March 31, 2006

Q&A for The Movies: Stunts & Effects

Lionhead Studios has released a new Q&A with Stephen Hood concerning their upcoming expansion pack to The Movies, Stunts & Effects.

Dare we say it? Yes! We do actually. If there was one remark that a lot of people mentioned in their reviews, opinions or post mortems about The Movies, it was the issue of camera control and whether or not FreeCam should have been available in The Movies. With the recently announced expansion pack The Movies: Stunts & Effects the topic has only received wider visibility and we've seen a dramatic increase in emails and letters asking us to include this feature. Well, they say that asking never hurts and indeed, it doesn't... Your requests are always noted at Lionhead Studios, but not always confirmed. Lionhead Studios however are not only proud but also extremely happy to announce the following:

The Movies: Stunts & Effects will feature extensive AMM & PP Extensions, and "Free Cam" or "Camera Control" is one of the things that will be included.

The camera orientation is setup using the existing fly around camera found within AMM. Gamers will position the camera wherever they like in the scene, pointing in whichever direction they please. Now gamers can select "Free Cam Mode" which is accessed via a button to the right of AMM. You can mark the camera start/orientation point, moves to the position you wish the camera to complete in and mark again!

Lionhead also released a new Q&A with Stephen Hood concerning the new "FreeCam" feature.

Stephen, several of TMO users will know you from our forums as T4RG4. Gamers playing The Movies will be pleased to know that "FreeCam" will be a feature in the soon to be released expansion pack. How exactly did it become a reality?

It’s something we had talked about internally and had therefore always been in the back of our minds as a feature we’d like to implement. Because of the amount of people on the forums calling for FreeCam we made a concerted effort to appease those gamers, their efforts just confirmed our belief that FreeCam had to go in. For a while it’s been secret - we designed, implemented, tested and conferred with Activision and I’m absolutely thrilled it’s going to see the light of day in the expansion pack. I might be biased, but I’m sure it’s the single biggest feature in this forthcoming expansion!

That's brilliant. Now, don’t you think this feature will be too difficult or complicated for some people?

Some people had suggested it might have been a little complex but thanks to all those involved we were able to quickly get a version up and running and play around with the control method. As soon as FreeCam was available in the game we knew it had to make it into the final release, it makes a huge difference to the Movie Maker.

Will you be able to use this "FreeCam" mode in any of the sets?

It can be used in any scene, in pretty much any way you want… near enough complete freedom.

Finally - is there anything else you'd like to add or say to the community about this or anything else?

I’d like to thank the community for not storming the Lionhead building and demanding FreeCam be implemented… we’ve wanted to tell the community and now we can, yes! It’s in!

Many thanks for this short questionnaire Stephen!

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