Season 3 Wrap-Up

Here we are again, at the end of another chapter of the Kanes! This one was certainly the most dramatic so far, and was definitely a *lot* more scripted than the previous seasons, but I think it paid off in the end. There were still a lot of moments that were a total surprise to me, but everything surrounding Travis-Bradley-Emerald was leading up to this point. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't planned it from the beginning, I never would've been able to do it. Was very hard. :(

However, next season won't be as dark! There'll be a lot to do with the fued between Travis and Brad, Brad coping, yada yada, but I'm pretty sure there's no way to get more depressing than the last few posts I did. No where to go but up from here, basically. :) And, I promise, it'll be a much, much happier ending.

Anyways, there's not much this Season to Wrap-Up persay, but here's the juice:

#1: LOL Guess Who:









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#2: Machinima - Tips and Tools for the Curious

Firstly, if you want some solid tips on taking in-game footage, I highly highly recommend reading this here blog:
http://pyronium3.blogspot.com/

There's only a few posts, but it covers some really important stuff that will make your life a lot easier!

Now, Chrysame's questions about how I did certain things!

... the car on fire... - This actually wasn't a mod. The "fog emitter" in Ambitions has a craaazy amount of special effects, one of which is called 'firesim', which is the animation when a sim catches on fire. Nice big blaze, all I had to do was place umpteen fog emitters, set their animation, and boom, fire. What was more miraculous is that I was able to place a car on a community lot -- that was a bit more annoying, requiring a mod I installed for 2-seconds that allows buyable cars on community lots.

... placed the police cars ... - The police cars are hidden in buydebug mode (no idea why), and required a mod to unlock. It's the same mod I mentioned previously that unlocks the ability to place community lot picnic areas, as well: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=382062  It's called the 'Recategorizer'. To my glee, as soon as they're placed, they automatically have their lights flashing. I did a little dance when I saw, because there is no way to actually toggle it on-off.

... arranged her body on the ground ... - For this, I used a mod called Chaos Mod Painting (http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=356513). It's a little confusing to understand at first, but you can set a sim to do any of numerous animations (not all, unforunately), and one of which is the animation to have a sim pass out from boredom. It has the option to 'pause' an animation as well, so once she collapsed, I paused it, and she was stuck laying down until I said otherwise. It's actually the same animation I used in the Meredith-Chandra murder scene to make them both lie down, as well. Another mod removes the 'zzzz's from the sleeping animation.

... certain emotions and reactions at the right time ... - This is also Chaos Mod Painting. Select an animation (in most of these cases, one of the various 'cry' animations that are available), and set it to loop infinitely. That way, I can wait until the right moment to hit record, make sure I have all my camera swivels set up properly, and have at. Still is a bit tricky, but makes it so, so much easier.

Other tidbits:
* I tried very, very hard to actually set the car on fire (to no avail) so I could have firefighters on the scene putting it out. I even had Sam and Ollie in firefighter gear at the scene, but... Without a fire, they couldn't do much. So they didn't make the final cut of the movie.
* Farah was also originally going to be there! Being doctorly and stuff. However, it just didn't fit. So she didn't make the cut.
* Since Emerald was not actually dead yet when this was filmed: when and how did she die? Well, to give a little closure... Here it is: http://picasaweb.google.com/kaleeko/OldVideos1?authkey=Gv1sRgCKKw2L2M2uXf_QE#5509235470804232994

* And, for kicks and giggles while I'm on the topic of short clips: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/B83_vC4r-AM_IBXy5SsuQ1ZnvNVwWaNKZQRJ-l21b7A?feat=directlink

It was a lot of experimentation, but it paid off in the end. I'm pretty confident that next time around, I'll be able to put together something much better. Still, I'm really proud of some of the moments in this video. :) My favorite especially is the last shot of Bradley yelling-roaring-raging-whatever in front of the burning vehicle... Such a huge display of emotion from a guy who usually is not very descript about how he feels.

So um, I think that's actually about it! If you have any other questions about this Season, the Machinima, what's to come, etc etc, feel free to ask! Now's the time to do it. :)

I am gonna take a bit of a break between now and the start of next Season, so I can get a bit caught up in my game, maybe do a small 'short', or just have some time to dink around on Guild Wars or Warhammer Online or whatever is striking my fancy. And, so I have more time to focus on spamming y'all's blogs with comments! Bwahahaha!

And now, onwards! :D