"The Grey People" Production & Discussion Thread

[DL Watson]

Well, I've had a thread going over at the Lionhead forums for a while, and I thought I'd share the love! If you are visiting this thread for the first time, then I have some information below about the project. Enjoy!
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It's official. The Grey People has re-commenced filming after an unsettling day of events which lead the original film to be lost forever. And while I say that the overall story of the film will be filmed exactly like before, It will have one drastic change...

IT WILL BE SHOT IN HIGH DEFINITION!!!

This means no more pixels (from low resolution) - pure clear digital picture. Upon release, people will have the option to watch/stream it in HD or download it. Either way, it will be the best viewing choice for all the die hard HD fans.



SO WHAT IS "THE GREY PEOPLE"?

Some of you may be reading about this film for the first time. So what is this new film I'm directing? "The Grey People" is the first of a planned trilogy of machinima's which tell the story of an engineer named Nick Stratum. When a catastrophic event occurs to the earth in a science experiment, he finds himself waking up 2,000 years into the future. The human race has seemingly vanished and the world has become a barren wasteland. But his world is flipped upside down when he comes across mysterious humanoid creatures in which he calls "The Grey People". And through them, he discovers the painful if not sad consequences for our very choices today.

WHAT MAKES THIS FILM SPECIAL?

This film is combining many different CG sequences into it created by myself which help guide the story seamlessly. But we've all seen CG in films before. So what makes this film stand out? In our eyes, its the rich environment and patience we are animating into this film. This film will not be rushed, it will not use borrowed material to help get a sequence finished faster. It will use scenes either created in game or CG elements created by hand/and or purchase or royalty free CG models.

ANY STARS ATTACHED?

The main leads for the film have been casted. Nathan Allen Pinard is voicing Nick Stratum and Candace Holly is voicing aka "The Grey Girl". But there are certainly many more roles available! I will post a casting call for those roles as soon as animation is finished.

EXPECTED RELEASE DATE?

Everyone can expect this film to be released in sometime 2009. If it had not been for the recent hard drive failure, this would have been released sometime this year. However, this film is expected to be around 50 minutes long and certainly will take some time getting it released.

IF I WANTED TO HELP, HOW COULD I?

We definitely need some proprietary mods built and if you are interested, please pm me and I'll tell you my request.

The mods I'm using so far in the game are as follows:

hisstorymn - Grey Skin Texture
Phrozin - Phrozin Eyes
Alshten - Old Factory/Destroyed Basket Court
bloox87 - moving ground
coolcalx - fire prop
Disthron - monster props
Duel - white house press room
evolchild - consoles/Glass Office of 2020
Fraasmovies - oval office/Laserwall
Frenhofer - floor props
Rogue - zombi dog
Skelch - new passenger shuttles
Walvince - robot props
andrzchi - cracked desert
crAZRick - craz office/crAZ Corridor/crAZ Reception
eobaggs - future corridor
java192 - city amended
MelGhoul - desert
Patella - white sets
TempleoftheGods - Future City
Lizard - Floop Tiles
marvellousguppimovies - sci-fi apartment pieces/command center/cave/lowered bluescreen set/hypersleep chamber/death star throne room/sci-fi apartment/bio hazard suite
rysto - sci-fi corridor pack/Animated Actor Props/sci-fi bridge pack
Fraas - Sewer system
Rik_Vargard - Space base
Ubernewbie - Greenscreen prop/custom lowered bluescreen set/greenscreen set (thanks again)

This list will grow as more modifications are constructed.

IN CLOSING

I hope this film will truly entertain people. I hope that I can make it the best that I can and entertain all of you. I will be frequently posting notes on the production and I will soon be releasing behind the scene video diaries on the making-of. Just show me some support below to help encourage me on the bad days, and help me work harder on the good days.

[DL Watson]

(merged from the Lionhead forums)
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9 HOURS OF SHOOTING!!!

I'm on a role! I'm having so much fun re-making this film - I only wish you could of seen the footage from the last animation because this new stuff is 100 TIMES BETTER!!! Before, I (for I don't know why) did not have the sci-fi apartment pieces and was frustrated because of me constantly using the bland and overly used corridor sets that the movies stunts and effects supplies. But boy, with the sci-fi pieces, Its opened a whole new door of customization. I was able to customize General Maltur's office - even with a perspective correct city through his window that isn't a backdrop, but actually a city prop. I love force perspective.

--kinda like in terminator when it shows the skulls on the ground. the ones closest to the camera are life-size, but the ones in the foreground are the size of pingpong balls--

So, As you can see from the screenshots below, I've got alot of customized sets. some look weird because I have like corridors and bridges laid ontop of them, well, this was to create a more realistic roof for when they walk down the hall. I do find that the roof provided in the sci-fi pieces to be unable to see when you place it, and it jitters when you play back the footage. SO I IMPROVISED.

Also, I've written in some scenes to help expand the history of what the "pathopens project" really is and introduced a character I was only going to mention (much like how the emperor is mentioned in Episode IV) and the character expanded as the second a third movies come about, however, introducing this mysterious character provides more insight to the audience to whom the protagonist is and the antagonist.

Also, Moonlight Pictures webpage will be active soon and we will be beginning a new compaign of our year donations for projects and support, and this year, we would like to include our friends. We will have some information soon how you can earn real cash by helping us get donations for our live-action projects! So keep and eye out!!

CHECK OUT THE PRODUCTION PHOTOS FOR TODAY'S FILMING BELOW!













Well, thats all really for today! I dare everyone to write one comment
when they open this thread. If you have read this far, you might as
well say something. So tell me below! I'd love to hear from you!

[thebiz]

Pretty cool shots of the city out the window. Nice setup.

[DL Watson]

Originally Posted by thebiz

Pretty cool shots of the city out the window. Nice setup.

Thanks, I'm re-filming some of these scenes to add even more detail. What I would really like to be able to do is get the "future city" as a prop.

Is there an easy way I can do this?

[thebiz]

Sure is. Rileyman has the tools you need. I will try to pm you the details on how he helped me transform the 2000 Bedroom into a prop later tonight. For now, download the mesh reconstruction utilities from here.

http://movies.riley-man.com/applications.html

and take a look at the documentation.

[DL Watson]

Thanks! I'm downloading and installing now.

[Killian]

Not to derail, but the dress2prop utility is an absolute life-saver for the none technically minded (like me), especially if you have a dressing it's taken you ages to set up and you need it again in more than one scene... and it's drag and drop friendly, which is another huge bonus

[DL Watson]

damn. he program crashes when I try and run it.

[thebiz]

Ok, shoot him an email or pm as he usually likes to hear about such issues but I know he's a busy busy guy. I will make an attempt at creating the prop either tonight or in the next few days when I have time. Where did the set come from?

And PM me your email addy.

[Killian]

If you unpacked the zip file and are trying to run the executable, don't; they're command line executables.

Quick way to try and see if it's working; Find the set dressing file you want (its name has to be under 25 characters in length and have no spaces in it; if it doesn't, go into TM, take a copy of the scene, remove all the stuff you dont want in it in that copy, resave the dressing in the right format, delete the scene and exit; DON'T just rename the ini file as it might have an untoward effect on your game; you could copy the unaltered file out to another folder, THEN rename it, tho... in fact, that's probably the way to go with it, rather than faff about reloading the game to change it).

Open two Windows Explorer windows; one in the set dressing folder (C:\My Documents\Lionhead\etc etc, not the one in Program Files) and one where the toolset was unzipped to.

Locate the .ini file for the dressing you just saved, drag the file across to the other Explorer window, and release it over the dress2prop exe icon; it will auto create a set of folders in the folder you unzipped it to; if you open that folder, you'll see a set of mesh/texture etc folders there.

Just copy all these and paste them into your installation directory under your The Movies folder, and there you have it.

If that doesn't work, or you're using Vista, then I'm stumped, sorry :S