Other Machinima Makers?

*waves*

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.

I agree, I think a thread where we share creative insights sounds like a great idea! And I really like your outlook of finding machinima making satisfying whether it's successful or not. Your story sounds pretty interesting! And I have to admit, soap-ish TV shows are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine, so it sounds like I'd like it lol

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.

By the way, what's everyone's process when coming up with a new story? Do you plan it out before hand, or have a general idea and just go with the flow? Me personally, I will think of a general idea, write a brief outline of everything I want to happen, and then go from there.

I'm currently making a TV show with The Sims 4 that I started uploading to YouTube last month, starring the characters in my signature. The 20-minute episodes can be extremely time-consuming and frustrating to shoot, especially with how unwilling sims are to follow orders in this iteration, and I find myself inventing new swearwords on a regular basis while telling my stubborn actors for the umpteenth time what I expect from them. But finishing an episode and watching it afterwards feels so rewarding, and I just love telling stories anyway, be it in novel form or through videos, so I will probably keep doing this for a while now.

"RiveniaSims;c-17455586" wrote:
By the way, what's everyone's process when coming up with a new story? Do you plan it out before hand, or have a general idea and just go with the flow? Me personally, I will think of a general idea, write a brief outline of everything I want to happen, and then go from there.

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!

I had done a Sims series before and never wanted to do anything like it again, but then I started sharing screenshots of my sim family's super weird everyday life in the "What happened in your game today?" thread, some with very elaborate stories that other users reacted to, and I realised that I'd like to record those stories somehow, not just in the form of screenshots that quickly get lost on a fast-paced online platform. I told a friend I was going to make another series, which was meant as a joke, but the ideas wouldn't leave me alone and I had to do something with them. So I guess you could say this forum played a part in my inspiration.

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?

"RiveniaSims;c-17470603" wrote:
That's awesome that the forum has given you some inspiration! Maybe I'll have to check out that thread ^_^
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!

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.

"RiveniaSims;c-17479597" wrote:
I'm curious about other people's opinions on this... What do you think is the best length for a Sims 4 machinima? If it's a series, do you think they should be ten minutes or less an episode? Twenty minutes? Or do you think it varies based on the story?

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.

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.

"RiveniaSims;c-17479597" wrote:
I'm curious about other people's opinions on this... What do you think is the best length for a Sims 4 machinima? If it's a series, do you think they should be ten minutes or less an episode? Twenty minutes? Or do you think it varies based on the story?

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.

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.

It really can be time consuming! And when Sims don't cooperate, it gets pretty tiring. I feel like that's why I have put off my machinimas lately lol
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.

That's awesome that the forum has given you some inspiration! Maybe I'll have to check out that thread ^_^
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 curious about other people's opinions on this... What do you think is the best length for a Sims 4 machinima? If it's a series, do you think they should be ten minutes or less an episode? Twenty minutes? Or do you think it varies based on the story?

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.