some future date).

However, I can say that the group that hangs out in this forum is one of the cooler bunches of people I've known. As cheerfully competitive as we are, when one of us needs something, the rest jump in with suggestions and offers to help and such. Whether it's recommendations for software, help with code, or just sharing neat stuff we've learned, this is the place for CoX video makers to be.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[ QUOTE ]
Are some of you in editing professions?

[/ QUOTE ]I am not quite yet but I am trying to though. I do have a job editing together animatics and doing graphics work. Hopefully I can soon get an internship or something towards post production.

8Baller, I think that method is actually faster than the plug-in from my experience messing around with it but the plug-in does have a lot of options for anyone looking for something a little different.