Shelf Life: Chapter One - Released July 6, 2009!
Genre: suspense/action/mystery
Engine: Source from Valve
Games: Half Life 2, Day of Defeat, Counter Strike, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Garry's Mod

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How it's made:
Shelf Life chapter one was filmed entirely within a video game. It is an example of what can be accomplished with what is offered from a few games. Shelf Life is a machinima created in the spirit of a real movie with an original story, characters and sound track.

It was filmed using the Source game engine and was filmed entirely within the game Garry's Mod. All the animations are part of the game Half Life 2 and we simply applied them as needed to achieve our sequences. In some cases we used ragdoll puppetry in order to accomplish our animation needs. There were not any custom animations used in Shelf Life chapter one.

We applied existing animations to the characters using the tool Faceposer found within the Source SDK tool kit. We also used Faceposer to lipsync our dialogue to our characters.

The sets (game maps) are almost all original maps from Half Life 2 but were heavily altered by placing props and changing the look and feel of the map. We did use three custom maps in chapter one. Custom maps are created using the Hammer tool found within the Source SDK tool kit.

All of the skins (the way the characters look including clothes and face) were modified by extracting the image files and modifying in a graphics program.

The models of the props and characters were mostly original models from Half Life 2, Portal, Day of Defeat, Counter Strike and Team Fortress 2. Some models were created by custom modelers using modeling programs and importing them into the game.

To create machinima like Shelf Life you first need to download Steam and then purchase some of the excellent games provided by Valve. You will also want to purchase Garry's Mod for complete access to the maps and props. The Source SDK tool kit is also necessary if you want lip synced voices and custom maps.

Valve has created an amazing set of games and tools that allow us to create amazing machinima. All it takes is a good story, a little know-how and the time to create it effectively.