Soldat Machinima?

[Snow]

I posted the following a short while ago in elite CTF forums:

Last night in SnS, I finally gave out my idea for doing a machinima. At the moment, I don’t have time, however a few of the players expressed interest and wanted me to post a write up about it. I want serious feedback about this, as I will soon have some spare time that I could commit to this project. I would need to rent some server space and I would need dedicated volunteers for actors as well as video editing. My own video editing skills atm are basic although I do have some top Adobe software.

I’ve been toying around with the idea of doing a Soldat machinima for years. At first I wanted to do a comic, but everyone does comics. I realized that although there have been Soldat videos made, no one really did an official machinima. Perhaps the gosteks are too small, I don’t know. The game however offers the opportunity to do particular things. For instance, you can use the background to “green or blue screen”, by changing the background color to solid green/blue. This means you could have video or animations play behind a map. This opens up all kinds of scene possibilities. Other possibilities are by doing super imposing. For instance if you wanted a scene where a part of a map was destroyed while some gosteks are standing on a few polies – you record a video of them standing there, then record videos of an undestroyed map, then the destroyed map. Super impose the gosteks and the polies they’re standing on and voila. 

Of course this all requires dedication and some tricky if not tedious video editing. The other issue is how to present the characters when they’re speaking. Text can work with small gosteks, but then the show would be silent. Actual voice would work better, but then the characters would have to be up close and pixelly gosteks won’t work for that. An alternative would be to make characters in Flash or something – animate them speaking. That however would be a ton of work and thus the project would only be half a machinima.

The comic that I had originally planned was called “Friday’s Follies”. It’s about a group of soldiers obviously in a 2d world that are kind of like the Reds from Red vs. Blue. The enemy that they fight is unknown to the audience, but some of them do speak once in a while, otherwise they’re simply trying to kill. The main character is private Friday. Three other characters are an old fashioned sarge,  a sniper (whose name is Target since he has a bullseye painted on his helmet and taunts enemy snipers with it) and a soldier who also happens to be a scientist who can imagine the 3rd dimension. The scientist tries in vain to explain the 3rd dimension to the others but they just scoff at him. In one planned strip I had him actually manage to build a portal – only to have some 3d being grab him through it and eat him… like a cat or something. The rest of the group is composed of lesser expendable characters, some who would become main characters as well as I developed the strip and story. If a character dies, they always reappear next strip.

So, all I want to know at the moment is what you guys think and who’s interested. A project like this would be a huge undertaking for not just me but anyone who might volunteer. If there is a lot of interest, I might just start it within 2 months. I’m thinking short episodes of a couple of minutes each. The benefit of something like this is that it is a show that if good, gamers would like and that could help attract attention and players to Soldat. I think it’s been since 2007, I wanted to do something like this, for the game and the community. So… feedback and thanks for reading and hopefully your opinion/support.

This is an example of the original Friday's Follies comic strip:


This is a test to see how to present the characters speaking - should speaking be done with text, rather than with voice:


To see both images at actual size - "right-click" on them and choose "view image".

[machina]

I can help you, we can take some server from #soldatladder... Got xfire...? It would be the best thing to connect...

Btw. got already some nice idea to record  Only 2 soldiers are needed...

[demoniac93]

The text thing should actually work, but when using longer texts it might get hard to separate each characters' "script", if you know what I'm saying.
I absolutely love the idea though, and would like to help with gostek acting, like animations and stuff, seeing as I have no video/map editing experience and quite some free time on my hands.

[Snow]

This is good that more and more people are getting interested.

The text thing should actually work, but when using longer texts it might get hard to separate each characters' "script", if you know what I'm saying.
I absolutely love the idea though, and would like to help with gostek acting, like animations and stuff, seeing as I have no video/map editing experience and quite some free time on my hands.

I've been thinking about text speech and I know exactly what you mean. If you watch two people in game standing next to eachother and chatting, you can tell who's saying what.

[L[0ne]R]

Depends on how much dialogue you plan to have there. If like in Red vs. Blue - real people are a must for voice acting, unless you can find a reeeally good text-to-speech (which I haven't heard of so far). If not too much - then it might be possible to get away with just background music and sound effects.

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If you need an extra in-game actor or something to photoshop - I can help out with that, just let me know.

[Monsteri]

I'd  say better option is to have both texts and sound. Requires voice actors though.

I can also help ingame, but not for few days.

[machina]

Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJWBmuioqJU

[Snow]

Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJWBmuioqJU

Yeah I saw that.. reminds me.. I still have to finish that series. Spriggs is funny. It works well for Halo, since the characters are large and detailed and subtle movements are easily seen. With pixelly gosteks... that's another story. But, I will test that out.

[Terran]

if you need actor - call me :S

[Fryer]

I think it would be a good idea to put some kind of blinking sparkle () or something around the soldier who is speaking. Varying the color and blinking rate of the sparkle could also help adding depth to the soldiers' emotions if it's done in the right way.

The idea seems to be very good indeed; it would be cool to see it completed.

[Snow]

I think it would be a good idea to put some kind of blinking sparkle () or something around the soldier who is speaking. Varying the color and blinking rate of the sparkle could also help adding depth to the soldiers' emotions if it's done in the right way.

The idea seems to be very good indeed; it would be cool to see it completed.

I'm addicted to King Arthurs Gold at the moment (even when I should be resting with bronchial/lung infection lol), but getting back to the machinima, yes that is a good idea. I hope that when I can start this, that I can complete it. The first episode or 2 will be a buttload of work.. testing shots, editing, organizing server time and actors.. getting things just right. 6 weeks.. or less if things go good, this can get started. That is if I can pull myself away from KAG long enough every day lol. Keep the ideas coming.