Good question.
This will become more obvious in the next trailer--which I've scripted but not yet filmed. The basic idea here is...the basic idea doesn't make much sense as a standalone; I'll explain this the other way.
Twenty years ago, videogames were a little different than they are today. Not much, of course: we still had Tekken and StreetFighter and so on; it was just called Atari Boxing back then. GranTurismo was called PolePosition. The only things we didn't really have--which makes it worth it to have them now--were things like TwistedMetal and ResidentEvil.
It would have been cool to have a videogame in 1982 which had you navigating a maze, solving puzzles, and collecting stuff while killing or avoiding the undead. But enough about PacMan.
As technology progressed, we got better graphics. And that began to allow for more complicated games. And more complicated characters. Videogames began to evolve into toys: you didn't have to use them as intended.
By the time Nintendo released Super Mario Brothers, we had the ability to manipulate the sprites into storylines. Which is to say that we were able to record a game to a VCR and add dialogue. Which was technically possible with Asteroids...but that was kinda boring.
The major breakthrough was the PSOne and the N64: ResidentEvil and SilentHill and Mario64 and Shadows of the Empire, which allowed for all manner of unintended storylines.
The PS2 showed up, and we got GTA3 and MetalGearSolid2; more options for little cartoons with voiceovers.
At that point, I found out that I wasn't the only one doing this stuff. People began uploading videos they'd made from ResidentEvil and MetalGearSolid2. So it wasn't just me. Although I haven't seen anyone uploading stopmotion animation made from TransFormers yet. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.
So I'd been doing this sort of thing for years. Then I forgot all about it for a while.
For some reason, I grabbed deadache.com. Mostly because I'd just woken up, and I had this sort of subdued headache. For some reason, it occurred to me to call it a deadache. For the hell of it, I WhoIsed deadache.com to see whether anyone else had thought this word up, and registered it just to do it. I had no real plans for it at all.
Then, a few days ago, while playing the GameCube versions of Res1 and Res0, I started thinking about recording little films from them. Mostly because the graphics were finally getting good enough to allow for some neat things. Then, after beating Res1, I dropped the old Res1 into the PS2 to show Hunter why the new one was impressive.
And there was that goofy LiveAction opening sequence. And something just clicked from there.
Obviously, recording the output from a game and voicing it over is a good way to get sued. However: creating characters and filming those to match a voiceover script is fair game. And it allows for more entertaining storylines, too.
Meanwhile, I've got everything from LightWave to Poser to Bryce to Maya to SoftImage to Cinema4D to use for this.
So the idea for Deadache is pretty simple. It's a CG sitcom. A sort of satire of SurvivalHorror games mixed with a sort of satire of RealityTelevision. If there weren't already a game called Resident Evil: Survivor, that would be a good term to use.
Put another way, I'm combining ResidentEvil with TheSims, and adding voices.
Not that I'm really adhering exactly to ResidentEvil. That's just the flagship, of sorts. I'm also factoring everything from SilentHill to GTA3.
And, again, this will make a little more sense once the new trailer is done.
The good news is that, by the time the new trailer is done, the show shouldn't be far behind. I have a few models to build for this before I can get started, but everything should render pretty quickly after that. I'm doing this at 320*180, which should look about the same as the games, except that the games are 320*240. I hate 4*3. Composite rendering at 320*180 on a 2.4GHz laptop rarely goes over ten seconds per frame. Which is, at worst, two minutes per second. Which is a lot faster than the stuff I usually do [1920*1080*24fps].
Aside from the models, the one thing I'm currently lacking [as always] is people to do voices. So auditions are officially open for that. Let me know if you want to get involved.
In other news, Greenback is still in the navy. He sent me a letter a couple of days ago. Here it is....
Hey.
It's Sunday, the day when all but five of us go to church. Which is a lot, considering there's only 40 guys in my division. Boot camp is still pretty much the same. Retarded instructions, followed by shouting (which we've all learned to ignore by now), then food (which is actually pretty good; then again, frame of reference), then marching, then a pathetically easy amount of exercise, then repeat. I would KILL for a cigarette right now, so I guess they've already made an obedient sailor out of me. Every night, the waft of tobacco smoke drifts in from the RDC hall through a broken window. It's the worst, most torturous part of boot camp. I have a cold. I ran a mile and a half with a stuffed up nose while coughing. I did seventy push-ups and ninety jumping jacks after draining a canteen. I just doesn't fucking compare. I NEED nicotine. Well, it's keeping me going anyway.
My boots are sparkly. Second sparkliest here, actually. And I can sew. Bin Laden beware. We know how to knit you a sweater. Maybe I'm missing something. I don't understand why a perfectly folded shirt is important. The saying is that you "killed a shipmate" for every missed crease. I just want to know where this list is so I can put my name on it. Kill this shipmate, for he has not any smokes. Anyway, if I ever bitched at Hunter for being a slob (not that I can remember doing so), I take it back. I would love to just throw my shirts into a little pile with five cigarettes in one hand and three cigars in the other, dancing and throwing my share kit around at this point. The uniformity here is honestly creeping me out. I could pass for a goth at this point: I have about as much individuality.
Huh. There's more catholics here than protestants. Looks like we've got 20 catholics, 11 protestants, 5 atheists (yay!), 3 muslims, and a bhuddist. Don't know why it's important, but oh well. I'm toying with telling them that my religion demands I sleep in on Sunday. Maybe I can have Grem send me a copy of Damnitology.
Anyway, lemme hear from you guys. Hi to everyone in the room, and if this makes a What's New, that would kick ass.
SR McClain, Sean M
Division 066 Ship 12
Recruit Training Command
3301 Indiana Street
GreatLakes, Illinois 60088-5300
So it made a What's New.
I think that's it for today.
More later....
--Gremlin