Animation Showcase: Scorch
The Impact of Machinima Scale
It appears we’re starting to see a new wave of Warhammer Fan Animations!
Fresh from February 2024 we see yet another series being started, this one being a collaboration of created Animations and Visuals from Moskoni, combined with the Music and Sound Effects of Black Cell Audio, and also the Voice Acting of A Vox in the Void, and Chaotic Voices.
They’ve come together to bring us this nearly 12 minute pilot episode of Warhammer 40K goodness! But even if you’re not familiar with this franchise, then this next video may give you an idea of what it’s about, so take a look and I’ll share some thoughts!
There are a couple high points I like about this Animation. The Dialogue, Sound, and Music are all very good (which is why collaborating with sound specialists as an Animator is often a good thing).
But what I also find impressive with this Animation, is the number of Characters that are shown on screen. Not so much when you see the groups of soldiers marching in file (it makes sense to use the same animation for soldiers walking in file, but with no variations it can feel a bit too robotic for what should be Human soldiers), yet when you see the firefights begin and see 30, 40, if not more characters running, taking cover, shooting, or receiving medical aid, the battlefield Feels more alive.
Now I did say “Animation” above, but Moskoni actually describes himself as a “Machinima Artist and Cinematographer”. The key word here is ‘Machinima’, because this usually refers to creating movies through using Video Games. Is this a bad thing? Not at all! If it looks cool, I’m happy to see you use any tools that you like!
So why does this matter? This episode is actually a mix of both Animation and Machinima! Can you guess where the switches are? (Hint, it has to do with scale) Better yet, can you guess which game the Machinima scenes are captured from?
To answer the both questions, the Marching scenes, battle scenes and most of the Mass character/battle scenes were done in Arma 3! (A Military Simulator game, which has realistic running animations, medical treatment animations, and mods which allow you to bring in assets for many different franchises, Warhammer 40K being one of them). The reason Arma 3 is used, is because there are 2 main ways the game can be used to control the mass of characters.
Since it’s a multiplayer game, they could literally get 40-50 people take control of a character and act out the battle scenes. Or, one person can use Arma 3’s Zeus mode, which allows you to spawn in characters with AI to do certain actions, or without AI and trigger specific animations when needed for recording.
While it would seem that prepping the correct scenes you want in a game, along with having to reset said scenes to get the right take would be time consuming on it’s own. It would take far longer for a single animator to spawn in 40 character models at once in an animation program, and then create 40 unique animations for every single character.
There’s nothing wrong with saving time, as long as it doesn’t take away from the end result! (And I think not having all of those many-character scenes would take away far more than making sure every character was manually animated!)