Getting Started

So you want to make machinima but don't know where to begin? Azure has asked me to write a getting started guide and here it is.

Before I begin, most of the machinima I make science fiction (see Star Wars: Darkness Saga and Chronicles of Humanity) but I am aiming to write this tutorial so it can apply to anything you might think of.

One of the best pieces of advise any experienced machinimator will give you, is to start with a game you know well. The reason for this is because you already know what the game can do, how to control the characters, what animations exist and so on.

Things I won't be covering are writing a script (there are plenty of guides for that out there already), finding your cast, I assume that at voiceacting.co.uk that shouldn't be a problem for anyone and video editing.

At the end of the article I will talk a little bit about choosing a game and some of the things to keep in mind. But for now, stick with what you know.

Capturing footage

Once you have your game, you need a way to capture the video footage. Some games (such as The Sims and the most recent Grand Theft Auto) have the ability for players to record events in the game world. If your game lets you do that, that's fine. For others, I recommend Fraps, its easy to use and there is a free version that let's you record up to 30 seconds at a time.

It's difficult to be more detailed here as each game is different. Some let you control only a single character, some let you control many and all from different perspectives, you'll have to experiment to find out what works best for you in your game.

When you're ready, pick out the characters you want to have for your story, find a good location, use whatever camera control you have to find good spots to record the action and you're all set.

For more advice, I recommend looking to see if other people are making machinima with the game you've chosen. There are sites, forums and communities for the more popular machinima games so you should find plenty of help out there. You'll also find some links to helpful sites at the end of this article, so be sure to check those out too.

Editing

Okay, so I said I wouldn't be covering video editing but it does need a brief mention for those people who are new to it.

This is how you turn your captured footage into an actual film, add in your voice recordings (since most games don't let you do that). There are a number of different packages for it but as with games, they are different so it would take far too long to try to explain them all here.

You should have Microsoft Movie Maker with Windows, its basic but a good starting point. Other popular choices are Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas.

And that's it! You should be able to use that to create your very first machinima film.

Other Tricks

Of course, there are more advanced tricks for making even better machinima, so I'll cover a few things I use.

First of all, as I said above, I make scifi films. This usually means I need a game for the characters and another game to show the spaceships flying around. What happens if I want to show a character looking out of a window at those spaceships? Same thing they do in live action films, place a blue or green screen outside the window (this may require modding, see the next section) and use your video editing software to composite that footage against what you want to be outside.

That basically means, anything that is green (or blue, depending on which colour you used) will be transparent, so the background footage is visible.

What if your character is green and blue? You're not limited to those colours, they are just the most commonly used. You just have to make sure the colour you pick is not something you want visible.

The next thing I do with all of my machinima is to mod the original game somehow. Why would I do that? Because while the game I'm using might have just about everything I want, maybe a character isn't quite right, or I can't find a good spot. This is where mods come in. If you're lucky, the game you're using can be modified easily, others can be tricky or even impossible, in which case you're stuck with what it has.

When it comes to modding, you have to choices. The easiest is to find mods other people have created. If you want a forest but your game doesn't have one, maybe someone else has made their own. Alternatively, you could create that forest yourself. But that's a bit beyond what I am going into here.

Another thing mods maybe able to do and I discovered with my final Star Wars machinima was the ability to import your recorded dialogue, so the characters can say it and move their lips in time with it. Keep in mind that greatly depends on the game and may not be possible.

Choosing an Engine

The final topic I'll cover is choosing a game. Sometimes you might have an idea for machinima but your favourite game might not work for it. For example, The Sims wouldn't be a good choice for a film involving lots of car chases. Are you going to need lots of action or maybe you just want characters to be social and not running around shooting things. Ask yourself what is it that you want to do with your machinima?

To make my Star Wars machinima, the choice was simple. There are a number of Star Wars games out there, so I took those and used a few mods to get the characters and locations I wanted.

But for Chronicles of Humanity, I was creating my own scifi setting. In the end I used The Sims 2 for all of the character scenes. The game offers a great deal of character customisation tools that are easy to use. It lets you morph the faces of your sims and pick their outfits, so it's perfect to get the look of your characters the way you want. You can also use the house building tools to build and decorate your sets. Combined with the ability to import custom textures (for clothes, walls, floors etc), I used this features to turn the brightly coloured world of The Sims into a dark and gritty futuristic setting.

Of course it's not a perfect choice. The character animations are overly energetic, waving arms around, jumping in the air and so on. In my project, that didn't really suit the mood of the story, so I was limited to only a small selection of animations. The game also has no effective way to control character lip movement, which in hindsight is probably the biggest flaw with the series. Something to keep in mind when making your decision!

Some popular choices for machinima that you may wish to look into are: The Sims 2 (and now 3), Grand Theft Auto 4, Halo (although many consider this to be over used), The Movies and Half-Life 2.

There are also several software packages that are designed just to create machinima but without the gameplay elements that can get in the way. Moviestorm and iClone are both worth a look.

Learning More

And that concludes my guide to getting started with machinima. There's a lot I haven't covered but fortunately I can point you to some websites you may find helpful.

First of all, the up coming Machinima Expo. It's taking place in Second Life, so anyone can attend and we'll be screening films, holding panels and all sorts. A good place to come if you're interested in learning more about machinima and meeting people from the community.

Related to that is the Machiniplex. This website showcases the very best of machinima. There are all sorts of films on there, so these are worth having a look at to see what other people are doing.

The Movies Underground was originally a site for The Movies community but has expanded to include other platforms too. Most notably Moviestorm and iClone. The people are very friendly and helpful, they also have a related site, TMOA Radio, with various streaming radio shows you can listen to where they discuss machinima.

I can also recommend the Zarathustra Studios website, run by Phil Rice. For many years he ran the Overcast, a machinima based podcast where he would discuss the latest developments. All 54 episodes are still there to listen to. Be sure to check out his blog as well.

If you're looking at The Sims 2, Michelle (check out The Snow Witch) has a very detailed guide on making machinima with the game.

Finally, check out my own site and feel free to contact me if you have any questions. The best way is via twitter and you can find mine here.