Machinima Aids
by BONZO, HSM Editor
LOOT Entertainment has been tremendously creative and innovative in providing us content which allows many of us to film using the Home platform as a set, as well as props and ourselves through our avatars as actors. Even with all the great content we have access to, though, we could still use a few more options when it comes to sets, props, and just a few things which would help us along to translate what is in our minds into a complete image on the screen.
We have a modular stage set, which is incredibly dynamic and gives us amazing options for lighting and camera control – particularly when it comes to the transition modes. Now the rest is up to us, and how we use it with some editing tricks. But a few things could provide a little more assistance.
LOOT has a few set bundles already – the wall flats, the buildings pack and the airplane props. These are great, but I am proposing something a little more dynamic. For example, the mini portable blue screen is utilitarian, but it is also very small. A wall flat at the current size as an active item with options to change it from a blue screen marker, a green screen marker and an assortment of other colors would be a great tool. Imagine something that large which you can place anywhere with the option to change the color on it. If some of the other color option choices included solid colors, or wallpaper patterns, you could create an interior set basically anywhere.
Wall Flat Color Options
The most useful element of them would be as a green- or bluescreen. A floor item with the same options would then allow for a full greenscreen room as well. This wouldn’t necessarily deter someone from buying the Modular Stage Set because that space has its own benefits beyond the ability to turn the walls and floor into a green screen. It also has a fully operational camera and full lighting control. But matching the lighting of other spaces is very difficult with the control options you have in the stage set. Greenscreening with wall flats in that particular space would make it simpler. Having the ability to change a wall flat into other colors or wallpaper options would not only serve as a set prop but also as a decorative option.
nDreams’ Blueprint:Home gave us the ability to change where to place walls, and many options for changing the textures, but it has yet to give us the option for lighting. No matter what environment you chose, the lighting basically remains the same. I love what the wall flats from LOOT provided, but I felt the options lacking in variety. Making them an active item would allow for the ability to change the color, but also the opportunity to provide some animation options with a functional door. The wall flat with a door now is just a texture, so that door doesn’t open.
If it were an active item, the door could open and also include an animation for your avatar when activating it to show you actually opening the door. If that ability were possible, which I am pretty sure it is, it would be worth buying if it provided several options. For example, a lockpicking animation, a dramatic door-kicking animation, a regular knob-turning animation for the door, or — for hoots and giggles — how about a “Kramer rushing through the door” animation?
Beyond just props, new content in Home has included a new use of portable items which was once only reserved for companions: the bubble machine, and the camera. Locomotion items don’t just have to be an accessory to mobilize us in a new animation through Home. They can include new dances and new custom animations. If this new ability could be harnessed to make dramatic animations which are currently impossible, it would make them worth buying.
During the total game integration promotion for Uncharted 3, if you pre-ordered the game through the Uncharted space you got a bonus of a Nathan Drake avatar with a custom animation where he backflips and shoots his gun. nDreams has taken the custom dances from their Street Moves avatars and sold those animations in a triple pack you can use with any avatar. The major selling point of costumes is often the custom animation that comes with them. So this is a viable commodity to sell, particularly to machinima makers. The animations in place now are very limited, and for the machinima makers it forces us to get creative with poses, dances and different motions to edit together a continuous motion which doesn’t exist.
Giving us some dramatic animations to use for this purpose, or just to show different emotes, would be a big change for Home. I mean dramatic motions: not dances, but an expansion of gesticulations. Something like dropping on our knees arms to the sky in the infamous, “Noooooo!” scream which is now a cliche from dramatic movies. Some fighting stances like shadow boxing or gun pointing, or a shootout stance in a western style. I would personally love a drop to the knees, fists thumping the ground like Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes. You know the one.
Some of these emote suggestions aren’t typical; they are out-of-the-box things which are major reasons why we sometimes buy certain outfits. Whether we like the outfit or not, we love the animations behind them. We have expressed interest in an expansion of our emote options, and we now see some of that in dance variations. It’s time to think out of the box though, and think of emotes which aren’t dances but help us express just a little more through unconventional actions, especially if you’re looking for a little more diversity from your actors.
November 17th, 2012 by BONZO | 2 comments
BONZO is an editor and artist for HomeStation Magazine.
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Something like the green screens could possibly be like a companion. A personal pet you could take with you. It doesn’t have to move. But could potentialy put you anywhere in Home. With the rooms own lighting intact.
Great article Bonxo!
Those are some very interesting ideas, and I hope someone is listening to them. I believe they would sell well to every film maker in Home for sure, and possibly even inspire more people to get into it as well, which means more sales for them. Great read Bonzo.