Table of Contents
FAQ
NOTE: When we refer to your Machinimation folder, we are referring to the folder named Machinimation underneath the folder where you installed your version of Machinimation. For example, if you installed the academic version of Machinimation into the standard location, your Machinimation folder would be C:/Program Files/Machinimation Academic/machinimation/
What is Machinimation?
Machinimation is a program created by Fountainhead Entertainment that allows you to create real-time 3D movies called Machinima.
What is Machinima?
During the mid 1990's a group of game and film enthusiasts turned the original Quake game into a set, filled it with their personalities and characters, and told us stories that made us laugh, cry and sometimes cringe. As game engines evolved, so did this form of animated film making that became known as Machinima. Machinima is a revolutionary new medium for computer animation that has been widely embraced by the gaming community. Once used primarily for the creation of small sketches to be viewed by specific game communities, it has become a viable option as an alternative form of animation.
How do I use the console?
To open or pull down the console window, hit the tilde '~' key.
Is it possible to use custom assets in Machinimation?
Yes. Below are some of the custom materials you can use, and how to go about adding them to Machinimation.
Player Models & Animations:
- Using:
Once you have created or installed a player model into Machinimation you will need to use the console to change your active player model with the following command (followed by the ENTER key):
/model modelname/skinname
If you created the model directly, the modelname and skinname would be the same that you used in the creation process; otherwise you would need to refer to the installation text that came with your player model to find the proper values. If you do not specify a skinname it will fall back to using the default skin. Therefore, the following two are equivalent:
/model modelname/default
/model modelname
- Creating:
The process for creating player models is complex, and you'll need experience in a standard 3D modeling program in order to do it. The details of the process are beyond the scope of this document, but we've supplied a quick rundown of the different components involved, and also provided links to resources that will show you the details of how to create these models for "Quake III: Arena" (which is the same process used for Machinimation).
First you will use your 3D modeling program to create and export three separate models corresponding to the player's lower body (lower.md3), upper body (upper.md3), and head (head.md3). The lower body and upper body should be animated, but the head should not.
These three models should be saved in a new folder under your Machinimation folder:
models/players/modelname
Where modelname is the name of the new player model you are creating. For example, the modelname for the default player model that comes with Machinimation is 'sid_m'; therefore its folder would be models/players/sid_m.
You will also need to create a special text file called animation.cfg within your player model's folder. The content of this file will describe the frame ranges for the various player animations. You can find details on how to create this file at the following site: Putting New Models in "Quake III: Arena".
NOTE: You can create the player animations to look unique as long as they fit within the player animation requirements, such as animation order.
In addition to the three model files you will need to create three .skin files that indicate what shader to apply to each mesh within a given model. The naming of the .skin file must be as follows:
models/players/modelname/head_skinname.skin
models/players/modelname/lower_skinname.skin
models/players/modelname/upper_skinname.skin
Skinname should be a name to represent a "wardrobe" (the shaders that cover their head, lower body, and upper body) that you will be using for your player model. At the very least, there has to be a set of .skin files with the skinname 'default'. Additional sets of .skin files beyond this must use their own skinname.
models/players/modelname/head_default.skin
models/players/modelname/lower_default.skin
models/players/modelname/upper_default.skin
A skin file is simply a text file with the extension .skin rather than .txt. The file contains lines of two column comma-separated strings. The first column indicates the name of the mesh, and the second column indicates the shader to apply to the mesh (if the second column is empty then the mesh is not rendered). Here is an example of a skin file:
head_default.skin:
h_head,models/players/modelname/texture.tga
tag_head,
lower_default.skin:
l_legs,models/players/modelname/texture.tga
tag_torso,
upper_default.skin:
tag_head,
tag_weapon,
u_torso,models/players/modelname/texture.tga
tag_torso,
NOTE: You must have a corresponding line for each of your model's meshes within its skin file. Please refer to your modelling package to get the mesh names that were exported with your MD3.
Finally, you should create a .tga icon to represent your model/skin combination. The standard icon should be 64 x 64 in size, and have 32-bit color.
models/players/modelname/icon_skinname.tga
In the end you should have a folder structure that looks something like this:
models/players/modelname
models/players/modelname/head.md3
models/players/modelname/lower.md3
models/players/modelname/upper.md3
models/players/modelname/head_default.skin
models/players/modelname/lower_default.skin
models/players/modelname/upper_default.skin
models/players/modelname/icon_default.tga
models/players/modelname/animation.cfg
Useful links:
Levels/Sets:
Levels (sets) are defined by a collection of convex solid forms known as "brushes". Brushes define 3D volumes in the set and are generally used to represent things like walls, water, or fog. Each face of a brush is defined with a texture file or shader that is used to by Machinimation to render the brush in the set. Machinimation sets are saved as .map files to be used in
Radiant (the "Quake III: Arena" Level Editor), and then must be compiled into .bsp files for use in Machinimation. The compiled maps (.bsp files) are found in the maps directory of the Machinimation folder. You cannot edit .bsp files in Radiant as they are a format that can only be interpreted by Machinimation. All editing must be done to .map files.
- Using:
Once you've compiled a level, it is easy to set it up so that you can use it in Machinimation. First make sure that all of the textures and shaders that your map uses are under the Machinimation folder and linked properly within the compiled level. Then copy the .bsp (the compiled set) into the "maps" folder. If you don't have a maps folder yet, simply create it directly below the Machinimation folder.
- Creating:
You will need the standard "Quake III: Arena" level editor, GtkRadiant, to create new levels. You can download GtkRadiant from http://www.qeradiant.com.
Useful links:
Textures/Shaders:
Machinimation makes use of the "Quake III: Arena" shader system to allow designers to create surface materials with special effects. Shaders are essentially small text-based scripts that reference image assets to define how a 2D surface appears in the Machinimation environment. Shader scripts are found in the Scripts directory of your Machinimation folder and can be edited with any text editing program. The shader language allows the designer to create shiny, translucent, rotating, pulsing, scaling, and scrolling textures as well as provides for special surface properties like water or fog.
- Using:
You can add shaders into your Machinimation sets by defining a brush with your shader or texture name while building the level within GTK Radiant. You can also add shaders and texture images into your Machinimation set as an effect in the academic version. Simply click the choose button when you have effect type image selected.
- Creating:
Open up one of the .shader files inside your machinimation/scripts directory, or make your own, then add the name of your shader followed by open and closing braces. The properties you put within your open and closing braces will determine how the shader will be displayed within Machinimation.
Useful links:
Sound Effects:
- Using:
Add sounds by simply dropping the .wav files somewhere under your Machinimation folder.
- Demo - The wave files must be dropped in the Media folder under the Machinimation folder. The .wav files will then be displayed in the Event Manager next time you load Machinimation.
- Academic - You can now browse to the wave file when adding an audio event within an Event Track.
- Creating:
You can use any sound program to create the audio files for Machinimation. The output must be 22khz 16-bit mono in WAV format.
Props & Animations:
This only applies to the Academic version of Machinimation.
- Using:
The prop track allows you to use any custom models and animations for those models. Simply add a key frame into the prop track and click the choose button when you have the type selection set to "model". You can then browse the Machinimation directory until you find the model you would like to have in your scene. When you load a model into the prop track that had an animation exported with it, you can click on the animation button inside of the key frame edit menu to play around with the prop's animation properties.
- Creating:
You will need to use a 3D modeling program in order to create the models and animations to be used in Machinimation. Once you've created the models to use, you will need to export them into .md3 format. See the section above on Player Models and Animations for links to more information on creating models.
How can I disable/hide the player weapons?
Turning off the weapons is a bit of a hack. There is a draw guns option on the configuration menu, but it only stops drawing weapons in first person view, and only for the player that has this option switched.
Downloading this
.pk3 file and placing it in your Machinimation folder will remove the Gat gun model. Next time you load up Machinimation your Gat weapon will no longer appear.
My rendered movies are playing back too fast. How can I fix this?
This fast playback occurs when a Machinimation recording has been made on a computer that was not able to maintain a steady 30fps. There are a couple ways to solve this problem, and both of them involve console commands. This will drop a window from the top of the screen that has a command line interface. To see Machinimation's frames per second, bring down the console window and type '
/cg_drawfps 1', and the fps will be drawn in the top right corner of your screen. Type '
/cg_drawfps 0' to turn this feature back off.
The first way to solve this problem is by ensuring that your recordings are being made at no less than 30fps, and you can do that by creating a dedicated recorder. This process will require a second computer, but the end result should be the dedicated recorder getting at least 30 frames per second. First, start a session on the computer that you want to be the dedicated recorder. Then bring down the console on the dedicated recorder and type '
r_norefresh 1'. The game window will then turn pink or show you the "hall of mirrors" effect, but its frame rate should improve. Once you have the recorder all set up, you should connect to the dedicated recorder with the computer that will be performing actions within the scene. Do this by clicking on the 'Act in Project' option in the main menu. Then select the recording computer from the server list that follows and connect to it. Now start your recording on the dedicated recorder computer. The dedicated recorder should be able to keep up with the 30fps, and the data will be saved properly. After you're done with the dedicated recording, you can just set the cvar r_norefresh to 0 in order to see the action in the world.
If the first option doesn't work, you can override the recording fps value before you create the recording in order to limit its frame rate. You should set this to an fps value that your computer is able to consistently maintain. The command to set the recording fps value is '
/mov_fps 20' where you can replace 20 with the rate you wanted.
My renders are coming out too dark. How can I fix this?
Unfortunately,
while the "Quake III: Arena" engine allows gamma (brightness) adjustment while running on your monitor, the rendering process that saves to .AVIs or TGAs doesn't take that gamma correction into consideration. You can, however, brighten the shots up in any movie editing program, or picture editing program if you saved the scene in TGA files. Also, just to be sure, you should download the latest drivers for your video card, and grab the latest version of DirectX as well.
Where can I go for additional Machinimation information?
If you experience any problems with Machinimation, please send an email to bob@fountainheadent.com.
[ Return to Top ]
© 2001-2004 Fountainhead Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.
Home
Machinimation
Email this Page
Print this Page
