Kingdom of Sand - Teaser

Just testing.

Pentium 4 - 3.2Ghz - Ram 3GB - Windows XP - nVidia Gforce gtx 8800 oc2 (Ram 768 Mb) - 3D Connexion Space Navigator - Fraps - Sony Vegas.

Enjoy:

http://blip.tv/file/966798

comments appreciated

Pretty gorgeous! This obviously took a lot of hard work because your detail is stunning and your mechanima rocks!

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice teaser!

Excellent work! I loved the subtle movements in the SpaceNavigator (how did you avoid the FLYCAM text appearing?)

How about adding some faster cuts for when the rock music section really kicks in (excellent choice of music, btw) to really marry the two, visuals and audio?

To create faster pan/zoom sections, you have two choices. Remap the scales of the flycam axis relative to panning and zooming (although this may cause jerky movements) or use the Ken Burn technique in Vegas, whereby you can pan and zoom into/around a scene, using a timeline. This will not be subject to jerky movement and you can add all sorts of effects to the same timeline.
We use this technique quite a lot in some of our movies, especially the fashion shows, where lag prevents taking smooth movement panning/zooming http://www.nex-core-mm.com are some examples.

There is one other alternative, as you use a screen capture programme, rather than capture at AVI uncompressed, use a codec (select the right settings and you can still gain quality) and remap the movement scaling of the axis's for the Device you use, then you will find you can get smooth and faster movement. There are a couple of segments in this movie http://www.wba-advertising.com/shengrila/duchess.html select 'Sim 1' link, whereby we used this technique for fast realtime movement at relative high quality. (some elements of that movie were pre-windlight) As you can see, we also added lens flare to those fast fly thru scenes, although quite complicated to mimic exactly the fluid movement.

Back to the teaser..... excellent atmosphere, good composition and overall, well put together. Can't wait to see the whole movie..... I'm sucked in

First thnx to all of you for the comments. I made this teaser in 2 hours, there wont be a full lenght movie. It's an RPG sim so I thought to shot a teaser to make people starve for more, and maybe go take a look at the sim. It was an experiment, that is why I haven't added any slurl to the end.

To move the camera I just used the 3D Connexion Space Navigator, with very slow settings. I was lucky there was not so much lag so I didn't re-shoot too many times. I had not a screenplay, I just spent some time in the sim playing with the flycam, moving the camera many times b4 recording.

To capture I used Fraps, Full-size Capture, 25 fps, sometimes 30 fps. To post Edit I used Sony Vegas. To make all the tags disappear in the video I pushed Ctrl+Alt+F1 but FLYCAM writing still remains on the screen down on the right. That sucks, Since the dazzle release that writing pops up, It was not like that with the pervious releases. I submitted a ticket to Lindens but only god knows if they ever read it. However to cut FLYCAM writing I just add the black bars, for 16:9 view. So I do not zoom in post production nor I select the part of the screen I want to capture.

I think the idea of adding lens flare is something that is missing to this teaser and I will definitely keep in mind to use it in my future "outdoor" machinimas.

The music is from 300 (the movie) and yes, I wanted to add fast scenes, like swords battles, templars fighting and things like that but believe me, even if that sim is full of people playign like this, and has a ridiculous traffic, that evening it was a real desert

I am a maniac of video quality, I am never satisfied, so I shoot maximum quality possible in a reasonable size, then in post production I resize the video a little bit smaller, and finally compress.

Also I am curious to experiment both these one day:

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=210891

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=368934

2 hours! Wow! That is amazing! Well done! My film took me a whole week



Ahhh, slow settings - why did I no think of that - thank you!!



I think the new RC (1.20.11.90229) might fix that - it is downloading as I type this so I will test it shortly



I have both of those - they are very nice tools. The Filming Path needs to have building enabled in the sim and both need scripting enabled.

Try this little gem - only L$99: http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=190311

It is an amazing secret machinima tool!