Moviestorm 1.1 Preview

We'll be releasing a new version of Moviestorm soon and we'd like your help in testing it please.

You can download it from here:
Windows Version
UPDATE: A little late, but now available: Mac Version

The 1.1 Preview version will be installed separately to your existing version of Moviestorm so you can use both versions while we hammer out the wrinkles.
Note: This is a Preview release and we know it has bugs, so please save your work regularly! The render screen is a known weak point so make sure you save before rendering.
Note: Movies made with 1.1 Preview will not work correctly with earlier versions of Moviestorm.

You can use your existing content packs with this release: either copy them across from your existing installation of Moviestorm or download and install them again through the Launcher.

What's New?

1. We've rethemed the user interface. The new look is a slate grey, so goodbye to the old blue. All the buttons have been redone and are much clearer. Navigation between the different modes or rooms is much clearer using the buttons at the top of the screen.

2. Cameras have been completely reworked. Setting up camera keyframes is now much easier as Moviestorm provides a list of viewpoints to jump straight to. Moviestorm generates several of these for each of your characters in scene and bookmarks each new keyframe that you introduce so you can get back to that framing easily. This can make setting up complex moves much faster.

3. The way cameras move has been greatly improved. Cameras now follow curved spline paths and ease in/out at the start and end of the moves to provide a much smoother view. Cameras should now properly follow targets without the jerking about that they used to do. You can also use roll (or dutch tilt) in free shots (but not yet target shots) - look for the little orange thumbs in the framing view.
Note: Old movies will still use the old camera moves for compatibility. You can convert the old moves to the new by going to the Script Editor > Overview > Settings and hitting the Convert button.

4. We've also dropped the ability to edit a scene on-set since it overlapped badly with the Cutting Room functionality. However, for television style linear editing we've introduced the ability to have jump cuts as well as moves on a single camera (you can think of them as teleports if you want). You can still use multiple cameras, but you may find the need for so many cameras has been greatly reduced. For more filmic non-linear editing use the Cutting Room or an external editor of your choice. You can also see all the clips that you use in the Cutting Room on the timeline when on-set and you can also edit them on-set (moving them in time or revealing) which should make it easier to adjust an edit when the scene changes without having to redo everything.

5. Many of the heads now have morphing options. Select the head you want and you'll see a set of sliders below it. Choose the feature you want (big nose, square jaw, etc) and then drag the slider to choose how much of it you want. This should give you much greater variation in characters.
Note: Not all head/hair/beard combinations work well.

6. We've revamped the way moods work. The Improvisor is back but you now have complete control over it, including the ability to turn an improvisation into a gesture that you can keep and edit. Characters now also have a mood-based pose that they will use whenever they're not doing anything else as an alternative to the default pose. Changing poses and facial expressions should now blend smoothly from one to another.
If you don't want any improvisations at all, you can turn it off for your entire movie in the Script Editor > Outline > Settings.

There are lots of other changes as well but these are the headlines.

Johnnie has produced a quick video tutorial on the new cameras:
http://www.mentalcompost.co.uk/watch/moviestorm_cameras_1_1/index.htm

We're keen to hear what you think of the changes. And we're also keen to know of any problems you encounter:
- install problems, bugs, crashes, hardware issues
- problems loading movies from previous versions of Moviestorm
- features and functionality that have gone missing
- awkwardness or confusion when navigating around and using Moviestorm

I hope you enjoy this!

Vista Users please read.
We've seen a lot of problems with Moviestorm running in "XP compatibility" mode (i.e., what most of us think of as a normal program). However in this mode, Vista virtualises the Program Files directories and updates and installs often ended up with this in a mess.

We have changed the Moviestorm launcher binary (Moviestorm.exe) so that it requires Admin privileges to run (which it needs for updates and to install content packs correctly). This will mean that you would need to allow admin permissions each time you run Moviestorm, however.
For anyone wishing to help us test compatibility with Vista for non-admin users, we have also provided a second binary (Moviestorm-VistaUser.exe) in the install directory, which runs without any admin privileges. You can make a shortcut to this binary if you want to run Moviestorm on a non-admin account.
Do not, however, do updates or install content packs in this mode. If there are problems, however, once Moviestorm is actually running, rather than with the launcher, we very much want to know about them.

YAAAY! As fast as the mac version is fixed i'll download it!

Do I have to re-download all of my content packs? I downloaded it but when it starts up my content packs aren't there. Thanks in advance for helping!

Well, I redownloaded mine. I'd be interested to hear if there's a good way to get around that (although less interested than I would have been a couple hours ago).

This looks pretty awesome, in just playing with it a little. Love the new facial hair options. Luke's painted on beard was getting me down a bit.

moviemaker9 wrote:

Do I have to re-download all of my content packs? I downloaded it but when it starts up my content packs aren't there.

Dave wrote:

You can use your existing content packs with this release: either copy them across from your existing installation of Moviestorm or download and install them again through the Launcher.

Quickest/easiest way (IMO) is to just copy everything except Base and Core from your 1.0x AddOn folder to your 1.1 AddOn folder.

Thanks mucho!

(I'm in the ending stages of a little project, so I'm going to hold off a day or so... but I'm looking forward to it!)

Brilliant!
The direction MS is going is great. More of a pleasure to use. eg..I had 20 cameras going in one scene of the old that can be done in 2 in this version... Brilliant

Gladly i can use all the old Stock from the old MS. Though sadly there is no movie compatibility from the old to this MS.

-----
Something learnt the hard way... version-ing (copy and work on the new copy) each time before working on a scene....

Many Thanks for the Preview!

tree wrote:

Gladly i can use all the old Stock from the old MS. Though sadly there is no movie compatibility from the old to this MS.

That's not entirely accurate. Movies made in earlier versions CAN be opened, worked on, etc. in 1.1 - but movies made in 1.1 are not BACKWARD compatible with earlier versions of MS.

equinoxx wrote:

tree wrote:

Gladly i can use all the old Stock from the old MS. Though sadly there is no movie compatibility from the old to this MS.
That's not entirely accurate. Movies made in earlier versions CAN be opened, worked on, etc. in 1.1 - but movies made in 1.1 are not BACKWARD compatible with earlier versions of MS.

Glad it works for you, though with mine; Forward compatibility... makes my old projects broken with a cool long error report. ( I insert... () convert (or not)... then save-- broken next time go to use)

Keeping away from old projects, MS 1.1Preview3 works great! faster/better/stronger....

Hmm... sorry to hear that.

I just tried opening several of my old projects, and I DID finally manage to get a couple of "Could not open movie" errors... but those projects were from way back to the Beta 1 and 2 days. My EA 1.0 projects opened fine.

So... looks like "limited backward compatibility" would be the call here.

tree wrote:

Glad it works for you, though with mine; Forward compatibility... makes my old projects broken with a cool long error report. ( I insert... () convert (or not)... then save-- broken next time go to use)

Keeping away from old projects, MS 1.1Preview3 works great! faster/better/stronger....

This was not the plan, and we would like to avoid breaking peoples movies in future.
Please could you send me a copy of the saved movie, if you still have it; instructions on finding your movie files in the second post in the help sticky.
Please send it (in a zip) to ben.sanders@moviestorm.co.uk

I've had my head buried in the Modshop. I saw this but a little birdie had to tell me that it's 1.1.3. Downloading now.

OMG it's working yay yay yay! Meaning: it's downloading BASE and CORE, which is already more then 1.0.4 did, it's almost finished so i can almost get working on it!

apie wrote:

OMG it's working yay yay yay!

Yay too!
only, I have to wait 'til I get home before I can play with it on mac mini. Thanks for fixing it so quickly Dave.