[MOVIES] Come and watch SL trailers! Wheee!

Hrmmm... how to start this off. O yeah, recently noticed the regions of Varnish and Supernova are hosting dual mirrors of a SL Movie Trailer Contest. Kind of funny, the land is pretty blank... assorted chairs... it's just stark so you can FOCUS ON THE SCREEN. @_@

Five trailers... in case your streaming goes all wonky like awkward turnip-on-radish action, you can download the trailers FOR YOUR PLEASURE with these URLs (thanxies Aliasi for the pointer!):
These aren't ALL the names involved, in some cases there are teams and actors so be sure to let the credits roll. Some entrants have their own download mirrors... erm... I guess this thread would be a great place to supply more background and any other info like that! w00t!


Official Linden announcement is here:
/3/f3/54702/1.html

And yeah there's voting, in case you can't find the voting booth it's right here @ Supernova (218, 125). Please stand right in front and smile. Vote ends in less than a week so rock it!


I don't know if this is considered "machinima" (a word which always reminds me of "paper mache", and I do not personally relate to that, but I'm here for the fun... so yupyup, give it a looksee 'cuz these Residents have really poured out their creative visions for the enjoyment of the community!

Thanks for posting the weblinks, Torley - I couldn't find them.

I'm also mirroring my movie on my own website: http://members.limitless.org/~heartwood/Fly_Here.mov -- The compression is a little better than the one on the SL site.

Thanks for posting the links, Torley.

Supernova is not a bad place but, first time you port there, if your draw distance is not set very far, you kind of wonder where you are supposed to go to watch the movies.

Also, this should allow us to see the trailers without any break-ups. Considering the amount of effort that clearly went into making them, that's a Good Thing(tm).

May the best trailer win...

Wendel

cool.

so what are y'all using to get these kinda framerates? because I've tried capturing SL video, and its more like a slideshow of still images.

I urge anyone who hasn't seen these videos to make time to do so ASAP -- the voting ends Sept 21, and the winner will be featured on the front page as representing SL.

Those of you who express concern for SL's image, and those of you who want new people to see the good side of our world should definitely take the few minutes needed to see these. By the time I'd watched 3 of the videos, and one in particular , I was ready to sign up for this wonderful world of imagination -- then I remembered I'm already here.

You can look for the Supernova sim on your Map button. TP yourself in, and the voting machine is right there at the TP point. The video view screens are arranged in a wide arc around that vote machine. Just work your way around the arc, hitting "Play" on your movie control to see each video.

This is exciting stuff. Even if you aren't excited about a Linden promotional trailer, you owe it to yourself to see what other people's vision of SL looks like.

Everyone could use some inspiration now and then.

I'm impressed with all of them.

...


... but I gotta say Javier Puff's just totally blew me away. It's professional quality, clean, well-paced, communicates a broad cross-section of the community, and it leaves me feeling excited about Second Life.

Me too. After seeing it, I wanted to join whatever world that was on the screen...

oh, yeh, I'm already in it!

The movies look much much better on my desktop. The quality does not reach me when I watch them in SL.
R
p.s. Puff will win put that on tv and welcome the lag lol

If you are quicktime streaming in both cases, then the quality difference may be because the land is set to "auto-align". I understand it works by resampling at the server, and damages image quality. LL documentation warns of this.

If you have control of the land, turn off "aoto-align" in the media window, and click "align" for yourself in the texture window. It needs to be done again for a different movie, of course, which is what "auto-align" was invented to solve.

/clap and cheer

There are several themes here that I can see LL using to promote SL to various audiences. Diversity (be yourself), Neverending Entertainment, and the Mystique (no pun intended) of Building Your Own Fantasy World are very different ideas that appeal, individually, to groups of people who've already identified themselves by focusing on specific websites, mailing lists and such.

A contest that chooses a single winner seems a bit shortsighted in view of the number of fabulous entries and their specific themes.

Fraps (www.fraps.com) for one thing. Un-laggy sims (mostly islands without a lot of people of them) for another. There were a coupple times I had to delay filming scenes because a lot of people were in the sim and the lag would have made for bad images. (I have a rather mid-range computer too, so while better hardware = better capture FPS, you can get by on lesser.) Fraps captured at 30fps, the average FPS comming out of SL was 10-15, 20 on a good day (Some anime movies are shot at 15 FPS, american animation is done at 24, live footage is 24-30, roughly speeking, depending whether you're in NTSC or PAL).

You're not the only one to think that, someone else I talked to didn't vote because he didn't think that any one video described SL the 'best'. He also suggested that Javier's, Total Boffin's (Second Take Productions) and my efforts should be somehow combined...he thought I had the best story, Total's had the best focus on avatars and Janivers had the best technical and production values. I think I agree with that assessment.

I REALLY like that one as well. However, the one spot of improper grammar in the beginning kind of bothered me. "What if there was a world," is wrong. It should read, "What if there were a world." The correction should be made before this becomes official, if it wins. The fastest way to look unproffesional and to cause people to doubt the validity of your message is not to write it properly. Other than that, it's incredibly good. I love the pace, the music, the color scheme, the feel. It's great.

Cool stuff! I've added them to the Web TV Guide on FreeView, for the lazy people who want to show this stuff in-world.

All of these were very good. Each speaks well to a different market, as has been said.

I will say that Javier's said "SIGN UP NOW AND ENJOY YOUR SECOND LIFE," loud and clear. It was the most accessible and gave a very accurate picture of what a lot of people do to enjoy SL.

Total's video, which is excellent as usual, should be shown to anyone who is already in SL and has "lost the faith." It actually inspired me to start building again.

I have to thank Total and Javier for including Parrot Island in their movies. We are open to all filming and offer a low-lag mature sim with generous tax breaks. We have a complete tropical island at ground level as well as a residential neghborhood at 300m. If you need filming permits (ability to rez items for longer than one minute), please IM Kim Manilow.

>>However, the one spot of improper grammar in the beginning kind of bothered me. "What if there was a world," is wrong. It should read, "What if there were a world."

I hope the judges would be very lenient regarding this mistake. I think this mistake is so common that it should be integrated in the language lol. English is not my first language..so I can sympathize. When I was in England, people would get annoyed if I used z in sympathize for e.g. ah grammar so boring.... hmm... dont even know what my mother tongue..is Creole, French, Hindi, Bhojpuri... oh well guess, it is an identity problem having grown up in a country that had been colonised by Protuguese, Dutch, French, English in succession.. I think given the wide range of nationalities in SL, language should be the last thing to consider and such mistakes are easily fixed.

Btw I like the rabbit story too....... and feel that my wife would like it too.. it felt a bit girly to me and I agree that all perspectives should be represented.

Moriz

Man! All of these are incredible! I'm going to have a rough time voting!

Kudos to all the creators!! Beautiful work!!

Very nice work!

Each one has different aspects that I like, would be nice if you could mash them all into one . I think they should all get a place on the website somewhere!

And thank you Torley for posting these.

Just one note... uh...


Can anyone else confirm this?

If so... hang on to your thumbs! @_@

Yes, Torley, it is. Both a friend of mine and I tested it this morning, and it is broken. My assumption is that it suffered a stack-heap collision because of all the data keys stored in it of those who have already voted.

When I watched these - correction, tried to watch these - they kept starting over, each time playing a little more. This is the only time my system has ever had a problem exactly like this in SL. I know at least one other person experienced the same problem. For me, it rendered the exhibition pretty much useless; I gave up on watching them.

Thanks for posting the urls.

I am not asking for help solving the buffering problem or whatever it is for purposes of watching the films; I will use the urls. However, suggestions as to how to keep this problem from happening might be useful to people.

Wow..such different flavors to each one. I love them all! Great work folks!

The voting machine indeed is broken, and someone reset it, but now the results are different, and the machine still looks broken. The "bar graph" doesn't match the numbers.

Is there some better way to do this?

And why must it be a popularity contest, anyway? Why not submit the finalists to a group of disinterested people who've never played SL -- 50 random WoW players or some such?

Ricky, I'm mainly addressing your last paragraph here. This originally was to be voted on by a panel of Lindens. That was one of the first things I asked on behalf of my group before we began work. I was told that there might perhaps be a "Resident's Choice Award" after the Lindens had already chosen the winner. Imagine my surprise a week or so before the due date when I got the email saying that it was now a player vote.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not complaining, I just half wish it would have stayed consistant.

1. Kudos to the entrants for all the hard work.
2. It would be nice if the movies were presented without names, at least prior to voting.
3. It's very important to proofread your titles and credits.