Walkin' out the door

Demo film by Ben Sanders

"So what?" you might ask. "It's a guy walking out of a house. Gee." Well, this is something you haven't been able to do before in Moviestorm. Look carefully about 5 seconds in. See the fireplace through the window? See the picture through the door?

This is the first composite set, which includes an interior piece and an exterior building model. The lower central portion is a standard Moviestorm set, built and dressed as normal. Then around and above it, we placed some of the new modular customisable buildings, and matched the wall textures, doors, and window styles, so that the set is now located within a larger building.

So now your characters can walk seamlessly out of the set and onto the street, without the need for clever editing or camera angles to make it look as if the interior and exterior sets are actually joined together. It may not look like a big deal, but it completely changes the way you can film many different types of scene.

Mmmm, tracking shots... watching people through the window... doing that whole Citizen Kane number... all this will soon be yours!

How to while away meetings

Meetings rarely require your full attention, and most of us doodle throughout them. Real artists tend to do better doodles than the rest of us...

Dave Lloyd, by Mitch Phillips 27/1/09

The adventures of Moviestorm in the 3rd dimension

Created in Moviestorm

You may have noticed this little gem from Chris over on the Web site. Yes, those are steps and stairs and balconies. And yes, one day soon, my machinimating friends, your little Moviestorm people will be able to walk up and down them, gaze down on their minions below, or recite poetry to their beloved up above.




Not only does this mean you can make many more different types of sets, but it completely changes the options for more interesting visual composition.

Moviestorm 1.1.4 out soon

Version 1.1.4 of Moviestorm will be going into final QA today, and should be released in the next week or so.

It's mostly a patch release with a few bug fixes in, but also contains the necessary support for the upcoming buildings and vehicles packs which will be out in February.

Megastorm!

Dave likes 'em big. Screens, that is. He wasn't impressed with us showing Moviestorm movies on tiny little screens like Jeff's Nokia N78, David's Blackberry and iPod Touch, Johnnie's Android or Chris's PSP. You see, Dave likes to watch your movies on the biggest screen he can find. This is his home cinema setup, showing Saving Grace in HD on a screen about six feet wide. And believe me, it's quite a stunning experience.

(Now I'm wishing I'd grabbed a photo from last year's Cambridge Film Festival where we showed some of your movies on a real full-size cinema screen. Now that was truly awesome.)

World of Warcraft also looks impressive played on Dave's screen, as you'd expect. I don't even play the game, but I have to admit that some of the sequences are absolutely stunning when you see them that huge.

Running Moviestorm on it, and making movies on a giant screen is a very strange experience. It makes for a great editing environment, where you can really step back from your film. You get a very different sense of the atmosphere when you see the footage at that size, compared to looking at it on even a large monitor. And, as I've mentioned before, all the imperfections leap out at you when you're working with a huge image and chunky speakers. It's absolutely the opposite to having a movie studio on your lap, as you get with the EEE PC.