11/09/05 - The Movies (Everything)

[stray]

I keep people next to each other and they never budge from "aquietance". If I put them in the bar, they don't know each other well enough.

How often do you need them to talk to each other on the street to get to the next level?

Just to make sure: You're drag and dropping on to other actors, right? Doing that brings up a little "chat" icon, which then proceeds to progress their friendship status.

Just drag and drop chat for 15 minutes or so, and that should get them to Friends status. From there, go to the Bar and seat them next to each other.

[Yoru]

I keep people next to each other and they never budge from "aquietance". If I put them in the bar, they don't know each other well enough.

How often do you need them to talk to each other on the street to get to the next level?

Just to make sure: You're drag and dropping on to other actors, right? Doing that brings up a little "chat" icon, which then proceeds to progress their friendship status.

Just drag and drop chat for 15 minutes or so, and that should get them to Friends status. From there, go to the Bar and seat them next to each other.

There seem to be some hidden (or random) variables at play here; certain pairs take to each other very rapidly and get to Friends in 4-5 chats, whereas the really bitchy ones can take upwards of 15. It's annoying that you can't set them to talk each other's heads off until a more pressing need arises.

I went back to try to finish my storymode game last night and just eked into a 5-star star after 9 years of effort in 1997. Now I've got something like 6 years remaining in the storymode to get a 5-star studio and pray I've done enough to instantly win the next cert. The releases meter decays faster than I can put out movies with my normal schedule, so I've taken to 'cheating' by using the custom script office to crank out 4-star scripts that require only 2 leading roles and a limited number of crew/extras. Very stressful on the stars, but that's what liquor is for. ;)

[HaemishM]

Yes, I'm late with my review.

[WayAbvPar]

Good review. I am hoping the slap together a patch before I acquire it...I figure I will put it on my Christmas list for someone to buy for me  :-D

[Yoru]

You covered pretty much everything I'd say about the game in the review; two things stick out though.

First is that there's Yet Another Bug (or, really, design oversight) in conjunction with the 99-clip dialogue bug. While you can resolve the 99-clip dialogue bug with some creative regexps and a batch file renaming tool, the same cannot be said of the lipsynch data. Lipsynch data is all stored in the same directory as the movie files, and is identified by having the same name as the source audio clip, but with a different extension appended to it. If you're like me and solved the 99-clip problem by renaming files and organizing them into subdirs by movie, but kept the same naming convention, you need to re-apply lipsynch data to a movie when viewing/exporting it after having viewed/exported another movie. Esoteric but annoying.

The other is extras' costumes; like actor costumes, you can set a 'global costume' for your extras from the 'movie set-up screen' (where you select your title, genre, main actors). Using the staff sidebar on the left, drag an extra onto the costuming icon and you can set up the costume they'll wear by default in the movie. Granted, this doesn't help when using an extra for multiple different roles; for that, I save off the costumes as custom costumes and use the custom-makeovers group to quickly apply it.

[Soln]

Good review, I'll get it.  I didn't know they implemented AI "mood", which interests me.  I wonder if it's a faction/respect-like mechanism or something more.  I shall play to discover.  Thx.

[HaemishM]

The other is extras' costumes; like actor costumes, you can set a 'global costume' for your extras from the 'movie set-up screen' (where you select your title, genre, main actors). Using the staff sidebar on the left, drag an extra onto the costuming icon and you can set up the costume they'll wear by default in the movie. Granted, this doesn't help when using an extra for multiple different roles; for that, I save off the costumes as custom costumes and use the custom-makeovers group to quickly apply it.

I didn't know you could do that with extras. Shit, that would save me a bit of time, since even when you save a custom costume, you still have to drag the extra onto the costume icon which takes time.

I don't use the lip-synching bit. I didn't like the results the one time I used it.

[stray]

Good review, I'll get it. I didn't know they implemented AI "mood", which interests me. I wonder if it's a faction/respect-like mechanism or something more. I shall play to discover. Thx.

Mood, if we're talking about the same thing, is dependent upon food and alcohol addictions, stress/workload, success/good reviews, salary, and perks (like trailer prestige and how many people are in their entourage).

Friendships will result in higher positive moods, but lack of friendship among directors and actors won't result in negative moods. It's a non factor (You can't have negative relationships. The lowest a relationship two actors can have between each other is "acquaintances".).

[Shockeye]

The Movies 1.1 patch will allow owners of the game to access the PropShop, which will feature a variety of new, downloadable content for the game, including additional costumes, sets, & props. This patch is only for the US, UK, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch localized version of the game. For additional fixes, please view the Readme support file.

The Propshop itself will launch in a few days (like mentioned in earlier news) but apart from enabling the Propshop it also fixes a few issues listed below.

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The Movies(TM) - Patch v1.1 Readme file
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Minimum System Requirements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 98SE/ME/2000/XP

- Pentium(R) III 800 MHz or Athlon(TM) 800MHz processor or higher

- 256MB RAM

- 2x Speed DVD-ROM drive, or 8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) depending on
the version of The Movies(TM) that you own, and latest drivers.

- 2.4 GB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 500MB for Windows(R) swap file) for the original
installation of The Movies(TM)

- A further 60MB is required to install Patch v1.1

- 100% DirectX(R) 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers

- 100% Windows(R) 98SE/ME/2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers

- 800 x 600 Monitor Resolution

- 3D Hardware Accelerator Card required - 100% DirectX(R) 9.0c compatible 32MB Hardware T&L-capable
video card and latest drivers*

ATI(TM) Radeon(R) series (7000 or better).
7000, 7200, 7500
8500
9000, 9200, 9250, 9550, 9600, 9700, 9800
x300, x600, x700, x800, x850

NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) series (GeForce 3 or better).
GeForce 3, 3 Ti
GeForce 4, MX, Ti
GeForce FX 5200, 5600, 5700, 5800, 5900, PCX 5300, 5750, 5950
GeForce 6200, 6600, 6800

Important Note: *Some 3D accelerator cards with the chipsets listed here may not be compatible with
the 3D acceleration features utilized by The Movies(TM). Please refer to your hardware manufacturer
for 100% DirectX 9.0c compatibility.

Online Requirements: Internet (TCP/IP) supported Online content requires broadband connection and the
latest drivers.

NOTICE: This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may conflict with some disc and
virtual drives.

NOTE FOR MOD USERS: It is recommended that any user modifications that have been installed to the
The Movies(TM) directory be removed. These modifications are not supported by Activision(R) and may
not be compatible with some of the fixes that are included with this patch.


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Fixes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Performance issues on Minimum Specification machines have been resolved.

- Stability on low end Athlon(TM) processors has been improved.

- Post Production had a number of issues fixed to aid user interaction and avoid player confusion.

- Audio echo during Post Production has been removed, and general stability of this screen is improved.

- Stars retirement ages now work as intended when saving and loading a game while shooting a film.

- Some scenes have been updated to address issues with clipping, props and set objects.

- Some movie scenes have been updated to ensure they would finish filming in the lot.

- Placeholder text has been changed to final text.

- Saving StarMaker(TM) and The Movies(TM) on Non-English Operating Systems has been improved.

- Saving a game while a Star is in surgery now functions as intended.

- Overall stabilty has been improved.

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Changes
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- Players can now record more pieces of custom audio in Post Production.

- The game will now check the space available in the users My Documents directory to ensure there is
enough space to run the game.

- Online connectivity now correctly handles situations where players had no internet connection.

[Yoru]

Hm.. "more pieces of custom audio".. that doesn't sound right. I hope they didn't do the dumb thing and just tack another digit onto it. Sounds more like a band-aid than a fix; I don't consider it fixed until the number is either uncapped or set at some reasonable boundary (e.g. ~4.2 billion).

Still, Propshop, yay. If only I could think of something funny to make into a movie. :(

[HaemishM]

If only they didn't decide that every movie uploaded to their site was theirs to do with as they wish (or at least, not entirely yours). Credits for the propshop sound like a good idea, except that it takes so much effort to make a movie with custom audio that giving it to them for that doesn't quite seem equitable.

[HaemishM]

According to the Movies Workshop site, the patch doesn't fuck up any modding you've done, or at least any mods on the current Movies Workshop page. The Prop Shop stuff might.

Now if someone would just release a 1.1 No CD patch, I'd be just dandy.

[Shockeye]

Now if someone would just release a 1.1 No CD patch, I'd be just dandy.

http://m0004.gamecopyworld.com/games/pc_the_movies.shtml#The%20Movies%20v1.1%20[ENGLISH]%20No-CD/No-DVD/Fixed%20EXE%201

[HaemishM]

I tried that one and had horrendous sound stuttering in sandbox mode just moving around the map, something I didn't have prior to that, or when I uninstalled the No-CD patch.

[HaemishM]

The Lionhead Propshop is now open. In order to buy things from the Prop Shop, you must use virtual credits, which you get for posting movies to the Lionhead Movies site. Of the things they have, the new sets are the only real intersting thing, and those costs LOTS of credits.

And yes, uploading your movies gives up all rights to the created movie (not necessarily the idea, just the particular movie down with the Movies game engine). BLEARG.

[Yegolev]

The movies are later ftp'ed to the Farrelly brothers' big hard drive of ideas.

[Murgos]

The movies are later ftp'ed to the Farrelly brothers' big hard drive of ideas.

Which is interesting because apparently thats where all the ideas for the movies came from in the first place.

[Yegolev]

After 'The Ringer', their next movie will revolve around a family that traps their neighbors behind the couch until they die, or remove the pool ladder after they go for a swim.  And one of the family members looks like Space Ghost.

[Samwise]

And yes, uploading your movies gives up all rights to the created movie (not necessarily the idea, just the particular movie down with the Movies game engine). BLEARG.

I would assume that you don't have exclusive rights to the movie even if you don't upload it.  Hypothetically, if a Hollywood studio were interested in your movie and wanted to release it in a theater (as-is... yes, this is a pretty big hypothetical), they'd have to get Lionhead's permission in addition to yours.

[Yoru]

If you're really just out for credits, you can do what a lot of the hacks do: slapdash a movie together, render it, upload it (gives you credits), delete it, repeat.

Hell, if you were really industrious, you could set up macros to do that.

Or if you were really lazy, just wait for someone to figure out the delivery and unlocking mechanism and post the binaries for the new stuff online somewhere.

[HaemishM]

Luckily, nothing they have is all that interesting to me now. Whether it's a big deal or not is going to depend on them making good sets.

[HaemishM]

For those who still give a shit, some mod headway has been made lately. The meshes on the sets have been figured out, so that we can now have new sets made (really existing sets with new textures) that don't replace the old versions. We also have a really fucking brilliant guy who has figured out how to do 3D animation and some special effects, including having space fighter battles.

Spacefighter Animation Kit - Registration required to download

Zogg's Special Effects Tutorial

XFG's Movies Forum - Again you'll need to register, and the site may not be there long, so check out their downloads while you still can.