Mass Effect - Puppeteering the pointless 3rd person
Mass Effect and the Thrill of Seeing Genres of computer gaming have long found their conventions identified by modes and mechanics of viewership and control than more traditional narrative and thematic traits. Thus games are foremost referred to by terms such as First Person Shooter (FPS) Role Playing Game (RPG) and Real Time Strategy (RTS) rather than SciFi, Horror or Noir (though they very often possess these traits as well)
What this implies is a primary concern of games being focused on How a Story is engaged over the What of the storys depiction. The mechanics of engagement on the part of the viewer are governed by the vantage point of control they are presented. This range spans from the intimacy and immediacy of First Person (Bioshock, Half Life, et al) through to the omnipotent remove of a God-View 3rd Person (Command and Conquer, Company of Heroes etc).
Between these two extremes - and their various implementations and variations - sits the venerable 3rd Person Shooter. The addendum of the term Shooter constructs an intimacy to the scene whilst retaining a remove from the immediacy of 1st Person. Into this vein of games that exploit this viewership of Intimate Remove we add recent titles such as Arkham Asylum, Dead Space and Mass Effect.
Here we find a question begging - Why 3rd Person? What does removing the player from the personal avatar embodiment of 1st Person add to the experience?
Gaming
is hip. It's hip in popular terms with some figures reporting some 60%
of US households in 2009 owning a console and with the massive
penetration of home PC's we can safely assume many of those also have
games installed and being used right along with pron surfing. The
computer gaming industry's turnover annually is now measured in
billions and rivals Hollywood. Gaming is also hip in the media either
as bone of complaint and controversy or as a medium to leverage for
marketing benefit and demographic relevance. Gaming demonstrates even
more hipness in academic spheres as a field of study where it?s become
the new black for garnering research grants and premising conference
papers.
But I think the word "Game" is a problem?
There are a number of ways we might see this problem. Observe that the following are all considered Computer/Video games: - Tetris - Bioshock - Nintendogs - World of Warcraft
In
both popular and academic regard there would be little objection to a
group moniker of 'game' being applied to all these. And yet these 4
popular examples are as radically different as hiku is from an article
in the New England Journal of Medicine. Whilst we would call both 'writing' such a term is useless as a grouping or a definition.
So this prompts us to consider a definition of the word 'game' itself. Here's a few :
"a contest with rules to determine a winner"
"a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome"
"competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other"
There
are two concise implications of such definitions; the first is that a
Game must have a clear objective and competitive challenge/obstacle
that must be overcome. And further that a game must embody a clear
Win/Loose paradigm.
How are ethical decisions made on screen? How are choices between good and evil, right and wrong, light and dark, depicted in screen media? How do the renderings of such ethical conundrums of character, plot and circumstances differ between film and game incarnations?
Game Ethics is a new research project I am involved in that seeks to examine the depiction of ethical choices in screen-media. In particular this research looks at film>game adaptations and in particular the work of Russian filmmakers and game developers.
We've set up a new site to house this work as it develops which you can view at gameethics.weebly.com
There's nothing like being paid to watch movies and play video games :)
From the outline to the research:
This project will investigate character construction and narrative
structures in the adaptation of cinematic texts into interactive
computer games. This is a new and urgent field of inquiry in the
emerging Russian media and film studies. Focusing on three recent
Russian blockbuster films Night Watch, Antikiller and Company 9 and
their adaptations into computer games, this study will investigate the
strategic revisioning of film characters and dénouements under
conditions of interactivity. Outcomes from this research will be the
first survey of the burgeoning field of Russian domestic computer game
development in the context of a booming local box office.
I have finally returned to the Game Probe series i began sometime
ago that examines the impact and effect of computer game aesthetics as
cienmatic works. I have a backlog of games I have earmarked to be the
focus of future episodes and have picked up the series with Mirror's
Edge. This episode looks at the construction of a sense of bodily self,
known as proprioception, within the game and the dynamics of visceral
engagment.
A little gem from the wilds of the internet that is not only useful but also prompts some thinking around the philosophical culture of gaming and computer technology.
Game Hunter allows for entries for each game in your collection and for you to annotate such detail as developer and publisher, whether you have completed the game or not, what platform the game is for and personal notes. Making the process easier is the fact that Game Hunter talks directly to Amazon online to automatically retrieve cover art, game description blurb and all the tech specs and publishing details.
Game hunter will particularly appeal to those with console based collections who often find themselves loaning games to friends and fear losing track of who has what?
Game Hunter is smart, simple to use, effective, detailed, stable and free. Almost nothing not to like. There's only one irony - its Mac software.
As any serious gamer knows the good old Mac, great in so many ways, has none the less been an decidedly lame gaming platform for a very long time. (The true irony of this being that the very very early Macs were known for games and Jobs himself, as a young pimply nerd, was an avowed computer gamer)
The more audacious part of me might contest that the Mac conceptual philosophy itself is the antithesis of gaming culture.
Modding, manipulation, customization, a proactive handing over of the product to the users and letting them shape it as they will; these are (or at least were) the hallmarks of gaming's distinctive creative-culture that set it apart from other forms.
By contrast the Mac is designed on a premise of integrated homogenization; of a specific prescription of limited access and control; of a deliberate uniformity, conformity and predictability.
Now don't get me wrong this is not of itself a criticism of the Mac rather this is actually the strength of the Mac - the reason it has been overly stable and secure in a computing world otherwise fraught with instability and vulnerability. Where the PC, by its relative openness, is a melting pot of infinite variability in hardware and software configuration, the Mac's predefined inflexible uniformity heralds that most coveted of technology traits, consistency.
But this perspective, inherent in the Mac over many generations, is arguably the antithesis of gaming's origins. Since the days of text-based adventure games and the legendary 'crashed the network' distribution of the original Doom, through to the vibrant and rampant modding, MMORPG and machinima cultures of the contemporary age, gaming has not only been built, but thrived, on ProdUser (producer-user to quote Axel Bruns) culture and user co-creation. The ability for the user to take control of a game (and its hardware) not just as a player but as a creator (be it building Mods or just implementing them) has been the lifeblood of gaming culture. (*there's an excellent slide-share presentation by Axel Bruns called Anyone Can Edit here)
But something happened with the Console Wars. As gaming moved from a 'nerd' past time to a mainstream entertainment in the home living room it moved from a sophisticated ProdUser culture in line with a PC perspective, to a conforming, lowest common denominator, no control, use-as-is, philosophy hat seems decidedly Mac-like.
To be accessible to the every-man gaming had to be watered-down for the console and largely shed the prod-user, proactive techno-ownership that had been the traditional pillars of gaming culture. The console had to steal back the proactive control gaming had once openly relinquished to users. In doing so there were gains - wider audience, easier game development processes and delivery, mass production and economies of scale. But there were also distinct losses (albeit losses often only obvious to veteran gamers), gaming became simpler, homogenized, less sophisticated, less adventurous, less malleable. More significantly, gaming also became more 'disposable' as the console possesses that unique pick-up/put-down casual nature that the PC largely does not.
That process has a direct parallel with the philosophy and culture of the Mac. The arrival of the Mac heralded an concept of a hi-tech machine whose modus opperandi was to hide its hi-techness. The Mac is built on removing the user from the inner-workings, of creating a ?veil of ignorance? between the user's intentions and the mechanics of their realization. The Mac has presented itself since the 80s as the computer for people who don't want to know anything about computers.
Again, this is no criticism, just observation and one that reflects in parallel how I feel about my car. I don't want to know what's under the hood so long as it gets me from A-B.
Further their are distinct technical advantages of a closed system for both the Mac and Consoles. For game developers the console is a closed, pre-defined, predictable and uniform platform, there are no custom variations to accommodate. The Mac is the same, no real custom configuration of hardware, uniform predictability garnered from excluding the user from a deeper level control. When you buy a console game you have 100 percent guarantee the game will work. When you buy a PC game no such guarantee exists as the variables of GPU, CPU and OS are almost infinite.
Discussions of the demise of PC gaming, swamped by the console juggernaught, have raged for a decade or more. Of course extremities of these debates are obtuse and there really is nothing to suggest that PC gaming is going anywhere save for a move (which happened long ago) from the mainstream to the alternative. And in this regard the PC will retain a very specific role in being the forward scout of gaming development. Technical and Aesthetic and Artistic evolution of gaming will continue to be pioneered on the PC and filter down to the console simply because the PC is conducive to the founding culture of gaming - dynamic user co-creation combined with raw processing power that a console cant match.
The tragedy I find in this however is that so many newer generation gamers I encounter seem no less passionate about the art of gaming and yet their only real experience of it is the insular predictability of their consoles.
If I may make a analogy, it is much like a person who considers themselves a passionate music fan - avidly collecting and playing their music collection - but whose only source of music is commercial generic FM pop radio blaring Britany Spears and Beyonce. With a twist of the dial to independent, underground, alternative music stations that persons world might well be turned inside out and horizons, heaven forbid, expanded. But ignorance makes Brittany Blissful.
I see many of my students seemingly in this category. - passionate about gaming but with a perspective on gaming spied through the confined prism of insularity that is the Console. Gamers who have never downloaded a Mod, never built there own level, never swapped levels with friends, never modded a character or made Machinima movies, never built up characters in MMORPG?s over months and years, never tweaked hardware, spec?d out a gaming PC or over-clocked a graphics card. I feel like they are stuck on gaming equivalent of commercial radio and missing out on a bigger world of gaming experience. I want to open their eyes to games that exceed the console's limitations, I want them to experience the precision of FPS games with mouse and keyboard rather than the spongy computer-assist clumsiness of the Controller. I want them to possess an Ownership over their gaming experience as prod-users rather than lounge room disposable gaming consumers.
But in making such arguments I inevitably start to sound like a nostalgic old dad and I resort simply to declaring emphatically that "consoles are for pussies", smiling condescendingly and walking off with an air of superiority..
Thus we return to Game Hunter - a very useful utility for 'hardcore' gamers.... for the Mac. Not so long ago the very idea that the sort of people who would want a Database tool for the computer game collection would use a Mac would be absurd. But it seems the over-bearing onslaught of the Console has changed everything. I love my consoles (i do own two of them) but if the balance swings too far gaming as an art will loose its edge and become mired in the predictable, inflexible lowest-common-denominator environment of the console.
And a sad day that would be.... much like all the world?s alternative music stations sucked into a black void leaving only the dulcet tones of Beyonce on the airwaves....
Where the traditional tools of media production have remained remarkably unadventturous over the pat few years (NLEs and DAWs have really evolved very little in concept), there have been a set off digital tools built around Machinima that have shown true innovation in creative software concept.
Real-time virtual world production has been embraced and dynamically explored by a host of tools such as iClone, Moviestorm and Antics3D. What the later two of these has also done is breakdown traditional software financial structure. Antics and Moviestorm as commercial enterprises both function on the idea of selling 'content' and 'resources' rather than the tool itself. In the case of Antics3D the product was available in a free Base version and a low-cost Pro version. In both cases the commercial focus was on selling extra content (models and sets and pre-build 3D objects) to end users rather than a high cost initial product.
These endeavors by Moviestorm and Antics are part of a world wide search on the part of software developers of all kinds to find a viable economic model in the digital age. Certainly the old model of selling a fixed software product is highly problematic in an age where 'illegal' duplication and distribution of software is all to easy. The digital age is one that does not respect traditional notions of 'ownership' and nor should it innately. A computer is designed purely to do exactly this - copy and distribute and as such any defiant demand to conform to concepts that pre-date digital seems fundamentally flawed at best, absurd at worst.
But as developers search for a new economic business model there will inevitably be failures. It seems that Antics is a casualty of not striking a fulcrum in economic viability as it now closes its doors and ceases development.
This from the Antics press release...
Important Notice to Antics3D Customers and Users Antics Technologies will no longer be offering Antics3D for purchase or download, and subscriptions can no longer be renewed after 28th November 2008. We will continue to support existing customers, and allow access to content until at least June 2009.
The demise of Antics is a shame as Antics really did present a very powerful system for Pre Vis and animation and real-time machinima. It instigated a great deal of fresh thinking into creative software. All is certainly not lost as Moviestorm and iClone continue to champion real-time virtual filmmaking and machinima as well as a host of up and coming tools in this rapidly expanding market sector.
But it does make me worry that the 'new' financially viable business model that will work For the digital age and not against it is still elusive and unknown. Moviestorm in particular has a similar economic concept as Antics - I hope they know something Antics didn't and have along term viability plan.
Just when it seemed computer games where entering a new phase of elevated sophistication, of subtlety and depth, it seems there is still much to disappoint.
And in the true nature of disappointment it is the failure to live up to a extant high standard that provides the greatest short fall.
If all games achieve only banal mediocrity then it doesn?t take much to stand out. But when there have been games of late that have delivered sublime artistry and a complex sense of plot, poetry and narrative then the fall from grace when a game blithely fails to keep up is all the more profound.
I, like so many others have eagerly awaited the release of Fallout3. Previous Fallout?s aside, the prospect of open-world, multi-narrative driven, RPG built off the foundation of Oblivion had all the hallmarks of a major moment in contemporary gaming.
Now 12 hours of game play into the Fallout3 experience I am both awed and appalled. Lifting its gameplay directly from Oblivion, Fallout begins way ahead of the eight-ball with a smooth, dynamic and detailed gameplay systems. Sophisticated but accessible, able to be as complex or transparent as you need or want. Visually Fallout is superb; design and world detail is one thing but its the rendering of Light itself in the game world that is beautifully realized. Certainly Fallout3 owes a great deal to the dappled, muted light of HalfLife 2 but it is no bad thing to stand on the shoulders of giants.
But as a swoon with Visual and Tactile enjoyment of Falout3 I am also profoundly disappointed and dismayed. Whilst contemporary games have finally dispensed with using the voice acting talents of the office staff and embraced employing ?real? actors (Liam Nesson notably lending his talents to FO3) to deliver real performances it seems they still have not grasped the idea that Game Designers are NOT screenwriters....!
The screenplay/script of Fallout3 is absolutely, abysmally atrocious. Mind jarringly banal, intolerably cliched, disastrously directed and unnervingly passive.
Whoever wrote the dialogue for fallout3 should be put on trial for crimes against the written word...!
Oblivion suffered much the same fate and it was hoped that Bethesda Studios might seek to amend this one major flaw when they moved on to falout3. Alas not to be as Fallout3 even surpasses the verbal pain Oblivion inflicted. At least Oblivion had a fantasy world of Kings and Elves to justify the heroically verbose use of language. Fallout3 has no such fallback and delivers a script so horrendous you?re compelled to click through the dialogue scenes as fast as possible.
There will be those who will decry my criticism with the mantra "its all about gameplay" but this seams an empty accusational idea. Much like watching a movie and saying its "all about the camera work". Why cant or shouldn?t a game have it all? Why should a game be anything less than superlative art - gameplay, visual aesthetics, character, performance; narrative united in the construction of a singular experience that transcends the sum of its individually exceptional parts?
As I said earlier, the pain of this let down is all the more pronounced when the past few years have delivered examples of game writing that is truly exceptional. Take for example the opening monologue voice over delivered by a disembodied Andrew Ryan as you descend by bathysphere to the underwater, utopia-maligned, city of Rapture.
Click here to listen to this audio. A beautifully written monologue fueled by subtext, subtitles, poetry embedded in social and political commentary. Everything the script for Fallout3 could have been but fails to be.
Games can be, and should be, nothing less than the most brilliant of art which why it pains me so much when a game like Fallout3 achieves excellence in all areas but the quality of the writing.
Please, please, Please Bethesda - take the script seriously....
In a recent article I explored some of the myriad of digital pre-vis options for indie filmmakers. There are now a host of dedicated, 3D, real-time animation systems on the market that provide a perfect platform for developing a clear and distinct vision for a work of cinema. Antics, Moviestorm alongside simpler but often just as effective systems such as Sketchup.
But recently I stumbled upon an on-line system that had me very entertained for inordinate amount of time. Xtranormal is a systems for generating micro-animated movies directly from a script. To describe it in a nutshell manner : you select cartoon avatars, type a script, the words you type a synthesized to be spoken by the character/avatars and then select select from a bank of camera positions, shot types and animations to shoot the scene.
On the surface it might be easy to dismiss Xtranormal as a goofy tool to kill a few too many hours for disaffected office workers. But I found the more I toyed with it the more valuable it become. It actually serves as a very useful tool for playing with shot-reverse-shot dialogue scenes and as a potential rough and simple teaching tool for examining the process of cutting dialogue scenes.
Of course with a bit of imagination Xtranormal could be used to make some very funny movies unto itself.
Of late I have been working with some of my students on using 3D
graphics systems for Pre-Visualization of live-action films. With the
emphasis of Pre-Vis on efficiency and planning rather than a polished
product of its own, we've been looking at the myriad of easy, effective
and, in many cases, free tools available.
SketchUp and Antics3D
sit at the top of such a list but I have recently gone back to take
MovieStorm for another spin. I was
involved in beta testing Moviestorm some time ago when it was in
very early development and it presented as unique Machinima tool with a
very capable vision for virtual environment real-time
production.
Moviestorm
has grown enormously since I last took it for a spin and it now strikes
a good balance between being powerful and
efficient.
Some of my readers may recall a
mini-essay I wrote called Machinima,
Software GUI and the aspirational user about the
idea and culture of professionally 'aspirational users', comparing the
GUI's of MovieStorm and Antics and the divergent conceptual paradigms
they embody. The article was intended as a devil's advocate
investigation exploring macro techno-cultural ideas and using MS and
Antics as a case study. Some took it as a rebuke of MS in favor of
Antics but this was never my intention. Nor was it a snobbish idea that
Pro 3D apps are somehow good and everyone else needs to be like them.
The truth is that the article was not really looking at software but
more user-culture sociology more than technology. A kick-around idea
on how users perhaps perceive of themselves and shape their software
choices by their aspirations rather than their
abilities.
Antics and MS are two very forward
thinking and exciting tools to cross compare in this regard for they
both do virtually the same tasks with similar outcomes and have similar
business models (free base app and purchasable model packs). Yet the
two apps represent very different concepts of how to engage with
production processes. They employ very different metaphors and
distinctly divergent GUI constructs.
Having now
returned to take MovieStorm for a spin in the particular guise of its
use for Pre-Vis rather than more holistic Machinima production, I have
found the latest iteration truly exciting.
Moviestorm is designed primarily for Machinima
production and as such is comprehensive in its approach. Moviestorm can
handle not just the assembly of virtual sets, avatars and animations
but also voice recording and sequence editing. Its quite feasible to
move from start to finish through to delivery of a project entirely
within MS
And its actually this internally
integrated approach that holds great appeal for MS as a Pre-Vis tool
for live-action projects. I have in the past been critical of the MS
GUI as a non-standard interface - it's very game like and dispenses
with many of the expected production software paradigms which can be
frustrating for users already digital-savvy with software tools like
NLE's and DAW's. But MS has succeeded with in its most recent
incarnation by dispensing with some of the more 'cartoony' motifs and
more unusual operations and construct a very consistent internal
logic
All these actually lends a great deal to the
viability of Antics as a Pre-Vis system with good sense of efficiency
and flexibility. Whilst the complete MS package is overkill for
producing storyboard frames or testing camera moves MovieStorm does do
a good job of presenting a working framework that allows MS to function
as simple or complex as your needs. In simple terms you only need
utilize the tools you need.
Of course the fact that
MovieStorm as a base application is both Free and Cross-Platform just
completes the picture. MS has come a long way and I'm very excited by
the opportunities promised by these kinds of tools growing in strength
and flexibility.
Ill soon be filing an article with
DMN taking a broad look at Pre-Vis concepts and options for indie
filmmakers. Stay tuned .
The buzzword replacing the age old cell based storyboard plan is Pre-Visualization.
Going beyond just planning the camera frames contemporary pre-vis
encompasses a broad range of processes and tools with a palette of
aims; framing, colour style, production design, animatics, camera
motion, blocking and more. In simple terms Pre-Vis encompasses anything
that endevours to articulately plan the production.
Not only is Pre-Vis an enormously creative process it's also a
quickly expanding part of the creative industries with huge employment
potential and growth.
Here's my pick of the best free tools for pre-vis on the net.
Google Sketchup is a 3D modeling software tool that is
perfect for building pre-visualizations for film projects. It allows
you to easily and quickly layout 3D environments and spaces and plan
camera movements and framings. Sketchup also draws upon the huge Google
3D model library saving you the need to build models from scratch. 100%
free and cross-platform. Storyboarding is so last century. sketchup.google.com
Antics3D is an extremely powerful 3D Machinima and
pre-visualization application that provides every posisbl feature for
building, animating and shooting in 3D space. The BasePack version is
100% free and is able to import models from the Google Sketchup
library. www.antics3d.com
Kuleris a dynamic colour palette utility for
coordinating and selecting colour in swatch groups. It allows you to
build co-ordinated colour groups and themes and is an excellent tool
for production designers to hep with pre-visualization and
collaborative communication between design departments such as
wardrobe, set and props. kuler.adobe.com
MoodStreamis an incredibly dynamic and flexible media
brainstorming and visualization tool. Built form the massive archives
of Getty Images, MoodStream allows you to assemble and collect together
images, video and sounds into palettes of media. A superb tool for
production designers as well as motion graphics artists looking to
trigger new ideas of image assembly. Similarly for Directors and
Producers MoodStream can be an amazing tool for preparing a
visualization package to help illustrate visual concepts and ideas to
the production team. moodstream.gettyimages.com
Directors Boards is a very useful A/V storyboarding
and script management tool. Perfect for those who like to storyboard
with digital photos Uses a FileMaker Pro engine but doesnt require
FileMaker to be installed. (Win, Mac) http://www.directorsnotebook.com/
and of course
Celtx is the creative development tool of the digital
age. 100% Open Source and Free to download and use. Apart form its
comprehensive scripting, breakdown and scheduling tools Celtx also has
a solid storyboard systems and suppourt for embedding still image,
video and sound files. www.celtx.com
At work the other day, at the International Film School Sydney, I was delighted to hear wafting into my office the voices of students debating the relationship between Cinema and Gaming, the aesthetics of game art and narrative, the definitions of interactivity. Such intellectual rigor from my students filled my heart with joy. :) In light of this I thought it worth pointing the DigitalBasin towards further commentary on gaming - most notably the excellent blog The Brainy Gamer which also includes a regular podcast on game theory.
Also worth checking out is The Game Theory Show podcast which regularly hosts interviews with some of the leading and seminal practitioners of game development and design.
And then of course there is my own Game Probe BlipTV channel that explores the aesthetics and narrative concepts behind a variety of contemporary games. There is also a blog accompanying this series that engages in discussion around some key concepts to do with game aesthetics as contemporary cinema.
A new category of software tool that derives from new genres of the moving image is a rare thing but this is exactly what we have seen in recent years with Machinima and real-time 3D. Whereas NLEs and DAWs are, despite their sophistication, really just digital replications of analog processes and digital animation tools are built off the same frame-by-frame concepts of traditional animation, the real-time 3D environment of Machinima and Pre-Vis is something quite unique.
Born from the DIY ethic of gamers using the engines of computer games to 'film' in virtual real-time, Machinima is quickly evolving dedicated toolsets that cover a diverse range of applications - Machinima itself, animation and pre-visualization for traditional cinema.
The past few years have seen a host of such dedicated software systems for Machinima-based production and while many of these are in very early or beta stages of development, Antics has forged ahead and appearing to present a significantly broad and well developed toolset that includes Machinima but is more broadly about 3D pre-vis and animation in all its forms. Sensing the ever widening appeal of real-time 3D systems to a wide spectrum of creators well beyond the instigating Gamer community, Antics steers its perspective into broad territory, not afraid to defy traditional classifications of whom its toolset is for.
I have of late been examining a range of real-time 3D animation systems for Machinima and pre-visualization. Recently this has focused on Antics and a full review will be appearing shortly on DMN sites and here on the basin. But in looking at Antics I was prompted to reflect upon another such machinima software system that I was beta-testing last year; Moviestorm, a new system in beta from ShortFuze. Antics and Moviestorm have the same aims, the same impetus. In terms of features, aside form the fact that Antics is older and by virtue more developed, the feature set is remarkably similar. But in spite of this the two are very, very different in conceptual approach and the paradigm they present to users.
The distinction between the two goes to the heart of something much deeper than a laundry list of capabilities or the one-ups-manship of software competition. The distinction points towards ideas of software 'language', the desires of users and the power of perceptions.
The interface of Moviestorm has a very appealing look and feel about it. Spartan and lacking in detail in places but that's obliviously going to fill out in development. But it is an interface that distinctly plays against all the traditional and established 'windows' paradigm language. Of itself this isn't necessarily a problem depending on the nature of the user group intended for the application.
For any software developer the central question to ask is the obvious - Who the app is for? But also, what is often neglected, is to also ask Who do those users want to be? And how do they see themselves?
Lets say for example that a key target market is 15-25 years old gamers who have an interest in movies; and movie enthusiasts with a bent for computers and games. That in particular both these groups are not professional movie makers or digital media producers. In this simple context a non-standard interface such as Moviestorm that is very accessible, very simple, even best described as almost 'cartoony', could function very well. A look and feel that is not like typical software, and which doesn't feel like a complex production tool, might have a certain cache in bringing new and inexperienced users to Moviestorm. Theres a strong potential for the tool to be seen as fun and funky. Laid-back. A piece of cake to use.
BUT... (and I think its a very big but...) This doesn't account for, and indeed flies against, how these same people perceive themselves rather than who they might actually be. A 15-25 year old gamer/movie enthusiast who is into computers, I would argue, perceives of themselves as a technology sophisticate and a wannabe professional. Any person in this category with enough enthusiasm to try and make a machinima film is more often than not going to have designs on actually becoming a full-time filmmaker, game designer, TV producer, etc.... Whether they ever achieve this is not the point, the perception is built of desire and its the desire that drives the perceived 'needs'.
In this context I would argue that you have to design the software not for who the target user is and what their skill/knowledge levels are, but rather design it for the type of people the target users perceive and wish themselves to be.
In this regard I think there are two very significant issues with Moviestorm interface paradigm; one that doesn't follow traditional Windows drop-down menu language conventions. The first is pure functionality; functionality born Not of good design but rather of familiarity. Right off the bat Moviestorm is harder to learn because it doesn't follow normal computer paradigms that are widely understood. Its a simple as that. In working with the beta release I spent far longer than I should just working out how to click, where to click, how things would pop up, and when they wouldn't. Not to have a standard interface model means your user has to learn a new language from scratch. Their prior knowledge and expeirnece is rendered in large part not useful. The double kick with this issues is that by dis-empowering the user of their familiarity (and in the case of Gamers and Computer Geeks you have a personality that prides itself on that familiarity) you steal confidence with the tool. The user is on the back foot right form the start. Now the Moviestorm interface is very smooth and uncluttered but when I got stuck i was really stuck because I could not relay on the usual trouble shooting methodologies. Its like being lost in a country where you don't speak the language is a far deeper state of LOST than being lost in a country where you do.
In such cases instinct was to go to the tool bar at the top and click HELP, except its not there so then i have to go looking. Things are not named with text but with icons, so i have to hover over. When i find it it has a special icon I have to remember that icon because its not like any icon I've ever seen. And so on and so on... The moment I step into a GUI which forges its own paradigms, its own language I move from being a confident user to a dis empowered one; even more so that I would ordinarily feel with a new software tool.
Obviosuly Moviestorm is a software tool that, being born of Gaming is using game-styling for its unique GUI. In the case of Moviestorm the major influence is the Sims. But I do question the wisdom for using Gaming itself as the basis of the GUI as it leads into conflict with what I see as the second issue, that of Perception.
Do the developers of Moviestorm wish to have their app viewed 'as' a game? Certainly that's what the interface suggests and likewise how its designed to work. If the user group is, as I believe they are, driven by a perception of themselves and what they'd like to be (filmmakers) rather than the reality of what they are (gamers, hobbyists, amateurs) , then this approach is fundamentally problematic.
People who perceive of themselves as 'filmmakers' and digital artists, who want to make films that people will want to watch, that hope to be paid one day to make movies; these people I would argue, do not want to use a 'game', or a 'toy' they want to 'feel' like they are using 'real' and 'proper' tools for 'serious' production. This certainly doesn't mean they want the tools to be complicated or hard to use (quite the opposite), but that they do want to feel like filmmakers and using serious tools, that look like serious tools, makes them feel like a serious filmmaker.
The example of this 'culture' I'd use to illustrate is the marketing of the Final Cut Pro editing system from Apple. 75% of all users of FCP are independent, semi-pro, hobbiest, enthusiast, student filmmakers. And yet, all the advertising for FCP, that Apple push so hard, is focused on FCP's use in large budget feature film production; how high-profile Hollywood directors Walter Murch, David Fincher, Francis Ford Coppola use FCP to cut their films. That high end is absolutely Not the main market for FCP but what Apple understand so very well is that perception is reality. That whilst the overwhelming majority of their users are at the low end, they all Want and Desire to be at the high end. So Apple marketing aims to sell the fantasy, they sell the idea that FCP is a high-end tool so if you want to be a high-end filmaker this is what you should get, even if right now you're doing low-end.... Its a pile of marketing bullshit that has no actual validity I real-terms but it is highly effective and taps into the aspirational element of the digital age of accessibility. Developers need to 'sell the dream'; tapping into what the users Want to be and perceive themselves as being.
This concept I believe is the same with Moviestrom and points towards it's fundamental difference with Antics. Antics offers all the same tools as Moviestorm, a software system for real-time 3D machinima and pre-visualization. A self-contained tool that allows for staging, animating, virtual directing, virtual cameras and export of video sequences and even finished movies. But where Antics differs is in how it presents itself. Antics presents as a professional digital media production tool and almost every element of its interface toolset borrows from other digital media tools. It's movement of 3D objects is commensurate with those in any major 3D tool such as 3DS Max, its timeline window very much in touch with the timelines from NLE's such as Première and animation tools like Flash, its browsing and asset management features not at all removed from those found in any digital production system.
By doing this anyone who has even a modicum of experience with any of these applications immediately comes to Antics with an internal familiarity that aids a confidence with the software. At the same time the 'experience' of using Antics, the perception it presents, is a professional, detailed, consummate production environment; an environment that very much matches the perception its uses have, or wish, for themselves. Moviestorm by comparison could easily be mistaken at a glance for being a game, a children's toy.
Many, many independent video producers I have known, working for corporate clients, have often commented with despair that it's not their show-reel that got them the job or impressed the client but the size of the camera they were using or the how flashy the hardware that filled their studio looked. Along these same lines Sony have recently released the HVR-1000u HDV camera, a remarkably inexpensive camera that on the inside is a low-spec, little more than consumer grade, sensor with mediocre lens and significant shortage of features and recording options. On the outside however it's a shoulder mount, bulky camera that looks the impressive professional part. The 1000u is seemingly a camera conceived by market research that pointed towards the power of perception.
These two elements are at the heart of what might make or break a new software tool; Language and Perception - Designing a GUI and a production paradigm that taps into existing language tenets and the Presenting of a perception of what the user aspires to be rather than what they may actually be. So many of the greatly successful creative software tools on the market have found their success in exactly this combination and Apple's Final Cut Pro is the prime example. FCP brings virtually nothing unique to editing but rather it borrows enormously from its predecessor Adobe Première the language of editing tools and then packages itself into a clearly defined perception of the aspirational Professional. Subsequently you can read any given review of FCP over its history and see the same rhetoric surface 'The Professionals Choice' and 'Intuitive, easy to learn'. Both these are really, simply, the product of a crafted market perception of association, and the exploitation of established language frameworks.
It's both these that Moviestorm, as a creative platform, is overlooking. There is no argument here about right or wrong, good or bad, but simply that Moviestorm may have misjudged the aspirations of their desired users.
Game Probe Ep 5 - Portal: story, space and metaphor
story, space and metaphor Episode 5 in the Game Probe series looks
at the fascinating mechanics of Portal. With the manipulation of space
and physics as its central vehicle, Portal points to new constructions
of story and metaphor embedded in the walls themselves.
You can watch the others in the Game Probe series at gameprobe.blipTV
In the 21st century Every filmmaker needs to be a Machimator. Every filmmaker needs to understand the core concepts that underpin Machinima.
The reasoning is simply that in the digital age every form and process of cinema invokes Machinma methodology and practice. At one end is of course machinima itself - the 'shooting' of a movie within a realtime virtual environment. Neither animation nor live-action, machinima is a hybrid between.
But outside of pure machinima, right along the continuum of cinematic media forms and formats, machinima processes appears as key components :
Pre-Visualization for directors 3D sets for designers Virtual cameras for Cinematographers 3D Z-space for editors and compositors 3D environments for Animators
All these traditional non-machinima forms engage proactively with digital tools, concepts a process that are directly encapsulated in machinima. Being a filmmaker in the 21st century who doesn't know about Machinima, who doesn't grasp the idea of a virtual camera or virtual 3D spaces and objects is the equivalent of a filmmaker who doesn't know about montage or deep focus. The virtual space and the virtual camera are THE concepts for all cinema of the digital age regardless of whether they be computer generated or not.
Once the domain of game-engine hackers, there are array of software tools now available for machinima derived animation, simulation, game design, previs and 3D. Over the past couple of years i have taken most such tools through their paces, exploring what is possible, what they are capable of and, more importantly, what new conceptual opportunities and processes they represent? Tools that blur the line between traditional animation and storyboarding through to dedicated game design; FrameForge 3D, Moviestorm, FPSCreator, Toonboom and iClone
And now Antics with a very holistic perspective on pre-vis and virtual production. Antics attempts to satisfy all forms of users with a very open system viable for animation, pure machinima and very effective pre-visualization for live-action (or any hybrid combo of the above).
In the coming months ill be writing a detailed review Antics for DMN; in the meantime their base-pack is free and they have a huge array of free model resources to get you started.
You simply cannot be a filmmaker in the 21st century without an understanding of the cocnepts of Machinima. So do yourself a favour and go download... NOW..!
