Juggernaut Observer
by BONZO, HSM Editor
Hey machinimists, or just about anyone who likes cool gadgets: one of the most powerful Home commodities — scratch that — rather, one of the most powerful Home tools is coming your way from our friends at Juggernaut Games. Yeah, those people who brought us the ability to fly in any personal estate, and most recently let us turn our spaces into aquariums.
LOOT Entertainment pioneered the creative outlet for machinima within Home, by providing us a camera, lighting, and even a couple of sets to play with; to hone some skills behind the camera, and for the would-be thespians even in front of the camera. Some very creative content has come out of this function alone, and even a few contests. HSM itself has several very talented filmmakers in its ranks, including Godzprototype, Jin Lovelace, keara22hi, Gideon, Susan, Phoenix and even the editor-in-chief, NorseGamer.
Even with all the tools available now, there are many still lacking. There is an all-access camera – or, as some of you may call it, a “God camera” – in the set spaces, including the Ghostbusters apartment. But that hasn’t been available to place in any personal space. The ability to change angles and even explore from above has been very limited. This includes the practical function of more user-controlled options.
The Juggernaut Observer is a cleverly designed gadget, hinting at the robotic roots Juggernaut began with. But the device is more than just pleasing aesthetics; it has some serious functional diversity to it. Particularly for the machinimists. I am amazed at some of the features they have included. In a previous wishlist article on the “Portable Camera,” I wrote about the functionality of the camera, and some features that were desperately needed — and Juggernaut conceptualized beyond that with even greater function.
The Juggernaut Observer is essentially a filmmaker’s dream drone. It is a camera you control as a surrogate of your avatar, with a built-in function to free-fly in a personal space. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?
But it doesn’t end there. In fact, that’s just one of its functions. It has a built-in ability to screen capture images, but also to capture video. On top of that, it includes several filters you can call on from the drone itself. No post-production editing needed.
This is something very new to Home. When it comes to machinima, a lot of what has deterred users has been the lack of access, either to the hardware to capture proper video, or the lack of software to do post-production editing. Particularly when someone has some ambitious vision they would love to put forth.
This isn’t going to give you all the tools you need, but what it does provide is incredibly powerful. A free-flying camera means you can move it to any angle, experiment with dramatic shots and compositions, and do some cool motion shots. With a zoom feature and built-in lighting, you can control your compositions further. Some of the filters look like they polarize, invert the colors to negative, add a night-vision military scan line filter, a warm tone, and even a crinkle paper filter.
This isn’t Instagram for Home; no, this is more useful.
What could you possibly use crinkle paper for? Well, it works great for a scratchy film vintage look; just imagine the possibilities with built-in filters. That’s less time you have to spend in editing, and if you don’t have the software to create these effects, now you don’t need it.
You might be able to sense I am little excited about this new gadget, and rightly so. Some of these features are amazing, and we need a semi-portable camera we have greater control over. But what I am most excited about is the price. I had to check the video several times to make sure I was reading that right, but it is in fact $1.99. Juggernaut is seriously giving this away. Not only is it a great price, but it also only takes up five furniture slots. This is huge.
My only concerns at this point: how maneuverable will it be? Free flying sounds great, but sometimes that function becomes very hard to control. And when used specifically for machinima, get ready to spend some time and some frustration if you can’t get the shot just right. But who knows? From the video it looks as if it maneuvers very easily.
I don’t as of yet know what the framerate or the aspect ratio will be for video capture, so don’t put that PVR away just yet. I am guessing with memory restrictions they have to stick to the standard video format and framerate, which in our HD hungry generation is still sub par. Home runs natively in 720p, but LOOT’s cameras that upload to YouTube are at standard-def resolutions. Will it be the same story for Juggernaut’s foray into the market?
However, if you aren’t an HD snob, this will be more than enough to get your feet wet in some machinima undertaking. There is plenty to work with here, and I am sure the nostalgic will make plenty of use of that crinkled paper filter to capture some memories.
What’s more exciting is the fact that we have more machinima tools. It’s not a saturated market, and the more options we have, the better we can let our creativity fly. Home is proving to be a viable social network, a viable gaming platform, and extending it to be a viable creative outlet it only serves to validate the power and value of Home.
December 5th, 2012 by BONZO | 4 comments
BONZO is an editor and artist for HomeStation Magazine.
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btw, any video capturing on the PS3 uses a video capture function on the PS3 Firmware itself, which is always limited to Standard Definition video as it’s simply not possible with the current hardware to capture full HD.
This really makes me want to make movies again. Having a PVR already, I’ll be using the Observer as a passive camera, in the same way I use the LOOT camera. But, even as a framing device, this is an exciting addition to the machinima toolkit.
Great article!I can’t wait to experiment with this item.
So this is the tool! I look forward to using this.