Well, I can’t speak for anyone, but I was one of those people… I love my PvP and was sure my S4 Set and full Guardians gear would suffice in PvP… Sadly it wasn’t the case, especially considering I play one of those so called ‘PvP broken’ roles - The ShadowPriest.

I don’t need to go to the WoW Forums to know that there’s a sea-load of complaints, both generally Priest related but mostly about ShadowPriests and how people seem to think their new abilities aren’t of much PvP benefit… Some even going so far as to claim they believe Dispersion (Our max Shadow Spec talent) isn’t even worth taking… I don’t agree, but the fact so many people seem to think so speaks volumes in terms of how our abilities fare versus that of other classes - Either that or I’m just one of the few giving it a solid chance.

Sad part is I’m not the one complaining - If anything, those who know me are sick of ME being the one telling them that PvP isn’t actually that bad… However, thats down to one thing… Resilience and dedication.

I didn’t want to do it, but yes, I burst my Honor Cap on the Savage Gladiator (Blue) PvP set, followed shortly afterwards by ‘For Great Honor’ spam and purchased all the Hateful items, even the new Medallion of the Horde… One more Emblem of Heroism and I’ll be fully PvP geared, 700+ Resilience and 20+k HP Unbuffed (22000′ish self buffed and more from additional non-self buffs) with decent crit and medium spelldamage. Bye bye Brutal Arena gear, you’ll be missed (Looked far nicer than the new sets, for sure).

I took my old choice of spec, which favours Static Damage over crit seeing as I wasn’t sure at the time wether the new PvP set would have much crit (ie. DoT’n'Flayer) however due to my current gear mixture I can easily be swayed, especially as most classes are capable of dispelling or removing the abilities I specced for, which means I’ll soon need to respec once again now that I’m geared up.

So, with my shiny set it was off to the Battlegrounds, enjoying the (Very noticeable) change in survivability and being proved that all the whinging about certain “OP” classes is unfounded nonsense from people who either aren’t used to playing a ShadowPriest, don’t understand the class they face, or generally just don’t PvP that much…

DeathKnights… Retribution Paladins… Sure, they sting, but I have so much fun kiting them around and destroying all the CD’s they waste trying to kill the “Easy HK ShadowPriest” that they don’t register on my mental threat meter anymore, and the ones that can’t play their class that well are very noticeable and easily crushed. Rogues? They are as they always were, the big nieussance of ShadowPriests. They hurt less thanks to the Resilience but just like always, any Rogue with a clue leaves you very little chance of escape… Those with half a brain can sometimes succeed, too, if you have no CD’s… Brainless Rogues are easy meltage, though they all hurt and given any outside assistance, there’s not much a Spriest can do.

All in all I’m actually suprised with it all, and enjoying it - Despite partially agreeing that we still need to be revamped and given more versatility, I can still appreciate our abilities and use them well enough to enjoy PvP in it’s current state, enough that, like always, I’ll be one of the very few dedicated Spriests who’ll preach that we really aren’t that bad…

Give me a solid arena team, and hopefully I’ll get to prove it with further Click Boom movies ^^

Until then, I’ll be melting your catapults in WinterGrasp.

Right now there are four styles of WoW machinima; Off the shelf (aka. all in game), Blue screened animations (aka. WoW model and map viewer movies), 3D animating and a mix between two or three of them.
Don’t worry, I’ll not start with the same old topic about “how evil new techniques are, rawr!” but I’ll take a closer look at one of them. The tecnique I’m talking about is 3D animation.

What exactly is 3D animation in WoW machinima?

In WoW machinima 3D animating is every animation or object that does not exist in the game. It is the animation and object that a machinima artist makes by himself to make something that is not possible with the “standart” tools. For example, a human making a backflip.
However face puppeteering is not real 3D animating. It’s more like 2D/normal animating.
3D animated machinimas came quite a while ago, but in really small numbers. The first one that I remember using 3D animation was The Man Who Can which was an entry in the Xfire contest a few years ago. Later the music video Fly High presented the true pontential of 3D animated machinimas in WoW. Though the animation has still been a bit rough it showed what it can really do.
Time passed and the technique was seen in several movies as unique emotes or models. But all of them have been used only for short cuts. The fully animated Unstunted - Vol II

by Macky

How does it work?

Well, you need a few things for it. First you need WoW and the model viewer, then you need some extra software; 3D animation software. One of them is Maya 3D. After that all you need to do is to export a model from the model viewer into the 3D animation program and start animating.

Is it good or bad?

Now to the juicy part! To be honest, I am not sure how to look at this. In one way it’s a great tool for making machinima more believable with the help of the extra animations. On the other side however, it makes WoW machinima less connected to the game. What I mean is that if a WoW machinima has only the models from the game and everything else self made, how much of the “WoW” does it actually still have in it?
Another thing that bothers me is face pupeteering. While it’s a good idea it starts getting on my nerves after watching a freaky face for 5 minutes. It’s good for comedy I guess but drama is more difficult.

All in all, 3D modeling has a long way in front of it. I’m sure that we’ll see a lot of movies using it. But I really hope that they won’t complely abandon the old techniques.

Oh and, Merry Christmas!

Slaughtering people in Northrend

I also sing in it as an abomination.

You can watch the movie which was made by firebolt production HERE.
I voice acted and sound designed. Due to some problems with the computer and the loss of files. Lot of the voices didn’t turn out well in the filter stage. :\ some of the audio distorts too which is audio leveling not being done well. But regardless, I think it was well executed.

facts hurt

It was a nice break, putting aside PvP and daily-quests to animate Alucard v Richter Belmont in a Vampire v Vampire killing Castlevania madness flash… First ever full movie, so I’ve a lot to learn, but dang, it’s a lot of fun…

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/474975

Now that thats out of the way it’s time to try and sort out some WoW Arena…

Today i’m going to write about a new raid-machinima by Fal Bulon called like the title of this entry .

It’s about the start in northrend and shows the sartharion fight and some other cool northrend stuff. The big encounters naxxramas and malygos will follow in the cold legacy series.  The Raids are done by the guild Nero, while Fal Bulon does the Movie. He is very good at raid movies, like she showed in his wheel of time series, but he also doing the big story-line movie “THE SCOURGE” at the moment, which will be very great

So watch The Day of the Dragon for a great experience of the wotlk raids and  enjoy it !

I’ve been pretty inactive for the past month or so with this blog due to several reasons (like playing WotLK… I mean, learning. Yeaaaah, studying. And stuff) but I’m going to change this in the following weeks.
As I already said, Christmas in at our doorsteps and normaly at this time we buy presents for everyone we care. And becuase I’m cheap, *cough*, I meam, love my readers, I’m gonna release a new blog entry every couple of days till the end of the year. Hopefully theres someone actually still reading this blog or else I’m typing this for myself.

Anyway, that’s what’s comming up and now for some WoW machinima news:

As every year in December, every half decent machinima site decides to make a Christmas contest. This year I’ve taken interest in two contests. The WeGame Christmas Contest, and the WarcraftMovies Christmas Spirit Contest. Looks like we’ll have plenty of movies to watch this year!
Wish I could had entered one of the contests, but that’s a different story.

Still no new version of the oh-so popular machinima tool WoW Model Viewer! Is it a curse, or maybe a start of a new age in WoW machinima? Best if you stay tuned for further blog entries that will talk about this more in-depth. If you still wish to use the tool for your projects, then do not worry! The fan base created a rather buggy, but still working version of it. You might want to check this forum thread.
Theres also a second way of making your model viewer work again. Though it takes some extra gigabytes of space on your hard drive. And time. The method is simple:
-Install WoW again, and patch it till the last patch pre-Wrath
-Copy the data directory (or all the .mpq files) into a seperate folder
-Open your latest “official” model viewer folder, search for Config and open it with a notepad and find the following line: Path=C:\\Program Files\\World of Warcraft\\Data\\
-Replace the old destination folder with the one that directs to the TBC .mpq files
Important: The slashes (aka. ‘/’) need to be double! C language code issue. You wouldn’t understand ;).

And last but not least, some news involving me and my projects. I’ll keep it short. I promise.

I’d like to thank everyone who watched Darkness II and everyone who helped “advertising” it (WoW Insider, *The Spark!*, The Happy Hour Tavern, etc.). I didn’t get 100.000+ views but I still got way more than I expected and a great rating.
I’d also like to thank WarcraftMovies for spotlighting it for quite a few days (I even see it now from time to time, popping it up on the front page) and for… Giving me my first “recommended” star! Iiiiiiiiiiiii…!

And for everyone who asked if theres gonna be a part III: You wanted more, so be it. The script is done. Well, theoretically, it was done 1 year ago already. It just needed to be written down on paper.
I will not promise any release dates or anything, but I’ll try to somehow complete the story. I got a rought year ahead of me and I hope that I’ll have atleast some time for it. If not eariler, I’ll surely get started in June, when my final exams end (aka. matura).

Let the machinima community grow! Let’s do something big out of it!

PS: Excuse for any grammar errors. Got a silly keyboard. ^____^

It took a week to hit 80 on release of Wrath, mostly due to me absolutely hating the levelling process despite fun gimmicks and some interesting chains… Ok, thats a lie, anytime I hit a new level I’d take it to the BG’s and Wintergrasp to adapt to ShadowPriest play and keep tabs on scaling, with PvP as usual being above and beyond PvE in terms of my enjoyment of the game.

Due to the ease of WotLK PvE (There isn’t a single challenging instance I’ve come across outside of raids) it reinforces my love for PvP and I expect it to make a big impact this expansion, especially as many zones have multiple PvP orientated quest / dailies strewn about the lands and, of course, with the fun inclusion of Wintergrasp which is proving to be quite a regular and fun pass-time even on our Normal Realm.

While I tend to do a lot of things my own way (spec, for example) it’s a sad fact that going custom just isn’t all that viable, so I took the time over a cup of tea to pour over a few threads and posts from other Priests regarding how they’ll spec for PvP. Sadly, due to 90% of Priests whinging over the supposed ‘terrible state of the class in PvP’ I don’t really hold many of them as gospel, but as someone who loves ShadowPriest PvP (even now) and stubborn enough not to let things slip too far from my own familiarity, I’ve gone with an overall conclusion of others vs my own preferences and specced 19/0/52 for now.

I’ve always been a lover of Imp.Fort & Imp.Innerfire due to stubborness but the sad fact is most classes can, and will, initially assault a Priest with dispels, and if put in a position where re-application of buffs isn’t worth it, then thats wasted talent points.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxhMuhMZZ0xfrRfkfVofdAo

Despite the new emphasis of crit for ShadowPriests I’ve stuck primarily to the flayers choice. A lot will weigh on my choice of partner.

Thanks to the pre-WotLK Click-Boom experiment of ShadowPriest & Retribution Paladin in 2v2 it became very apparant how the old ‘Nuke ShadowPriest First’ attitude of most opposition we faced ended up in their defeat thanks to the inclusion of Imp.Fade & Dispersion giving us a little more flexibility in terms of outlasting.

The only teams that gave up a struggle where Warlock & Paladin purely due to similarity, fear spam and their focus being solely on our Paladin. Anytime they focussed on me simply allowed the Dots and Ret Pally to chew everything up while I focussed more on simply keeping alive and preoccupying the other target, with their Ret Paladin more often than not being forced into an early bubble, mass-dispel, silence nuke.

I’m not entirely sure if Seariox will even level his Paladin but if he does then that would be my preferred team, purely due to how fun it is to play and the fast matches are always more appealing to me than outlasting or mana-games, though it’s hard to say how it’ll fare once PvP really opens up and setups come into question.

Death-Knights will be a thorn in the side, nothing more. I’ve yet to be really challenged by one as we’ve plenty of ways to get outside of their nieussance abilities, so in terms of competition and setups, I get the feeling there’ll still be a lot of similar setups of the past to face, which suits me fine as there hasn’t been much to hard-counter our methods.

With honor capped at 75,000 and most tokens gotten, it’s a matter of time and practice before things kick off - And I can’t wait to get started and see what fun we can squeeze out of WotLK PvP. Until then I’ll probably be manning a Catapult in defense/assault of Wintergrasp Fortress or practicing mass fights in SotA. Either way, I’m sure there’ll be room for a few movies ^^

After many weeks of working on the footsteps. It is finally done.
You can download the package at the sound wizardry web site.

 Oh and keep an eye out.

I’m finally leveling my death knight now, and I have to say that it’s a very interesting class to say the least. The sheer amount of new spells and abilities are very appealing for a wow veteran, except that death knights are a bunch of x-mas tree’s! My druid needs to rest now after so many days if not weeks of hardcore playing and the fact that he looks like a PVER (omg). He’s technically as prepared as he possibly could get, except that I need to get a few more honor marks. So death knight it is between the raids.

My first impression of the death knight makes me wonder how viable the class actually can be. It feels both very powerful but also very weak. The death knight is probably the best peeling class in-game, but despite it’s peeling and snare power death knights are rather easy to kite.

Strengths, and this is just assumptions! I think every healing class that has to do channeling heals to maintain a high HPS will dread a dk.  Strangulate > Death Grip > Mindfreeze is a very very dangerous channel lockdown, and not to mention deathgrip a target los from it’s healer and burst him down. The target switches that you can do if you think outside the box are impressive in theory. Let’s say R/DK/P which probably will be a functional setup. Death grip > Shs-shadow dance-cheap shot combined with a mindblast sw:d combo from the priest. Just an example.

Weaknesess, also assumptions! I belive that the weakness of a death knight will be the same as a feral druid. When he is free to do his stuff = dangerous. However if you train him down and giving him a hard time to do what he’s best on then he will be in trouble. If his strength is to keep people of a weak target. a Priest or a hunter back on 70 e.g then the best solution in theory would be to sit on him. Cc-ing a Death Knight shouldn’t be any major problems, mages and druids will be able to toy with them. Their only ranged interupt = strangulate which is a 2 min cd. Death grip = blink away and travelform away.

Back to Ferals! I mentioned Savage Roar in my title, and it’s indeed what I’m going to write about. You may see this as a pve talent which can be compared to SnD (slice and dice), but SnD is more substained damage increase then Savage since it “only” effects WHITE attacks. Increased ap with 40% is rather insane since this boosts our YELLOW attacks aswell, which is alot of damage due to the nature of feral druids. Spike damage. If you have King of the Jungle then Tiger’s Fury grants 60 energy on use and it’s not a gcd, which allowes us to throw in savage roar at many ocations where a rogue never ever would use SnD.

On a player where you can consider yourself free to do damage then Pounce >  savage roar > tigers > mangle > shred or rip is the way to go. Can’t remember if you can possibly throw in a mangle before tigers since It’s so natural and I can’t be bothered to log in a check it out but it’s atleast an opener that I feel is very strong in the majority of scenarios. I would highly suggest to not use that opener on rogues tho

Regarding some comments on regarding the glyphs. Glyph of mangle is something that I mean lets face it, it’s a pve glyph The positioning issue with shred doesn’t really make it worth to have a few seconds extra on the mangle debuff, the only good thing with it is more damage on our bleeds if you use it in combination with rip glyph or 2x Dreamwalker. The shred glyph however is really handy imo, especially if you team up with a rogue for example. The ones I mentioned in the previous posts are group pvp glyphs and also useful in pve for supporting to some extent. And dont forget that frenzid scales with stamina. 20% more healing + Survival insticts + battlemaster isnt to shabby

I smell that a certain Druid / Mage on Stormscale Alliance named something with icemat… got critically raped by journalism at it’s best. ROFL, for those of you who know the top pvpers on stormscale alliance should definatly check out athene’s new video. Made my day. U SO PRO MATE

Many thanks to Styng (crew of WCM).

My website Sound wizardry is now released and public.
You will find audio tutorials, sound package releases, audio program presets for download there, as well as all the videos I’ve voiced and sound designed in. Also all the behind the scenes movies of my sound designs in machinima, real movies and video games are gonna be posted there. Keep an eye out ^^

See you there!

Anyway, yes, if you haven’t noticed it yourself yet, Darkness II came out. As I already told in the movie description, I wasn’t aiming for a ” “Epic fantasy movie, that will tear you pants away with it’s special effects!” - Warcraftmovies daily ” but I made the movie the way I wanted to.
Yes, people will start low-rating the movie and commenting critics taken out of their asses, but I was expecting that. Most of the WoW machinima viewers today are picky. If the movie doesn’t give them at least 2 epileptic shocks with their special effects then it’s not a good movie, in their opinion. Most of them are also fan boys (yes, I’m going there again, run for your lives!), who don’t like anything except the work from their idol. Even if the idol p$#?* on them.
Woah… I’m starting to rant like Yahtzee. That’s not good.

Anyway, I do machinima because I enjoy editing and telling stories. I didn’t start doing machinima to show my e-peen and watch it grow, I did not start machinima to invest 20 hours of work for a 3 second clip. I take my time. I edit a minute or two of a movie, then take a break and do something else, like WoW or meet up with my friends and a week later I edit a minute of film again. And so on… Yes, I will never be a Martin Falch or Johan Vagstedt (who is, by the way, voice acting Rend. Thanks Vagstedt!) with this attitude, but you know what? I don’t give a damn. I’m rather a failure at machinima than machinimator who can’t have any fun because machinima is “serios bisnizz”.

So, now that I have that out of my system…

The movie. As you can (or will, or have) see the editing is a bit more “clean” than Darkness. Harandil’s robes aren’t red, which at first I intended to leave it so, but then changed my mind. The background and model view characters are more synchronized and I used Levels to make a more interesting “shading” on characters.
The audio also got quite a few improvements. The most obvious ones are the voice actors. The first part had some weak voice acting (except Alyana) so I changed almost the whole crew. The final decision came when I couldn’t contact any of the old VA’s except Candace so I had to start from scratch and start looking for new voices.
The first one who were my guild mate Azuna (Harandil) and Dave Allison who already voiced characters in Stratholme

by Erunno

Acolyte 1.5

by Firebolt Productions

Once again, I’d like to thank everyone who participated in the project, for all their help and understanding. Big kudos to my guild Softcore on Kazzak EU, who support me in my hobby and everyone who is reading this (because whoever is reading this, really took some time for the movie!).

One last thing about Darkness III. If it will come out it’s hard to say. I do not have the time for such time consuming projects anymore, however I would really love to complete the trilogy and end the story since at the moment there are still many unanswered questions. What’s up with that Demon? Will Nefarian claim the whole of Blackrock? Will our adventurers actually get out?

We’ll see, if the audience wishes for more, I might do it.

The upcoming thing, that I can’t talk too much about, is a song.
It is, I would say 95% done. I only sing a portion of it but even there I am kinda off key but I guess it’s a character I can be. Fortunately, someone else sings the majority of it all and he does a great job at it.  The portion I sing in is not decided if it’s going to be used, I do hope it is, even tho I’m not as good as I used to be, it is fun to sing silly again.
Besides, this is for the sake of humor and fun and not something we hope will win platinum records lol.

This is gonna be something to look forward to, so keep your eyes and ears vigilant.

ps! think Danny Elfman

So far I’ve had good results with the pipebomb and shotgun.
Press the title for the weapon for a sound demo for it.

Pipebomb

Basically,  I wanted the pipebomb to sound more..pipeish, like it is made out of a tube. A tube was used with high pressure air throwing a sponge out to get the thump sound.

Pipebomb Package

Also the the commentary said the sound of the pipebomb was suppose to be high pitched and attracting the infected. I didn’t find the original sound to be anywhere near as high pitched and attracting than ripping apart the surviver and hear her\him scream. So I remade the “beep” by mixing hawk calls and high pictched alarm sounds and adding a echo. The sound is kinda scary in itself.

Shotgun

A shotgun is a classic zombie retaliation weapon. I love a shotgun anyday. Spesificly pump action. Auto is nice but I like the sound a pump action makes. A friend of mine owns a big collection of weapons including an old style shotgun that just makes so much noise I’m afraid it is going to blowup…actually that would make an interesting sound >.>.  I went for a realistic sound for the shotgun. I might replace it with a more designed overthetop sound later.
I like how the pump and inserting the shell came out.

Shotgun Package

And there you go. Enjoy

There is one big disappointment on the pve front which even makes me as a pvper sad, and that is that it’s to bloody easy. Did a naxxramas run yesterday and we would probably have cleared every wing if we were granted with some more time in there. We cleared 2 wings and up to Thaddius in abomination wing then someone had to hit the sack. So the conclusion is that it’s to easy. Killing bosses on first attempt isn’t even remotely fun, but the problem is that people have experience from nax 40-man. If you’ve cleared nax40 then you will burst in laughter at nax10 - normal. Heroics nerfed down to the ground baby, nothing is over-tuned and you can do it with 1 healer with even tho everyone has bad gear. I remember in burning crusade. I think doing heroic Shattered halls with green/blue gear pre nerfs was the biggest pve challenge I’ve ever had. Blizzard has catered the more casual population in wotlk, which I can fully understand.

All in all, Wotlk has been fun and blizzard has done well. I can not complain on anything except that it everything could be a tad bit harder =)

Regarding Feral PvP glyphs, from what I’ve seen and tested I’m prolly going to go with

Glyph of Shred - Increases damage by shred on stunned and incapacitated targets by 20%.

Glyph of Frenzid - regeneration - 20% more healing done to me while Frenzid is active.

Glyph of Innervate - Your innervate spell now grants you full mana regeneration while casting for 20 sec, in addition to the effect on the primary target. Innervate’s effect is instead increased by 20% if you are the primary target.

You will get 2 innervate looking buffs on you if you cast it on yourself. And you will get a innervate buff look alike if you give it to someone else. This helps you guard your innervate and it may confuse people with the dispelling. And the fact that it buffs innervate quite much aswell.

I’ve been playing left 4 dead like crazy lately. I love it. But of course, I just had to touch the sound files.
Sound files are to me like little boys are to Michael Jackson; irresistible, thrilling(there’s a pun here), fun and it doesn’t matter if the noise is brown or white.

The problem is understanding the valve engine, lag from server and ect.
I encountered lots of problems with many of the sounds I put together. (shotgun, minigun, zombie murloc - yes you read right) The engine sometimes decided to do some weird stuff with my SMG sound (uzi) and it still does but it is only after you fire the gun there is small delay in the metal ring out of the gun.

I will most likely make more if people want to, and yes you can use the sounds for machinimas.

I didn’t record or create the zombie murloc, that is blizzard.
Also, the engine selects random zombie sounds, but I replaced the two I heard most frequent.
Nothing is more funny than to suddenly hear a murloc running at you wanting to eat your brains…mrglglglgllgbrrains.

Here is a promo of the sounds: Cocktail of Sound

And here is the package, installing instructions is in the archive:  left4dead-weapon sound

[Update]

Download only if you want, there is more problems with the sounds than I noticed in the game. Working on fixing them.

in the rest of life,
Have been messing around to get UCAS in, despite the fact I am gap year-ing (dunno where yet), and Jesus titty-fucking christ, do personal statements require attention. Arrgh. I left it until four days till the deadline and am still wondering if what I have written is too humorous or not, hmm.

Duke Nukem Forever is now rumored to be on the GOW engine. Lfmao.

http://clickboom.warcraftmovies.com/about/

At the end of it all, 2020 team rating 2v2 as Shadow Priest & Retribution Paladin - Not that ratings meant much at 3.0+ in the state that Arena ended up in, but have to say I was happy with the outcome and we had a tonne of fun - Sad to see all that Venge/Brutal be replaced by random WotLK levelling rewards, but at least we solidified a fun setup-option for level 80 Arena and can look forward to seeing how it scales as the levels roll in.

A fond farewell to TBC - Hello Northrend, and good luck to all the people who visit it.

It’s going to be very interesting to see how viable ferals will be at 80. Patch 3.0.2 was definitely a letdown arena wise but who knows? More hp benefits survival play-styles and speccs =).  Speaking of PvP, check out Sonny’s new movie under unapproved on wcm. Feral for once! The highlight of the movie is his use of shadowmeld which I was surprised now one had shown in any 3.0.2 movies yet. So yeah expect what you would expect when you read the patch notes regarding shadowmeld

Btw, wordpress loves spacing for some reason. It’s not me spamming space between every word ><

NOTE: This UI is currently designed to only work at 1680×1050 resolution. Using this package at other resolutions may result in a horrible looking UI.

Head on over to My UI for a download link!

Default actionbar size. All unitframes and bars toggled (except discodice which still is there!)

This is my third “edition” if you want to call it that.
It is still very similar to the previous versions, but I’ve changed the layout a bit, to better suite my liking.

I release this the day before WotLK goes live, in the hope that it will still be fully functional in the expansion, without having to update all the addons. If the addons need updating, please do so yourself by visiting either curse.com or wowinterface.com.

What’s new?
—————————————————

• Included Omen
• Included Recount
• Included Deadly Boss Mods
• Various graphic changes
• Updated to SLDataText since SLTimex is no longer functioning
• Fubar is back!

alright, cya soon everyone

Recently we’ve released at WarcraftMovies a machinima production for High Quality Guild [EU - C’Thun].Those movies are a review of Sunwell Plateau, the last instance raid for The Burning Crusade. Nowadays, we’re on 11th November, that means that today is probably the last raid day for the TBC, and we’re still trying to take down Kil’Jaeden.We’ve managed to take him down up to 35% with a bit of bad lucky, so we hope to take him for First (and maybe Last) Time tonigh.

By the way, this machinima movies shows our experience in SWP. There’re two movies, one for each pair of bosses (Kalecgos+Brutallus, Felmyst+Eredar, so on).

We hope you like it:

First Par (Kalegcos & Brutallus)

Second Part (Felmyst & Eredar Twins)

First of all one important notice. I’m no expert on 3D programming and also no professional user of 3D software. Most of my poor skills came from learning by doing. So don’t blame me for this, the goal of this tut is to reach average skilled users like me. Further don’t blame me for my English, I’m not an English native speaker

But: you need some experience in using 3D software and you need basic knowledge about the file types Blizz used and the way to extract them.

There may be other (better) solutions, so don’t hesitate to comment or give me information about other ways of importing. I’m very interested in every other way of dealing with it.

Some theory and description:

In WoW you have several data types for the 3D objects:

• m2: this format describes all the models (e.g. charakters, mobs, etc.) you find in WoW and some further models like catapults, small buildings, etc.
• wmo (world map objects): wmo are bigger 3D models, used for big buildings, cities, dungeons, etc.
• WDT/WDL/ADT: theses files describe the maps (height maps, position of wmo’s on maps, water, etc.)
• BLP: the Blizz format for textures
• MPQ: This is a package where Blizz stores all the files needed to execute WoW. On a simple point of view you can compare it with a ZIP or RAR package.

For detailed information take a look at: http://madx.dk/wowdev/wiki/index.php    

There are some furthers data type used by WoW, but they are are not important for our tutorial, so I’ll keep the focus on the above mentioned types.

Software

Based  on the workflow to import wmo’s you need several programs:

MyWarcraftStudio - This is freeware and you need the software to read the mpq packages and export the files we need

Unwrap 3D - This software converts the wmo format to a format your 3D software can read. In this case I used C4D and the wavefront-file-format (obj). This is no freeware, so you have to buy a license for Unwrap 3D.

TaylorMouse wmo to ms.-script converter: This software you need to find the paths and the names of the texture files in the mpq. There may be a better way to find out this information, but I actually didn’t figure it out.

Any 3D software like Blender, C4D, 3Dsmax: In this tutorial I use C4D. Solutions in other software are not tested, but depending on the huge amount of export formats in Unwrap 3D you should find the file type you need.

So let’s go:

First of all choos a model you like to import. You may want to use the WoW Model Viewer unless MyWarcraftStudio doesn’t support 3D viewing for the newer Versions of WoW.

For this tutorial I chose the Altar of Storms (short: AoS) Model. This is a small model with few meshes so the workflow keeps small and useable for a tutorial. Depending on the kind of model you use, the number of steps to get finished grow up.

In the first step you have to localize the wmo of the AoS in the WoW mpq.

So open WarcraftStudio and load the common.mpq from your WoW-folder.

Inside the mpq the path to the wmo is: World/wmo/Azeroth/Buildings/

Here you find two files:

• AltarOfStorms.wmo
• AltarOfStorms_000.wmo

Export both of them to your local harddrive.

(Warcraftstudio exports the whole path structure with folders and creates the same folders you found inside the mpq on your harddrive.)

Once you’ve exported you can cut or copy the two mpq’s to a folder of your choice. Just keep in mind, to use the same folder the wmo are in for saving the further files we need in the next steps of this tut.

Now it’s time for TaylorMouse’ tool.

Open the tool click on the first Button “Load WMO….” and navigate to the folder your wmo’s are located.

Choose the AltarOfStorms.wmo and execute.

Now the tool creates a file named “AltarOfStorms_000.ms” in the same folder. Open the file with a text editor.

On top you’ll find this:

– TEXTURES USED –

– DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\ROCK\MM_AOS_RUBBLE_01.TGA

– DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\FLOOR\MM_AOS_BASE_01.TGA

– DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\FLOOR\MM_AOS_BASE_02.TGA

– DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\TRIM\MM_AOS_TRIM_01.TGA

– DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\TRIM\MM_AOS_TRIM_01.TGA

– DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\PILLAR\MM_AOS_PILLAR_01.TGA

– DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\DECORATION\MM_AOS_SKULL_01.TGA

– DUNGEONS\TEXTURES\DEVICES\MM_AOS_BONES_01.TGA

– INTERFACE\GLUES\MODELS\UI_MAINMENU\DARKPORTAL_STAUE_02.TGA

– INTERFACE\GLUES\MODELS\UI_MAINMENU\DARKPORTAL_STAUE_01.TGA

These are all the textures you need for the mesh. 

Now you have to find the textures inside the WoW mpq by using MyWarcraftStudio. 

Notice: Depending on what kind of model you use the textures could be in several mpq’s. You have to search and locate them for yourself.

Once you’ve found the texture (file typ BLP) mark it by clicking and choose “Save Image” on the new window menu. Choose jpg, tga or png as file type (not BLP!).

Save the image in the same folder as the wmo’s!

After exporting all the textures open Unwrap3D.

Be sure to have the wmo-plugin installed (not delivered with installation, but you can download it for free from the homepage).

Choose “Open Model” from the menu and locate the “AltarOfStorms_000.wmo”.

Important: Depending on the wmo you use there will be 1-n additional wmo-files (e.g. like building_000.wmo, building_001.wmo, …, building_00n.wmo). These files describe the different parts of the model and can be very complex.

Advice: If you want to use huge models like a whole city, take a look at every additional wmo to understand the structure and choose the parts you really need by importing them in Uwrap without textures. You can only see the meshes but I helps to understand how the building was made. Some of the wmo might be the meshes for the buildings inside. If you only need an outside view of the model you don’t have to use all the wmo’s. This keeps your workflow smooth and avoids useless work.

Ok, let’s go on:

A new window poups up and there you find an “Texture Options” function. Choose the “AltarOfStorms.wmo”. This is the basic/root file where e.g. the information about textures is saved.

Click import and: there it is

Dont’ worry if you will not see any texture yet. If you want to see the textures in Unwrap you’ll have to export all textures in BLP-format too or manually assign them to the materials Unwrap uses for the meshes. I won’t explain how to do this, if there is need for these steps just leave a comment and I’ll add this to the tut (or read the fuckin’ manual ).

Now it’s time to export.

Choose “File Save As” and export the model in Wavefront (obj) format.

Start C4D and open the obj-file you just exported.

You’ll see the untextured model now.

The last step is to assign the materials to the meshes. Here you can use the texture files (jpg, tga or png) you’ve already exported by using MyWarcraftStudio. C4D already has all materials in the mat-manager the only thing you have to do is, choosing the right file and assign it to the material by changing the texture per mat (the mat’s names are the same like the texture file’s name, so it will be easy to handle).

Once you’ve done this for all mats you have a full textured model in C4D.

That’s it. 

The workflow is a bit complex but at the moment it’s the only way I know to import wmo’s in C4D. I’ve tested a few models and everything worked fine. But there is no guarantee that it works with every model. Just try for yourself.

The tut works fine with C4D, I’ve not tested any other 3D software. I’m interested in experiences with e.g. 3DSmax or blender. Both programs should also work with obj files. 

So if you tried this tut with any other software let me know about your experiences. Leave a comment.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learned a bit about my way with dealing on wmo import for machinima in C4D.

If you have any questions, suggestions or criticism for improving the workflow: Let me know

// Varath

Blackhand Pictures Machinima

It’s been hard but I’m over the worst part of it and is now trying to get back into the fun that life used to be.
There’s been many who’ve been helping and encouraging me, even when I was on the lowest point I’ve ever been in my life. I say thank you to you all, you know who you are. So, I’m kinda back doing sounds here and there.

By the way, I don’t remember who I need to do any voice for or what it was, but if you are one who I’m voicing for or you want me to voice for you, send me an email: Carummerian(at)Gmail(dot)com
If you don’t remind me, I’m afraid it won’t be done. The footsteps package will now be worked on again, I was in fact done awhile ago but I plan to redo some of them.

Also, here are some new music that I worked on while trying to get my mind off things, they are very ethereal and “romantic” sounding so now you’re warned.

  Warden of Snow
Through the clouds

Blossoms of Summer
Rain in Winter

Have fun, cya next time.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=iuP-uuFiJ_o#

Someone had requested on one of my more recent solo-PvE movie submissions that I make a PvP movie.

Truth be told, I wanted to hold out so that I could get recording some arena with my partner, Seariox (Ret Paladin) to show some 2v2 Arena PvP with our weak, but fast paced and fun, setup.

Sadly with WotLK less than a week away it may be unlikely… So I settled for recording 5 BG matches and whipping together something really quick (1hr) to show people on YouTube (Those who had asked, anyway).

Nothing new or special - Just regular lol’ing around in a BG with some usual ranting and raving on the side to try and be helpful.

This is post Paladin Nerf (3.0.3).

*UPDATED (2)!* 081109

As it stands now, the UI will only be available at 1680×1050.
This is due to all the elements included in the UI, and I might not have time to do the extra work of getting it ready for 1280×1024 before WotLK-launch.
The UI should be ready for release any day now, just got some minor tweaks left to fix.

Here’s a new image of the most recent version:

It is not available for download just yet, as I got some tweaking to do, but this is the overal layout. It will be ready before WotLK release.

Feel free to give some feedback on it, as there’s still time for changes, and I appreciate your help!

UPDATE: Here are some more pics I’ve taken. Some things have changed in the last few hours, and likely more will follow.

Showing all unit and buff frames

In combat, not in a party/raid

I might remove Satrina’s Buffbars and go with something else (Elkano again perhaps?)

Here’s a screen with good ol’ Elkano

Stay tuned!

Patch 3.0.2 (by the time of writing 3.0.3 already. Ye, I’m fast) is out! And WoW machinima artists are screwed for the next month or so! Why? Because Model viewer and Map viewer don’t work with the new MPQ files… Of the horror!
However, there is a tiny bit of hope still, because chuanhsing (I think) posted a 3.0.2 wowmodelviewer fans update. The fan update has some issues and bugs but it might be enough for you to complete the missing scenes or something.
The update can be found here.

Another thing that happened during the last few weeks was the Halloween machinima contest. I’ll be honest, I didn’t had enough time to watch them all so no retarded comments about them this time!

- 1st place: The Orchard

by Dan Ross

Forgotten

by Kilh

An unusual night

by Firebolt Productions

- Runner ups: Gary Lobine's Chiller Halloween Special

by Gary Lobine

Dr. McNab Destroys Halloween!

by Farinar Films Productions

Cold Sweat

by ! Other (Specify)

Congratulations to the winners and good luck next time runner ups!

In other news… Those who do not read Caruu’s blog (shame on you!), he is not accepting any offers currently. More info can be found on his blog. I do not know him personally but I really respect his contribution to the WoW machinima community. I wish you good luck Caruu!

The last bit of “news” for today is an interview that will soon take place. You want to know more? WoW Radio is starting out with a new show called PUG and guess who are the first guests on it? No one else than Macheath and Drewbie from Oblivious Films! Yes, the same guys who made The Grind series and the Rumpus Machine. They were also featured in many other machinimas as guest stars (see, I told you all that WoW characters are the new virtual movie stars!).

This would be it for some time. Do not expect anything new soon. I’m currently having some health issues (+ other bull crap) so my blog and sadly Darkness II will be at the end of my “to do” list (though I really wish to get Darkness out before Judgment day. It’s finished. I only needs a re-check and rendering).