Star Wars: Empire at War as a Director's Platform for Film

[NightmareKato]

I've noticed that what was created in the Star Wars: EAW second trailer, it had immense machinima potential as a game platform for filmmaking.

 

www.machinima.com

 

If some of you don't know, Machinima is filmmaking within game platforms (either through mods or the base game itself).

 

If EaW is going to release with tools that would allow us to "pre-script" events and camera action and pull off what was done in this new trailer, then Star Wars: Empire at War would truly appeal to many people in the creative communities.

 

I for one, would LOVE to create a fictional Star Wars series about an Imperial Fleet's exploits against the Rebel Alliance...Hmmm. Sounds good, ne?

 

Signed,

NightmareKato

[CTrooper1]

Sounds cool to me.

[Teradyn_pff]

I would like to see a recreation of the battle of Yavin with a more realistic fighter representation. But since we dont know about the full dynamics between the DS and the rest of the environment, don't know if you could film that. It would be nice if the death star trench shot in the new video was completely in game, but the death star explosion in particular looked scripted.

[Darkmark]

For me, I really can see the potential there. It would allow you to create some epic battles and recording of movement. Truely it depends on how flexable the camera is, and whether there is a camera control for close movement besides the battle cam.

 

You know, I'd really like to see a machinima comedy based on the star wars universe... that's be really cool.

 

Oh wait. I'm already doing that. See the sig.

[Stellar_Magic]

I've started work on one as well...

 

It's called Rebs and Imps. We'll be using Jedi Knight III: Jedi Academy as a platform as well as SW: Warlords mod for the extremely few space shots (90 percent of it will be on a planet with a Rebel Infiltraitor team facing off with a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, both of which are stranded on the world.

 

Think Red vs. Blue in the Star Wars Universe.

[NightmareKato]

I'd prefer to go with something along the lines of that COPS parody. Except that it's oriented in space.

 

Imperial Pilot:"Yeah, we do this 'cos it feels good keeping the order against those filthy Rebels...they always try to upsurp the Emperor everywhere they can, and we're here to put a stop to that. *hawks a loogie, then spits*"

 

...yeah.

[Foshjedi2004]

Could work I guess. Not really sure.

 

I am not sure if that it would lead towards any major awards or exactly you would get all the voices done for it. But It could look really good.

[Little.B]

If somebody wants to start such a project count me in Im already into moviemaking with games so I bring in a little bit of knowledge and experience

[Darkmark]

The project team I lead only really struggles finding voice actors really. That and one damn model that will be complete at some point...

 

Nice to hear about that Stellar. If you have a website or anything I'd be interested to see it, since ours is also filmed with JA and follows the similar RvsB kind of set up. Dark Jedi vs Jedi in ours though. Incompetant, blundering Jedi make for so much fun. Problem is I have to rewrite the script a third time because I wrote too much...

 

Half an hour per episode we estimated

 

Originally we planned to just continue to film with JA for the flight/battle scenes simply because we had the network set up for that purpose, but depending on the camera control, EAW may well be a much easier and more cinematic platform to use.

[Stellar_Magic]

Well we haven't gotten to the point where we can start filming, right now I'm working on completing the skins for the characters as well as building the two main sets for the series (Unfortunately one is only going to be used in the pilot film).

 

We're using the JA+ mod to add additional animations for the characters. Unfortunately, I can't figure out if there's a way to get the models to have their lips move in multiplayer... If we can't have moving lips, oh well, we'll just have to go ahead without them.

 

Unfortunately the script I've got calls for a lot more speaking parts then even Red vs. Blue's normal episodes, several fo which are female.

[Darkmark]

Ok, I know it's slightly off topic, but to make them use their mouth you have to spend a bit of time being clever with the taunts. What we've been doing is replacing the taunt file with our own scripted piece, along with the gaps where other characters would be speaking. You then start filming where everyone taunts at once. As a consequence, they all begin the converstaion you just set up as their taunt. Original testing for that was fun, I had Luke singing away some random mp3 I put in. It has some errors sometimes, but we seem to work them out.

 

JA+ I find good for action, like lightsaber fights, but there's a better mod for emotions I was recommended a while back by the UKMercs (Made Great and Majestic Empire) known as 'Lost Hope'. It's old now, but has more emotes than JA.

 

I hope that makes sense. I don't want to get too off topic here, but if there's anything there that didn't make sense you can ask me in a PM or on the new Forced forums we just set up (Follow the sig).

[Phantom_pff]

that would be awesome to make a mine-series of our own about EaW. And looking at it in a strategic point of view, you could record the battle and see what you did to win or what you did wrong that caused you to lose the battle.

[NightmareKato]

My first EaW video: "The basics of Rebellion".

 

It'll basically outline all important points of fleet warfare...then moving onto more advanced tactics in future series.

The series will probably be aimed at teaching newbies in EaW the fundamentals of tactics. Teaching manuevers such as the Ackbar Slash and Thrawn Pincer, among others.

 

The series name: TBD (Suggestions welcome )

[Darkmark]

They might be better done as ingame replays. Don't get me wrong, a film like that would be useful, but if it is possible to save battle replays they would probably be more useful to learn from than one designed to show the battle cinematically.

 

In that sense, it's less a mini-series as a set of strategy videos.

 

Also, sorry if anyone did post on our forums. I woke up this morning to find them down again . They are new, so we still have kinks to sort out... just PM me on these forums for the meanwhile instead, that'll do.

[Logain]

that sounds like an awesome idea,

 

you'd have to have some decent video editing software though, to pause it and insert comments about the battle