Jason Harbaugh

Using games as animation for movies: My attempt

I've gotten into the new 'machinima' craze of using a video game engine to animate a film. Much like Red vs. Blue I went with the short episode route, and I have an entire story that will be told. I'm using Battlefield: Vietnam as my game to tell the story.

So far I have two episodes up, with a new one coming each week. I've captured all of the footage by myself using 3 computers at the same time. Not an easy task. I have a friend that has been helping me with some of the voices. And as things get more complicated I'll get some help controlling extra characters.

I'm just starting at this kind of thing and the first episode is a little rough, the second is getting better. I just found out about a movie edition mod of Vietnam so I'll use that to capture the footage from Episode IV on.

Let me know what you think:
http://www.lynxfx.com/drafted.php

Has anyone else tried to do something like this? I was really surprised to learn of the huge community out there that makes these videos.

Scott L

I made one for my MOHAA clan but with no real theme other than just funny/action clips of us playing. I used Fraps also. To keep it on a long time though would fill my 2nd HD so I started using an outboard S-VHS VCR to just record 24/7 during matches or casual play. Re-capture the good parts back to computer. Plus now I can get our Teamspeak conversations.

I've seen some movies made and they're always funny. Ok just saw yours the 2nd one was pretty hilarious. The guy with the binocs was a real trip!

Is the movie edition mod like the option in Call of Duty to record gameplay not as movie frames but as in-game data? I loved this feature when I used it, the file sizes are real small so you record more liberally. Too bad I don't like COD.

PS- that's a slick PHP style, did you make it yourself?

Jason Harbaugh

Thanks Scott. Fraps definitely is a space hog. A gig per minute is what I usually see when using it. I use a seperate 120gig hard drive to store all of the captures and edits so it has been working out fine so far.

Do you have any of yours online?

The movie edition is just a mod that puts 'camera' vehicles on all the maps. You get in them and it is basically a free roam camera with different options such as tilt, pan, rotate, and different zoom speeds. It will be extremely useful on maps where I was just using a second helicopter to record shots.

And yeah I made the style, but I saw a similar one on another site and liked that so designed it around it.

Everyone is really liking the Sarg. Guess I'll need to bring him back for another episode.

Scott L

It's been a while but here it is:

Video

I've been working on the 2nd on & off, about half done.

Jason Harbaugh

Cool, I loved MoHAA. I like how you timed the gun shots to the beat at the beginning.

Jason Harbaugh

I just finished Episode III and it is now online.

http://www.lynxfx.com/drafted.php :b

Scott L

Just bumping your thread

Check out this Halo meets the Matrix movie:

http://homepage.mac.com/bungiefiles/...rix.lowres.mpg

Jason Harbaugh

hehe yeah I remember that one. Pretty funny stuff.

James T

Hey Jason,

Just saw your video. It's pretty funny stuff. It reminds me of those GI Joe voiceover cartoons that were floating around the net awhile back.

And since on the topic of game movies, does anyone have a link to the Rainbow 6 video where it shows weird and buggy ways of dying?

The Halo/Matrix was pretty sweet too. The people involved must have real patience to do something of that length.

Scott Simonian

Jason, I just read this thread for my first time. Watched your videos.

Awesome! You are doing an incredible job. Much better than Red vs Blue. Well, theirs seemed more professional yours has an edge in better humor.

So far so good. Keep the episodes coming.

Another supporter of 1080p and uncompressed multi-channel sound!

My Twin 18's. 50cuft of box, tuned to 11hz and with 2k watts on tap.