Beta 2.1 Update now available

We're pleased to announce that the next Beta 2 update is now available. We felt that, now that Tom's Cutting Room is in and passed by the guys in QA, it was worth a bigger release number, hence Beta 2.1. That and we've fixed a lot of bugs in the last few weeks, so hopefully you'll find it more robust and usable than before, despite the inevitable one or two regressions that have crept in. The big milestone of version 1.0 is now not that far away...

Moviestorm should offer you the option to download it automatically on start up.

Here are the headline changes for this release:
* NEW FEATURE: The Cutting Room allows you to edit your scenes into a single movie.
* Some costumes have a tintable variant where you can choose the colour (for example, the Patient's gown).
* Lens flare has been added as an option in the Set Workshop (under lighting)
* Characters can now point at each other. This is still a prototype feature so may not always behave as desired.
* The handover from target shot to one shot is easier
* Three point lighting in the Character Shop
* More Undo/Redo improvements
* The help files have been updated and given a better look. There's more on the way, thanks to Johnnie
* Inverse kinematics has been added to two handed prop animations to keep the off hand pinned (for example, playing the guitar).
* FIX: Characters now correctly perform successive mutual animations without swapping positions. There is one outstanding case with problems: when a "Punch Up" immediately follows another mutual.
* FIX: Some gestures were causing sliding after a character stood up from being seated.
* FIX: Movies with a light source that was disabled failed to load
* FIX: Sometimes an object stopped casting shadows when the camera was too close.
* FIX: Looking at a character after they left the set caused heads to vanish
* ISSUE: Pointing at or looking at props is currently broken - sorry!

NOTE: If you have problems getting the update automatically, you can download the complete set of patches manually here:
http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/download/Moviestorm-Beta2.1.0-update.zip
Unpack the contents to your Program Files/Moviestorm-beta2 directory and then run the AutoUpdate program directly.

Dave,
Thank you and the guys at Short Fuze. Looking forward to seeing what the editor does.

mrjoyce wrote:

Dave,
Thank you and the guys at Short Fuze. Looking forward to seeing what the editor does.

Ditto... things seemed to work well for me this time! (Have I mentioned I'm enjoying Moviestorm?)

(I was thinking that the "credits" option under the editor wasn't working, but then I realized the black lettering wasn't showing up too well against the black background.)

Awesome guys, thanks so much for getting that update out. I'll definately be getting that loaded when I get home from work.

Mike aka tacoshack27

* ISSUE: Pointing at or looking at props is currently broken - sorry!

I have a lot of looking at props happening in my current project. Does this mean those commands will break if I upgrade?

Heh heh Fleef, it's like playing a one arm bandit sometimes with these beta updates.

Do you hold on the last version, and hope the next will iron out the bugs from the latest, or close your eyes and pull the handle?
The results seem so unpredictable sometimes.

kkffoo wrote:

Heh heh Fleef, it's like playing a one arm bandit sometimes with these beta updates.
Do you hold on the last version, and hope the next will iron out the bugs from the latest, or close your eyes and pull the handle?
The results seem so unpredictable sometimes.

Tell me about it. I held on to 1.4.3 for so long finishing Morning Run Amok I felt like a MStorm noob all over again by the time it was done. You guys were having all kinds of fun chatting up the newfangled features while I was still trying to keep from crashing the application and losing everything I hadn't yet saved.

OMG! I've just seen those serial killer scissors

They have a bit of a blood spattered 'come into my cutting room' (insert vincent price voiceover) vibe.

I am loving the lighting though.

Sorry about the look at props Fleef, we'll fix that ASAP.

I do like the metaphor Kate - it neatly encapsulates the downside as well as the upside of our Agile "release early, release often" philosophy. I just hope we pay out more often than eat up all your energy.

I love the new additions and I love that some of the costumes can be recoloured, and I just love Moviestorm (is that enough gushing, because really I can do more if you want) although I am still hanging out for the mod workshop, these damn arm patches are not helping much with the withdrawl symptoms.

Regards
Davidwww

The Modder's Workshop just missed this release. However your fix will be along very soon indeed!

It updated automatically last night when I opened Moviestorm and I am very happy to say that with this update THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS AT ALL. Look forward to having the Modder's Workshop back in the near future too. Everything works fine - new props, lighting, cutting room.

You know... I didn't notice it before, and I didn't see you (Dave) mention it... but I suddenly noticed the help files being printed on-screen during renderings; if it's new, I think it's a nice touch (and it's still a nice touch if I just never noticed it before). (And the help files ARE looking much nicer!)

Again, thanks SF folk!

Hi all, just updated to 2.1, thank you. I was playing round with the camera, as wanted to look at teh cutting room feature, moviestorm quit without warning, good job I hadn't spent all day on it lol.

UPDATE - tried cell shading, no change in graphics, field of view didn't work and oh oh its just crashed again, not sure whats happening, please help

neut wrote:

Hi all, just updated to 2.1, thank you. I was playing round with the camera, as wanted to look at teh cutting room feature, moviestorm quit without warning, good job I hadn't spent all day on it lol.

UPDATE - tried cell shading, no change in graphics, field of view didn't work and oh oh its just crashed again, not sure whats happening, please help

What I do and I don't know if it will help you is to go into the movie.mscope file and delete the line - it is second from the last that refers to cell shading, resave the file as movie.mscope and then start the program again.

The only set I had this problem with after this was an old very large set I did of the mini city and only if I try to move the camera too far to the left. But all the other sets are fine.