Camera Movement

[jtgizmo]

I keep seeing people asking about addons and such, but to be honest I do not care about any of that. What I really want to know is, the cinematics that Anet is using with ingame footage, with free floating camera and all that. Will that be available for players? I know they don't want to allow addons, but making awesome clips of gw2 and all that would be essential for the game? I don't think that is machinima (unless it is - which is an addon as well on its own? which would mean it would not find a way in).

So would we be able to similar control of the camera and create thus movie clips similar to what Anet is making . Someone should really ask that kind of a question from Anet, not about addons or machinima tools - THE CAMERA?!????

[airea]

(Deleted Post - Misread OP)

[Rahzael]

I'm not sure why you seem so adamant that this question is not about machinima. If you are referring to a free-floating camera that allows you to look around while in-game, then no, probably not. It's not really a necessary part of gameplay. They might add a spectator mode for PvP matches I would think(though that hasn't been confirmed or even talked about in any interviews I have seen), but we'll have to see.

I personally would love to see an Arena Net supported model viewer and map viewer implemented, but that's just me. I'm very interested in creating a machinima with this game, and user created model viewers tend to be a pain in the ass with slow updated, bugs, lack of control, etc. Map viewers are very much the same way, and often you are better off resorting to a sandbox type third party server if you want to avoid constructing backgrounds with photoshop or after effects.

[airea]

I'm quite the opposite. I actually misread the OP's post. I'd love to see what you're thinking of as well. Never tried making machinima myself, but I think GW2 has the ability to make even better videos out of the updated graphics on their models, compared to other forms such as WoW machinima.

[Rahzael]

This is difficult to articulate, but unless I misread your post, I think you were reading him just fine. I don't think he understands what machinima is though, as he seems to be under the impression that it's an addon of some kind. I'm still not entirely sure for what purpose he wants this kind of freedom over his camera movement, but I have my own motives of course.

The only issues I think they might have with making a map viewer is that the world is dynamic and shifting all the time, which would make a simple implementation of the concept impossible unless they eliminated the models connected to DE's or just conformed to a "default" type landscape. They could also just allow control over which DE form is displayed, but that sounds as though it would be quite an ontaking. Then again I'm not that familiar with the programming involved in such things, so I'm just blabbering.

[airea]

Was blizzard the company which made the mapviewer for WoW?

[Mif]

Perhaps it's similar to what the CMs said to the RP community, in that ArenaNet and the CMs can't be everywhere and see everything, and it's up to the community to approach them. So if the machinima community makes enough effort to get on the radar, they might add player controllable "movie" cameras, but I sincerely doubt it would be for launch.

[Rahzael]

It was a user made program. Had very poor range of view and couldn't properly display things like lakes or rivers from what I recall. I scrapped it in favor of manipulated screenshots taken from in-game.

Not that there is anything wrong with people creating machinima from in game. After all, those are the roots of machinima itself, but graduating to a higher grade of cinema requires a little more control over the filming process. The higher quality machinimas are made utilizing a model viewer at the very least: A map viewer would merely be a great convenience.





Neither would have been possible without chroma key and a very deliberate control over the animations and aesthetics of the characters.

Edit: You're probably right, Mif. Maybe it's time for an uprising of machinimators!

[Blufossa]

If you, or anyone else, can make one like-



-then my hat will be off to you, good sir!

[Rahzael]

Blind is technically not machinima, but a full fledged animation of it's own. It uses WoW textures and themes, but very little of it(if any) was actually filmed using anything resembling a WoW engine.

In terms of my own quality of work, I'm learning as I go, but I don't feel at all out of reach of the quality displayed in the machinimas I had posted above. I'm a chronic perfectionist with such things, but I think I've lost my motivation to tell stories with Warcraft.

[jtgizmo]

This is difficult to articulate, but unless I misread your post, I think you were reading him just fine. I don't think he understands what machinima is though, as he seems to be under the impression that it's an addon of some kind. I'm still not entirely sure for what purpose he wants this kind of freedom over his camera movement, but I have my own motives of course.

The only issues I think they might have with making a map viewer is that the world is dynamic and shifting all the time, which would make a simple implementation of the concept impossible unless they eliminated the models connected to DE's or just conformed to a "default" type landscape. They could also just allow control over which DE form is displayed, but that sounds as though it would be quite an ontaking. Then again I'm not that familiar with the programming involved in such things, so I'm just blabbering.

I know what machinima is, I merely was stating that - a free flow camera that is used to get these kind of cool things (for example in wow) are add ons , if I am not mistaken (if I am then sorry). But what I was after is what others realized later, is that I would love to create similar clips that Anet is releasing with ingame footage. And they are are obviously using some kind of camera mod or something to achieve that (unless it is already part of the game). All I am saying if they use something, surely it would make sense to make it available for all the players who could create some awesome clips.

Thus I want Anet to be asked, whether such feature/ability (and not mention the word addon, cause then they will think of all addons - which they stated will not be allowed at this point) will be available to players.

[airea]

Well technically when they make things like that, they just go into the game and make it possible to have an invisible floating camera move around freely into the game. They can do this because, well, it's tinkering with the code. It's definitely not your typical addon, it's modding the game to enable floating 'characters' with altered physics and movement speeds. They can't put an addon into the game to allow a free roaming camera, like I said, people would use it in PvP to fly around at faster than normal speeds and get aerial views of the maps.

However, what could be nice would be a downloadable client which let's you tap into the game world (off-server) with whoever you'd like to invite, customize character appearances, then have multiple cameras which you can control and record footage with. It'd probably cost money though, since it'd pretty much be a recording program in itself.

[theredviola]

If you, or anyone else, can make one like-

*snip*

-then my hat will be off to you, good sir!

That is truly one of the greatest machinimas out there. Regardless if you hate the story, or if you hate the music. The shear preciseness of the animations and the context of gravity (yes with some anime influence), make it an amazing machinima.