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Other Machinima Makers?
RiveniaSims
Posts: 54 Member
Hello! Not sure if there is a thread like this on the forum somewhere, but I haven't seen any recent ones. I just thought it would be nice to find other simmers who are machinima makers as well. Maybe we can connect and support one another? If you do make machinimas, what types of stories do you create?
I myself tend to focus on drama and/or romance, but I am interested in attempting horror or supernatural themed stories.
I myself tend to focus on drama and/or romance, but I am interested in attempting horror or supernatural themed stories.
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I think we are quite many, but drowning a bit in the ocean of Lets Play & Speed Builds. I'd love to discuss ideas, methods and challenges in a thread where nobody stop by only to promote their latest vid. I don't think we got many threads like that.
I've been doing Machinima for 2-3 years, I love the story telling and editing, having a vision and either manage to pull it off, or not. I find it very satisfying even if it's not always successful, LOL. I tend to include an aspect of the game in my vids, like informing of stuff I do in game, but let sims explain it. I know it might be a bit aside of the typical fiction. I'm currently doing a series, kind of soap-ish with sims and locations from my game, but I also hope to make stand alone vids that is more based on a fictional idea. I prefer using the real animations from the game more than poses though. I feel too many poses easily get too stiff, but of course it might be perfect for some productions. Avoiding poses means a large number of takes to get what you need though, so maybe a mix of the two would be best.
In my stories, I do use a lot of poses/talking animations, but I do mix it up a bit and use the in game animations as well! I've only been making Sims stories since January, so I am pretty new to it and still learning. But I have always loved writing, so I have plans to use a lot of unfinished stories I've made throughout the years for Sims 4 machinimas.
That's what I've been doing with my series as well. From the start, I had my cast of characters and a general idea of where I wanted the plot to go, and everything else just keeps falling into place as I'm working on it, with lots of happy accidents. I remember getting to the end of an early episode and feeling that it was a little too short and underwhelming, so I thought about what else could happen there to make it more interesting, and came up with a mean cliffhanger that also set up the plot for the next two episodes - a plot that I hadn't even considered before.
It's not always easy to base a story around things sims can actually do in the game, as the limitations can be restricting, but sometimes they can also boost creativity, like that one time I wanted a magic toddler to cast a spell, but he didn't have any animations for it, so I decided that he casts his spells by sneezing. One can only wonder what happens if he ever gets a cold. And so it goes on and on and on, new ideas keep coming, and despite all the frustration that goes with making Sims machinimas, it's also a lot of fun!
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
But I love when new ideas form while making stories! It's so nice when that happens ^_^
Is there anything in particular that gives you inspiration for stories? More often for me, it's songs that will spark an idea, but TV shows have inspired me as well.
But music, TV shows, and video games are definitely a factor, too. My series is mainly about occult sims and combines elements of various supernatural shows and movies such as Charmed, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and Harry Potter, but with an original story and characters. For example, there's a witch who can stop time, like Piper from Charmed, and the sound effect is even the same, but I don't mind copying a few ideas here and there in this case because it's just a fun project, one that I don't earn any money with.
What kind of machinimas do you make? Are those standalone stories, or a series as well?
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
Haven't really watched much of Charmed to be honest, but I love Sabrina and Harry Potter! Your Sims story would definitely be right up my alley then!
So far I just have a Sims 4 teen drama series up that is loosely inspired by Skins. At the moment there is only 3 episodes up of the first season, but I have 12 episodes planned and a second season. I do intend to make more standalone stories though rather than a whole series. I really want to attempt a werewolf story at some point! And I'm sure I'll have something centered on vampires in the future since I've always been a huge fan.
I'm a little conflicted. I think around the ten minute mark for a series is okay, but depending on what's happening in the episode, I think it can be more or less. For instance, I'm finally starting on my werewolf themed machinima series, but I think a lot of the episodes might be under ten minutes.
Well, if you're interested, look for "Occult" and "Windenburg" on Google or YouTube, and the first episode should come up, which has a thumbnail like the picture in my signature. Be warned that there is some strong language, though, which is why I won't post any links here.
I'd say it depends less on the kind of story, and more on how much of it you have to tell. My episodes are 20 minutes long, and I had originally planned to make them self-contained so that they can be watched independently of the ones I created before or after. However, I quickly realised that that didn't work, 20 minutes simply wasn't enough time to properly handle a given topic and leave some room to breathe. So I decided to keep the length of 20 minutes, but while every episode does still have its own main topic, they're no longer self-contained. (I have to admit, though, that I'm terrible at keeping things short, which you can probably tell by the length of my posts, and often tend to make basics and back-stories more elaborate than they need to be, so that might have something to do with it.)
If you're telling a standalone story, the length will be whatever it will be, it doesn't really matter since it doesn't have to compare to anything. But even if you're telling a story across multiple episodes, the individual length can be whatever you feel comfortable with. Ten minutes sound good in any case. And don't beat yourself up if you discover that some episodes end up shorter or longer than others; that's actually very common in "professional" television as well. I recently watched a show on Netflix with an average runtime of 40 minutes per episode, but one only had 30 and the next one had almost 50. I think it's best to just start for now, see how long the first couple of episodes turn out, and then decide whether you want to make it a rule or not.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
Hello again! I agree that 10 minutes is a good chunk, but yes - it depends on the production. My own series is way too packed with story lines and it's difficult to keep each episode that short. Even when I'm aware of it, trying to leave out a few ideas to give more room for some slow situations to give the viewer a chance to breath, my recording lineup counts seconds. I always make a very detailed schedule for the scenes before I start recording anything. When a scene must be no longer than 20 or 25 seconds, it gets very much "cut to the bone" with no time for visual ideas (like a slow intro to a new location, or a section with no talking). If I include such "slow" breaks, the episodes would probably get better, but longer. Season 1 had 22 min episodes, from season 2 each ep is cut down to 16 minutes. For this series I think 15-16 mins is a minimum.
I also think duration for episodes depends on frequency. I mean, if I followed a series I'd either expect shorter episodes more often, or longer episodes if the wait was long. I wouldn't stick to a series if I had to wait 2 months for a 4 minutes episode. If so, I'd rather bookmark and come back in 2 years to watch the entire season, LOL.
At first, I was worried my episodes might end up on the shorter side, but so far that hasn't been the case!
The point you made about frequency is a good one I didn't think about! But I agree!
It is really time-consuming to make one.
And heart disheartening after uploading on youtube and nobody watches.
I still experimenting with the type of stories I like. But I definitely like to make unusual stories. Although oftentimes for the Youtube algorithm, I sacrifice my idealism.
I watched Hatsy youtube channel since she has the most subscribers amongst other machinima makers.
But I like also GoodChills Studio, because she uses custom animations of her own to tell stories.
Rémi Marocelli is good in VFX. But the channel is one of the example that having a good production value movie, don't always equal views and subs. And if we want to make a living from youtube. We can't ignore the numbers.
Today I've learned a little bit of VFX like green screen, reshade, plotagraph, etc. It helps to tell stories, since as you all may know, it can be very restrictive making movies with SIMS4. Such as adding fire, falling leaves, speedlines, etc. vfx makes the impossible scene possible.
But nonetheless, SIMS4 helps a lot, in terms can you imagine if we have to make all the characters, sets, props on our own in 3D? It will add more time costs and bills.
I combined poses and animations because ideally, all actions are animated. But, unless we want to spend times in making our own custom animation, it's impossible to get all the moves we wanted as "The director"
Recently I've found a platograph technique to make still images look moving. You can look in youtube how it's like.
I think the next thing is for me to learn Blender. Since it's the cheapest piece of software I can get to achieve vfx I want. I imagine one day, I can make a smooth movie, like other 3d movies, using sims 4.
I created some custom poses, and edit some existing animations. Maybe we should have a thread where we can share what we've made so other makers can use it too. It'll sure cut the production cost. Well.. but searching the assets is also time-consuming.
I made mostly 10 mins story nowadays. I tried to hook people for the first minutes. Because for me if I watched other manchinimas (even my owns) and I don't get the big story right away, I lose interest.
I learned a bit of storytelling from the Master Class - Dan Brown. I paid for his online class.
Your main character needs a goal he/she wants to achieve.
You will throw obstacles to his/her. the bigger the better.
And there's something that makes the main character have to go through all of it, instead of just running a way.
There will be a villain(s).
And your job as a story writer is to use your imagination to solve it.
Since Dan is thriller writer, there's should be a time limit.
3 Big elements in Dan Brown storytelling:
1. The Contract - What you promise to your reader, what will they get if they watch your video. Will the character get impossible love he always wanted, etc. So you're making promises. There are big and small ones. Promises are one element that makes your reader wants to stay.
2. The Cruisable - What makes your main character have to go through all the pain and fears. It can be a simple as he promises to his mother graveyard that he'll do it.
3. The Clock - It's time limit.
There are more in storytellings, of course.
I learned about how to shots a movie from Studiobinder youtube channel.
There are reasons why a scene shot from different angles. And then there are blockings, where and how to position your characters, etc.
So many things to learn in making a movie.
In my GH vids, I've taken old sound clips from the show and inserted them into my promos. And have downloaded a bunch of animations and mods to hopefully make future storytelling easy. It's always funny when my Sims jump from asking how's your day to going to woohoo. (I have Whicked Whims installed.) I think Bob and Eliza's marital problem solved itself within 5 min of me trying to make up their story!
Another thing about story creation so far (and a note, I went to school for TV writing and always wanted to write for soaps), I started playing and thinking and writing notes and have now basically come up with a whole backstory for Nancy Landgraab. I've imagined where stories are going to go and then new ideas pop up while playing. With GH one, I call Simeral Hospital, I can see where some storylines are already going and just have my own ideas for the show to do. I think telling the story in quick 1-2 min trailers might just be better and funnier, but we will see. Also, aspects of the Sims games and expansion gave me ideas. Like having an adventure exploring a temple, or having vampires in the game and how a character on GH was a vampire slayer. It just HAD to be turned into a trailer parody.
I'm The Sims Soaps and wish you all the best of luck. And I hope that animations thread has started. I'd like to request one for a good cat fight and the ability to do it in the pool! I can recreate Dynasty AND Melrose Place, lol.