The song was recorded/created in ACID Pro using a Strat, a Line6 POD, some drum samples/loops, and NI Absynth for the squelchy noises and the bass. I usually start new songs off by building up an 8 or 16 bar drum loop while my sequencer is looping. Once I have a nice groove going, I'll copy that section again - then make a bunch of variations on the copy which either gets deleted or becomes a 'part b' or 'bridge/transition' in the song. The idea is to try and tap as much inspiration from the groove before you get into any notes or chords.
From the short groove, I then copy/pasted it several times so I had something to work on top of. I think the squelchy background sound came in next - there's only a few notes/parts, I simply copy/pasted these around the song and in some cases pitch-shifted the sections of notes. With the noises in the background, and a solid beat chugging away, I then plugged in my strat and improvised for a good 30 minutes, trying different ideas, progressions, variations until I hit 'that' progression. As you may figure out - the tune is very simple, doesn't have a change aside from the breakdown and if it wasn't for the background sounds and overall energy - the song wouldn't have worked.
With the guitar in my lap, and my right hand jumping back-n-forth from the guitar to the mouse, I nailed a simple, yet punchy bass line.
In general, I was looking for an overall level of simplicity in this song, the plan was to use it in the game map itself - so the music couldn't distract from the sounds in the game and it needed to provide a motivation that wasn't a distraction. This isn't easy for me to do, I'm usually one to load up as many as 60-70 tracks in a single song. This piece was much simpler, with less than 10 tracks.
Time spent: 10 hrs
Map/textures/modeling/skinning
I have no idea how many hours went into the game map. A lot of the time was spent experimenting and using the map as a context for what I was reading and learning online. I also spent a fair amount of time on the optimizing of the map - I wanted it to run fast, and since it's a huge arena, I needed to take away some of the details. This caused me to then focus much more on the terrain since it was going to be a main feature of the map. I think there's 3-4 layers of texturing on the terrain. There was a lot of tweaking to get the bots to perform well too. For the longest time, the bots couldn't win against each other. I'd set the map up and have the bots play on their own - and for awhile, they never scored - then after some changes, they started to score, but there was never a winner - always a tie. The finally! I read the 'right' tutorial online which gave insight on how to properly setup your assault path nodes.
If your goal is only to film something, then there's no need to design your map for playing - you can break rules - avoid steps - etc. In my case, I was looking to create something that I could also release as a playable map.
This is probably the largest wall for most people - the biggest barrier keeping you from doing what you imagine. 3D modeling and creating skins/textures for your models and map are not easy. Fortunately, the Unreal Engine/Game comes w/ loads of models and textures to work from - plus there's plenty online. If you've never done 3D modeling, expect to spend a few months working it out - getting used to moving around a 3D space - and learning a program.
Time Spent: maybe 100+hrs on the map.
Character Model of Self
I had to make a new one since the previous version was lost in a crash last year. This time I spent much more time on the skinning and the results were much better. What I've done here is only "Skinning" - which is editing or creating a new skin for a 3D model. The whole process of modeling a character from scratch takes a long time. I simply wanted a model w/ my head - so Lou took some photos of me, and I edited a skin that came w/ the game, added my head/face, colored the body differently, etc.
Time spent: 3 hrs
Capturing Raw Footage
Although the Unreal game engine does have a filming camera and you can create paths for the camera, etc. I decided to capture a bunch of raw footage by freeform filming in the game - I figured this way I could capture what actually happens instead of trying to setup some cool situations via scripting. Plus... freeform filming is much faster. It took a few tweaks of my settings to get the game and my rig setup for filming. I had a set of commands under some keys for controlling the game speed, flying, and some other camera controls. This way I could get some interesting angles and capture some of the action like some movies do where they slow it way down to make it more dramatic. After I started editing, I found I needed more footage - especially: better scenes, angles, and shorter sequences. In all, I went back 4 times to capture more video.
Time spent: 2hrs
Editing, Effects and Transitions
I think I used Adobe Premiere once before - but it was a much older version. So I was basically a complete noobie when I installed the application and launched it. As a good geek should, I dove right in and bypassed the book, tutorials or Wizards and started trying to figure out the interface. And... as a good geek should, after 10 minutes of frustration, I did crack the book to figure a few things out. :P
Assembling clips from the Raw footage wasn't as intuitive as I hoped. Maybe I missed something, but it seemed to me, that I should have had another palette or list box where I could send new clips to for use in my production. The clips would then be easily accessible. This seemed to be geared more towards a linear perspective - where you don't repeatedly use a resource. What you end up doing is having a workspace - then way off to the right - or on a video channel that's off, you have a collection of clips which are then auditioned and dropped into place. It worked - but I think I would have had a better time assembling the production if I had a listing of clips that I could pull from.
I didn't add too many effects - just a few here and there, the rest you see is simply transitions between clips.
Time spent: 13 hrs
What I Used
Unreal Tournament 2004
Adobe Premiere Pro
Fraps
GameSpace
PhotoShop
Sony Acid Pro
Total Time Spent
not counting the map: 28 hrs
counting the the map: 128hrs
Do It!
In all, you'd need around 6 'types' of applications to do something similar:
Game Engine
Unreal Tournament 2004
Sims 2
Machinimation - Quake III engine
Half Life 2
Second Life
... and others
Video Editing Software
Windows Movie Maker
Pinnacle Studio
Adobe Premiere Pro
... and others
Screen Filming Software
Fraps
3D Software
GameSpace
GameSpace Light
Blender
Maya PLE
Wings
... and others
Graphics Software
Photoshop
Gimp
ZBrush
... and others
Music Sequencing/Recording Software
Sony Acid
FruityLoops
Ableton Live
... and others
Books
The Art of Machinima - Marino [$39.99US]
The Dark Side of Game Texturing - Franson [$39.99US]
Creating the Art of the Game - Omernick [$39.99US]
What you see in the video I've posted, isn't really 'Machinima' in the full sense of the word/concept. I've touched on the ideas - used some of the tools, etc. - but this video doesn't even scratch the surface of what can be done. You could call my video just a produced game demo - and now that I watch it, I do have to say, it's not that cool for a music video. I do think it's a cool production though - and it's just my first step into this new area of design and development. If you want to see some 'real' examples - some 'better' examples - of some Machinima productions, I suggest going over to Machinima.com and streaming/downloading:
Download the video - 512 x 384 [33.8 mb - higher quality]
Stream Song - mp3 format
I had to make a new one since the previous version was lost in a crash last year. This time I spent much more time on the skinning and the results were much better. What I've done here is only "Skinning" - which is editing or creating a new skin for a 3D model. The whole process of modeling a character from scratch takes a long time. I simply wanted a model w/ my head - so Lou took some photos of me, and I edited a skin that came w/ the game, added my head/face, colored the body differently, etc.