Skeletons Update

Just a quick note to update you keen modders on the release of the Moviestorm skeletons...

For the people that have registered their interest in joining the Beta program for the skeletons (for want of a better phrase), we sent out a short email explaining why the release has been slightly delayed. Basically, we've recorded a few tutorials using Camtasia screen grab software that show how we use the data here at Moviestorm, to try and give you guys as much of a head start as possible. We're now at the stage where all this stuff has been recorded (with nice voice-overs, explaining the processes), but the file sizes for the videos are huge (many gigabytes)! So, a little re-packing is required, then we'll get the pack put together and ready to go out, in a more manageable bundle.

For our first group of users, we already have more than enough requests. But don't let that stop you, just drop us an email at art.team@moviestorm.co.uk if you are interested in getting hold of the skeletons, and we'll keep your contact details on record for the next round of releases, which will hopefully become more and more user-friendly as the pioneers point out the flaws in the export processes.

Prima the magical unicorn

Look what Chris did over Christmas after one too many glasses of Bailey's...

Men in Tights

Here's a first look at Chris's male castle dwellers we mentioned earlier. 8 costumes (oops, only 7 here, duplicated one by accident), clean and dirty variants, all tintable.

Chris is aiming to do the female costumes over Christmas - screenshots as soon as we get 'em!

Moviestorm: under siege

Here's a first look at what Chris has been doing in his spare time: constructing a castle constructor set. It includes over 100 parts, all customisable and tintable: walls, towers, blocks, steps, flags, roofs, doors, corridors and a rope bridge.

He's hoping to have this finished over the holidays for release early next year, probably around the same time as the swords pack. He also let slip that he's got some peasant costumes in the works, and is planning some jumps and rolls and possibly some horses, though those will probably come later. Combined with squirrelygirl's growing collection of mediaeval mods, this should be enough to open up a whole new genre for Moviestormers.

Halloween horror, 2010

We've done a Halloween pack for the last couple of years, mainly because Chris just loves all that kind of stuff. In 2008 we gave you a bunch of traditional trick or treat goodies, and in 2009 we gave you a huge selection of monsters.

This year, we're knocking the Photostorm Bones stuff into shape, updating it slightly, and adding in a couple of new bits, and we're going to get that out to you some time this week. If you've already got Bones, we've added Graveyard Grass, some silhouettes, and a less complicated animation for getting your characters to start in the grave, so that they can do the "rise from grave" thing properly.

Happy screaming!

While the cat's away ...

Most of the Moviestorm team are taking a well-deserved break at the moment, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are sitting on our laurels. Everyone's favourite hard-working art guy, Chris Ollis, has this to share with you all:

Now that the dust has settled on the early access release of version 1.4 I'm taking the liberty to let slip some other stuff that we've been doin

g that should be with you shortly, and some even more exciting things from the future!

First up we've got a new and incredibly useful content pack nearing release. It may not seem like the most exciting thing we've done when you first set eyes on it, but I can guarantee every serious Moviestorm film maker will want it and it should make character driven dialogue sequences all the more impressive.

Looking further in to the future we're tackling some stuff that we've wanted to do since day one. It should also make a fair few users happy, and save a few from having to struggle with their own mods of existing animations.

Yes that's right - we've finally had some fun with swords. While Dave would like us to break this down in to all the different sword types, weights, rules and other professional standards, I'm more keen on just whipping them out and hacking away a bit :D

While on the subject of violent acts, I've also been messing around with similarly unpleasant animations in my spare time, and given a good wind I should start handing out handy little packets of jumps, falls, punches and stabbings to help Moviestorm step up a gear. I know people have been shouting for this for a while, but believe me the video footage I recorded as a template was in the can so long ago I've had to get a cinefilm converter to play it back on :D

Don't bother asking for dates, you should know by now ;P

Chris

Show us your heads!

Here's a high-speed run-through of the morphs and decals in Moviestorm 1.4, by Chris.

The hip bone's connected to the what?

Following yesterday's blog post featuring log entries the changes to the main codebase, here's one that will intrigue a few of you:

• Revision 24026 Committed by dave: - Fixed new symmetric female01 skeleton remapped female01 anims for symmetrized skeleton

As we mentioned in the forums this weekend, we've been going back and re-examining some of our design decisions from three or so years ago with respect to the way Moviestorm characters are constructed. We've found ourselves loading more and more onto the characters, and we now expect them to walk, use a prop, look at something, have a facial expression, speak, and gesture, all at the same time. And look good while doing it. And do it all in real time. And while retaining some measure of acceptable performance.

Now we're asking our characters to have morphing faces as well, so every facial animation and texture has to be adjusted to fit the final shape. We're looking at more extreme morphs than we've had before, so we have to be very conscious of the extent to which that distorts both the animations and the actual characters.

Our existing facial structure simply wasn't up to the job, for all sorts of reasons, so we decided to rebuild the heads. While we were looking at that, we spotted that the eyes were very slightly asymmetrical, and nobody had actually noticed that before. That's one of the reasons the facial expressions always looked a bit odd. So we've changed that, and the new faces should look much better. As Dave put it, "it's amazing how a small mistake early in the project comes back to haunt you years later."

Since we were messing with bones anyway, we figured out we might as well do the bodies. That way, when we get round to looking at body morphs*, we shouldn't have to go through all this again. So Chris has created a new skeleton, and the team are now figuring out a way to make all the existing animations and costumes compatible with it. We really, really don't want to have to rebuild every single animation and costume!

Hopefully you won't see any difference at all when the new skeletons eventually replace the current ones. Everything will just work exactly the same as it did before. However, this is important groundwork for several things we're planning later.

For those of you who've been impatient for us to release skeleton schematics, this is one of the reasons we've held off for the last couple of months. Once the new ones are in, working, and fully tested, then we'll see about letting you guys have a go.

I'm also intrigued by this one:

• Revision 24021 Committed by julian_gold: - Tarted up textrenderer interface so i can do some cooler textbased stuff in crv. (Cutting Room View)

That could signify some neat new titling options, perhaps?

* Don't hold your breath. Even if we started looking at them right after MS 1.3.1, actually releasing body morphs will still be some way off. It's a big job.

** That's definitely not going to be this side of MS 1.3.1. I'd say after 1.3.2 at the earliest.

More tantalizing hints

You can glean a lot about what's going on from the feed of the updates committed to the main Moviestorm codebase: here's just a few entries from today:

• Revision 23995 Committed by amos_willbond: - Updated icons for morph regions (character shop).
• Revision 23996 Committed by amos_willbond: - Further changes to morph area icons (character shop)
• Revision 24001 Committed by chris_ollis: - Extra face textures for morph male
• Revision 24012 Committed by ben_sanders: - Mouth height separated, and full morphs added
• Revision 24013 Committed by ben_sanders: - Added blood and blemishes to the skin detail
• Revision 24014 Committed by ben_sanders: - Beards added
• Revision 24015 Committed by ben_sanders: - Copied beard thumbs from core

The new character workshop is definitely taking shape!

Development blog, May 19, 2010

Watch this and then go ooh, ooh, ooh!

And then you'll have to wait till next week to find out more, because we love to tease you.

The pictures on the wall this week are a promo still from Iain Friar's Clockwork, and a drawing of Boris Karloff that Chris did for me ages ago in, I think, ArtRage.

Mighty Morphin' Moviestorm

This is from Chris. It's a screengrab from 3DS Max of a wireframe Moviestorm head with new fewer than 73 morphs overlaid onto it. It looks like a complete mess, but he assures us that (a) he knows what he's doing and (b) it's going to be cool when it's finished.

We believe him.

My life sucks, I want to cry.

Look who we saw hanging around on Chris's computer today.

Like a Goth, only much less dark and much more Harry Potter. (Urban Dictionary)

You know how it goes. When we've finished making them.

Moviestorm gets the munchies

Oooh, that Chris Ollis. He loves to whet your appetites, doesn't he?

Earlier this week, he posted these two tasty videos. Check 'em out.

So, go on, spill the beans. What's cooking, Chris?

Your actors will soon be able to sit at a table and eat breakfast, soup, bread rolls, pasta, dinner, desert, coffee and wine. Tables snap together, so you can go from one person eating alone to a romantic candle-lit dinner for two, to a long table with as many people feasting as your computer can handle.

We're also building props to create classy restaurants (tasteful walls and pillars etc) and ready-made 4 and 6 seater tables.

As usual. We'll serve it when it's ready.

Happy Land

You get a lot of stuff for free with the basic version of Moviestorm. There's costumes, props, sets, gestures and moods - as the recent Base Pack Contest shows, it's amazing how many different types of movie can be created.

With all these options available, it's worrying how many Moviestormers' first movies involve, sooner or later, somebody being shot. Come on, guys! We know conflict is at the heart of drama, but there's so much more to life! Why not tell a happy story, full of bright colours and friendly characters and rounded corners ... in short: why not take a trip to Happy Land?

The wicked ladies

A few weeks ago, we gave you a bunch of Halloween monsters created by the Marvellous Mister Ollis. Quite rightly, a number of you observed that they were all male. This is because we are all - apart from Lisa, of course - well brought-up English gentlemen who would never, ever think of a lady as monstrous, evil, or anything less than entirely beautiful, wonderful, and charming. Even when they're dead.

However, we recognise that for dramatic purposes, it may sometimes be necessary to depict ladies in an unflattering light. So Chris went home and locked himself in the cupboard under the stairs for a month with nothing but old Hammer movies and absinthe, and here's what he came up with: a vampiress, a zombie, a witch, and Mrs Frankenstein.

These are renders of the original 3DS Max models, not the actual Moviestorm heads we'll be shipping, but you get the idea. They're all morphable, just like the guys. And they'll be available soon.

The miracle of birth: where Moviestorm characters come from

Sometimes we wonder about Chris. There he sits at his desk, surrounded by pictures of Bjork, Ne-Yo, Rihanna, and Lily Allen, listening to My Chemical Romance, Green Day, and Bat for Lashes, while browsing Etsy, Hot Topic, Yukka and Vintage Vixen. He tells us it's research.

Then he sits in the coffee room, doodling and mumbling to himself, with that strange look in his eyes that all artists get. You know, the one that says, "I'm being creative, don't talk to me, just bring me doughnuts and drinks heavily laden with caffeine."

After a while, stuff like this gets mysteriously plastered on the walls of the office, usually half-way up the stairs. or left lying on people's desks in plain brown envelopes.

And a while later, new Moviestorm characters appear.

(More screenshots soon, but here's one of those guys in action.)

Halloween Morphing Heads

A few of the heads in Chris's Halloween Morphing heads pack are proving a little elusive. Here's how to get to the Cutter, Piggy, Frank, Mouldy and Vampyre characters.

1. Select the Halloween '09 Monster Morph head - you'll need a male character.
2. Click the arrow next to the morph slider, and choose your monster.
3. You can now morph between the basic human face and the monster face, so you can make him as monstrous as you like!

Drawing on the walls

We here at Moviestorm are responsible citizens. We would like to make it clear that in no way do we condone the defacing of public property. We believe that Banksy is nothing more than a common hoodlum, not an artist, and should be locked up for his crimes. However, we do understand that it may be necessary from time to time to depict anti-social or illegal activity in films, purely for educational and moral purposes, of course. Like this.

Work in progress: art by Chris Ollis, images by Andrew Kennedy. 100% Moviestorm.

You know the answer. When it's ready.

Carrying a torch for Love(craft)

We know it's been pretty quiet around here recently. We're sorry about that - as Matt says, it's all Daves's fault (and yes, the pluralisation there is correct).

We're as busy as Santa's favourite elf on Christmas Eve here at Moviestorm Towers, putting the final touches on Moviestorm version 1.1.5 as well as working on several forthcoming Content Packs. We've already teased you with footage from some early development code for the Pyro pack - remember the rain and the fireworks? - but Julian, Ben and Chris have just shown me some new developments, also coming in Pyro, which were so pretty I had to share them with you. Ready for some Lovecraftian exploration?

View the high-quality version at Moviestorm.co.uk

"And when tales fly thick in the grottoes of tritons, and conches in seaweed cities blow wild tunes learned from the Elder Ones, then great eager vapours flock to heaven laden with lore; and Kingsport, nestling uneasy on its lesser cliffs below that awesome hanging sentinel of rock, sees oceanward only a mystic whiteness, as if the cliff's rim were the rim of all earth, and the solemn bells of the buoys tolled free in the aether of faery."

P.S. It's been brought to my attention that I should probably issue a public apology for the dreadfully tortured pun-laden title of this post. I hereby do so, unreservedly.

I'm bad, I'm bad, you know it, I'm bad

Now that the Streets bundle has, erm, hit the streets, the next pack going into test* is Criminals, who compliment the kindly, friendly, law-abiding policemen in the Law and Order pack. We've shown you a few sneak peeks before, but today, we've got a first look at the new faces.

Now, as everyone knows, bad guys are always disfigured (except when they're suave British villains played by Alan Rickman), so we've introduced some new morphs. Which means you can give your perps broken noses and the like. Cos then everyone will know they're bad.

*When it's ready. Did you really need to ask?