Moviestorm 1.1.7

We're currently getting ready for the release of Moviestorm version 1.1.7. This is quite a major upgrade, with a lot of stuff going on under the hood. In many ways, it's a preparation for an even bigger upgrade to be shipped in the fall, Moviestorm 1.2.

The most obvious thing you'll see is the new user interface, designed by no less than our multi-talented CEO, Jeff "Babyface" Zie. Out with the old icons, and in with a whole bunch of stylish black and white ones. Moviestorm feels like a completely new app, more professional, and more finished.

You'll also notice much better performance. As we've been promising for a while, we've massively speeded up the load times, and Moviestorm also runs at a considerably better framerate on some hardware.

More subtly, we've made huge changes to the underlying animation system. This should eliminate the ugly "popping" that you get when blending animations, and result in much smoother character motion. We've also got new walk code in there, which gives much more natural and controllable movement around the set. We'll tell you more about that later in the week, as it's a huge, huge change.

We'll also post some more about some of the other new features over the next few days, including the new catalog and asset structure.

1.1.7 will be shipped in two stages. In a week or so, maybe less if all goes well, we'll let the pioneers get their hands on it and give us early feedback. We've been testing the bejesus out of it for a while, but there are still only a few of us, and it's a surefire bet that you lot will find a whole mess of stuff we missed. This may not contain absolutely everything in the final release, but it'll be close, and it'll include the most important things. Then, when we've fixed whatever howlers you find (or taken out the bits we can't fix fast enough), we'll put it out to everyone else, probably at the very end of September or the beginning of October.

Skeleton vs Bins: a walk on the smooth side

We've been dropping hints about Mark's new walk code for months, and we can finally show you what it actually does.

QA chappie Dave#6, who made this little movie, says:

In the old days, this poor skeleton would tackle these bins like a tank. Stopping to align himself, needing strict user supervision, pondering the lack of flesh on bones. Not especially like a tank then, but he felt like one.

These days, he's just pointed where he needs to go and he... just goes. Any obstacles he faces can be swiftly and most importantly, smoothly navigated. He's still concerned about the lack of flesh but feels less like a tank.

But really, this marks a big leap in visual quality and intuitive user accessibility. Less time spent navigating bins means more time thinking up clever stuff, and there's still more to come in this regard.

Sweet, huh? Combined with the rest of the animation improvements, this takes Moviestorm another huge leap forward from clunky old game style machinima to something much more natural and realistic.

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold

Here at Moviestorm Towers, we get requests every day from users who desperately want a particular bit of functionality that we haven't yet implemented. We don't rest on our collective laurels when these requests arrive. There's a big database full of feature requests, to which each and every user request is diligently added. We're only a small team, so we can't do them all at once, however much we might want to.

There's always a list of Secret Things We're Working On And Are Not Allowed To Talk About. Sometimes, the upcoming secret stuff is just too cool, and one of us will drop a teasingly ambiguous hint or two in the forums. We love torturing you.

A lot of the things that are on your collective "I want this NOW" list are also on mine. One of the things that's been in the top three on my personal wishlist for several months is the ability for characters to walk up and down stairs.

I'm sure you've guessed what this blog post is about now. Take a look at this:

Those are stairs all right, and that's world-famous Moviestorm stock character Stu walking up them with the casual grace of a born catwalk superstar.

It's better than that, though. Mark's über coding skills mean that Stu's movement up the stairs is just a standard Moviestorm walk command. That means you can change the speed and watch Stu adapt his footfalls automatically:

You can even change the gait to make him limp up the stairs, or tip-toe, or any of the other standard walk gaits. He can even walk up the stairs backwards:

It's not limited to that one set of stairs, either. It works equally well if the stairs are curved. What's that you say? Spiral stairs? Sure.

Backwards? Erm, okay.

Whilst playing a guitar? If you absolutely insist:

All together now: "And she's buying a stairway to heaven ...[1]"

Now, before you all starting sending me private messages, the answer is "when it's good and ready and not before", and that won't be for a wee while yet. You'll just have to wait patiently like all the other boys and girls.

[1] For legal reasons, I'll have to ask you to hum along yourself. I'd hate to be accused of infringing copyright by reproducing the mighty Stairway, in any of its 100+ forms.

Back to work, minions!

The guys and gals have had a well-deserved half-hour off after getting 1.0.4 out the door, and we even kindly gave them a celebratory packet of chocolate biscuits (apart from twak who's not allowed human-type food). While they were out enjoying our phenomenal largesse, this is what we wrote on the whiteboard for them to do next.

• Complete overhaul of camera system
• Mark's sexy walks
• Make the men look as good as the women
• Face morphing
• Character shop redesign
• Improve the improvisor (Or is that improvise the improver?)
  
• Better facial expressions
  
• XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (That one's still a secret, sorry! We have to have some surprises up our sleeves!)
• Crime (That's a content pack, not our new business model. Probably.)
  

That should keep them busy and out of that nasty sunlight for a while!