Those more in the loop with the Source machinima community are probably already wise to this, but it's news to me. Apparently the tool demonstrated here was (perhaps accidentally?) included with a beta version of Team Fortress 2 made available last year, or something. But the consensus out there seems to be that this is going to find its way into an official release from Valve at some point. While use of it in Team Fortress 2 isn't terribly exciting to me personally, I'm imagining there is great likelihood that the official release will work across pretty much the entire Source platform (as their other tools do). The idea of recording performances in layers, rather than either having to script everything or try to do so in multiplayer, is very appealing to me at least for certain scenarios. And I really love the extra effects that can be applied at render time.
The concept harkens back to a user-made program that let users merge together multiple demo recordings in Quake 2. Anyone else out there (besides Dr. Nemesis) remember DEMented2?
Anyway, enough about my cobwebs. Here's a tease of what I think may be coming from Valve at some point, c/o Derek Arthurs. Interesting to anyone else?
sweet little app. thx for posting.
i'd be happy if they just allowed you to use those render options (motion blur and DOF).
There was a similar leak back in 2007 and the consensus was that it would be released by Valve at some future point, but like Zach and James, I'm highly doubtful. Seems like an in-house tool that they just aren't going to make part of the Source SDK. Since LFD2 has been such a hit, it's faintly possible, but I've been so soured on Valve in the last several years, I just doubt it. Or at least I won't be waiting for it.
I know what you mean about it being a re-camming program like Quake 2. Don't go as far back as DEMented2 though, you old, old man, you.
Looks interesting. I've always liked "puppet" machinima. In some ways, this is incredibly similar to Halo 3's saved films feature. Tricky stuff to get just right, though. Often requires a lot of trick editing and clever shots.
Yep ricky, this is actually that same leak from 2007, this was done by someone digging up the old beta files from that original leak, since valve has long since locked all this stuff up away from public eyes.
Sorry Phil but Valve's shot down pretty much any hope of this ever seeing a public release.it is a pretty sweet looking tool though.
Looks interesting but I don't know why they would release it since they have zero interest in machinima and don't offer license for people to use their engine or intellectual property for commercial use. What would they expect people do with it?
I am sure it would still be fun to play with and we would surely use it for machinima but it just seems like there would be no reason for them to put any real effort into this. :(
[old-fart]"Well actually", Stefan Schwoon's command-line tool demix (http://speeddemosarchive.com/quake/qdq/tools/demix.html) did Quake1 demo mixing some years before the (very excellent) DEMentED2 did it for Quake2. Later on, mixing tracks recorded live was also a foundational feature of Fountainhead Entertainment's Quake3 engine-based unsuccessful commercial Machinimation package.[/old-fart]
I think mixing live action within a virtual world in a manner analogous to the way one mixes audio tracks is very powerful, especially when you can process the actions that you are mixing (space-transform, pitch-shift, change the "instrument"...) It also blurs the boundaries between performance and scripted machinima production, mixing the advantages of both, and possibly complicating some recent definition discussions (http://gtmachinimablog.lcc.gatech.edu/?p=291)! I'd love to see live recording features in MovieStorm et al, although I guess they would have to reimplement even more of their game engines heritage to do so.
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