Quick Help and Reference Guide (Troubleshooting Updated 16/6/08)

Introduction

AngriBuddhist wrote:

Disclaimer: I am not a employee of Short Fuze and am not affiliated with them in any way. This information has been gathered from questions and answers from users within these forums. Although the "Troubleshooting" tips have been successful for some there is no guarrantee that they will work for you. End Disclaimer.

If any of this helps you, please leave a comment. I'm aiming for 1,000,000 served.

1. Installation

2. Troubleshooting - Have a technical problem?

3. The Basics - Getting Started - ( Updated 25/5/08 )

4. Advanced Techniques - Ready to take it to the next level?

5. Media Types - What types of files does MovieStorm support?

6. Modding without the Modder's Workshop - It's a hacky approach so be careful the entire way.

7. Modding with the Modder's Workshop - (Wanted- Moviestorm Mod Shop User's Notes)

12. Links - From MovieStorm news to Free Sound Effects.

13. Credits - Who's helped with ths guide? (Hopefully Coming Soon)

As MovieStorm is designed to be immediately accessible to users of varying levels of experience and technical know-how there will always be, regardless of the information available in these forums, questions repeatedly asked simply because it's unclear exactly how to phrase a "search" query correctly. Additionally, what might have been accurate information for the Early Release Version 1.01 might not necessarily be true of the Early Release Version 1.04.

What I'm going to attempt to do here is to organize the available information from these forums and my experience. Topics will range from "Troubleshooting" to "The Basics" all the way through "Types of Media" (i.e. supported audio or video for dialog, ambient sound, or images on primitive backdrops), and information about techniques such as Compositing. Since creating and maintaining this will be a mammoth task, it will grow over time. At first many of the sections will just have links to pertinent information. These will be expanded upon as time permits. As of now, my primary focus will be dredging the forums and building up the "Troubleshooting" and "The Basics" sections.

Comments about, or what you'd like to see in, this "Guide" should be made here in this thread.

Installation

If you haven't done so, download MovieStorm from here.

Microsoft Vista users need to follow these installation instructions and when using MovieStorm always "Run as Administrator".

Troubleshooting

At this point in Moviestorm's developement, the majority of technical issues stem from graphics cards and their drivers. There are an entire host of problems which are associated with not having the most up-to-date and functioning versions. Follow the guidelines below for your particular type of card.

Nvidia - The cards with the best compatibility, simply update to the newest available drivers.

Intel - Unsupported at this time. Due to errors in the driver's "openGL select" function, selecting in Moviestorm's interface doesn't work correctly. The most recent drivers reported to work are version 4543.

ATI - As with the Intel drivers, ATI's have suffered from the same "openGL select" error causing the selection function within Moviestorm to not work correctly.

ATI FireGL Cards - The last reported drivers which function correctly are version 8.391.

Other ATI Cards - Up until 5/08, the 7.11 drivers for Windows XP and Windows Vista were the last to work correctly. Recently, ATI released the 8.5 drivers for Windows XP and Windows Vista and they eliminate the issues found in previous versions. Any drivers before 7.11 or in between it and 8.5 will not work correctly. I've recently upgraded my drivers to the 8.5 version and everything works like a charm.

Problems associated with drivers prior to or in between versions 7.11 and 8.5 include-

Constant crashing of MovieStorm
Cannot paint walls
Unable to place character
Tutorial crashes
Blank workspace within a movie
MovieStorm crashes when zooming out
Can't place items on top of other items in Set Workshop
Cannot select objects/characters/icons
Placed characters appear in the wrong place
Characters will not move to the correct place or animate correctly
Character Shop crashes

Other issues

Distorted Screen - You can't even navigate through the menus because Moviestorm's screen is too big. Moviestorm requires a resolution of at least 1024x768, change your monitor settings.

Characters are distorted by color - Typically blue or red, this happens on set or when a camera's focus is changed. If your drivers are updated this could mean that your graphics card does not support the proper version of Shaders. Turn off "shaders" in the Settings>Graphics menu.

Tutorial Crashes - If your drivers are updated this could mean that your graphics card does not support the proper version of Shaders. Turn off "shaders" in the Settings>Graphics menu.

Crashes when trying to create a new movie - If your drivers are updated this could mean that your graphics card does not support the proper version of Shaders. Turn off "shaders" in the Settings>Graphics menu.

Character Shop crashes - If your drivers are updated this could mean that your graphics card does not support the proper version of Shaders. Turn off "shaders" in the Settings>Graphics menu.

Crashing during set navigation - If your drivers are updated this could mean that your graphics card does not support the proper version of Shaders. Turn off "shaders" in the Settings>Graphics menu.

Extreme slowdown - 2GB of ram is probably the low end for running MovieStorm and any other intensive program simultaneously on a Vista machine. Ram is cheap. Upgrade.

Items or characters disappear or act unusual (i.e. they don't animate correctly) in the Character Shop or on set - If your drivers are updated this could mean that your graphics card does not support "hardware skinning". Turn off "hardware skinning" in the Settings>Graphics menu.

Applying a texture to a wall/door/floor changes the texture of something else - If your drivers are updated this could mean that your graphics card does not support the proper version of Shaders. Turn off "shaders" in the Settings>Graphics menu.

Downloaded Addons don't appear for you to install or once installed the assets do not appear within MovieStorm - Most likely you are running Microsoft Vista as your OS. If so, Vista has a problem placing your addons in the correct place and will create a new one for them. This is called "Virtualisation". This happens when you don't start MovieStorm by "Running as Administrator". See Installation Section. Go to Program Files\Moviestorm and you should see a link on the top bar of the File Explorer labelled "Compatibility Files". Click on this. Anything in this file is not actually installed in MovieStorm. Delete these files. Restart MovieStorm by "Running as Administrator" and then re-install your Addons.

Video does not play on a backdrop - Turn on "shaders" in the Settings>Graphics menu. Update your graphics card drivers.

If you have a problem which is not solved here, please do a thorough search in the help forum and if you still need help, read this thread and then create a separate thread requesting help in the Help Forum.

The Basics

Tutorials

Official MovieStorm Tutorials - The tutorials library is continually growing. Currently it contains-

Basics: Moving Around - How to move around on your Moviestorm movie set, as well as how to make basic adjustments to your set.

Basics: Giving Instructions - How to control your characters' actions on set, and how to make them interact.

Basics: Creating Characters - How to create and modify characters for your movie cast, using Moviestorm's Character tools.

Basics: Changing Your Set - Customize your set, including changing colours, adding walls and doors, adding furniture and deleting objects.

Characters

Change a characters mood and limit their improvisations. - Effects facial expressions and idle animations.

Camera

The first and best way to learn the basics of using the camera is to fire up Moviestorm and go to "Setting Up a Shot" in the tutorials section.

Static Camera - An unmoving, static shot can be created by either left-clicking a space on the set and choosing "Place camera here" or by left-clicking a character and choosing "Place camera on me". Once in the Camera View, click the "Move the Camera" icon and use the guidlines to position your shot. Right-click and hold to rotate the camera as you would when navigating the set. Once set, click the green "Accept" checkmark. The placement and position of the camera is called a keyframe and you will need an understanding of this concept for virtually every modern animation and editing tool.

Moving Camera - A camera can be given motion by simply adding a second keyframe at another point on the timeline. Once you have accepted your static shot, a small camera window will be positioned along the lower right side of the Moviestorm screen. Click that and return to the Camera's View. Assuming that you already have character actions on the timeline, scrub (move back and forth) the timeline's needle to the time that you'd like the camera to stop moving. Then click the "Move the Camera" icon and position the camera where you'd like it to move to. Once set, click the green "Accept" checkmark. Moviestorm will now create a path between these two keyframes based off of their positions on the set and the time you've allowed in the timeline. The shorter the time, the faster the camera will have to move to reach it's next position. Remember, just like anything else, you can move these keyframes to different points on the timeline.

Adding Dialog

There are two ways to do this.

Within Moviestorm - Make sure that the character which is to speak the dialog is selected in the character selection pane which fades in when you hover the mouse over the far left side of the screen. Then, Left-click on the character and choose "Say". Click the red record icon and speak the dialog. Click the record icon again to stop recording. You can click the green play icon to preview your dialog, click the record icon to redo your dialog, or (very important) click the green check mark to accept your dialog. Once accepted, move the timeline back to before the dialog and play the scene. Remember, just like other items on the timeline, you can slide the dialog to different points in the scene without having to re-record it.

Outside Moviestorm - Using an audio editor (such as the wonderful and free Audacity) record your dialog and save the file as a .wav somewhere that you can find it easily later. Now, open Moviestorm and load your movie. Make sure that the character which is to speak the dialog is selected in the character selection pane. Then, Left-click on the character and choose "Say". Below the red and green play and record icons you will see an icon of an archaic technology called the 3.5" Floppy Disk which represents you loading an existing file. Click it, browse to the location that you saved your dialog, and select (double-click) the correct file. You can click the green play icon to preview your dialog, click the record icon to redo your dialog, or (very important) click the green check mark to accept your dialog. Once accepted, move the timeline back to before the dialog and play the scene. Remember, just like other items on the timeline, you can slide the dialog to different points in the scene without having to re-record it.

Note: Although the second method is much more involved, opening an audio editor and recording your own vocals (or those of the nearest person) is much quicker from start to finish. Additionally, if you are using Voice Actors who have supplied their lines to you via the Internet, this is how you'll have to add the dialog.

Advanced Techniques

Chroma-keying - Also known as Compositing. This chroma-keying tutorial for Adobe After Effects gives the basic principal for all post-production editing software that supports it. The actual steps will vary. For the more technical users, Elf's Intro to Compositing is a good advocate for investing in a dedicated compositing tool.

Rendering - Although posted before MovieStorm was able to support many different codecs and render in High-Defination, Overman's MovieStorm Render Workflow is an excellent step-by-step example that will help you design your own render workflow.

Media Types

Ambient Sounds - Ambient (consistant and looping) sounds can be added to a scene in the Set Workshop. The audio files must be MP3s and need to be placed in ...\Program Files\Moviestorm\Data\Sound\Ambient. As of 4/08, MovieStorm is very taxing on your computer. If you use an outside video editor adding these sound effects during your post-production will reduce MovieStorm's workload.

Modding without the Modder's Workshop

nb99's excellent overview. Please leave comments about it in that thread.

Modding with the Modder's Workshop

As of 5/08, the Modder's Workshop has been opened up to the general user. The Pioneers (early Beta testers of MovieStorm) had access to it but, in favor of getting Moviestorm ready for commercial release, the Modshop had been left in a "Work in Progress" state. There is, of course, a newer build of the Workshop being used in-house at Short Fuze but a couple of Daves are holding it hostage until they are happy with it.

Go to The beginning of the Beginner's Guide to learn how to get started.

Reserved

Reserved

Upcoming Version- Early Release 1.05

Although anything here is subject to change, Short Fuze staff members have referenced these as coming up in the next release.

Graphics- Male models makeover.

Functions- Copy Scene, Face morphing.

Refinements- New walk path (???), Camera system (???)

Links

News

MovieStorm Development Blog - News and insight straight from Short Fuze, the developers of MovieStorm.
MovieStorm Blog - News and insight straight from Short Fuze but prettied up for general consumption.

Resources

Credits

These forum members have supplied assistance ranging from correcting my mistakes, filling in the blanks, writing tutorials, or providing links to information that MovieStorm users would find helpful. Thanks everyone!!!

Thanks Angri! This thread should definetely help those in need of answers.

Thanks Spong3y!!! I hope so. Like I said somewhere in all that mess above- It'll grow as time goes on.