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An Analysis of the Hytale Movie Maker

AgentB8

Hytale Corps
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Why Hello There!

So I think It's safe to say, from all the blog posts they've released so far, the team has covered at least a small bit of pretty much everything we saw in the trailer. But there's one thing that we haven't gotten a single glimpse of...

That's right, the cave cow:

Cave Cow.JPG

Okay, no, but seriously, you obviously know by the title of this thread that I'm talking about the so-called "Cinematic Tools" Hytale will have laid out for us. It's a very interesting concept, and I'm surprised nobody has really commented on it before. Anyways, since they haven't given us anything on it at all, I'm going to have to go solely off of the 2-second trailer clip:

Movie Maker.jpg

So I want to start off with this: I'm really mad at this image.
It really makes it hard to judge what's real and what's just a prop for aesthetic purposes. You see that person holding the camera in the minecart, right? And they're following the person with it? WRONG. You can clearly see a virtual camera outlined in that explosion in the center of the photo. There are also faint white guiding lines connected to red cubes. It makes sense, because that way there is much more customization, and it doesn't require multiple people. However, I feel like that means most of this is just for show. That includes the computer and wires... Or maybe not!

Those green panels seem pretty deliberate, plus the wiring system as a whole seems too involved to be a prop. in the bottom, you can see three gray adapters (or whatever they are), which connect to the computer. One of them (behind the girl) even looks to be unattached. The most logical explanation is that this is a real feature but limited to the cinematic mode. Speaking of which, I think it's time to turn to the only other mention of this feature there is:

Cinimatic Tools Text.JPG

This is a small paragraph from their website under the "For Creators" section. It definitely makes it sound like there will be an entirely separate "Machinima Mode" like in some other games. I don't exactly know if the "Build custom animations" part is actually present in this mode, or maybe they're just saying you can do that in their Hytale Model Maker, which they've already shown off. Regardless, it clearly seems like they'll give you the ability to single-handedly create a scene with NPC's moving around. In addition, they say that you can "Control keyframes using 3D splines", which I can only assume goes hand-in-hand with the NPC control. By the way, you can see the frames being counted in the top left corner of the first image, which I'll paste again for convenience:

Movie Maker.jpg

Let's Recap (and go further):
In overview, the green cubes are particle effects that are activated either on a timer or triggered by sensors. Either way, they probably have to be coded somehow. I think that might be the usage of the computer. Or that's just for show like the camera... But I do see one problem with my idea that the wires mean something. Those green panels on the ground still show up in the final image (top right), along with all the wires! The cubes have been cut out, which makes sense, but if the rest was actually involved, I'm almost sure they would be gone too. On top of that, you can even see a green cube above the rails, and two at the bottom of the picture with no panel under them...
That means I've come to an unfortunate conclusion:

The wires and the computer are a hoax

Anyways, with that out of the way... The red cubes are probably those "3D splines" since they seem to be tied to the camera, and it kind of makes sense, since I don't know what else they would be there for. They probably alter the speed or position of the camera in some way.
Finally, as for the green screen, coming from someone with experience with them, I can tell you with certainty that those are also for show. Just look at how awfully uneven the lighting is! I mean, why even put those lanterns there? The keying would be terrible! Plus, their position doesn't even make sense. The back one doesn't even cover the whole sky. If they were meaning to put something behind that was chasing him, you would obviously do it the opposite way - a separate image with its own green background and then overlay that. Seriously, they actually made this scene about 50% fake...

So, in conclusion: either this tool is really good or really not. It looks like all the real tools are 3D floating cubes and other objects, probably being coded externally. This most likely takes place in its own game mode, where there is total control over all of there features, and you can easily do things like set timings and other settings on the particle/effect cubes, and place custom NPCs like the one in this image. I still don't know why they haven't talked about this yet, but my best guess is that it's not really impressive, and therefore not a huge priority.

Anyway, that's it for my analysis. Let me know if I missed something obvious, or I messed up up the definition of "spline" or something. I hope you enjoyed, and feel free to express your thoughts too!
See ya!

AgentB8
Also, just think about this, they had to get into the machinima mode, then set up a scene with its own camera and tools, then create another scene with its own camera and tools in order to shoot this...
 

AgentB8

Hytale Corps
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Jan 9, 2019
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Something I just noticed, the camera’s perspective can actually be seen on the computer screen... so maybe it’s not fake after all? Ugh...
 

pqtch

Helper
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This definitely gives me a lot to think about! Thanks for continuing the awesome posts!
 

Fox

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very cool
 
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