my n00b question thread

I recently got Moviestorm to work on my dad's computer (it was a bit too demanding for my own) and I've been having a great time playing around with it. I do, however, have a couple of questions. And over the next few days I'll probably have more - some too horrendously lame to be seen outside of this vacuum-sealed thread.

None of these questions are in extremely dire need of answering - if I have any really burning questions I'll go to the help forum.

Anyway, the next two questions aren't very n00b-ish but dumber ones are to follow... that I'm almost sure of.

Question 1: Are there any sounds or anything built right into Moviestorm? When I render out, there is no sound. I don't mind doing sound, but are there any sound effects built right in that I'm somehow overlooking?

Question 2: Can anyone on this forum speak Russian? Anyone know the Russian equivalent of "defector" (or a similar word) might be? I'd like someone to say it in a movie I'm working on but I don't know the translation (or pronunciation of course).

More n00b questions to come!

Greeting KradProductions, just remember if you don't ask a question dumb or not you will never know the answer

Answer 1: At the moment what sounds Moviestorm had have been removed in the current version and will probably be reinstated at a later date
Answer 2: According to the online English to Russian dictionary there is no equivalent for defector in Russian so just use defector with an accent

Regards
Davidwww

EDIT: Ok I used another dictionary and it came up with this
http://www.rustran.com/odr.php4?q=1&word=defector&x=108&y=13 don't ask me how to pronounce them

You could assume that "Defector" could be substituted with "Traitor" yet I don't know how much that will help since the translation is "?????????" which, no offense to any of our Russian brothers and sisters, is nonsense to me.

Odd, the translation "pastes" into the reply just fine yet won't appear. Check this page and type in "traitor".

For question number one: You can add sound effects to your movie. Click an actor, Click Export Audio File, Find the .wav file, click ok, then move the lip movement strength to minimum. The sound effect should play.

To get sounds, I would recommend some under Creative Commons or Open Source licenses. Have you tried the Free Sound Project? They have very good sound effects that are under various CC agreements.

Thanks for the help, guys.
Spong3y: I don't remember seeing that option when I clicked on the actors but it'll be the first thing I do when I fire up MS when I get home.

Free Sound Project rocks. I love looking for audio there. Very decent selection for soundscapes.

Interesting results on the Russian. I haven't been able to find a good translation yet (that isn't symbols like that) - I'm not sure if such a translation would exist though. I'll keep looking! I'd prefer the actor say it in Russian over English, but I may be forced to change my mind about that.

Thanks again! More n00b questions to come!

As stated above, there are currently no foley sound effects in Moviestorm. If you want to add sound effects within your movie, you can either use the 'Say' command on one of your actors, as Spong3y said, and reduce the lip-movement to minimum, or add a speaker prop to the set (These are part of the first music pack), which you can left-click on in the Director's View, and play a sound file on. You can also use the cutting room to add sound effects.

It's probaby a little easier to add sounds in whatever video editing software you use, however.

Thanks - sounds good. This only gives me an excuse to browse for more sounds!

Next n00b question:

(this one has likely been answered elsewhere before - if so, I apologize)

Specifically, what do the the "melodrama" and "expressiveness" sliders do on the character sheet window? I'm assuming the former controls the stength of facial animations and the latter controls gestures when a character is idle? Is that about right?

I think that that's right except reversed.

KradProductions wrote:

Thanks - sounds good. This only gives me an excuse to browse for more sounds!

Next n00b question:

(this one has likely been answered elsewhere before - if so, I apologize)

Specifically, what do the the "melodrama" and "expressiveness" sliders do on the character sheet window? I'm assuming the former controls the stength of facial animations and the latter controls gestures when a character is idle? Is that about right?

Not quite. They both control the improvisations.
A number of the gestures have melodrama and expressiveness values (set from the modders workshop); if the actors stats for those two values are greater than the values set for those animations, then those animations are in the list of improvisations the character does.
It definatly needs an internal review to change the set of improvisations at different levels, and so it makes more sense.

As a consequence, setting melodrama and expressiveness to zero for a character will mean that they dont do random improvisations.

Adding on to Ben's note, with regard to gesture improvs, if memory serves, "Melodrama" can essentially be replaced with "Intensity," and "Expressiveness" with "Frequency" (i.e., Melodrama affects the subtlety -- or lack thereof -- of the gestures, and Expressiveness affects how often the actor will pull a random gesture from the tree).

Or maybe it's the other way around in reverse.

spam?

It was! How annoying.

*Blows smoke from the muzzle of his Spambuster 4000*

All right, today marks the return of my dumb question thread!

Today's dumb question:

I recently installed all of the updates. My version of Moviestorm should be current with the most-updated version of Moviestorm.

All seems to be going well (I love the revisions made to shadowing!) but I'm having difficulty rendering. I try to wrap (a scene or a camera) and I get the regular options window that pops up. I select a destination, a file name, tweak the attributes, and click okay. And then nothing happens. The window closes regularly but the scene (or camera) doesn't render.

Now I'll admit up front: it's been a long &$#! time since I've last run Moviestorm. The problem could very likely be on my end. But I think I have everything checked off that needs to be checked off: I have a camera on the set, cuts inserted, and an actor present. Granted, the actor isn't doing anything but standing and staring at the camera (he is not a very emotive fellow in the context of the movie). Do I have everything? Anyone else ever had this issue?

I really hope the problem is on my end, even if it makes me look like a bit of a goof (it would be an accurate portrayal!)

Thanks!

Hmm, it would seem that I solved my problem. By switching the framerate from 29.97 FPS to 25 FPS, things worked. Who woulda thunk?

...in rendering, you might check to see if you have other choices of codecs to select from... I've been able to chose various settings using "Cinepak Codec by Radius";... I also have a choice of "default renderer" which only lets me chose the "quality" (from "ultra" to "low").