May Update

[The APPOVTALK #3 live streams have been cancelled due to technical difficulties. During various dress rehearsals I was able to stream the game with little to no issues, but unfortunately I experienced extended frame rate drops throughout the first stream Friday night. This has led me to cancel the streams as they do not reflect the quality I aim to deliver, no matter if it is an APPOVTALK or a feature film in that regard. Rest assured, APPOVTALK #3 was recorded a couple of weeks ago already but I wanted to re-do it through a live stream in order to improve the previous run and to have some kind of interaction with viewers while doing so. I will still try to fix OBS under the hood, perhaps a different encoder will do wonders, but for now the streams are off the table]

A couple of days ago I shared some screenshots of a new, upcoming project on my Instagram. Allow me to introduce: TRIGON, an experimental visual study of the GameCube port of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Similar like AR3NA, it will be an experimental outlook on the 2002 rendition of Hogwarts, its surroundings and the Harry Potter universe. It is my first console-based Machinima project. This, in fact, was the console-based project I was talking about last year and eventually had to switch with Pixelated Soundwaves. I initially wanted to release TRIGON on November 15th last year in order to celebrate the game's 20th anniversary but I couldn't make it due to time constraints. Therefore I placed emphasis on Pixelated Soundwaves around that time instead.

As TRIGON is based off a GameCube game, this change of pace brings along new opportunities and challenges. Footage was recorded with OBS, the game was played inside of the Dolphin GameCube emulator and camera manipulation was done with Dolphin's nifty 'free look camera option', which allows you to break loose from the game's camera. This means, since little to practically no configuration is required, you are able to do camera manipulation right out of the box inside practically every single Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii game; which basically means you have a whole list of 1500+ potential games to make Machinima in. For my first, I decided to go with HP COS. Everyone has a game or movie that one keeps closest in their hearts and for me, HP COS for the GameCube is that game, no matter what anyone says. Why, you might ask? Well. That, and many other questions, will be answered in the third installment of APPOVTALK: Breaking Magical Boundaries! More coming soon.

This episode of APPOVTALK discusses the potential of Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii games for Machinima-making by combining a 100%-playthrough of the game, live camera manipulation and a lot of different creative insights during this particular process of using a 2002 Harry Potter game to create game-based cinema. Of course, I will talk in depth about this game, what makes this game so interesting for me personally, how I used the game for camera manipulation, opportunities and challenges while during the production of TRIGON and show some technical insights of the game as well.

Let's conclude this post with an update regarding the other projects I am working on.

Quake III project:

Production has been concluded. I hope to start post-production once I finally fix some personal matters that are going on right now. I haven't been able to start yet.

TRIGON:

Production has been concluded. Idem dito here, I hope to start post-production soon once I finally fix some personal matters that are going on right now.

DEPTHMAP DOMINION:

I am currently still tinkering with the algorithm. Version 1.1.3 has been released on Github and on NPM! - I need to adjust a couple of parameters in order to make the algorithm's output work better with smaller- and odd-sized maps. Once that is done, I will be conducting a couple more tests. If successful, then 1.1.4 should allow me to start production. 

REGRESSION IV:

There are a couple of issues going on. I am unable to get the game running on virtual machines and on CrossOver Games anymore after a couple of software updates. I've even went ahead and borrowed a Playstation 3 for the occasion since GTA IV would be able to run it just fine. However, I had to find out the hard way that the console versions of GTA IV don't have the Rockstar Editor! I tried to use a couple of mod menu's as well but those were very limited in camera manipulation, HUD hiding and a lot of other handy features. I hope to start production on Regression IV soon, but this is also affected by some of my personal matters that are currently going on. Most likely, production will need to occur through a third-party service like Shadow as I don't have access to proper hardware myself to record the game. Once production finally starts then I am certain the snowball will descend down the hill very rapidly and things will become better quite fast. Regression IV will come, sooner or later, and hopefully this year, but I just really need the proper hardware to get this show on the road.

There is also a project in the works within the game Animal Crossing New Horizons. This is the Nintendo Switch game I was talking about in my previous post. More about that once I actually have something to show you guys.

Until the next update! See you on the stream!