Upcoming new feature of Moviestorm unveiled.

Today at the Moviestorm Dev Blog, the fine folks there shared a video showing the results of playing around with the nearly-developed Terrain Editor. According to the Dev Blog:

"The user interface has now been decided for this feature and the functionality is around 90% complete so it's time to move onto the other areas of improvement. Keep your eyes peeled for more updates!"

On the forums, more information was given, such as*:

• The default mountains are now editable with the new tools so you can keep them if you want or edit them to produce a new landscape.
• (The staff) have been experimenting with a larger grid, and have plans to include it in the next version of Moviestorm. It's worth noting that nav meshes can be used in conjunction with the terrain to make navigable areas outside of the grid if you like.
• Characters are still, unfortunately, restricted to navigating on flat surfaces. However, characters are able to traverse stairs with nav meshes, so you could place a nav mesh under the terrain to make it look like that character was climbing a hill.
• The terrain editor can only be used on the existing terrain mesh (which is relatively large anyway.
• The terrain tools include a raise brush, a lower brush and tools to flatten, smooth and paint textures.
• The terrain will ultimately be saved in stock sets for use by directors and as an example of what is possible with the new editor.

Here is the video:



Looks exciting! This certainly will open up new doors in set design, and the ability to flatten the entire terrain mesh will be of great benefit to those who wish to create more complex sets (such as a cityscape). Stay tuned!

*I largely quoted Amos over at Moviestorm, which explains the better prose. Anyway, the tool is still in development, and all things mentioned may change.

Where is Sigourney Weaver when you need her?

Writerly over at the Moviestorm forums is on a roll lately. I don't know if it's insane ambition and talent or one too many cups of coffee, but he's been releasing new mods for the program almost daily, and these are some excellent mods!

The latest is the Alien from the "Alien" movie franchise. The troublesome terror is rigged to the male puppet rig, which means you can use all the male animations with it (though some just don't look right because of the shape and size of the alien relative to his meal). It looks particularly impressive if you use it with the vampire jumping animation from the "Dark Romance" addon from Moviestorm and some of the action animations found on Moddingstorm.



You can download it here.

The Gift

The latest short by Chat Noir Studios, "The Gift" is an excellent work (as expected from them), and also shows how effective Moviestorm is as a storytelling tool when in good hands.
Have a look!

The Gift from Chat Noir Studios on Vimeo.

Moddingstorm's "Stupidly Easy Competition"

Really, how much easier of a competition can you get?
Moddingstorm is running a "Stupidly Easy Competition". Winner gets three free addon packs for Moviestorm from Moddingstorm!
So how stupidly easy is it? Simple.
All you have to do is visit Moddingstorm's facebook page and click like.
That's it.
Two weeks from today, a name will be chosen at random from the list of people who like the page, and the winner gets the three packs! You get extra chances to be drawn by promoting the competition on your own facebook page, blogs, site, etc.
You do need to prove you've done this by posting links in the competition's thread on the Moviestorm forums.
There is one disclaimer: The headgear bundle pack currently offered counts as two packs since its, well, a bundle!
If you haven't seen Moddingstorm's content yet, check it out. It's all top-quality! And if you aren't using Moviestorm yet, maybe this is a good time to start!
Check it out!
Oh...and while you're over on facebook, don't forget to "like" Dark Lord Productions if you haven't already ;)

Messiah Studio for $10-$40!

The software company pmG Worldwide is conducting a viral test marketing campaign by selling their award-winning animation/rendering engine Messiah Studio 5 for an incredibly low price.

There are two options for purchase, the first being a limited-feature basic edition for $10 (regularly priced at $499), and the full pro version for $40 ($1195 regular price).

The offer works as follows. The offer is set for a limited time. They have set a goal for the number of sales. You purchase the software as a pre-order. If the goal is met in within the time limit, you get the software. If the goal is not met on time, you get refunded your money.

The viral part is simple. In order to meet the goal as quickly as possible, you are encouraged to share this with as many people as possible.

Messiah Studio is a high-profile animation and rendering engine that has won several awards and even received an Academy Award nomination. It has been used for character animation and the creation of VFX shots in a number of feature films and shorts, including the following, such as the Harry Potter films, X-Men, Ghost Rider, Hellboy, Syriana, and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. It has also been used in a number of television productions, including The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, Robbie the Reindeer, Andy's Airplanes and the upcoming Plankton Invasion, as well as numerous commercials.

If you are interested in getting into some hardcore professional studio-quality animation, this is an incredible offer that is too good to pass up. At this price, it's worth getting even if you do nothing more then try to learn something from it.

You can participate in this campaign by going here:

http://projectmessiah.com/x6/shop.html

There is plenty of information on their web site, but if you want to learn more you can read about them on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_%28software%29

So go get it, and let everyone know!

The Grey People

I'm happy to announce that I have been cast for the role of Special in the independent animated film "The Grey People", a sci-fi epic directed by D.L. Watson.
D.L. Watson is a talented and respected director who makes independent animated films (or machinima, depending on how you wish to view it) and live-action films.
For this movie, he will be using Moviestorm and iClone4 for the project, and after reading through only part of the script so far I think this is going to be an incredible movie. Having seen a test shot released a long time ago on the Moviestorm website, this movie looks to be visually stunning as well.
The film is tentatively scheduled to be released around June 2011. Once a date is set and announced I will share that with you here as well.
In the meantime, learn more about the project by visiting its Official Website.
You can also follow the film on Facebook. Don't forget to click "Like"!
Oh, and while you are on Facebook, don't forget to check out the Dark Lord Productions Facebook page....and click that "L" button while you're at it!
In other news, I am hard at work on a new movie myself! More details as the project progresses. Stay tuned!

Lightworks editing software is going open-source

EditShare, the company behind Academy and Emmy award-winning video editing software Lightworks announced plans to release its product under an open source license. Lightworks was most recently used to edit movies like Shutter Island and Centurion, but is also credited with helping create otehr films like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Mission Impossible.

This is very exciting, since it could be an incredible boon for machinima directors who are on a small budget.

For more information about the software and how to get your hands on it, click here.