1. #11
    Hi Biltongbru.

    I've watched your movie, and will offer comments after the competition.
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  2. #12
    Hi Snatchio;
    thanks for the complements , You are correct, the map has a chroma green ground texture with the objects in their original colors. Fantastic tool to screen IL2 aircraft onto any kind of background.

    Potpie 69;
    thanks for the comment; Call of Duty is the best ww2 shooter regarding graphics and sound, giving you an experience of another world; the footage I obtained was the Foy multiplayer map on the COD1 expansion. Can't wait for the ww2 COD5 to be released soon, just imagine the enhanced graphic realism awaiting us...

    Schutze S
    Thanks for the complement. Yes, Das Boot is the best ww2 naval movie being produced in my opinion with exceptional focus on detail...

    Triad 773
    Thank you for the kind comments. The movie did take a lot of hours to produce because I had to sort out the blue/green screen technique. That was really a difficult episode.

    Hi Fabianfred
    Thanks man for the complements.
    I also battled to download from filefont when I did the final test; Took about 4 attempts and then it started to download. You can also view it on Blip which has a 100% better res than You Tube:

    http://blip.tv/file/1063898

    Hi Wolf
    Thank you for your comments. The moving feet on the rudder pedals shoot was not easy as well as the joystick shoot. The hands pushing buttons and throttle movement was easier. Next will try to do head shoots from the rear and from angles below through the canopy window.
    It took a long time to get the tank shoots sorted out on the blue cloth, that wasn't easy.
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  3. #13
    310th Falcon's Avatar Senior Member
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    S! biltongbru

    Same here. I too have watched your movie and will comment after the competition.


    Best Regards
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  4. #14
    Excellent.

    I take my hat off to you sir !!
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  5. #15
    "Tempest Tank Attack" has been placed at the Flight Sim Movies website and awarded the Golden Oleg




    Congratulations!!!
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  6. #16
    Thanks Doolittle and team for this recognition, it is much appreciated; I think a nice long brandy will be handy tonight!
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  7. #17
    Well, now that the competition is over, first let me congratulate you on making an amazing movie!

    You are surely the most experienced moviemaker in compositing IL2, COD, Human, scale models, and whatever else you have brought in.

    This is your best yet in that regard. I can only guess at the amount of time it took to get everything matched up. Hopefully now that you know the procedure it will be less arduous for future productions.

    What you have here is a novel and original technique showing some great technical ability. It is very watchable on that basis. The actual story line is pretty basic and this is the main drawback to making this a great piece of work.

    Biltongbru, I'm sure you'll have read that a good and engaging story or idea can make even a poorly filmed movie enjoyable. There are many examples of this, but I won't be giving any examples. These films would be spectacular if they were also filmed with good cinematography and special effects. However, the converse is not true – the very best cinematography, multi million pound special effects, famous actors, all these will not carry a film that does not engage the viewer.

    Your challenge now is to take your technical skills and implement them in a movie that has that magic ingredient!

    I also offer my opinion on the inclusion of real humans in a machinima piece. There have been discussions on this in other threads where I have said the same, and that is I am not yet convinced a serious film can be made mixing these two mediums. Their great value comes in novelty films, where there is no attempt to fool the viewer into believing the animations are real.

    Machinima viewers generally accept that they are watching a game engine, and as long as nothing shouts out at them as looking weird, they are happy to be drawn into the make believe. If we try and show some real life in what has been accepted as an animation, this may break the spell. I have seen it work in some places, there was that Biplane film, "The East Wind" which made it obvious to the point of almost being cartoon like. There's the Entertainer. There's Anchors Awaeigh where Gene Kelly danced with Micky Mouse. These worked great. Then there was that one, I think ˜McLusky' that was a serious attempt but came out cheesy. There was the movie about the X1 breaking the sound barrier that used CGI for the aircraft and did excellently. Of course, most Hollywood films now use CGI as a matter of course and are believable.

    So where does that leave us? I remain to be convinced that we, with our limited resources, can make an engaging film that includes real humans. I hope you try, Biltongbru as I would be very pleased to see it.

    Maybe the answer is to use animated humans? If our audience is already happy to accept the inanimate objects are animated, will they make the jump to believe in animated humans? We have already seen Blackace experimenting with Moviestorm. I would love to see if an integration of Moviestorm and IL2 would work. I had my doubts about this in the past, but again I would love to see it tried. I know Doktorkop experimeted with CGI, but I don't think he pulled off the facial expressions and character movements that are now available in Moviestorm.

    Nevertheless, you have opened up a new door and shown us that there are great possibilities for mixing different components, real, animated or scale models. I enthusiastically look forward to what you do next!
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  8. #18
    On the matter of incorporating (compositing?) Real humans into a Flight Sim (machinima) movie, I understand what you mean Russell. I think, though,that there might be a balance to be reached...(don't ask me how to do it). A sudden Human, up close, does present a very sharp contrast with the ongoing 'machinima' game captures, animations etc... it does draw perhaps too much attention to itself.

    I'm thinking that maybe using the Real chroma-screened humans only in mid-distance from the camera might be less 'distracting', but yet still offer much more realistic human movement, behavior...faces could be seen,sonewhat, but would not be "In-your-Face" if you get my point.

    It would seem to be a considerable challenge to get just the right Mix of animated characters (such as COD, Moviestorm, etc) with the 'HumaChromes' (my newly coined shortcut term for green/blue-screened humans in a machinima movie).....But, if anyone can do it, it is Biltongbru!!
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  9. #19
    Originally posted by Joe-90:
    .....Biltongbru, I'm sure you'll have read that a good and engaging story or idea can make even a poorly filmed movie enjoyable. There are many examples of this, but I won't be giving any examples. These films would be spectacular if they were also filmed with good cinematography and special effects. However, the converse is not true – the very best cinematography, multi million pound special effects, famous actors, all these will not carry a film that does not engage the viewer.

    Your challenge now is to take your technical skills and implement them in a movie that has that magic ingredient!
    ...
    Biltongbru...Check your PM for more thoughts on how your movi e's Story might have been made a bit more engaging.
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  10. #20
    Hi Joe and Doolittle;

    Thanks for your in depth discussion of the Tempest movie; I will try to express my thoughts on your comments:

    Thank you for your time, kind words and support. You are right, there were a lot of hours spent but for me it was fun to tackle the challenge and to get it right at the end of the day.

    The biggest assets of IL2 regarding universal movie making in my opinion are the aircraft modeling and flight dynamics as well as multi- ac situations in aerial shoots. Most of the rest are sub-standard

    I have a quest for realism in movies and ventured to bypass the shortcomings of IL2 in this regard. These IL2 shortcomings were discussed in many threads of this forum in the past and identified as problematic; i.e. the blockheads, joystick movements without hands, vegetation, ground texture and objects modeling, etc.

    The purpose of this movie was more of a technology demonstration than a gripping story. The primary goals of the movie were:

    1) To see if scale models can be used in our kind of movies;

    2) To test the chroma green map developed by AAA. This is an extremely powerful tool for war movie making; you can now place any IL2 aircraft in motion onto any other kind of footage without any keying hassles. Millions were spent in the past to film real aircraft in war movie making, CGI is the new norm; this could be a very cost effective replacement to current expensive CGI methods.

    3) To make up a composite clip where the camera moves with the rockets until impact: (This was the most difficult clip to make as the model tank was sized and layered, frame by frame, upon the moving camera landscape shoot from COD. Thereafter the 2 rocket heads were keyed onto the composite.)

    4) To make up composites with real hands movement on the joystick and leg movement with the rudder pedals.

    With these primary goals in mind I had to choose a suitable aircraft taking into account the bits and pieces of costumes I have (British), so the rocket firing Tempest was the best choice. The only COD map where take-off could be simulated was the COD1 Ardennes map and so the story was made up around these limitations.

    The investment in time and infrastructure to produce a movie of this kind is significant. You need proper space, lighting, camera, costumes and a good screen to achieve acceptable results. Away from the computer it now becomes a technical challenge. Camera settings become extremely important as well as perfect lighting on the screen and the actor. To find actors is a big problem because you need a lot of repetitions to get the perfect shoot.

    With all these different kinds of source material that the film is made up, I think that it moves out of the Machinima definition. Maybe to progress in this field one needs to look at special-effects/green screening movie-making forums.

    My next challenge is to make a movie where the environment will be the real world with humans, objects and IL2 aircraft keyed in. This will take some time.

    Again thanks for all your inputs the past 9 months.

    PS ; Doolittle, I think close-up shoots to convey emotion etc. place an extra interesting dimension to movies. The problem in my case here was one actor doing all the acting! Had close-up on tank commander and all the other human shoots were far away or from the back; It is a hatefull process to be your own movie's actor!! !

    PS Joe; I must just comment that Captain Quinn who produced Mclusky is (or was) light years ahead of us in many aspects and myself do not experience this wonderful work as cheesy? just a matter of opinion
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