A morning of editing: how do I shot movie

[Invisusira]

I do a TON of test renders when I'm editing footage to make sure the timing of everything is dead on. Thought I'd share a few with you guys so you can catch a glipse at The Process.

It's really quite hard to just pick stuff together randomly. You are far better off having a pretty exact idea of what you want in your head or storyboarded out. For this particular clip, I wanted a big crypt lord bursting through the door and knew pretty much exactly how I wanted it to look.

First I set the scene up to get the basic feel for the motion.
http://www.modenstudios.com/atraira/Mov ... mp%201.mov

After a few more test renders to tweak the timing, I was ready to start adding some fodder in.
http://www.modenstudios.com/atraira/Mov ... %201_4.mov

A few more test renders to perfect the timing of the flying bodies and I was happy with it. Now, this is a critical stage. This is where many aspiring movie editors call it a day. WRONG. A HUGE part of movies is the part you as the viewer don't see - the camera. Watch any real movie and, if you pay attention, you will realize that very, very rarely - if ever - is the camera completely static. Watch the above film again and notice how the camera just sits there. That's a big problem with most WoW movies - the author records it, edits it, and that's that. Since you're recording a static screen with a software camera, you're going to have to make your own camera moves if you want the video to look proper.
http://www.modenstudios.com/atraira/Mov ... %201_7.mov

Once you get the feel for it, creating dynamic camera moves is pretty easy. As you can see, the scene looks a LOT better now. I was happy with that move and didn't have to test render again afterwards. Now the final stage - color balance. That scene takes elements from a few different places, and none of them really match. Adjusting the Hue/Saturation and Levels - like in Photoshop - are very critical to a good movie. I can afford to be a LITTLE sloppy here (I would spend some more time getting the Lord right) because the entire sequence this scene is part of is going to have another set of coloration effects over the top of it; however, the closer I get the better it will look in the end. Here's what I end up with:
http://www.modenstudios.com/atraira/Mov ... %201_8.mov

[Bonasus]

I have a little video editing experience, but I'm really just getting into it.

When using Model Viewer, I have trouble getting the animations I need to flow...something as simple as having a character kneel, rise, and then stand there for a pause. I've thought about trying to line up the "kneel to standing" and just "standing" but it's hard to line up the two separate animations...is there some shmancy editing magic or knowledge I'm missing that might work better?

[Invisusira]

You didn't say if you're using Mac or PC. I think the PC version has that sort of thing built in, but the Mac version has absolutely nothing.

I simply shoot all the animations I want without changing the camera angle and then line them up in After Effects. It's very simple, not sure what exactly you're have a problem with here?

[Bonasus]

My problem is mostly that I'm a complete noob at this. Still practice makes perfect...or less of a fail. And yeah, I made the mistake of moving the camera just a hair so it wasn't lining up right.

I'm on a PC, are you saying model viewer has something built in for this (where this is...multiple animations in a sequence?)? I must be missing it, though your way is completely logical...I think I just didn't want to tell myself I had to reshoot some things.

Thanks for your help, you're one of the few people who do Machinima that I've actually gotten a response from.

[Invisusira]

To my knowledge, the Windows Model Viewer has a ton of features. I thought it allowed you to customize animations to play in a sequence, I could be wrong tho as I've never used it.

And yeah. I tend to avoid the machinima community. While there are a few good people and most of them are at least good video editors, for the most part they're a bunch of one-hit wonders who became elitists after one of their movies became popular... and then proceeded to just keep making that same movie over and over.
It's kind of an amusing parody of the rap industry - a bunch of people with more ego than talent that endlessly guest-star in each others' videos instead of having to think outside the box and try something new.

[Grape_Cola]

What i wanna know is how you managed to get those camera sweeps and zooming while you were in game. I doubt you just press Alt+Z and carefully left to right until it looks smooth enough, do you?