11/09/05 - The Movies (Everything)

[Samwise]

I wouldn't count on it.  It plays very satisfactorily on my 256 MB GF5700, but not at the highest settings.  It was much smoother when the game started, but once I started adding a lot of stuff to my studio I had to lower the settings to be able to render it all at tolerable speeds.

[Reg]

Here's a very handy link I found a few weeks ago. This thing checks out your PC and gives you a report telling you if it will run various new PC games properly.

http://www.srtest.com/referrer/srtest

[stray]

Heh, a whole weekend gone and I still haven't made a damn thing as far as movies are concerned. I'm working on Western mainstays now, with plenty of ripoffs



Close enough!

[edit]

Unfortunately, there is no way to make an Asian actor who isn't Chinese. My Van Cleef character looks more Japanese than the Asian templates available!



This is probably the most non rounded, least yellow toned skinned model I based off of, and he still looks Chinese. Even with a beard (which they usually can't grow).

Oh well, I guess there will be no Samurai movies (btw are there any Asian themed sets and costumes?).

[NiX]

Unfortunately no feudal japan sets. Heck there isn't even a store setting. No Clerks remakes for you.

[schild]

Heck there isn't even a store setting. No Clerks remakes for you.

I was really hoping to make shorts on interactions at Gamestop. Then I looked through the sets. I was pretty damn pissed off at this glaring omission. Though, the lack of feudal japanese sets is twenty kinds of stupid. Someone at Lionhead must have it out for Kurosawa. I wouldn't be surprised if they release expansion packs like the Sims and "Japanamania" is one of them or someshit.

[Yoru]

Well, there's no swords, either... they left out pretty much every historical setting older than the Wild West. I suppose you could do parts of a Roman-themed movie using the Municipal Building.

For simpler sets that the game lacks, you can halfass it with the Stage set, a custom backdrop and a whole shitton of props. The problem is that prop placement can't be persisted across clips, so you'd have to re-dress it each time, which would be a real pain in the ass. I half-assed a warehouse last night using the Musty Cellar, some creative scene selection and a mess of 55-gallon-drum and crate props.

I also find it weird that the computer in the 'Use Computer' scenes is some kind of weird trackball thing, but the 'Personal Computer' prop looks like a proper desktop PC circa 1995.

Anyway, if TM does well, I don't doubt there will be countless prop, scene and set expansion packs. No one would be foolish enough to turn down that sort of steady moneyhat stream.

[AOFanboi]

When you say "there isn't an X setting", does that mean there is no way to make it yourself and you have to wait for a patch or expansion to add it? Is there much possibility for user-made content, I mean?

(My addiction to WoW has made me skip both this and Civ IV so far, but the addiction is waning...)

[HaemishM]

I've been reading the Lionhead boards. Yes, there is modding and seems to be a community of modders starting up. They've already provided tutorials on making your own custom backdrops, I suppose for both the stage set and for titles. Some have already uploaded a movie of their own custom costumes. Most of the textures/models are in .pak files, which are really just renamed .zip files and someone already has a Pak Poker, which allows you to extract the .pak files, add your own stuff and repak it. You can also use 3dsmax to create your own models.

Humping mod in 5...4...3...2...1

[Sky]

I've been reading the Lionhead boards. Yes, there is modding and seems to be a community of modders starting up. They've already provided tutorials on making your own custom backdrops, I suppose for both the stage set and for titles. Some have already uploaded a movie of their own custom costumes. Most of the textures/models are in .pak files, which are really just renamed .zip files and someone already has a Pak Poker, which allows you to extract the .pak files, add your own stuff and repak it. You can also use 3dsmax to create your own models.

Humping mod in 5...4...3...2...1

So I should treat this game like I should've treated NWN? That is, pick it up in a year when it's bargain binned and there is actually enough content to do something with?

An aside: why didn't they just use .zip, if you need to dick with a workaround 3rd party proggie just to pop open the .paks? Blah.

[HaemishM]

Actually, there's still a shitload of stuff in the regular game, and unlike NWN, the gameplay itself doesn't suck. It has some quirks, but it's still good.

And yes, I expect many expansion packs from Activision, since this should be a cash cow like the Sims, only with a smaller market. The .pak thing I don't know about. Maybe it has to do with shipping .zip files in a commercial product requiring some kind of licensing fee, maybe it's the whole "gotta be proprietary" thing. But yes, it's a pain in the ass.

[Yoru]

From what I've read on Pak Poker, it's a custom header (a table of file IDs to offsets) on top of a bunch of separately-compressed files which have been run through one of the common, well-known Zip algorithms. If it was just a straight renamed zipfile, you wouldn't need a third-party program to edit it; you'd be able to just slap it into your favorite data compression utility. I'd guess they made up their own custom file format in an effort to optimize access time, since quick loading is more important to a game than install footprint.

Of course, "not invented here" is also a fairly common motivation, so that could be it too.

[Sky]

I'm just running out of reasons not to pick this up. All that's left is my girlfriend's glare...(it's not a wargame)

Hey, there's another setting: WAR!

[Yegolev]

The might have learned a lesson from The Sims where it was discovered if you put your ten-thousand floor tile files into a single .far file, no compression or anything, performance was significantly enhanced.  Or the being-a-dick thing.  Could go either way.

[stray]

I'm just running out of reasons not to pick this up. All that's left is my girlfriend's glare...(it's not a wargame)

Hey, there's another setting: WAR!

For what it's worth, I think it's game of the year material. It's a great, great idea that, all things considered, has been executed remarkably well.

[Yoru]

I'm just running out of reasons not to pick this up. All that's left is my girlfriend's glare...(it's not a wargame)

Hey, there's another setting: WAR!

There's two outright War sets; War: Battlefield and War: Bombed Street. They're obviously geared towards WWI/WWII movies though, although you could probably do a decent Korea. Wild West: Desert has too many cacti to be usable for a Middle East war. There really isn't a good set to use for a barracks, so you'd be mocking up any military bases you wanted. I've used a bunch of sci-fi sets to mock up a 'secret underground military base'. You might be able to use them to do a passable missile silo.

The might have learned a lesson from The Sims where it was discovered if you put your ten-thousand floor tile files into a single .far file, no compression or anything, performance was significantly enhanced. Or the being-a-dick thing. Could go either way.

Yeah, repeatedly calling fopen() and fclose() is actually more performance-intensive than holding onto a file handle and using fseek(). I would guess they did it for performance reasons.

[Yoru]

Second one: Earl of Sandwich (2010), an action-comedy spoof of hard-boiled detective movies. I think the plot came together a lot better on this one, but there's a few scenes where the timing on the VA is just a bit off. Still, I'm a lot happier with this than my first film.

Also, I think I figured out how to keep the editor from freezing on me; I did all the editing first, rehearsing the lines aloud while cutting and splicing scenes, to keep the timing right. Next, I laid down the voice over the course of a couple nights (hence the variance in Earl's accent). Once all the voice was laid down and the wav files moved over to their final home (even with rehearsal, I generated ~200 clips), then sound effects were moved into final positions and lipsync data generated. Finally, music.

It'd be really nice if you could adjust SFX and, particularly, music volume dynamically.. the stock music varies widely in volume, and it's a real pain to find appropriate tracks that aren't near-silent or drowning out the voice clips.

[stray]

Great job man. How long did that one take you?

I had a weird story I jotted up a few years ago involving meat...As well as plastic surgery clinics and infomercial hosts. I never fleshed out (pardon the pun) the main character who was investigating the whole deal though.....Damn...Wish I thought of the USDA  . Sounds like a perfect job for Earl.

Anyways, I'm done with story mode.....And I take back what I said about micromanaging: It gets pretty tedious post 1970. It was fun while it lasted, but I wouldn't do it again.

As for custom movies, I started writing some music yesterday (spaghetti western/guitar score), but I'm afraid that putting together the little film I want to do is going to take a long time. I've got some other riffs and pieces I can recycle, but add all of that with the actual animating process seems like a lot more work than I realized it'd be before I bought the game.

[Yoru]

Great job man. How long did that one take you?

I had a weird story I jotted up a few years ago involving meat...As well as plastic surgery clinics and infomercial hosts. I never fleshed out (pardon the pun) the main character who was investigating the whole deal though.....Damn...Wish I thought of the USDA  . Sounds like a perfect job for Earl.

Anyways, I'm done with story mode.....And I take back what I said about micromanaging: It gets pretty tedious post 1970. It was fun while it lasted, but I wouldn't do it again.

As for custom movies, I started writing some music yesterday (spaghetti western/guitar score), but I'm afraid that putting together the little film I want to do is going to take a long time. I've got some other riffs and pieces I can recycle, but add all of that with the actual animating process seems like a lot more work than I realized it'd be before I bought the game.

That one took, all told, about 18 hours spread over 3 days; about 6 hours for scripting/animating/costuming, 2 for editing, 2 for music/SFX/lipsync and 8 for doing the actual voice.

As for micromanaging, yeah, I agree; what I've been doing for my custom 'for-show' films is creating sandbox lots with almost everything turned off, picking up just enough stars to get a director and the leading roles (2 in this case) and then creating a mess of extras. It's an approach I was working towards in the story mode; focusing on 1-2 genres and working hard to keep the few stars I had on hand at the ecstatic levels of happiness.

There's some stuff I'm surprised they left out.. I needed a Dramatic Music Sting for Earl, but the game doesn't include even one, yet it has five fanfares. There's only one accessible explosion sound effect. One plate of food (spaghetti). Lots of little things. Hopefully a wikimedia-like community forms to fill these gaps.

[stray]

As for micromanaging, yeah, I agree; what I've been doing for my custom 'for-show' films is creating sandbox lots with almost everything turned off, picking up just enough stars to get a director and the leading roles (2 in this case) and then creating a mess of extras. It's an approach I was working towards in the story mode; focusing on 1-2 genres and working hard to keep the few stars I had on hand at the ecstatic levels of happiness.

Actually, this makes me to want to do it again. Just to see how well I do. Already around 1960, I was having a hard time finding lot space because I diversified too much....Add on that with having probably 3 or 4 too many stars and it gets a little overwhelming....And sloppy.

Not being able to spread across genres is pretty lame. What major studio (which is what we're supposed to be playing as) doesn't have a whole variety of set types? None.

Back to sandbox lots: Are you saying that you're making specialized sandboxes as well?

[Sky]

I think I'll buy a Cry Baby instead :P

[stray]

I think I'll buy a Cry Baby instead :P

Seriously man, it's pretty damn good (And generally speaking, I'm going to say that I'm every bit of a hater as you, if not moreso. If the hate is specifically a Molyneux thing though, then I'll just say this is probably the first idea Lionhead has executed that's more up to par with his older games).

As long as you like sim games, that is. If you liked the Sims and Tropico, then you'll like this. If not, well....Whatever. It never billed itself as being anything other than a sim game, so there's no reason to condemn it for being something it's not (Well, it does bill itself as being a sort of Kid Pix version of a Movie Maker as well....And in that, it also delivers. Better than you may think.)

[Yoru]

Actually, this makes me to want to do it again. Just to see how well I do. Already around 1960, I was having a hard time finding lot space because I diversified too much....Add on that with having probably 3 or 4 too many stars and it gets a little overwhelming....And sloppy.

Not being able to spread across genres is pretty lame. What major studio (which is what we're supposed to be playing as) doesn't have a whole variety of set types? None.

Back to sandbox lots: Are you saying that you're making specialized sandboxes as well?

It's possible to lay out a lot with absolutely every set, but it's a flaming pain in the ass, a nightmare to navigate, ugly as sin, and would probably be nigh-impossible to accomplish in an organically-growing story-mode game. There's problems with focusing, though; the novelty value of sets drops with use, and the simulation seems tilted towards making large numbers of middling-quality movies for money instead of a few high-quality films. (Realistic in a cynical kind of way, I suppose.) A randomly-generated 4-5 star movie makes around 1.2-1.5 million and, if everything goes smoothly, takes about 1.5 years and ~$800k to make; not the best margins. In my story-mode game, I actually do need to make careful decisions about star salaries (too many on the A-list = no profit), lot expansion (maintenance, janitorial, production time), and release schedules (with only 1 movie in production, a sudden drop in public interest can put me into the red). It's a fun challenge though.

As for sandboxes, the answer is 'sort of'. I've got a lot with every single set crammed into it and space for exactly 4 stars (in trailers), with star moods and maintenance turned off; that's the lot I used for 'Earl' and that I'll probably be using for subsequent custom films. When I make a custom movie, I load up a save made just after the lot layout was completed, with a skeleton staff (crew, janitors, a maintenance man) hired; then I pick out the extras and stars I need to make the film, fix them up with Plastic if need be, and then start scripting/production. So it's the same lot, but a fresh set of stars each time. I do also keep a save from just after completing the custom films, in case I ever make a sequel. :)

As long as you like sim games, that is. If you liked the Sims and Tropico, then you'll like this. If not, well....Whatever. It never billed itself as being anything other than a sim game, so there's no reason to condemn it for being something it's not (Well, it does bill itself as being a sort of Kid Pix version of a Movie Maker as well....And in that, it also delivers. Better than you may think.)

I have to agree here; if you like The Sims or Tycoon games, you'll probably enjoy the story mode once or twice, which pegs the game at ~20 hours of entertainment, baseline. If you get into the custom moviemaking part, there's a lot more /played to be had. It may be wise to wait for a patch to resolve some of the annoying aspects of custom moviemaking (dialogue recording comes immediately to mind). My primary disappointments with the moviemaker involve a lack of commonly-employed content, such as music riffs and sound effects.

Oh, I'd also like it if Plastic Surgery in the sandbox mode let you adjust sliders instead of simply performing a dramatic improvement. Alternately, some way of temporarily applying the effects of Plastic surgery to individual scenes would be useful. I'm also wondering where the 'magical mystical star-age-reversal' machine is; I recall reading about it in some interview with Molyneux.

Still, I'm guessing this is one of those games I'll keep installed for a long time and 'play' on and off for months.

[HaemishM]

The star age reversal is in the Cosmetic surgery unit. It's the nip-tuck routine. I think that's the only way you can young-up a star.

[Shockeye]

The star age reversal is in the Cosmetic surgery unit. It's the nip-tuck routine. I think that's the only way you can young-up a star.

There's no virginal blood drinking? Damn.

[Yoru]

The star age reversal is in the Cosmetic surgery unit. It's the nip-tuck routine. I think that's the only way you can young-up a star.

When I tried that, it merely made them appear younger; they still retire at 70. Does it get improved at some point?

Here's an old interview.

So what we're doing is making available one of the medical facilities a rejuvenation chamber where they can be rejuvenated at an enormous cost and we're effectively cheating about death. If you leave them they will die, but if you rejuvenate them they will go back to being younger. You could even take them all the way back to being 16 again, but it would cost you unbelievable amounts of money. If we really had that invention, I believe Hollywood would be very, very keen to talk to us.

Of course, there's other stuff mentioned in there that I haven't seen yet.. such as more unlockable technology after 2000. There's definitely 'world events' that continue up through at least 2020, I haven't gone beyond that.

[HaemishM]

No, I don't know about the rejuvenation chamber. Maybe that's where the virgin blood sacrifices takes place.

[Bunk]

I just finished mentioning this link in my modding story, when I realized it might fit here better - so semi-crossposting I go!

http://www.tmws.themoviesplanet.com/forum/index.php

They have tutorials up for customizing costume and makeup skins. Pretty straight forward stuff to, just a matter of following filename conventions really.

[schild]

Does anyone know how I can change the name of my studio without remaking an entire movie?

[stray]

That info is embedded in the save files. I don't have a suitable editor installed atm to test out if it can be changed.

[HaemishM]

Some interesting mod stuffz.

Import your own music into the game. For those enterprising musicians.

This one's even better. This mod removes the minimum number of actors from all the scenes. You know those scenes that give you all the required extras yet you really don't need or want them? This removes all that, letting you place each actor/role individually. The only problems are that sometimes you WILL get scenes where the camera points at one actor but you took that actor out and it looks wrong. Watch your scenes closely.

The custom costume modding tutorial on that site works as well as the custom backdrop one.

[stray]

Huh. I didn't even know I needed a mod for that. Thought it was built in (custom music I mean).

Also, there needs to be a mod for story mode that tells you at least what the character names are in a pregenerated script before it gets filmed....Just so you don't end up casting your bearded fatass actor as the female lead, and the hot chick as the gun toting villian.

Sometimes it produces hilarious results though.

[Comstar]

Stray, if you import the scirpt into the custom scrpict maker you can change the character names, and see the entire movie.

Well, this is the first game I played all night until 8am next morning. Anyone know how to get a 5 Star Star? It seems impossible.

[stray]

Custom script maker....Thanks man.

I had a 4 for a brief time, but soon collapsed under the weight of multiple stressed and bitchy stars. I haven't played the story mode again, but I was thinking that Yoru's plan to just to go niche and limit the amount of stars to the smallest possible number would make a 5 easy enough (among other things).

[Yoru]

Custom script maker....Thanks man.

I had a 4 for a brief time, but soon collapsed under the weight of multiple stressed and bitchy stars. I haven't played the story mode again, but I was thinking that Yoru's plan to just to go niche and limit the amount of stars to the smallest possible number would make a 5 easy enough (among other things).

Yeah, that's pretty much the only way I've found to do it without sacrificing long-term studio viability. What I'm doing now is recruiting two young stars with a primary focus on high tolerances for alcohol and food and, preferably, are easy to please and can withstand stress and boredom. They spend the first part of their career (~3 years) building their relationships and practicing their craft. When the 'core crew' is between productions, the newbs get to talk it up with them too. Next, once they're 6/8 or so in relationships, they get boosted to max image with plastic surgery and chat/drink up with the 'core crew' to get to 8/8 relationships while recovering from that. Next, using the custom script office to make high-novelty, 4-star scripts with 1-2 main actors, they get their careers boosted with some high-quality releases. While doing this, ramp up their salaries to $95,000 so they get 4 stars from salary. Finally, repair the slightly-decayed relationships and drop them into PR to get the last bubbles there and temporarily shift enough people over to entourage to get the last few points. (You'll need 6 total; I try to use scientists and scriptwriters first.)

It's a pain in the ass and only lasts for a few minutes; the PR decays away rapidly and I empty out the entourage so that my studio doesn't fall apart. But hey, you only need to hit it once.

Also, I noticed a mod at TMWS that gives you a ludicrous number of spare employees. That would also make it much easier to get to 5 stars.

[Comstar]

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?