Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Act 3
Scene 1: The evil stepsisters try to put the prince off his search.
Location is the drawing room of the stepmother's house.
Scene 2: The prince keeps searching and eventually inds Cinderella.
Location is the well outside the stepmother's house.
Scene 3: The prince and Cinderella get married and live happily ever after.
Location is the ballroom of the royal palace.
When you take a script or story and break it down like this, it becomes easier to see how a chain of con-
nected images will tell your story in a coherent manner. Now, imagine telling the story from the prince's
point of view. When does his narrative start? What events and locations does his character encounter besides
those he has in common with Cinderella? Each character should bring a backstory to your machinima.
You could enhance this with what the character says, what the character's body looks like, and what the
character is wearing.
Figure 16.11 is a sample page from a storyboard to demonstrate how it can be laid out on a page. Note how
things like camera movement, angle, and dialogue are included beside the image. If a storyboard is organized
in this way, it creates a document that will guide your entire machinima crew.
16.4 TOOLS NEEDED FOR MACHINIMA
Assuming you already have a location and the avatars to play the parts in your story, there are three basic
tasks you need to do when you make a machinima: (1) record the sound and images from the computer;
(2) incorporate additional sound/music; and (3) edit the visual content following the narrative guidelines and
storyboard. Each of these tasks requires that you have a computer capable of handling heavy image process-
ing, a good Internet connection, and a good amount of storage (either on your computer disks or in the cloud).
A good place to check for all related equipment and software is in a Second Life wiki (http://wiki.secondlife.
com/wiki/Machinima). There, you will ind people to help, places to shoot, and software and equipment lists
for each platform.
16.4.1 T
he
B
asiC
s
eTup
for
r
eCording
Assuming that you have a good computer that on most days rezzes each scene quickly and have a high frame
rate (15 frames per second [fps] or higher) in a full sim like a Second Life Info Hub, you are probably in good
shape for making some machinima. Do everything you can do to improve your performance, like turning off all
other programs, lowering your draw distance, and so on. There is a checklist available (http://wiki.secondlife.
com/wiki/Making_movies#Improve_your_performance). To make your video and sound capture, Fraps (http://
www.fraps.com/) is one of the most popular recording programs used by Windows users, and Snapz Pro X
(http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/) is popular with the Mac-based crowd.
16.4.2 B
asiC
e
diTing
Making a storyboard pays off in the editing process. Once you have chosen the editing software for your sys-
tem (there is a good list of options at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Machinima#Software), you can proceed
to load the best versions of the scenes you recorded into the program and start your “rough cut.” A complete
well-organized storyboard to guide you during the shooting schedule will ensure that you have all the recorded
scenes you need for the creation of your machinima. You may decide to go back and do a couple of reshoots
