Wednesday 22 July 2009

Reach




"Received Distress Call. Launch response forces"

Machinima

Youtube


Director's Notes:

Yes, finally! The next part of the Emerald miniseries is out for the public viewing! Of course, the more interesting thing in this episode is the complete lack of machinima in the episode and the heavy-duty amount of CGI involved. This is somewhat of an idea of what direction the series is taking in. Reach took slightly longer than anticipated, but alas, it has done well in both the visual and audio designs. Though we were waiting on music, it was well worth waiting for. The music by FEARDVA was excellent and steps up quite a bit more from before, and I would like to thank him especially for that. Also for those who are kinda missing the cinematics, well, we've got you covered ;) so I recommend you watch all the way till the end.

Now of course High Charity has been on the intertubes for about a week now, and it has done pretty well! Scoring Honours, Multiple Spotlights and of course, the big one, my Bungie.net spotlight in which Urk commented:

"If you're looking for some new serial Halo 3 machinima, AVCOM Shorts is planning on dropping three more of these. Nice effects and camera work. Check it out."


Alright, I'll be back later on this week with a lil-peek of The Orbital Chase, and perhaps maybe a look forward as well ;)



HBO Spotlight

Tuesday 21 July 2009

When I say something's gonna happen...

I mean it =D


Sent off Reach, the main newspost will be up soon!

Wednesday 15 July 2009

An update on Reach... and a lil-look forward ;)

Reach is pretty much finished, just rendering one final shot before I head off to sleep. Sent a copy off for scoring towards FEARDVA :D

In the meantime, I've started some texturing work on Orbital Chase... heres a peek ;)





Stay Tuned!

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Bungie Spotlight! among other press stuff :D

I lurve Bungie =)

Honours for youtube:

FAQ

After the release of High Charity, quite a few questions came up which I felt needed to be answered. So, without further ado, here is the Frequently Ask Questions section =)


FAQ- General

  1. Who runs AVCOM Productions?
    - Nabsuh, main overlord, Ziper27 is our inhouse assistant director and puppeteer. We do most of our work inhouse with the exception of music and voice acting. Our music is done by FEARDVA.
  2. What hardware do you use?
    - For the basic setup, I have two xbox 360's with eight controllers (four between each), then I have two main live accounts and three silver accounts which have the ODST helmets. Then, to capture I have a BlackMagic Intensity Pro HD which captures the footage from the theatre mode. In most cases I usually record placeholder audio using a Rockband Microphone. Then import onto my computer and edit from there!
  3. What software do you use?
    - For capturing we use Blackmagic Media-Express, then for our post work, we use Lightwave 9 3D by Newtek to create the animations, Adobe After Effects for any visual effects needed or Adobe Photoshop Elements for any image editing. Then we wrap up the editing and sound work in Adobe Premiere Pro and Steinberg Nuendo if we're doing proper mixing. Then we send it off to FEARDVA for music; in which he uses Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Extreme with FL Studio 8. Our voice actors use Audacity (or in Gassy's case) FL Studio.
  4. Will you animate for me?
    - No, I'm afraid I do not animate for anyone outside of my affiliates. This is because these people are official production groups which I work on part from as a second party.
  5. Will FEARDVA do music for me?
    - If you buy him a midi keyboard. Or if you get him food. Or tickets to E3. Or the Valve Corporation Headquarters.
  6. Can you give me any contact details from your production group?
    - No, I'm afraid out of consideration and privacy from the crew; I will not be giving anyone's details out.
  7. Can I voice act?
    - I'm afraid not; we have our own closed group of actors who we choose from.
  8. Can I body act (really should be puppeteer) for you?
    - We do all of our films over system-link, so I'm afraid we do not contact external puppeteers.
  9. Can I haz a copy of the moosics?
    - Yes you may, feel free to contact FEARDVA at (alphadagio@hotmail.com). With that, specify the song you want and what you thought of his music; but I'm a afraid his friends list is very exclusive. Sending him a midi-keyboard would be helpful towards this goal.
  10. "is there something moare than 5 star?"
    - I'm afraid not.

FAQ- Affiliates

  1. Who are these affiliates?
    - These affiliates are production groups which I know somewhat personally out of experience and groups I have made clear who I would work with.
  2. Can I be an affiliate?
    - Bribes towards FEARDVA might work considering he is the composer. But, otherwise, it is very hard to become a new affiliate.
  3. Do you work solely for AVCOM or work for machinima.com as a director?
    - Machinima.com is a sponsor of AVCOM Productions.
  4. What are the machinima based websites for?
    - Those dudes are just highlighted machinima which I enjoy.

FAQ- High Charity

  1. How do you do all those space sequences?
    - I (meaning Nabsuh) animate them in Lightwave 9 3D by Newtek.
  2. Do you animate all the scenes in your films?
    - Most space sequences by me are definitely animated by myself. Halo Cutscenes have not been involved at all in the creation of my film. However, any Halo 3 maps shown just require puppeteering and setup in forge; and of course Halo 3 is created by Bungie Studios.
  3. Where did you get those ships from?!?
    - Many years ago I managed to extract a few of these ships (though I wouldn't recommend it now days) and used a few tools to get the models from the game. However, after viewing the models, it appeared they did not have enough definition. Therefore, I went back and cleaned up all the models; with some assistance from jtdoepke. The original models and textures are by Bungie, but otherwise I have done up everything in a higher resolution so the ships appear better and more… realistic to the Halo-Canon.
  4. Can I have a copy of the models?
    -No, you may not, I have spent some considerable amount of time fixing these models along with a friend of mine, and so I wouldn't want to hand the models over to anyone else. I would like to point out such an action is illegal as well.
  5. How do you animate?
    - This question is similar somewhat to how to create a machinima; with the exception being that animation is more manual and requires time to create. Choose a program such as Lightwave and 3ds Max, and look up tutorials. No 3D Program comes free so I would recommend you think before you buy one.
  6. Look at the armour on the elite, isn't that the incorrect colour? You should read into the lore a bit more shouldn't you?
    - I spend a considerable amount of time while making my videos making sure that the Halo-Canon is maintained throughout the films; while the stories themselves may not have happened, a lot of the technology and systems you see have been canon to the maximum.
  7. Who voice acted the fleet-master elite?
    - David Keith , he worked on-part with Angsty Studios and ODST Sarge.

Sunday 12 July 2009

Taking a look at another friend!

A friend of mine ODST Sarge released the first episode for his machinima series "Unexpected", take a look! The music is also scored by another friend of mine "Craig" from Angsty Studios. Cool dudes, go ahead and check out their vids.

Unexpected Episode 1


As for Reach, its turn into one beastily part of the miniseries then I intended. I'll still try make it for a release next week... but no direct promises. If anything, I'll work on both (Both meaning Orbital Chase and Reach), but I'll aim to get Reach out next week.

Onward and upwards!

Friday 10 July 2009

A Progress Update on Reach

Yeah... either by now you've found this site through the youtube/machinima.com link hopefully, otherwise I'll expect more people in the future!

Anyways, Reach is coming along nicely... hit a snag with a few of the shots, but thats okay! I've managed to clean them up! Reach will be hitting the intertubes by next week! To tide you over, here are some screenies from the actual product!






Stay tuned people!

Tuesday 7 July 2009

Our first AVCOM Short: "High Charity"



"Gather the fleet. Destroy the vermin"

Machinima.com

Youtube

This is the first AVCOM Shorts miniseries "Emerald". Part 1 of 4. Hope you enjoy the movie!

Director's Notes:

These AVCOM "Shorts" are designed to be short and cinematic, but with alot of content to most of it. This first one is a pilot to show off the layout and format of how these shorts work; but being a pilot, it does preview some of the stuff I have in mind for the next installments. Another important aspect is that the episode summaries aren't long, they're infact short and concise like the Halo cinematic text.

The secondary aim of these shorts is to create a linking miniseries (hence, the "Emerald" miniseries), but making each short standalone (For example, High Charity) from each, so that one wouldn't haven't to watch a previous episode to understand another episode. Some interesting things are shown, so I hope you all enjoy it! Stay tuned for the next part, which will have some more interesting... twists to it =D


Also, have a happy Bungie day!


Honours for the video July 11th:

#25 - Top Rated (Today) - Entertainment - Global

Honours for July 12th:

Honours for this video (26)


Final Honours:



Spotlights:

HBO

Stay Tuned =D

High Charity is on the way!