Creations Retro
Retro Arcade Game Review: Movie Maker
Movie Maker (MMTK) is a one of a kind program for developing your own computer-animated visual sequences, or “movies”. This program places you in both the director’s chair and at the artist’s drawing board. You devise the action, set the scenes, and create the actors, props, and background, and playback your creation as a complete movie.
MMTK is comprehensive in the tools that it provides for creating and manipulating shapes and animating them. Plus, it includes a disk full of demo movies that were obviously done with the aid of a professional artist. Because the program allows you to do so much (there are over fifty commands or key stroke sequences to select from), there is much to be learned before you can turn loose your imagination to create a finished product.
The publishers call Movie Maker a “tool kit” but it’s more like a combination construction set and tool kit for both building and refining (or tinkering with) animated shapes. The kind of animation you create is similar to a flip book (you know, where you flip the corner pages of the book and still characters seem to move). Of course, the sequences you create with MMTK are much more than line drawings on still backgrounds. Much of the computers ability to manipulate images and colour in memory is brought into play.
The instruction booklet for MMTK is almost ninety pages. And, every one of them is packed with important information on how to work the program. Even though there’s an exercise to introduce you to the program, there’s no way to create anything of value without several hours of studying the manual, and many, many more of experimenting. These do not have to be gruelling hours, but they must be spent nevertheless. NOTE: In early editions of the pro- gram the documentation contained a disconcerting error in the introductory exercise. After completing step 5 (typing “DOG” and pressing return), a screen full of dog shapes did NOT appear as the documentation indicated. If you have this early version you must next press the arrow keys to move the lighted Selector Bar over the word “COMPOSE” then press return. The screen full of dog shapes should appear.
There are four main modes in MMTK: Compose Record, Playback, and Smooth. In Compose you create the components of your animation masterpiece, in Record you put the pieces together in an animation sequence, in Smooth you sit back while the program smooths out the animation and eliminates the flicker, and in Playback you view your completed movie. Within each of the main modes there is a myriad of sub- utilities and commands for creating and manipulating the graphic elements that make up your movie files.
Some of the features are: drawing with the joystick using a specified colour, creating a window so you can move an image or duplicate it, instantly creating a mirror image of your shape, zooming in to magnify the image, and defining a series of shapes as an animation sequence. Other features in the Compose mode include changing colours, swapping colours already on the screen, defining speed of frame change, erasing, and restoring erasures. Features of the Record mode include several of animation commands (such as setting frame rate and setting the number of times an animation sequence is to repeat) and a full range of editing commands for easily accessing and editing any part of your movie.
The Record mode is also where you add the sound. Considerably less can be done with the sound than graphics. You cannot create new sounds; you can only select from the 32 provided (eight per each of the Atari’s four voices). However, sounds from different voices can be played simultaneously. Actually making a simple movie would go something like this. First, you plan the basic movie: characters, storyline, and setting. You then follow a series of steps to draw the characters in different positions that, when later “flipped”, will give the illusion of motion. Next, you define the background. Then, you record each of the characters, one after the other, to make a composite. Finally, you add enhancements such as text and music then smooth it all out and there you have it, ready for playback a movie.
Got that? O? Well, let’s try it with a more concrete example. Let’s say you wanted to make a short movie of a girl throwing a pie into a boy’s face. First, you plan asking all the questions a professional animator would ask (and answer) before putting pencil to paper. For example, do they enter from the left, or right, or are they both already on screen at the beginning? What do they look like? How big are they? What are they wearing? Next, you define the actors as shapes. In our movie there are three “actors”: the girl, the boy, and the pie.
You must draw each actor in each position that it will assume during the movie. To animate walking, for example, you must define the actor with the left foot forward, feet even as if in mid stride, and right foot forward – with arms moving appropriately in opposition to the foot movement. While this part of the task is by no means easy, it’s not as difficult as it sounds because MMTK allows you to do things such as duplicate shapes then make changes to them. In our movie, for example, we could draw the basic boy walking in mid stride, duplicate him twice, and then make appropriate changes by erasing and re-drawing his arms and legs. For drawing the pie, we would need to define the pie in a horizontal position, at forty-five degrees, in a vertical position, and splattering in a vertical position. Next, comes the background (things that don’t move in the movie). On a special background page, you would draw the setting. For our movie we could make the setting a picnic. This means drawing bushes, perhaps a picnic table, and any other props hat might add to the picnic atmosphere.
Okay, here’s what we have so far: Three boy shapes each in a different walking position that makes up a walking sequence; several girl shapes in a sequence of walking positions and movements for picking up the pie; and, the several pie shapes in a sequence that includes being level, in flight, and splattering positions. Now, we’re ready to “record”. Recording is a process of defining where and when on the screen each of the shapes that you’ve drawn will appear.
The limitation here is that MMTK allows only 300 frames of animation (or 300 “pages” if you’re still thinking in terms of the flip book analogy). You activate the record mode, select your shapes one at a time and add them as a sequence to the movie. In our Pie Movie, we might start out with our picnic background, and then add the boy walking to the position where we plan for the pie to hit him. We’d then back up to the beginning of the movie and add the girl going through her motions of walking to the picnic table, moving her arms as if lifting the pie and throwing it. Then, we’d back up to the beginning one more time and add the pie shapes that we defined earlier. Finally, we’d send the completed composite through the Smooth mode to get rid of the flicker that occurs during “crude” animation.
One thing to keep in mind as you create, experiment, and have fun is that MMTK allows you to go only as far as your own artistic talents will take you. If you already know how to apply drawing techniques such as size, perspective, shading, contour lines, overlapping, and foreshortening, and then you’re over a great hurdle in creating attractive movies. However, if you don’t know how to draw, this program won’t make you look like a better artist than you really are. If you’re a dabbler who is looking for a simple drawing program that’s easy enough for junior to use, MMTK is probably not that program instead, try “Paint”, also published by Reston, or some similar drawing program.
If you’re a programmer looking for a utility for developing animation routines that can be handily incorporated into your games, MMTK is not that program either although the documentation does mention that a “professional” version of MMTK is available for just such a purpose.
So, who is MMTK for? Let me suggest some possible uses of the program: presenting “attract” animation in stores or at a convention booth; passing time creatively; making personalized, animated greeting cards to send to fellow Atari owners; showing off what your Atari can do while entertaining friends. In other words, if you have a need, or desire, for presenting non-game, impressive animation sequences, then MMTK won’t let you down. But, to fully enjoy MMTK you must have the deep personal conviction that “getting there is half the fun”
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