This is "Whiteout", a machinima created by me for the Blizzcon 2013 movie contest. I put tons of work into this movie and really tried to push what is possible with machinima, expecially when it comes to Starcraft. As such, this movie uses tons of custom animation for the cinematic models as well as some very complex compositing work - I basically tried to shoot for Heart of the Swarm "Ingame" cinematic quality.
Unfortunately, this movie did not win a place at Blizzcon 2013, but nonetheless, Im very proud of this movie and how it turned out - I would say it is definately my best machinima work yet!
Thanks alot for the awesome voice talents that are IskatuMesk, Holly Lindin and Gradius - their performances really add alot to this movie! Additionally to that, GhostNova created the battlecruiser commander model, thanks alot to him for that, aswell! Also, a huge thanks goes out to Proxy/PrintIn, for his amazing work on the M3 plugin for Blender. Without it, this machinima would have not been possible!
Anyways, enough talk, here it is. I recommend you watch it on Youtube on the bigger screen and in HD:
Feedback, comments, or just your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Very well made movie.
I didn't find Iskatu's voice fitting for the older Marine with his gray hair, but I can imagine that it is very difficult to get the perfect voice. But the female voice was great and Gradius' ones were perfect, too.
Apart from that, it's definitely going into the direction of Blizzard's quality. The only visual "problem" I noticed was the glowing engine in one shot. Maybe it would have been possible to add an effect in front of it to give the illusion that it is not a static. I didn't spot anything else watching it meaning that the rest was fitting.
So, I think this is quite an achievement. :D
Is there a list of the movies that were considered "better", already?
Also, only one of the other two runner ups was a machinima. The second place was basically your typical somewhat clever World of Warcraft machinima while the third place was a mix of Diablo footage and real live footage, which was obviously the worst of the three. The rules were very very unspecific this time around, I wasnt even aware real life stuff was allowed.
Also, only one of the other two runner ups was a machinima. The second place was basically your typical somewhat clever World of Warcraft machinima while the third place was a mix of Diablo footage and real live footage, which was obviously the worst of the three. The rules were very very unspecific this time around, I wasnt even aware real life stuff was allowed.
Wow >.>
Maybe people just prefer funny stuff. Or WoW. Or both. Either way, the quality of your videos is just so high, it's shocking. I'm sorry you didn't win!
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Feel free to Send me a PM if you have any questions/concerns!
It's kind of ridiculous that this didn't even win a place. It was of very high quality.
That aside, if I were to give you feedback, I'd say that your environments could use some work. They really don't match up to the quality of the rest of the animation.
Those were terrible. Then again blizz is never clear with their criteria anyway. Humor is a large factor when deciding something for a very large demographics
Extremly well done. There is quite a few things you can improve on, but I enjoyed it. It's nice to see you using the cinematic tool and some custom work, your entry last time had the editing via AE, but lacked the quality of the assets used.
Voice-wise you should've probably tried to get Mike Dunahee. He voiced Mograine in Tales of the Past 3.
And Blizzard ALWAYS picks their "pseudo-comedy" shit. Remember a few years back when "I am Forsaken" was 2nd place and the far worse quality 'love comedy' Gnome thing made first place? I know both people who made those, but we all were in agreement that the placement seemed wrong - even if we were happy for the guys.
your entry last time had the editing via AE, but lacked the quality of the assets used.
No it didnt. This is the first SC related movie Ive ever released that I created using AE, and it shows. All my previous ones, including "Rebirth of the Swarm", were created using Sony Vegas 8.0, which im very proud of, seeing how I really pushed what was possible with Vegas.
Voice wise I actually tried to get Jesse Cox, but he responded to my request too late and then literally at the last minute I called IskatuMesk up and he and me ninja´d it really quick in one sitting. Considering that, I think Iskatu did an amazing job.
Edit: And yeah, I am Forsaken should have won that particular contest.
It's pretty good! I dunno how you got the SM models to work.
As for things that could use improvement. The color grading could use quite a bit of work. The over exposed effect with the highlights made the image way too blown out at parts. One thing that could have been improved on is to give everything a nice blue saturation to make it fit the mood of the script a bit more. The lens flares where a bit much and really didn't add to the piece at all. If you are going for anamorphic lens flares, then you also have to with a 2:35.1 ratio for it to make sense. And besides it being accurate, that ratio is a nice way to "force" a cinematic look out of something, seeing as that is what you where going for.
As for the voice acting, I think it was sub par. It's wasn't expressive enough and the actual voice timbre didn't really match the characters...combined with the recording quality being somewhat low.
As for the audio, it was almost really good. Keep in mind that when people are speaking in a non studio environment that their voice reverberates off of the surrounding objects. A good trick is to add a very light reverb with a mid/short decay, then add a delay with like 30+ms and make the L/R channels slightly offset, it helps a ton. And don't forget the art of compression can do wonders. There also needs to be more environmental sounds.
If you feel that I'm over criticizing your work, its a good thing! It means that there is a ton of potential. Good work man. It means that I'm not one of the only ones making good SC2 machinima.
It's really well done. Definitely good enough to be a winner. The only reason I think it may not have been picked was because of the length. I remember Blizzard put in the rules a rather short limit on the movie length (I think 3 minutes?).
As for things that could use improvement. The color grading could use quite a bit of work. The over exposed effect with the highlights made the image way too blown out at parts. One thing that could have been improved on is to give everything a nice blue saturation to make it fit the mood of the script a bit more. The lens flares where a bit much and really didn't add to the piece at all. If you are going for anamorphic lens flares, then you also have to with a 2:35.1 ratio for it to make sense. And besides it being accurate, that ratio is a nice way to "force" a cinematic look out of something, seeing as that is what you where going for.
Im a fan of "over the top" color grading, I much prefer it to more subtle stuff where none of the colors really pop. As for the blue saturation thing, Im pretty sure that would have ruined everything. The mood of this movie is greatly defined by the snow and the color white, and having blue snow would have taken that entire element away. As for the lens flares, again, it was an artistic choice and I love them, and seeing how its animated, I dont have to work in ratio restrictions - if you do animated stuff, dont restrict yourself by artifical boundries orientated on what real film can do. Life action movie directors would throw those restrictions out of the window, too, if they could. And having black bars on top and at the bottom also isnt necessary for stuff to look cinematic, expecially now that those start to disappear, anyways, with the introduction of stuff like IMAX. Having a larger image is nice.
It's really well done. Definitely good enough to be a winner. The only reason I think it may not have been picked was because of the length. I remember Blizzard put in the rules a rather short limit on the movie length (I think 3 minutes?).
You actually have a good point here: The version I submitted to Blizzcon was cut down to 3 minutes to match their rules, that was probably one of the main deciding factors why it didnt win anything, because cutting away that much material really hurt the movie. If I participate next time, I will try to stick more to the 3 minute restriction.
I liked it over all! I won't bring up a lot of things that have already been mentioned (Anamorphic LF's on HD aspect ratio), but I will comment on one thing that annoyed me: the lines.
The fact is, regular people just don't talk like this: "I will take the dog, Betty, for a walk."
Instead, try to put more work into making the dialogue more natural, like: "I'm gonna take Betty for a walk."
The key thing to remember: people don't usually talk in correct grammar. When we hear grammatically perfect lines from characters like the colonel - or any natural character for that matter - it seems strange, and unnatural. While my dialogue example was exaggerated, the point still remains for your knowledge.
But as I said, I did like this machinima, and it was certainly better than the winning entry (by a lot...). Keep up the good work.
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I do terrain stuff.
...
And in a Starcraft haiku,
...
That's all I can do!
Great work man! Gratz on the finishing and the end result.
I was to say "but you disqualified yourself by sending more than 3 minutes" but then I read that you actually have shortened that a bit.
Great work man! Gratz on the finishing and the end result. I was to say "but you disqualified yourself by sending more than 3 minutes" but then I read that you actually have shortened that a bit.
Could you post that 3 minutes version?
Great work :)
Nah, I´d rather not. The version you see here is basically the version that is meant to be watched. The 3 minute version basically has these scenes cut: The battlecruiser scene exept for the establishment shot and the Colonel and Jess scene that comes right after it. The scene at night is also cut shorter. Additionally to that, various shots are cut shorter, including the title shot, in order for it to make the 3 minute time limit. Understandably, this hurts the movie alot.
Hai everybody!
This is "Whiteout", a machinima created by me for the Blizzcon 2013 movie contest. I put tons of work into this movie and really tried to push what is possible with machinima, expecially when it comes to Starcraft. As such, this movie uses tons of custom animation for the cinematic models as well as some very complex compositing work - I basically tried to shoot for Heart of the Swarm "Ingame" cinematic quality.
Unfortunately, this movie did not win a place at Blizzcon 2013, but nonetheless, Im very proud of this movie and how it turned out - I would say it is definately my best machinima work yet!
Thanks alot for the awesome voice talents that are IskatuMesk, Holly Lindin and Gradius - their performances really add alot to this movie! Additionally to that, GhostNova created the battlecruiser commander model, thanks alot to him for that, aswell! Also, a huge thanks goes out to Proxy/PrintIn, for his amazing work on the M3 plugin for Blender. Without it, this machinima would have not been possible!
Anyways, enough talk, here it is. I recommend you watch it on Youtube on the bigger screen and in HD:
Feedback, comments, or just your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Very well made movie.
I didn't find Iskatu's voice fitting for the older Marine with his gray hair, but I can imagine that it is very difficult to get the perfect voice. But the female voice was great and Gradius' ones were perfect, too.
Apart from that, it's definitely going into the direction of Blizzard's quality. The only visual "problem" I noticed was the glowing engine in one shot. Maybe it would have been possible to add an effect in front of it to give the illusion that it is not a static. I didn't spot anything else watching it meaning that the rest was fitting.
So, I think this is quite an achievement. :D
Is there a list of the movies that were considered "better", already?
Yea, if this didn't win, then what did?
This did:
No, Im not kidding.
Also, only one of the other two runner ups was a machinima. The second place was basically your typical somewhat clever World of Warcraft machinima while the third place was a mix of Diablo footage and real live footage, which was obviously the worst of the three. The rules were very very unspecific this time around, I wasnt even aware real life stuff was allowed.
@Crainy: Go
wow really? that won? pfff... Disappointment in the humanity rises.. to be continued
Edit: And all those other participants seems disappointment too..
Wow >.>
Maybe people just prefer funny stuff. Or WoW. Or both. Either way, the quality of your videos is just so high, it's shocking. I'm sorry you didn't win!
It's kind of ridiculous that this didn't even win a place. It was of very high quality.
That aside, if I were to give you feedback, I'd say that your environments could use some work. They really don't match up to the quality of the rest of the animation.
Those were terrible. Then again blizz is never clear with their criteria anyway. Humor is a large factor when deciding something for a very large demographics
Extremly well done. There is quite a few things you can improve on, but I enjoyed it. It's nice to see you using the cinematic tool and some custom work, your entry last time had the editing via AE, but lacked the quality of the assets used.
Voice-wise you should've probably tried to get Mike Dunahee. He voiced Mograine in Tales of the Past 3.
And Blizzard ALWAYS picks their "pseudo-comedy" shit. Remember a few years back when "I am Forsaken" was 2nd place and the far worse quality 'love comedy' Gnome thing made first place? I know both people who made those, but we all were in agreement that the placement seemed wrong - even if we were happy for the guys.
Glad you all like it, hearing my work is appreciated is always great!
No it didnt. This is the first SC related movie Ive ever released that I created using AE, and it shows. All my previous ones, including "Rebirth of the Swarm", were created using Sony Vegas 8.0, which im very proud of, seeing how I really pushed what was possible with Vegas.
Voice wise I actually tried to get Jesse Cox, but he responded to my request too late and then literally at the last minute I called IskatuMesk up and he and me ninja´d it really quick in one sitting. Considering that, I think Iskatu did an amazing job.
Edit: And yeah, I am Forsaken should have won that particular contest.
It's pretty good! I dunno how you got the SM models to work.
As for things that could use improvement. The color grading could use quite a bit of work. The over exposed effect with the highlights made the image way too blown out at parts. One thing that could have been improved on is to give everything a nice blue saturation to make it fit the mood of the script a bit more. The lens flares where a bit much and really didn't add to the piece at all. If you are going for anamorphic lens flares, then you also have to with a 2:35.1 ratio for it to make sense. And besides it being accurate, that ratio is a nice way to "force" a cinematic look out of something, seeing as that is what you where going for.
As for the voice acting, I think it was sub par. It's wasn't expressive enough and the actual voice timbre didn't really match the characters...combined with the recording quality being somewhat low.
As for the audio, it was almost really good. Keep in mind that when people are speaking in a non studio environment that their voice reverberates off of the surrounding objects. A good trick is to add a very light reverb with a mid/short decay, then add a delay with like 30+ms and make the L/R channels slightly offset, it helps a ton. And don't forget the art of compression can do wonders. There also needs to be more environmental sounds.
If you feel that I'm over criticizing your work, its a good thing! It means that there is a ton of potential. Good work man. It means that I'm not one of the only ones making good SC2 machinima.
Very well done!
The story could had more depth or spin, other than that everything is excellent and its far more noteworthy than those blizzard contest winners.
Btw, somebody should news this.
It's really well done. Definitely good enough to be a winner. The only reason I think it may not have been picked was because of the length. I remember Blizzard put in the rules a rather short limit on the movie length (I think 3 minutes?).
A news would be highly appreciated, yeah.
Im a fan of "over the top" color grading, I much prefer it to more subtle stuff where none of the colors really pop. As for the blue saturation thing, Im pretty sure that would have ruined everything. The mood of this movie is greatly defined by the snow and the color white, and having blue snow would have taken that entire element away. As for the lens flares, again, it was an artistic choice and I love them, and seeing how its animated, I dont have to work in ratio restrictions - if you do animated stuff, dont restrict yourself by artifical boundries orientated on what real film can do. Life action movie directors would throw those restrictions out of the window, too, if they could. And having black bars on top and at the bottom also isnt necessary for stuff to look cinematic, expecially now that those start to disappear, anyways, with the introduction of stuff like IMAX. Having a larger image is nice.
You actually have a good point here: The version I submitted to Blizzcon was cut down to 3 minutes to match their rules, that was probably one of the main deciding factors why it didnt win anything, because cutting away that much material really hurt the movie. If I participate next time, I will try to stick more to the 3 minute restriction.
I liked it over all! I won't bring up a lot of things that have already been mentioned (Anamorphic LF's on HD aspect ratio), but I will comment on one thing that annoyed me: the lines.
The fact is, regular people just don't talk like this: "I will take the dog, Betty, for a walk."
Instead, try to put more work into making the dialogue more natural, like: "I'm gonna take Betty for a walk."
The key thing to remember: people don't usually talk in correct grammar. When we hear grammatically perfect lines from characters like the colonel - or any natural character for that matter - it seems strange, and unnatural. While my dialogue example was exaggerated, the point still remains for your knowledge.
But as I said, I did like this machinima, and it was certainly better than the winning entry (by a lot...). Keep up the good work.
So sad to not see this one win any prices. It is very well done.
Things for improvement: probably the environment. Make it more lively. Realistic or what ever you wanna call it :).
Great work man! Gratz on the finishing and the end result. I was to say "but you disqualified yourself by sending more than 3 minutes" but then I read that you actually have shortened that a bit.
Could you post that 3 minutes version?
Great work :)
Great video, stupid dumb warcraft related videos spam that wins everywhere...
Nah, I´d rather not. The version you see here is basically the version that is meant to be watched. The 3 minute version basically has these scenes cut: The battlecruiser scene exept for the establishment shot and the Colonel and Jess scene that comes right after it. The scene at night is also cut shorter. Additionally to that, various shots are cut shorter, including the title shot, in order for it to make the 3 minute time limit. Understandably, this hurts the movie alot.
It's awesome. And what's with that winning entry? Damn. Anyway, you're the winner in my book. Keep being awesome and growing more awesome man!
Whatever you do, wholeheartedly, moment by heartfelt moment, becomes a tool for the expression of your very soul.