‘A Soldiers Revenge’ Release

Well, its finally done. Or at least as done as its going to get for a while.

Let me know what you think.

troubleshotproduction@gmail.com

Virtual acting tips

I figured a reasonable follow up to the previous post (before I go into more demo recording info) would be to post a little info regarding virtual acting, I asked SigmaSin whom will probably have the most screen time in ‘A Soldiers Revenge, and whom I’ve to both have a bit of a knack for being a reliable, consistent virtual actor. I asked for some tips for the blog, and here they are:

Alright, here goes.

The most important elements being a virtual actor are that you must be polite and patient. If you can do that, you’re already a good candidate to act. I’ll go into more detail on this, and give some extraneous tips learned from working with SaDOS on his latest piece.

1. Do as your director tells you

It’s the vision of the director you’re trying to create here. No matter how nitpicky he gets, oblige, it all goes to creating a quality piece of work.

2. Ask questions only when the director is done speaking

Chances are, the question you are asking will be answered by the director’s description of the scene. If it isn’t, by allowing him to finish talking, you keep a more coherent picture of the scene, and it’s no problem to go and sort out a particular detail afterwards.

3. Ask questions

By doing so, you improve your understanding of the scene you’re trying to create, and possibly increase the quality over what the director had in mind. “Hey, what if we moved the soldier to the medic’s right hand side, so the rocket launcher and healing beam don’t take too much prominence?”

4. Be quiet

Posing, voice taunts, running around, shooting, talking… all of these are bad ideas while the film is rolling. Even if you aren’t anywhere near the set (not in the shot), these noises can ruin the recording and require a reshoot. Also, doing this while scenes are being explained should be avoided. Bullet holes or blast marks on set are a pain, and require spamming shots in other parts of the map to get rid of them. This is annoying, takes up time, and may ruin another set to be used. Also, the noise can get distracting when trying to explain a scene. Just be mature, sit, and listen.

5. Run through your parts

When you have a couple specific marks to hit during a scene such that you are framed properly, run your path a few times before you go for it in scene. Remember that while recording, it’s better to be off the mark a bit than to correct it, but you want to be as close as possible. So, knowing your path is a good thing. This also applies to looking – practice the look a bit, then when shooting, just try to do it in one mouse motion. Even if you miss, stay where you ended up looking. It will appear better than if you try to correct it.

6. Crouch to get in to place

If you need to stand in a specific spot for a scene, crouch and move to it to fine-tune where you’ll be standing.

7. Explode off set

When you’re dying or taking damage in a scene, between shoots, use the explode command 1-2 times off set. This cleans up the blood and removes corpses. Shooting off set removes bullet holes and blast marks, but takes a lot longer.

8. Use the third person view

When a TF2 server has sv_cheats set to 1, you can type “thirdperson” in to console to get a view of your character from behind. This lets you control your actions a lot better, since you see what is seen on camera: you can tell when you’re clipping, you can tell when you’re not moving smoothly, etc. I would always recommend this unless the scene requires you to do something you need particular skill in game to do (hit a moving target, rocket jump). I would not recommend using the thirdperson variants unless you need them specifically (thirdperson_mayamode, thirdperson_platformer). The view is most intuitive with the basic settings, if you change it, you may find it difficult to move, and difficult to get back to a normal third person view.

9. Adjust your sensitivity

Usually, smooth movements are required, unlike in game, where you want to be as quick as possible. Consider turning on the mouse filter, or lowering your sensitivity (particularly if you have a scene where you have to look somewhere slowly). If you’re required to do things quickly, use the sensitivity you’re most accustomed to from the game.

10. Mess around in the skybox

It helps a lot if you’re getting frustrated or bored to blow off some steam. Build gigantic sentries, get screenshots of capture-point-sized giblets, what have you. After a few hours of shooting, slow motion no clip air melee battles for 15 minutes can really hit the spot. Also, something you do may give your director an idea for a shot.

For directors: much of this applies to you as well. Be clear with your directions, allow questions, and be patient with your actors if they’re not portraying things perfectly. Let them blow off some steam if they ask for that, or even suggest it after a few hours. Don’t goof off too much, though, as everyone there wants to get the project done; messing around with noclip gets boring after a while. Give your actors feedback between takes to let them improve their actions. Take multiple angles and shots of the same scene – it’s easier that way than to have to go back to reshoot. If dealing with ragdoll physics, the demo randomizes this, but record until you get the desired effect (in case you’re working in a situation you wouldn’t get it), then work through the demo to get the bit back. It helps a lot to have the rcon commands you wish to use bound to a key, and to keep notes on the bits you want to record. SaDOS can probably tell you more about that, though.

SigmaSin

Thanks again Sigma.

Editing is going quite well, I’ve completed most of the piece, but have a few technically complex parts that require some post processing in Photoshop and Final Cut, but hopefully I will have the edits and sound design completed in a weeks time. Very exciting.

Ive also started getting a little more active on twitter, add me @ http://twitter.com/timeyles

Cheers, T.

Developing Troubleshot’s identity

It’s rather late and I cant get to sleep, planning for tomorrows shoot and new production ideas seems to have my mind running a little too fast. I’ve been thinking for a while now about producing a graphic for my production ‘group’ and an accompanying animation to put at the start of my Machinima and other productions. As this piece is approaching its end and is looking to be up to scratch (but far from perfect), now would be a good time to start fiddling with such a thing. I’ve had some ideas about the logo being an old reel to reel camera made up of various tools (a mix of film making and work shed items) that together resemble a camera somewhat. I’m thinking of incorporating this logo with the stencil art or stencil graffiti aesthetic, I have a great idea on how to merge the two in the animation, where the logo is sprayed on a wall. Hopefully I can get a simple realisation of this idea done around when I’m ready to put ‘A Soldiers Revenge’ on Youtube. The focus should be to keep it simple though, I’ve already got enough on my plate at the moment.

I’m going to head down to Brunswick street (a location in my home town of Melbourne) to photograph some of the street art in the morning. Mainly focussing on the stencil art of which there is a great deal. Hopefully this gives me some more ideas.

Once I have the logo down I can develop some graphics to improve the look of this blog, I might even splash out and upgrade my wordpress account to improve the URL and add some features to the site.

Ciao for now.  T

New TF2 Patch kills demos

Just a warning (that I should have guessed before it happened), the current patch and I’m assuming all patches henceforth will corrupt your demos. Meaning you cannot load them in the updated client.

This realisation came to me last night when I went to export the previous weekends recordings, I lost about 90minutes of shooting time. Kinda painful, but it could have been much worse. So be sure to put steam in offline mode and export all demos before you upgrade.

This however, has given me a heap of motivation for diving back in this weekend, and touch wood I might get principal photography done. Hallelujiah

Fingers are crossed.

Cheers, T.