Damn, time sure flies! I have no idea when did this year pass by. Regarding my movie making the end of 2010 was pretty lazy, but that's ending right now, starting from January I'm reviewing all the demos I've received so far and start putting them together into a movie! If there's enough material that is. If not I'll be making a new post on ESR shortly.
Happy new year.
Dayumn it's been months since I last posted anything about quake. Mostly because that during the last few months I totally lost interest in following quakelive events. The fact that ql doesn't run properly on my current setup was undoubtedly also played a role.
Anyway, yeah, for those who are wondering, I didn't dich this blog and no, I didn't stop thinking about movie making. I'm still collecting demos for my next project.
Yeah, as mentioned in my last post I was working on a short clip for my room mate, and really it's nothing special at all, in the end I didn't even use any effects from AE. Anyway, it was nice and refreshing to work on live footage, I'm planning to buy a camcorder, so expect more live footage videos. Oh btw I didn't record it, it was his sister afaik, shaky hands :))
Change the quality button to 480p, quality will blow otherwise.
By the way, I don't wanna brag but recently at uni they posted the list of best students on my year, and I'm 4th.... which is pretty damn awesome. I'll receive scholarship because of it, yay! \o/
huhu, again it's been a while since the last time I've posted, sorry about that :) Studies and student life occupy nearly all of my free time.
For anyone interested, I'm still accepting demos for my next project, actually I didn't get any recently.
I didn't start working on it yet though. But no worries, time isn't going to waste, right now I'm working on a short clip for my roommate, I'm using after effects to add some fancy stuff. It's pretty much the first serious time I'm using it and I'm learning tons. I'm especially interested in 3D effects and animations cause I want to use some of those in my next quake movie.
The short clip will be available on youtube, but not on my channel, I'll make a post when it's done and paste a link to it. It won't be anything spectacular though, so don't expect much. :)
the featured movie page on own3d.tv (notice the most common typo that ppl do in my nickname)
(if they will :) ) Apart from that my profile got an award too "#85 - Most Viewed (This Week) - Poland". It will surely also change. We'll if it can get any higher. Also, if my memory works fine, a few days ago the profile award said something like #17 -most viewed (Today) - Poland, pretty cool. :)
when in fact it is supposed to be a upright fox skeleton. I found the original image with google, I was looking for a fox skeleton / skull. I really like the image and as I mentioned in the previous post - this name tag is my favourite.
I didn't have an idea what to use as calipt's name tag, so I had a little chat with him on irc. He said that he likes wearing caps so a cap would be nice. So I googled it and a bunch of different caps showed up, I found this outstanding image and showed it to him as I found it funny, but I didn't thought about actually using it. He said he loves it and asked if I could photoshop his face into it and use it. And so I did ;)
The movie is done, as I'm typing this I'm rendering the whole thing. It will be released tomorrow in the afternoon. You might ask yourself, "why not now? Isn't it done yet?!". Well, yeah it's done, but first it has to render which takes about 1,5 of an hour, then I have to compress it, which takes 2 and a half of an hour. Afterwards I have to upload it, which takes quite a while, considering my upload rate is at pathetic 30 kbps. Also, I want to upload it to a couple of places before I release it. Also, I'm pretty sure that after rendering/compressing I'll find some detail that should be fixed. It might be something really, really small, but I'll still fix and re-render the whole thing. I can't wait to have this released. :)
edit, oh yeah, I almost forgot. Here's the final editor shot, and a second one where I made the tracks flat so you can see everything, :)
Ugh, movie isn't ready yet. Working on these name tags can be frustrating. First I work on an animation for an hour or so and then after rendering it I'm not happy about it at all.
That's why the movie isn't done yet. I could make half-assed name tags in a few minutes and release the movie even today, but I would feel very bad about it.
I hope I'll finalize everything tomorrow. Just a few name tags left after all. We'll see. Here's the current editor shot in the meanwhile.
Today the uploading period for the tek9 movie contest began. So there's almost a week to end the side project. And I'm not sure what to do as well. I'd have quite a lot of work to do if I want to pull the side project together on time. But then again, the iem4 movie isn't done yet. I wouldn't want to withdraw from the contest.. entering with the iem4 movie is also a possibility but I don't know if that's a good idea, especially because their weird release rules that I've mentioned about before. Also, my dad needs my helping hand everyday so free time slips away easily. All this makes me feel really uneasy. In the end I'll probably leave the contest and release the iem4 normally, as planned.
On a side note, apparently Han-Sai's ZeroQL, a really good movie maker, famous for his QL movie 'Unagi' and a couple of q3 titles has entered the contest. I can't wait to see his contest entry, also I wish him best of luck.
Due to an unexpected power outage last night I was unable to make a blog update.
Right now I'm designing / editing / adding names tags. It's a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to see comments about them.
When I rendered the movie last time I noticed a slow moment that interrupts the flow of the movie. It might be hard to fix it, but I'll try to figure something out. Apart from that, apparently I overlooked (overheard? :)) one audio file that still needs fixing. Adjusting it won't be troublesome tho.
Here's yesterday's editor shot. As you can notice, some new stuff appeared above the video clips, those are the mentioned name tags, when finished, they'll be all over the place ;)
Anyway, things are looking good and I expect to release the movie either this night or tomorrow. I'm going to post it simultaneously at the main Quakelive site, ESR and maybe some other community pages. I will upload it to youtube, own3d and a server for direct download of course. Also there will be some additional content posted here. So stay tuned! ;)
Again, a lot of work done. Tomorrow I'll add the name tags. I'm going to leave the laptop running and render the whole movie. If everything is alright I'll release the movie soon.
Here's today's editor shot. As you can see the movie is 5 minutes and 36 seconds long. Someone could say it's short, but I think it's fine, quality > quantity after all. :)
I've done really a lot today, the editor shot doesn't reflect it at all .D
Didn't start working on the side project yet. Mhm, I hope I'll still make it in time. If not, oh well.
I'm so dead tired I don't know what else to write.
So instead, here's today's editor shot.
Yesterday, I wasn't able to make a post because of the massive thunderstorm that was coming and going during the evening which eventually leaded to power outage in the night.
Because of the wheather I wasn't able to do a thing. The only notable thing I've made was measuring the time my sony vegas turns on. It takes almost 30 minutes, lol. Hardcore.
Today, the power went out a few times as well, they were probably fixing some power lines. But this time I made some significant progress, sorted out all the audio issues encountered so far. Also, I spent around 2 hours on fine polishing the intro, and it's done. It's nice and short. :)
I've also messed around with some frags, but didn't make a lot of progress there.
Time is slipping away and the tek9 contest deadline draws near. I have a lot of ideas in my head for the side project thingy and I'll do my best to make it in time, dunno if I'll make it tho. I'll probably use latest qcon demos as well so stay tuned. :)
Oh, yeah. Here's today's editor shot. Things are starting to look busy. At the same time, it's pretty clean, I really like this shot. :)
Today I solved a performance issue which was slowing me down a lot. Because of that I was able to put a lot of stuff together! :)
So yeah, here's today's editor shot. A lot of new things, the 2nd half of the frag part is kind of messy, right now. I've put some long frags there that fit, later I'll work around them.
It appears that I'll have to re-record some in-game sounds, because their volume is too low.
Now that I have sorted out the performance issue, and if I'll maintain this tempo, I might be able to have the frag part done by Sunday. We'll see how things go. :)
Here's today's editor shot, quite a bit different than the recent ones.
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/4278/day7.png
Again, today I wasn't able to do much. Quakelive is unstable, kept on crashing. That's why I was able to only fix one out of two flawed clips. Besides that, I've added a mare single frag.
Here's today's editor shot, almost identical with the yesterday's one.
Tomorrow, I'll do my best to speed things up!
Not much to say today, pretty much nothing changed since yesterday, added a couple of frags. QL still isn't up, not going to wait for it. I'm going to bed. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be finally able to rerecord the flawed clips and make that 'intro-frag part transition'.
Of course here's today's editor shot.
Cya tomorrow
Once again, I didn't have time at all during the day and ended up working on the movie during the night. Also, because of QuakeLive downtime I was unable to make the 'intro-frag part transition'. I'll hopefully do that tomorrow, if the update won't mess up things, I'm a bit worried about demo playback on some maps..
Anyway, yeah - big news, big update. QL won't be beta anymore, they're introducing premium and pro accounts that aren't free of charge anymore. We'll see how things will work out.
Here's today's editor shot. As you can see at one point I've put a marker to remember that I have to rerecord that clip. Handy thing.
Cya tomorrow!
Unfortunately, today, due to lack of time, I wasn't able to do much. I started messing around with the video in the late evening and damn, I forgot that putting frags together was so much fun :)
I only managed to lay down just a few frags but I really like what I've done so far.
Here's a new editor shot, you can see the 3 frags I've put together, the in-game sounds below the song, and the name tags above the frags :)
Tomorrow I'll continue on puttings frags together, also if I'll have enough time I'll make a transition between the intro bit and the frag part.
I've done quite a bit today, pretty much got the intro ready, I've also rendered a short gameplay clip to check if everything is alright. I've sent it to a few trusted players to check if they can playback it properly. After asking ESR members for their opinion, I've decided not to submit this movie for the tek9 contest, instead my entry will be a funny mix, I'm sure people will like it. :)
Here's today's editor shot.
Tomorrow, I'll most probably start putting frags together. :)
Most of the work today I've spent on making a nice ESL logo animation for the intro bit. Luckily I found a high res version of the logo. I've put it into photoshop and seperated stuff into different layers, upper stripe, lower stripe, background and so on :) The outcome looks pretty decent, I'll probably fine polish it later on.
Here's an editor ss, almost nothing to see yet :)
I also worked a bit on some name tags again, still a couple of players left.
Tomorrow, I'll probably make a "Hell5pawn videos" intro, with the usual no-life "room" :D Gotta think what to put on the monitor :) Cya tomorrow!
I'm done with demos. Today, I finally finished rendering lossless quality footage. My footage folder now contains 79 .avi files and uses 140 GB of my HDD. That's quite a lot, I'm not sure if I had this much for my previous projects. I won't use everything though, I think about 1/4 of those avi's won't make it to the final movie.
Few days ago I started working with photoshop, making name tags to be exact. It's a lot of fun :) I hope people will like them, there's a lot of variety, I don't want to follow one pattern.
A while ago I was thinking whether I'll use this movie for the current Tek9 contest or my next project. Now when there's about a month till the end of the contest, the question changes: Should I enter the contest with the IEM4 movie or should I withdraw. The worst thing about entering the tek9 contest would be the release, according to the rules I won't be able to upload the movie anywhere else before the voting/judging period is over.. which really sucks, because to download the movie, people would have to register at tek9 site. From experience (Zero) I know that people don't want to register at sites to vote/download.. I'll probably make a post at ESR and ask people if they would support me.
Oh, btw I'm planning to post daily updates of my work on the vid. Stay tuned! :)
Heh, to think that a while ago I said that the vid would be released by now.. I still haven't touched vegas (a video editing tool). Right now I'm watching/capturing footage from demos of players that didn't get through the world finals group stage (Chance, dkt, griffin, jibo, stermy, strenx). Since they didn't get to the playoffs they don't have many demos, so this will go fast.
Yesterday I've ran out of disk space, hah. Had to clean up to get additional 50 GB's but I'm not sure for how long will it last. Once I've captured all the footage I'll post some screens of my footage folder.
I wish I could already get to editing and putting everything together. Working with demos is such a pain.
A while ago I thought I had the soundtrack settled but now it seems that I'll use something completely different. We'll see how it works out :)
I don't remember whether I've mentioned it earlier but I've entered the NoGhost Mapping competition #2. Just for fun, I don't expect anything. There are about 2 weeks left, it ends before QuakeCon, because one of the sponsors (AMD/ATI) wants to use the maps in their booth. So yeah, not a lot of time left and I've done almost nothing :D Well, I've made some attempts but in the end I wasn't happy about them. Recently, I've sketched a layout for a duel map and I want to finish it before the deadline. I plan to make the design simple, yet nice. We'll see if I'll find the time. It will be my first map :)
Alright, back to capturing footage!
As promised, I've managed to put together a short trailer, a download link is on it's way. The used bloom settings may still change. Also I'm considering not using enemy models. What do you guys think? Feedback and critics are welcome :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrZmZeWZy5g
edit. here's the promised download link:
Damn, watching demos is soo time consuming. I've spent the last two days just watching demos >.<.. Still 2 POV's (k1llsen and stermy) left to watch.. from the Euro finals! Then I have to watch the demos from the world finals.. Jeez. But well, some of the frags are enough to pay for my effort, haha.
Few days ago, my clan mate asked me if I'm getting paid for making this movie. heh. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind HAH, since I'm putting so much of my free time in this.. and what I'll get after the movie is done?.. cookies, hopefully. :)
I thought I'll finish the movie this month, but after watching all these demos I'm starting to have doubts. Maybe if I'd have some more motivation.. heh, that's why joining contests is good, even those a quake movie doesn't have a chance to win (read: tek9 contests). They give you a deadline, and it really motivates you to work..
Almost a week ago my latest movie for the tek9 minivideo contest was released. It's called seventeen. It's a one map video with midair rockets only. Unlike 'Zero' I didn't use any colour correction as well as no motion blur. If you like it, register @ tek-9.org and rate it :) After the community voting is over I'll upload it to youtube and add a download mirror from Maverick.
