C-C-Candy comes out!

Featuring my voice acting debut, as well as such talents as Selserene, Kilh, Caruu, Rob(the guy who inspired Caddington) and even one word shouted by Ian Beckman! I was kinda sad that the compression killed his FPS like shout of 'CANDY COMES OUT' during the fight scene... Perhaps if I get round to making an updated version it'll be all there.

"There are three arts which are concerned with all things..."

"Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art." - Tom Stoppard

Machinima Film Fest 2008

Quick little update from the hotel- the fest was fun, albeit steeped in pretension.
Not many wow folks there, though I met a few, and also a few folks in other platforms that I liked, so that was neat.

I'll probably post more when I get home, so here's a couple pictures.

The Eyebeam place.

Steve Mullane, Jun Falkenstein, and Ian Beckman, the rest of the WoW delegation

So, now I'm getting ready to go to the Machinima Fest in the city tomorrow. I'll be taking the train in with Ian Beckman(the guy behind Azerothian Supervillains) who's flying up right now, and crashing in his hotel across the street from the Eyebeam center. None of my films are being shown, but a couple of movies with my work in em have been nominated, so I might get to see something of mine on a big screen again anyways^_^

Can't wait to see who all shows up- I've not met any of these crazy folks offline before, so despite my reservations about the festival itself I'm looking forward to it.

Machinima.com interview

So today the interview I forgot to mention went up on Machinima.com's blog.

Machinima.com Blog

I'm not very good at being interviewed, but Moo did a good job of not letting me make a jackass of myself, so huge thanks to her! It was a lot of fun.

Alienware, part II

So now, the gripping finale! I promised everyone I'd finish it by the time the Dell laptop arrives...

Where we left off...

Well, now that I've installed the replacement RAM in the Alienware(the big spiky heat sinks on them were a bit frightening to install though!) it is pretty awesome.

So, here are some more pictures!

I've gotta say, when this guy turned on it sounded somewhat scary. It made an unholy wail...


And promptly failed to boot.

Turns out that the unholy wail is the Alienware equivalent to bios beeping, and the RAM had loosened in shipping.

That taken care of, a spooky glow suffused the machine- it looks really cool in the dark.







It's a lovely thing and for once I'm glad I don't have a cat- given that a good third of the computer is fans and intakes, I shudder to think how must dust the thing is sucking up even without having a feline sucked in like a pigeon with a jet engine.

And of course, the most important part... The interior!

This is with the original RAM- I'll take a picture of the super saijan gundam spiked replacement RAM sometime soon.

And of course, the dual GeForces SLIed together like a tasty layer cake of hardware acceleration.
Yum.


A huge thanks to WeGame, and to both Gorndt and Oxhorn for keeping tabs on things, and to Alienware for promptly replacing the bad RAM! Now I need to get a couple games more recent than wow to try out on it(though it is really nice to see the WOTLK beta with max graphics/shadows enabled and still get better frame rates than my old computer with FRAPS running!). My rendering is super fast too, especially with multithreading.

Alienware intermission

I have more pictures, but the computer kinda doesn't work very well, so I'll hold off on more posting until I either have a techno-epiphany or manage to pry answers out of Alienware.

The thing is gorgeous, though. And the only game I've managed to run on it so far(minesweeper) runs like a dream.

Alienware, part I

My WeGame contest prize has arrived! And now, since Baron is demanding that I cater to his voyeuristic urges instead of playing with my new toy, pictures:

Big box, or tiny couch? Or is it a weather balloon...?

They aren't joking about the "heavy" thing, either,
but the bulk was more problematic.

Ok, I have my hat now. What's all that other
junk that came with it, though?

It looks better than the cheesy alien props from the
latest attempt at an Indiana Jones movie...

More later. I need to hook it all up now...

A quick update

A little something Malu05(the creator of that epic machinima tool) asked for...

Still very unfinished, of course.

UPDATE:

Not really worth making a whole new post over...

Dun dun dun...

Well, it looks like my Alienware has shipped, so expect some pictures soon!

Sadly, it seems that neither Dopefish or I have been accepted into the Machiniplex festival, which i a shame- I was looking forward to it, since it'll be the first fest I might be able to attend in person.

I'll try not to feel to bad until I see what got picked instead of us! Baron Soosdon did get a nomination for best editing, for The Device has been Modified- so even if that's all I get to see on the big screen, that'll be neat. I can point out the mechamurlocs!

Max on Spooncraft

The Dell XPS M1730 Machinima Contest, Pinkhair’s MAX | Spooncraft

Max

And, in the nick of time, here's my second entry to the Dell Machinima Contest: "Max"



Huge thanks to Drewbie on the voice acting, and another big thanks to Michael Martin, who provided the first draft of the voice and helped me with the script.

This movie is one that I came up with last night while I was still not sure that I'd finish Ultimate in time for the contest... so finding myself with about 20 hours to kill, what did I do?

That's right, I made a second movie.

And it felt great.

Even if it was a pain.

Ultimate

My first(and main) entry for the Dell Machinima Contest:



Huge thanks to Caruu and Selserene!

Workwork

More job hunting the past few days... Without a car... in a suburban area...
Anyone wanna hire me to make them pretty pictures? I've grown accustomed to having a place to live.

The Alienware prize hasn't shown up yet from the WeGame contest, but this has:

Ooh, shiny!

And here's a hint of what I'm workin on...

Words fail

Contest results are in... And words fail me.

WeGame August Machinima Contest - Contest Winners!

Big thanks to WeGame and Oxhorn, and big congratulations to Sedrin, Martin, and Johan as well as the honorable mentions! And thanks to everyone who cheered me on and helped.

Unfortunately, the video review of the winners has been delayed due to technical troubles.

The prize:

210dc2p.jpg (JPEG Image, 996x950 pixels) - Scaled (79%)

More words when coherent and fully conscious.

Robber Baron in High Definition

You can now watch the movie in high definition! If you like it, be sure to leave a nice comment on the WeGame page!


(Click to play movie, doubleclick for full screen)

Click to play

Also, huge thanks once again to the Spoon god, for once again featuring me on Spooncraft! His support is much appreciated!

Robber Baron on MovieWatch

WoW Moviewatch: The Robber Baron of Warsong Gulch - WOW Insider

Thanks, Moo!


Now, I have to get back to work on another contest entry, and on the Making Of for Busted...

The Robber Baron of Warsong Gulch, Contest Version

After a long and grueling struggle to get the bastardly thing rendered(while crashing every 10-15 minutes at some points), I managed to get the movie uploaded, processed, and entered in the contest literally minutes before the steely jaws clamped down to disallow further entries!

When I used the "Add video to group" link to submit my movie to the contest, I got a 404 and thought that it had all been for naught... but then, upon checking the contest page it turns out that I'd been accepted in the nick of time, the 120th entry.

So, anyway, enjoy. And expect an HD stream quite soon.



A silent film in the style of earlier cinema.
B. Z. Caddington, profiteer and PVP twink, attempts to break the stalemate caused by the alliance turtling inside their base.

Hopefully the style will not turn away too many people- despite the attempt at a low technology feel, I tried to include some entertaining humor, action, and experimental animation into these six minutes.

A slight disclaimer: This movie has no expansion content, and is in no way a "leak" of unreleased Blizzard material. There is no train in the game that I can help you unlock, as much as I'd like to. I modeled the train and the tracks, and they cannot be used in game. It is certainly flattering to have my work taken for official, though!

Robber Baron is almost here...

I am uploading to WeGame as I type this, for the August machinima contest! Given the competition this time, I doubt something as silly as Robber Baron will really come out on top, but I definitely hope to at least place this time around.

Baron B. Z. Caddington, rogue

Soapdrop, the paladin

Almost done...

Robber baron is almost complete... but I'm almost out of time.

WoWNews - De seneste World of Warcraft nyheder via kwout

Wow-Europe mentioned Busted again, too, but or the second time they didn't mention me.

I'm sorry. It's these tachyons...

A new summon...

Remember this?

After a bit of a hard drive disaster that wiped out a bunch of stuff(specifically the stuff I was transferring between drives when my power went out), I'm not totally sure about going through with the WeGame thing. But..



...Who knows?

Better than nothing...

Well, Blizard EU mentioned Busted on community watch... But they apparently decided that I was too American to mention or something. Ah well.

World of Warcraft Europe

Vote for Caruu!

The movie contest is over, but I'd like to remind all three of you reading this that Caruu is still running a tight race for the voice acting contest!

YouTube likes it ^_^

Exposure and stuff

My page layout shows up on Warcraftmovies today, for a limited promotional period: I made the sidebars and the animated cornerbox. I am especially happy with the little thing with her eyes. Also, there's a bit of a poorly hidden easter egg somewhere on the page... Check it out while it's still up, and we now have a high quality download link for our movie there, too!

Also, Busted on GameTV-FR.com:

Synergy!

I have so much to say that I find it hard to start. The Synergy Contest is over, and Baron and I managed to, after days of deadlock, squeak out a three vote victory! We all knew it was a small margin, but I don't think anyone realized just how close it was...

Martin Falch took a well deserved second place, and Daniel Nordh had an even closer race for third place with Ramzinator, getting in with one vote!

All I can say is thanks a ton to everyone who helped, everyone who voted, and everyone who put up with me. There will be a bunch of postmortem on this, I'm sure, but for now I'm catching my breath and preparing video streams and promotional artwork for Gametv-fr and Warcraftmovies- when the WCM movie page goes up for busted, we're getting the nice full page layout.

Bonus art and wallpaper

Given the vast amount of art and footage that went into Busted, it's not surprising we have some extra stuff, like this little picture:

Also, by request from someone with a big monitor, a nice large wallpaper featuring one of my favorite scenes...

Olibith Wallpaper

A ginormous thank you to everyone supporting us with votes and feedback! Several times, we nearly quit early, but you people are making me so glad we held together. And also glad that our intrepid sound guy didn't walk out on us, like we might have deserved!

Another wallpaper, for Caruu

First review

It's very exciting to have your movie reviewed by someone who makes great movies themself- and Olibith sure makes damn fine movies!

Olibith's Blog

As usual, the crazy French gnome is a bit overblown in his praise, but I certainly appreciate it, and of course his giving permission for this madness...

Trivia: Olibith's voice was actually recorded over half a year ago for a scene in my Christmas machinima, 'A Warsong Carol'. It was a scene set in Warsong Gulch, too- but it was him saying "Sacre Bleu, they've got Tim!" when Tiny Tim was captured- and we all know what happened to him...

The contest has begun!

It's OUT! "Busted by Baron Soosdon and Pinkhair" on Warcraftmovies! (See rest of post for details or if you need help.)

Go vote for us! Well, vote for who you think is best. But I think that's pretty much just saying the same thing.

I marked which one ours is, since there are two other movies with the same title:

WarcraftMovies.com - World of Warcraft Movies

If you cannot see the stream, you will need the latest version of Flash Player(9.0.115 or 9.0.124)

Oh yeah...

Before I forget, the other WWI machinima I worked on, Disks of Norgannon, is out on Warcraftmovies... Check it out!

I did the ending scenes of Illidan and Arthas, echoing the fight scene from Warcraft 3- As Malu mentions, the movie was made itn under a week, so there was little time to do everything, but I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out anyway.

It's finished...

Of course, I can't show you the movie yet until the voting period begins, then I'll see about getting a link to it up here!

The Synergy contest is an interesting idea, where everyone uses one of two prewritten scripts and the results are compared. Given that the main purpose seems to be finding a producer for a project they have in mind, this isn't a bad idea- however, the scripts that were offered show some of the potential issues with the system. I'll be talking more about this later, but I'm interested to see what other interpretations besides ours people might have had.

I am looking forward to the people on WCM who don't read the contest rules and post comments like "Didn't someone else already make this?" given that, I imagine, most people who are serious will use the same script.

Much thanks to everyone who helped, especially Caruu, our voice actors, and Titanhoof for being a good sport.

And another one...

Interestingly enough, Drewbie's voice actor does not do the voice of the Drewbie character in Busted, but he does play an entirely different part.

More Busted pictures...

A few new pictures from the upcoming contest entry, Busted, which I am working on with Baron Soosdon. Caruu is tightening up his impressive sound design as we speak, and Baron's gonna crank up that Magic Bullet and get rendering with plenty of time to spare it seems.

We have some stiff competition, but I think we'll be making a good showing. If we do win, expect to see a behind the scenes featurette on the creation of this 8 minute lump of action, romance, and... well, more action and romance.

(Snacky used with permission)