Concerned Extras

Yes, this past weekend I started feeling my way down the long, dark, no doubt obsessive road of HL2 Machinima.

I have a couple vague ideas about some projects I might like to undertake, so, I started poking around to see how I should start learning to use the tools. Basically, I’ve never used the SDK Hammer World Editor before, other than briefly opening it once, staring blankly, and than closing it. And I’ve never used the SDK Faceposer, either. So, I used a couple video tutorials to ease into it:

This video walks you through making a simple map (download link) in Hammer. Nothing fancy — just four walls, a ceiling, a floor, a couple objects. The instructor mumbles a bit and gets a little scattered at the end, but it’s much easier to follow than a couple written/screnshotted tutorials I originally started with. Another bonus is that you can see what he’s doing even when he’s not telling you what he’s doing, so you can pick up whatever steps he’s leaving out of his “patter”.

Once I had a map, I followed this two-part tutorial on Faceposer (download link), also very useful. Part the First walks you through getting your own .wav file into Faceposer and getting an model to lipsync it properly, Part Two covers how to get the scene into Hammer and thus into your map.

As helpful as these tutorials were, this still took me pretty much the entire afternoon and a good portion of the evening to get through (this will seem especially sad when you see the video in a moment), lots of trial and error (mostly error), trying out different funtions (more errors), recompiling (to fix errors), revising (errors again), and a couple Hammer crashes (errors — but probably not mine!). Still, I have a bit of a grasp on the most basic functions of both Hammer and Faceposer (especially on how to create errors), two of the most unintuitive programs I’ve ever used (Lotus Notes remains Number One — rock on, Ray Ozzie!).

Anyway. Here’s my little video (imbedded WMV, via Zippyvideos), and also here (Google Video), not much but a test, really. It’s just a single line of dialogue delivered by a Frohman model on my junky little tutorial-crafted map, which he delivers blankly (I haven’t gotten to expressions or gestures yet) when the player crosses an invisible trigger point (I based it on the first image I ever did for Concerned — back when Frohman’s name was Friedman). I used the shareware version of FRAPS to record the video, I used the free Audacity to record the .wav file, and apparently I also needed Microsoft Speech SDK 5.1 for… something. I dunno, this text tutorial, which is also helpful, told me I needed it, so I gotted it.

If you have any questions, I’m positive I can’t answer them, so, seriously, don’t ask. I just followed the tutorials step by step (rewinding them often) and taking angry smoke breaks when Faceposer didn’t do what I wanted it to do, and then immediately forgot all the steps and watched the tutorials again.

So, no new comics until Monday, August 29. I’ve gotta figure out why HL2 is so suddenly crashing every few minutes (I don’t think it’s G-Mod doing it, since it crashes when I play Deathmatch as well). This may not take until Monday to figure out, but I could honestly use a couple days off anyway to try to build up a bit of a backlog.

In the meantime, something fun to check out: This Spartan Life. It’s a talk show, complete with guests, music, and dancers, all done within an online game of Halo 2. Neat idea along the lines of Red vs. Blue (which I link to so everyone won’t send me e-mail saying “Have you seen Red vs. Blue?), and hilarious when the host must fend off snipers while his guest is talking (it’s done on an open server, and other players aren’t aware there’s a talk show in progress). If you click on “Episodes” and check out the Bob Stein interview, you’ll see what I mean (sizable download, but well worth it).