I've been doing machinima for 8 months straight, every day.
It is really time-consuming to make one.
And heart disheartening after uploading on youtube and nobody watches.
I still experimenting with the type of stories I like. But I definitely like to make unusual stories. Although oftentimes for the Youtube algorithm, I sacrifice my idealism.
I watched Hatsy youtube channel since she has the most subscribers amongst other machinima makers.
But I like also GoodChills Studio, because she uses custom animations of her own to tell stories.
RĂ©mi Marocelli is good in VFX. But the channel is one of the example that having a good production value movie, don't always equal views and subs. And if we want to make a living from youtube. We can't ignore the numbers.
Today I've learned a little bit of VFX like green screen, reshade, plotagraph, etc. It helps to tell stories, since as you all may know, it can be very restrictive making movies with SIMS4. Such as adding fire, falling leaves, speedlines, etc. vfx makes the impossible scene possible.
But nonetheless, SIMS4 helps a lot, in terms can you imagine if we have to make all the characters, sets, props on our own in 3D? It will add more time costs and bills.
I combined poses and animations because ideally, all actions are animated. But, unless we want to spend times in making our own custom animation, it's impossible to get all the moves we wanted as "The director"
Recently I've found a platograph technique to make still images look moving. You can look in youtube how it's like.
I think the next thing is for me to learn Blender. Since it's the cheapest piece of software I can get to achieve vfx I want. I imagine one day, I can make a smooth movie, like other 3d movies, using sims 4.
I created some custom poses, and edit some existing animations. Maybe we should have a thread where we can share what we've made so other makers can use it too. It'll sure cut the production cost. Well.. but searching the assets is also time-consuming.
I made mostly 10 mins story nowadays. I tried to hook people for the first minutes. Because for me if I watched other manchinimas (even my owns) and I don't get the big story right away, I lose interest.
I learned a bit of storytelling from the Master Class - Dan Brown. I paid for his online class.
Your main character needs a goal he/she wants to achieve.
You will throw obstacles to his/her. the bigger the better.
And there's something that makes the main character have to go through all of it, instead of just running a way.
There will be a villain(s).
And your job as a story writer is to use your imagination to solve it.
Since Dan is thriller writer, there's should be a time limit.
3 Big elements in Dan Brown storytelling:
1. The Contract - What you promise to your reader, what will they get if they watch your video. Will the character get impossible love he always wanted, etc. So you're making promises. There are big and small ones. Promises are one element that makes your reader wants to stay.
2. The Cruisable - What makes your main character have to go through all the pain and fears. It can be a simple as he promises to his mother graveyard that he'll do it.
3. The Clock - It's time limit.
There are more in storytellings, of course.
I learned about how to shots a movie from Studiobinder youtube channel.
There are reasons why a scene shot from different angles. And then there are blockings, where and how to position your characters, etc.
So many things to learn in making a movie.
