Best in class 2 contest

Rockstar Games is running another film contest on SocialClub TV. This time your video (up to three minutes in length) needs to be tagged “Best-In–Class-2-Contest”. Deadline is January 19, 2009. The winner will receive an Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX + graphics card. Good luck!!

More GTA4 Modding

Overman has put together an extensive list of links of GTA4 mods:
Overman’s links to mod stuff

Modding GTA4

GTA4 PC is just out a month but we already see some great modding tools published. Not everything is perfect and useful for filmmaking but there is some great stuff out.
The most useful for filmmaking might be tools to view/edit textures and models like:

SparkIV an IMG/RPF Archive Viewer/Editor for GTA:IV

OpenIV a multi-purpose editor for GTA 4

Of course there are a lot more things that can be modded like weapons, cars, etc.
Most of those tools need Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 installed.
More infos on modding GTA4 and tools can be found at:
gtaforums GTA4 mod tool thread
gta4 category at gtamodding.com

And don't forget modders first rule: Always backup your original files.
Happy modding.

Happy New Year + contests

First I would like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year. I think 2009 is going to be an amazing year for GTA4 and Machinima. I can't wait to see what movies and talents will show up this year.

Right now we have already around 3000 movies on SocialClubTV getting 3 Million views so far. That means and avarage of 100 new movies released with an average view of 1000. Not to count all the movies published on other platforms. For the end of this year we might hit 100.000 movies and over 1 Billion views. And maybe even one or more movies that get over 1 Mio views.
Although the winners of the first movies contest on SocialClubTV have not been selected yet, they announced to run another contest soon.

The German computer magazine GameStar is running a GTA4 video contest right now. Unfortuntaley you'll have to send in a CD/DVD and no music allowed. Deadline is January 8th.
No price money, but your film will be distributed with the magazine.

Movies

The flood has started. Right now we have already 1000 movies on SocialClub TV which got viewed 500.000 times. I counted around 150 new movies and around 50.000 new views per day. Most of them are gameplay, stunt or frag style videos, but we start to see some 'story' based movies already. Two movies that got on my radar.
Confession by Overman
Rise by Buddy of DoQ
I can't wait to see what intersting movies come out of the recent contest.

Command line arguments

You can indeed add some intersting command line arguments when starting GTA4. The list of arguments is found in the readme file in the install dir of GTA4 or here.
You can now define your graphics resolution and parameters as well as start in windowed mode.
Just add them to the GTALauncher call. For example: In order to set maximal details indented of the available video memory you need to extend the shortcut targeted at the "GTA4Launcher.exe” with the parameters "-norestrictions" and "-nomemrestrict".
Another option should be to create a file commandline.txt and put them there. Has to be placed in the install directory (not tested that myself yet).

The overcast features GTA4

Main topic of this weeks Machinima podcast 'the overcast' is GTA4.
Phil and Ricky discuss the latest in machinima happenings and software updates, and then settle in for an extensive discussion of their first impressions of Grand Theft Auto IV for PC. They cover interesting topics like, installation problems, clip capture, filmmaking in single and muliplayer game mode, EULA and IP issues, and graphics cards and more. A must listen for everyone interested in filmmaking with GTA4 PC: the overcast #045