The Widow's Tale- Movie

This is a story set in WW2. I am still trying to explore how far you can take Narrative in SL Machinima.

It features well known Child Avatar Marianne McCann.



The main body of the score is a piece for string orchestra and Harp.
All using Virtual Instruments. ( Garritan, VSL, Stradivari)

If you are presented with a choice to see it as mov or flv, I urge you to take the mov option.
flv does a reasonable job on the visuals, but squashes the audio down horribly, to a mono mush.

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EDIT

Here is another version of the movie, which has been re-edited by AWM mars. This is one he has prepared for streaming into SL. I think he has used his own proprietary brand of Codex Voodoo on this. This is one third of the original size I gave him.

Very nice-well done.

Not sure if this will be a universal problem, but the video took ages to buffer (about 15 mins).
However the wait was worth it. What a great movie. I've never seen Avatar tears before, nice touch. The music went very well with the mood. A big thumbs up from me

Great movie - Well done!!

Glad to help, Mister Miles!

Mari

dunno if its just me, but I see nothing pointing to the vid =/

Any help?

HHmmmmmmm funny dont you see the url in the OP ??

Lets try again.

figured it out.. I see it when quoting.. the firefox greasemokey bbcode emulation makes it so that when you do URLS like that, and have no text between the tags, it makes the non-text into a URL.

Normally, if you use URL=, then it will make the text between the tags a URL, whereas if you put [ url ] address [/ url ], it will just make the URL out of the URL itself.. sounds kinda confusing how I word it..

Anyways, thanks!

sadly wmv isnt the greatest format to use when trying to stream off the internet. I don't know what the data bit rate is... but maybe I can assist, drop me a email with a link I can download it from, and I'll shoot one back at ya toot sweet :¬)

[email]contact@aworldmaker.co.uk[/email]

It didn't take me forever to buffer, I thought you did a great job here.

What did you use for capture?? FRAPS?

Dearly Darling,

I enjoyed your film very much. You have a lovely day.

Ever Yours,

Mrs. Showdog Tiger

Thank you friends, for kind words. I truly appreciate you taking time to post something here.It is always useful to get feedback, positive or negative.

To clear up some matters arising....

As to how long it takes to buffer. that would depend whether you see it in the default Bliptv flv format, which has a much smaller file size, but a reduced framerate and horribly squashed audio.
Or, my requested mov option, which has the full framerate (25 fps) and glorious Stereo audio.

I have taken up AWM's generous offer, and have contacted him by e-mail. I will post the results back here, so all forum readers can benefit.

I used Fraps to capture at a set rate of 25 fps. I make my captures at 680x 480 as this helps me to get the desired frame rate.

I am still experimenting with assorted codex, to try and find the best compromise between File-size and quality of image and audio.

I notice that many machinima pieces have very nasty audio content.This is understandably one of the first places to apply heavy codex to bring the file size down.

The Audio in my pieces is every bit as important as the Video, so I am still searching for the right codex.

You will get really good video quality, sound, and compression size by using h.264 MP4. Getting Quicktime Pro lets you do this easily, and is well worth the $30USD for any video maker.

I watched all three of these new releases back to back and it was fascinating. My comments are those of pure audience - I'm more ignorant than you can imagine about machinima.

More than any other videos, even Robbie Dingos, yours seem to me to exude a love of SL and its avatars. All your choices for both avatars and locations are well detailed, lovely, and often unusual.

Having been an avid shopper, I know that you really work on finding avatars and products to give your characters the perfect look and movement. So often the avatars in machinima are vanilla - I look at them and say, yah, I had that AO, oh that's so-and-so's skin, doesn't look that good on that shape, why is the main character wearing those blah clothes ... it's distracting. I admire your choices, and so can immerse myself in your videos as I do in SL.

Yes Geius, with the help of AWM Mars, I have finally figured out how to use Quicktime Pro.

By the way I used your Motor Mouth, in a few of the scenes. I really like it.

It is a snap to use, and I discovered that you dont have to actually speak into the Mic to trigger the animations, you can just tap it at various strengths.

Useful to know for those avatar's who are a little shy of broadcasting their voices over the grid.

coughs..........

Nika thank you so much for generous words, you have discerened my preoccupations with uncanny accuracy.

I can't really build much, I can't script, I can't animate.............. but I could shop for England at the next SLOlympics.

I fret for hours about a simple stand animation, and have searched the grid allover to find the best anime's to populate my AO. Mixed in with this orgy of shopping, I scour the grid for locations, to try to find something that could drive the Narrative a little, as well as enhance the mood.

For me SL is the apotheosis of the "Workaround",....... the way Skin makers like Namssor Daguerre and Ayesha Bisiani take such pains to make our primitive avatar mesh look so real, is a wonderful testament to the creativity of the workaround mindset.

It is nice to realise my fussing over these matters is noticed.

And finally..............

As promised, here are the settings that AMW found optimal for a quicktime version.

He used the Sorenson3 codec for the Video

And the IMA 4:1 for the Audio.

This reduced the file size of my original wmv file by a third.

What a great community this machinima part of the forum is. AWM and Geuis have been so kind, patient and helpful. We are all very lucky to have them here.

All I can say is WOW! Very well done. I was thinking of trying to make a movie. After seeing this, I feel a little intimidated now

Keep up the good work.

Rox

Just so you know, that just by using the Sorenson 3 codec and IMA 4:1 for music/voice will not automatically give you streaming quality movies in SL at large resolutions. The processes that I carryout on the movie long before its is 'finished off' using those settings, goes way beyond one process. What is compressed inside the header information, now 'flattened' cannot reveal the other codec profiles stored or the post production methods deployed.

It is true that I managed to reduce the movie down by a third without loss of quality or resolution, but this was after I de-engineered the stream to about halfway back through the process, before being able to apply some of our techniques. If I had the orginal data, I could have reduced it by 50% of the orginal, again without loss of quality. I am glad I was able to assist you, as your movie deserved it. It was a pleasure to work on that element and admire the tehcnique of editing, production and care taken, creating the movie from many perspectives. Not many Directors can say that.

Perhaps you could provide a link to the movie version I post produced, if for no other reason, let others see the differences, if any, other than file size and data bit rates?

Thank you Rox.
Dont be intimidated though. Just dive right in and give it a go. You have to do one movie to know what you need to do, and in what order.

That is part of the fun of it though.

Sure, ok AWM here is the link to your version made for streaming.



I owe you a huge debt of gratitude for taking the time and trouble in doing this.
I am obliged to you Sir.............deeply obliged.

You are very welcome

One thing I did notice was, the link you put up, was the version I took liberties with, by editing a small section, simply changing it to black and white, I didn't think you would show that one lol..

This is the version I prepared for streaming which is almost 50% of the orginal size http://blip.tv/file/591738 sadly this has been converted to flv format, however it streams well and maintains much of the quality of the mov version I worked on despite the conversion.

However, the movie you shared, is excellent and I have watched it many times. You captured the many emotions, taking the viewer on a journey and created a master peice. You are applauded sir.