I created something (gmod video)

Posted by Kamira on June 8, 2014, 11:11 p.m.

Hello 64D, for the first time in my eight years here I have finished a major project:

Took over 72 hours of work and 964 screenshots. Whew!

For those that don't know, the way I'm using Garry's Mod to animate is basically using it as stop motion. This is why everything's so time consuming; it takes about an hour to create 2-3 seconds of action.

Here's the first video I made, to test everything out:

I do my editing in Sony Vegas, recording with OBS (hopefully Fraps soon) and I do any complex audio edits in Audacity. I've had fun learning all of these programs. If anyone has extensive knowledge on any of these, please tell me your secrets.

Once I'm really good at all of this, and once I have a decently sized fan-base, I plan on making a serious, story-driven series of videos. There are several gmodders who do these, and they're pretty awesome.

Please, if you have the slightest interest in gmod or want to be a cool person, subscribe to my channel. It's a lot more motivating to sacrifice my free time to animate if I know I have a group of people willing to watch it. Also, I have a Twitter account where I post updates and such so follow that if you're interested: @Kamira929

Anyway, enough of gmod, onto life stuff.

I just finished my sophomore year at Baylor and I've been kicking butt in my classes. My GPA's pretty good, and it's gone up every semester. Unfortunately I did not get an internship this summer, but most sophomore engineers don't so I don't feel bad. I've been looking for a normal job but I've been animating instead:p

Next year I'll be in maybe the best dorm room type possible at Baylor, which is great because last year was dreadful.

I can't remember all of the games I've played since my last blog over a year ago, but I've really gotten into TF2. I recently reached 550 hours on it. I've also been playing Guns of Icarus (awesome), Fistful of Frags, Borderlands (I waited too long to play this. So much fun), FF7, and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.

Guess that's all for now.

Comments

Ferret 10 years, 3 months ago

Damn, that was funny. I miss Gmod videos. Makes me wanna grab SFM again.

colseed 10 years, 3 months ago

For some reason, I only watched the second video when I first saw this blog. Fixing now.

*watches first video*

That was pretty cool. BUT DON'T THINK YOU SLIPPED THAT TOUHOU MUSIC IN THERE WITHOUT ME NOTICING. BECAUSE I DID.

Castypher 10 years, 3 months ago

Oh yeah, I meant to comment on this but it slipped my mind. Thanks for bringing this back up, Steven.

Gmod video makers have always fascinated me because of the statistics you posted up there. I used to (and mostly still do) enjoy watching TF2 Gmod and SFM videos. Or at least the ones that use voice lines creatively (like this one). This does make me want to download and try SFM again, but it's really time consuming. Awesome video.

And +1 for Touhou music. And goddammit, I miss Guitar Hero now.

Astryl 10 years, 3 months ago

I forgot to comment on this; left a like on YT. Sorry.

Was worth a good laugh, and my brother and a friend of mine also enjoyed it :P

A question though… wouldn't it be easier to use Source Film Maker to do this in, instead of using stop-frame animation?

Kamira 10 years, 3 months ago

Oh wow, thank you everyone!

As for SFM, I actually get this question a lot and I hate answering it :P The main reason I chose Garry's Mod over SFM is because the style of videos that I want to make are usually made in Gmod. There's also a matter of expectations; people expect a lot more out of SFM because by nature it makes smoother videos. For SFM, the best of the best are professional animators, whereas Gmod is more for people who animate as a hobby. Also, there's a mod for Gmod, Henry's Animation Tool, that allows you to set two (or more) poses and have the model smoothly transition between them, which if I'm correct is like a basic version of how SFM animates. Now, this won't define how I animate, but will rather give me a tool to do better stop motion for more complex actions. Stop motion might sound like a pain, but most clips are simple enough for me to develop a routine for each frame (move shoulder up, bend elbow slightly, angle head down and to the side, for example) where all I have to think about is how much each frame needs to move, and where I want to end. Also, I'd say I get about half of these right on the first try, which is great.

Someday I might switch to SFM, but for now there's plenty for me to do in Gmod. Although, I have little experience with SFM so I could be entirely wrong about it.

Don't forget to subscribe to my channel, I won't be making a blog for every video I make!