Yo,
A while ago, stream14 posted a relatively detailed writeup on the technical details of movie making. I would actually recommend all of his steps, but particularly the use of FRAPS (3b) to capture to avi form instead of using the built-in avi capture function (3a). I have some pointers myself on specific filming techniques which will help you make the sequences as dynamic as possible.
AH Thread: Movie Making Help The important question to ask is:
-are you going to make a movie with the existing action sequences you already have? or
-are you going to set out to film some sequences with the intention of using them for the movie.
If your answer to the second question is yes, then there are a few things you need to remember while filming your action sequences -- basically, you need to choreograph your flight to achieve the most effective shots in the film.
1. it always helps to have a collaborator that plays along with whatever script you come up with.
2. unless you want a simple collage of you tearing it up in your pony or something, don't worry about your gunnery; only a very small portion of your film is going to have firing sequences; inevitably, what happens when you use rudder and elevator corrections to line up your sight is that you get those characteristic jerks and bounces in film viewer, and they look horrible (especially in f3 view). The sampling rate that the film recorder uses makes this inevitable. With this in mind, try to keep your movements as smooth as possible -- don't use any rudder except to coordinate all of your turns.
3. use designated cameras; again, if you have people willing to help, you can ask them to eject over a location to serve as camera crews. For the camera crews themselves, they need to do very little -- in fact, they don't even need to have the film recorder on, as long as if you or someone else in the air has it on. You can switch to their view afterwards in film viewer. If you have aerial sequences you want to shoot, you can always have someone hang from a chute so you can stage your fight around there.
4. once in film viewer, turn off any obstructions with the guncam feature, and use the padlock feature to track your object. Remember to use zoom for effect (especially dynamic zoom as the plane passes overhead, for example). This is accomplished by dragging the zoom slider in real time as FRAPS captures the footage.
5. unfortunately, the padlock feature requires that you have icons displayed, and that tends to ruin an otherwise authentic looking shot. To minimize this from certain angles, you can go into AH and set the icon size to the smallest setting and adjust the colors so that they blend into the background color (sky blue for shots filmed from the ground). Even then, it's not perfect, and I still haven't figured out the best way to track an object in film viewer (mouse look not available).
6. if you have a pursuit sequence for example, I've learned that the chase view of the pursuing aircraft with the padlock targeted to the pursued aircraft yields automatic tracking such that both plane stay in view. Again, use zoom as needed as the pursued aircraft comes in and out of view. It turns out the film playback speed affects the tracking ability of the padlock in chase view. At virtually 0 playback speed, the camera will always position itself so that the pursued aircraft is directly behind the primary object (pursuer). At normal playback speed, the padlock produces negigible augmentation in camera tracking in that it stays more or less directly behind the pursuer. A playback speed of 0.3-0.4 seems to be the best. Remember, you can always capture at a slower speed and speed it up again in whatever movie editing software you use.
7. if you want a short (1-2 second) transition clip of an airplane zooming toward or away from the camera, follow these steps
a. pause the film
b. go to chase view of the aircraft of interest
c. pan to the starting location of the airplane
d. set playback speed to something high (1.0 - 2.0)
e. start capturing
f. hit play
Usually, the camera will zip back to the rear view of the aircraft, with its urgency and final location governed by the film playback speed. Conversely, if you want the camera to 'catch up' to the airplane, reverse the process: Start capturing while the film is in motion, and pause the film.
-----------
Again, I don't know everything there is to film-making, and I'm always looking into creative methods to get cool-looking effects. Some of those Il-2 music videos that I've seen just blow me away. Unfortunately, AH isn't the most filmmmaker-friendly sim simply because the same features that protect against gameyness also inhibit us from filming certain sequences. And for that reason, we need to rely increasingly on our ingenuity to keep up with the competition.
