Using Machinima for AGS cut-scenes?

[TerranRich]

I had a great idea. An idea so brilliant it reminded me of the AGS forums and inspired me to perhaps revive a project of mine that I abandoned over a year ago.

I recently came across something called Machinima after finding something called "Star Trek: Borg Wars", a movie made using Machinima. From what I can gather, it uses graphics from an existing game with 3D graphics and lets you make your own animation and 3D movies.

Basically, I had the idea that I could revive my old game By the Sword. The major thing that kept BtS from becoming a reality was the cutscenes I'd have to create. But with Machinima, I might be able to make the cutscenes for BtS, and then model the rest of the game (the actual gameplay graphics) on the cutscene graphics.

I know the Machinima site has forums, but I've become somewhat of an online hermit lately, and I'm reluctant to register on their forums, get to know the environment and the way things work, and search their forums, etc. My question is...has anyone here ever messed around with Machinima before? How easy is it to create original content?

If there's even a glimmer of hope that I could revive By the Sword and make it a possibility once again, I want to take the opportunity.

[MrColossal]

Depends on the engine of the game you want to use for making the machinima. If it's an obscure game that has no modding capabilities then it's going to be extremely hard.

going for the popular ones like Unreal and Quake would give you a huge set of tools that people have already made for creating machinima.

But it's been years since I've kept up with that scene.

[scotch]

It's easy to make terrible looking machinima, using default content and stilted animations. Just write a script, have people come online and do their actions, record it on voice chat. Do the animation scripting in the level editor if you're feeling adventurous. Most popular machinima productions these days are done this way. Nobody watches them for the animation of course, but to follow a story, or for comedy. That's stuff like Red vs Blue, which is performed in Halo multiplayer. WoW is another popular engine for that style. As you'd expect because they're using real game assets, references to game stuff are common...

Back when the machinima thing kicked off that wasn't as big, and more people were scripting out custom animations in their game engine's level editor, usually mapping out sets, making textures, and using some custom models. I don't ever remember seeing anything very good, but everyone was sure it had potential!

Unfortunately making an original set of characters, new levels for sets, custom animations for the character, and so on, is very difficult. It's a little bit easier than say, making an original 3d game, because you only need a specific set of movements and scenes, but it still requires you to do a lot of 3d work. And when you are doing that much 3d work you start thinking... hang on... this would look a lot better if I just rendered it in my 3d program instead of trying to shoehorn it all into Quake.

If you're happy to use default game assets in whatever engine you want, then it's certainly an easy way to make an animated cutscene, but obviously then your game will have Master Chief as the main character or a pink haired dwarf with a battle axe.

[m0ds]

Sounds like an interesting program and I wish you luck Rich! But;

I had the idea that I could revive my old game By the Sword

is such a cliché these days :p

I notice they also scrapped the IMDB entry

[TerranRich]

I know it's a cliche but all I said was "I had the idea that I could" do it, which means it's just a thought.

At least this time around I would have real-life help from my brother-in-law, who is more than willing to help collaborate on the game. I'm not promising anything, but at least it'd be easier this time around.

But who knows?

And as far as Machinima goes, I've decided against using it. It's not my cup of sludge, so to speak.