104 - The making of UEv0: SYS
It is finally out and it sure does feel great.
The work on UEv0 started right after I had finished volume three, back in june 2007. This machinima took about three months to make (it did not progress at all during july).
At the beginning it was clear to me that v0 would focus more on edited scenes than wandering around. It would also be a lot darker thematically - more murlocs needed to die!
Also, UEv0 is not a sequel nor a prequel - it is a new series. Someday in the (far) future we will see a second movie, called UEv0: -somethingsgonnabewrittenhere-.
Blam blam!One of the things I wanted to use for UEv0 to differ from the rest of the movies was music. I said to myself "NO TRANCE!". Well, that promise held to the final version :)
Originally I intended to do the movie to a drum'n'bass track (called "Let There Be Light") from a group called The Qemists, but I scrapped it when I heard that UK hardcore track from S3RL. For the intro I copied myself (not some neverheard emo pvp movie like someone in WCM said :D) from an older movie of mine, using the "Shock Your Senses" song by The Rush vs Thalamus.
In the intro a small voice clip from the cancelled TV series Carnivale can be heard. That is an idea which I had at the beginning stages of the movie: burn Theramore and.. muahaha - no spoilers!
And then there are the guest stars! So who did what?
Sunken Stormwind by SnomanSnoman, Dopefish and Faizer let me use their model changes. Snoman made burning Theramore and Sunken Stormwind which are both really impressive.
I also used some of his "older" works from both Wandering Dreamscape movies. Snoman also converted the guns from Counter-Strike: Source to WoW.
From Dopefish there is the "death knight dude" (see picture above) and of course the model change "My Burning Valentine".
Faizer made a cool version of Elwynn forest: the Felwynn forest. If you visit that place, be sure to see the great necropolis Naxxramas floating above Goldshire.
Time Gnomes! I asked Rob for permission to use them (back in june when they were not dead). He said yes! And now some of their lost adventures can be seen.
The original, uncolourized version - edited by the gnome himself.Olibith edited a scene of his own. This love story between a blood elf, Olibith the gnome and a meat cleaver is very touching. Sniff.
Chaosvex gave the initial spark for me to try different kind of game merging - he mixed Halo and World Of Warcraft by using a greenscreen map for the PC version of Halo.
Later on, I wanted to do that same with UT2004 and WoW. Gladly I found such a map. The map is originally made by a person called CAweissen.
"Ow crap.. I should have specced shadow!"While not a guest star, Seksi inspired me a lot with his upcoming movie, Fury. The scene above got a lot of inspiration from that.
Khandy is a huge fan of Arthas. As I wanted to have some hand-drawn graphics, I knew what I was going to ask her to draw :)
This picture will be someday on my wall.Last but not totally least.. Pinkhair! I saw his works earlier this year at the WoW model viewer forums. They made me drool. I never thought that I'd get to use his stuff on my movie, but indeed it seemed to happen :D
It doesn't matter if you are good or bad.. She's the gnome with the gun!And then our star, the gnome who steals the show.. They called her "Petite Nikita" in the french WoW Europe page and I like that name! Before that, she did not have a name. Though her looks and all are based on my alt gnome (Gnorgasm / LV60 / Spinebreaker-EU, loves gold donations).
As I am and always will be true to HORDE (since alliance can't rock), the reason why I rolled the gnome was to see the other side of things. And I've always wanted an epix mechanostrider!Someday in the future I might do an action movie for ms. Nikita. I can reveal that much from her charachter that she does not talk - words just waste time from good kills. She is bad ass and she is cold.
If someone looked closely at the screen when watching UEv0:SYS, the influences from other great machinimas (such as Edge Of Remorse and How To Paladin) might be noticed!
The next thing I am going to work are my movies for the WCM contests. One for the Halloween contest and one for the Fabled Few contest. Though the thing is that I will not enter the movies into the contest unless I am 100% satisfied with them.
But now.. I need a small break from machinimaking :)
Update - Answers to questions!
"What are the specs of the system(s) you use, from start to finish, to make your videos?"
I have an AMD 3500+ singlecore processor (needs to be upgraded), 1 Gigs of Ram (moar plix), Nvida GTX8800 graphic card. Lots of HD Space.
"What programs do you use?"
Editing & Compositing - Sony Vegas 6 + a little bit of After Effects
Recording - Fraps
Additional graphic stuff - Photoshop CS2
Charachters - either recorded against a blue/green screen on WoW model viewer or on a private server
Backgrounds - from many games. WoW charachters are "inserted" to the scenes with chromakeying. For background recording, the game(s) should have a hideable HUD and a freelook mode (like in Unreal Tournament 2004). UEv0:SYS was the first movie by me where weapons and vehicles from other games were inserted into WoW.
Unlimited Escapism vol. 0: Shock Your Senses
More streams and Downloads of the movie @ Warcraftmovies
p.s.
If there are any unanswered questions about the movie or the making of it - spank the comments! I'll edit the post accordingly.
p.s.2
JA SAMA SUOMEKSI!
If there are any unanswered questions about the movie or the making of it - spank the comments! I'll edit the post accordingly.
p.s.2
JA SAMA SUOMEKSI!
posted by BaronSoosdon @ 1:24 PM
16 Comments
16 Comments:
Well... I guess after visiting your blog almost every day I had way too big expectations ^^ Nice scenes, overall very good editing.
Personal criticism:
Go the hell back to your old style of music. FAST. More melody, less beat. It killed the whole video for me.
General criticism:
-Your intros get too lenghty. Now you have 2 seperate intos and with all the credits it just get's boring. I liked it better when you were jumping right into the action (should have started with the "release the dark side" part).
-The different scenes are mostly very impressive but with half a dozend engines, contributors and films each I miss the continuousness, the flow of the film that kept it going a little.
-Panning over the handdrawn stuff looked great, just not when the uncolorized figure floated in the middle of the screen.
-minor: All the trailers and logos at the end just added filesize and they didn't tell me what was hiding behind all those names and websites and why I should visit them.
tl;dr
Just a little more back2basics please!
Keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to watching your next release!
Elesias
Been waiting to see it. It was Awesome and impressive work. I can agree in some way a few too many different game engines used and too many log trailers at the end.
Otherwise Enjoyed it. Awesome!
I am fast becoming a firm fan of yours. This movie didn't enrapture me like the "I'm So Sick" video did, but it was still fascinating.
I will agree with Elesias on one thing: The intro is quite lengthy. Also, what I though was an abrupt scene change turned out to be the end. This surprised me, since there was almost three minutes left.
I know there was a lot of collaboration on this movie and you wanted to give credit where it belonged, but it seemed like about half of the play time was movie and about half was intro/end-credits. If I go back in and time it, I doubt it's half and half, but it seems that way when so much time is taken up at beginning and end for credits.
Other than that, I thought it was just amazing. The music kept pace with the action and really seemed to add to it. I actually liked the different looks between scenes from the different contributors.
All-in-all, this movie seemed like a great experiment set to great music and turned out to be a very interesting watch. Thanks for the cutting edge machinima, yet again!
Southern California has been turned into one of your burn segments... literally. I've always said I lived in hell, I even have it in my profile. Hell has officially ascended to my area of the world and I need distractions to take my mind off all the devastation. I am going to relax, watch your movie a few times, and escape out of all this shit, even if it's only for a moment. Thank you for making such mind blowing distractions. Your work is truly escapism at it's best.
I share your work with anyone who will give me a few minutes of their time. Even people who scoff at mmo's and video games in general, are absolutely amazed by your work.
Keep up the advancement, stay strong and don't let any negativity slow you down. Congrats on the best eye candy I have seen yet. Sure we all have little flaws here and there, but to me, it just endears me to your work even more. It's not made by hollywood, it's made by a regular person, in their own home, on their own time. Can you be better? Sure, so can anyone. Without that challenge it would become boring.
It's amazing. I can't say that enough.
Salute!
-Vil
Although my comment will not be able to be as long as everyone else's, let me try to give a little review :)
This movie really is amazing, Soosisti. The amount of work spent on it is one of things that really shows. Everything was done very well and all in the quality that we expect from you and much much more.
Definitely the best of the Unlimited Escapisms. It was highly chaotic, and that was what made it awesome. It didn't get boring, even in the credits (I've loved all your credit sequences, so much good music), it was all well paced and very fun.
The mixing of game engines wasn't too much at all. I liked being able to pick out the different elements from a scene and name the game they are from. And the way you keyed them into WoW is just perfect... they really seemed to fit.
And, people mentioning the end logos, that's completely understandable. And I find it better at the end than at the beginning. Some people might check out what was there at the end, some might not. But there still will be some of the former :D
Very action-y, very fast, very awesome. I enjoyed this movie a lot, and have watched it too many times to count already. Your movies really are an inspiration to me!
Keep up the amazing work,
Sno
@ Elesias: Thanks for the feedback! As for the graphic art stuff, this was my first experiment with it. And I think you are the first to comment on it.
For the UEv0 series I won't be using the "old style" happy and beautiful trance, the next UEv0 like this will feature something fast and/or dark. UEv4 will go back to the basics, I have a bunch of songs in mind - all I need is a playable version of WoTLK to start filming.
@ Vilaeryn: Yea, I've seen news on the 'net and it seems to be literally hell there :/ But it's a good thing that UEv0 made your day a bit better :)
@ Sno: Huge thanks - without your model changes and GUNS GUNS GUNS this movie would have not been what it is now.
This movie ends Unlimited Escapism: Season One.
Season Two will have at least two movies, UEv0: Whateverwillbenext and UEv4. I hope that at by then I know more of editing programs and I can bring you all something new and refreshing.
-BS
Hello ! I discover you with "I'm so sick"...and I immediatly love your inimitable style !
(Animia is really sexx!)
So because I so love what you do I wanted to tell you something good.
(And I'm so bad with english! I'm french.)
So, go on !!!
Aurevoir/good bye.
PS : I don't like Murloc ! They are ugly. And sorry again for my bad english...
Long time watcher, first time poster.
Needless to say, I can appreciate the full range of your work and while this most recent film does break a lot of ground, I loved it all the same.
I have been meaning to ask ever since I first started following your work: what are the specs of the system(s) you use, from start to finish, to make your videos? Also, and I know you list some programs during the credits, but for the record, what programs do you use? I would like a complete and concise listing please :). If the possible roles of the applications overlap and you have a preference (perhaps a changing preference which is dependent on the source material/medium?) for your uses of each, do tell. I am not wholly familiar with the methods involved, but have access to a large amount of computing power and the time to learn.
Thanks in advance. I look forward to your future works!
hey im a big fan of your UEv0 movie i love it and i want to know if you can make your version of shock your senses a mp3 for download? its sicknasty pc nez
Nezros
Scilla(PvP)
Yea would be awesome to get an mp3 of the Shock your senses song.
I am just blown away and completely envious of your skill and expertise. I've made a couple of WoW vids but they are plainly childish technically compared to this stuff. I'm not sure I really agree with the criticisms on apparent narrative or even visual structure as I don't think that was the point but sure this skill applied to somthing more 'traditional' would be interesting too.
Thanks for mentioning your hardware and stuff - I am curious about your capture and rendering settings/options though if you would you be willing to share that info. I happened upon your video by chance but am happy I did. Congrats on some really impressive work.
lols.. The movie is 13:37 and that's true. GJ :D
Hey!
I'm organising a machinima night and I would love to show this under the heading "machinima as art" - may I? And I gather the best quality files are available for download at warcraftmovies.com?
I love it. There's just so much! Maybe a tad too much - but it definitely shocked my senses!
Please don't hesitate to get in touch: linnsovig@gmail.com
And keep up the excellent work!
Thanks for the reply! I was worried you might cite heavy use of Final Cut Pro (no mac here :X) but now I can keep the faith! Keep on keepin on.
Hello Baron,
I've already posted here and there how your work is totally appalling to me, and how, to my eyes, you're the only one guy closest to making machinima as some kind of art.
So, enough with the admiration stuff, I just wanted to tell you this : artists and creators don't share their secrets. It's not like it's some religious thing, but sharing your secrets is by no means a way to improve your work. True artists always end up finding their public.
Well I'm not here to give you a lecture anyway, I'm just saying that, in my HUMBLE opinion, this "desecrates" your work...
Well, HUMBLE opinion, I said.
Keep up the impressive work !
Great post, I love all kind of video games, specially Halo, it's the best game I've ever played. Generic Viagra can strengthen this blog.
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