Remember guys, you've already helped me a great deal with acting the other scenes, with skins, with suggestions - I'll still be using all of that and crediting those involved accordingly. The project wouldn't be as good as it is - Hell, it may not even exist without your inputs. Every contribution has been very valuable. I haven't forgotten, nor am I casting any of that aside. Even if I do decide to use NPCs instead of actors for the boardroom scene, it'll still very much be a community project.
After I've slept on it (was awake for 24 hours, been unconscious for the past 12... lol) I'm sort of undecided.
What I may do is film the boardroom scene with actors at 9pm GMT on the 5th anyway Announcement!, and if not enough people show up (making filming impossible), then I'll use NPCs instead as a backup. There are pros and cons to filming the boardroom scene with NPCs rather than actors:
Pros of using NPCs:
* NPCs can be different sizes.
* NPCs can have transparent parts. This makes the Glukkons look marginally better.
* I don't need to wait for 9 people to be available. Many of you are keen and I appreciate that, but I've had lots of "maybes". I mean I'm flexible and we'll see how many people show up on the 5th, but I understand that many of you have other, more important commitments.
Getting outside help is a possibility, but it means forgoing the whitelist for an evening and Havoc needs to be around for that.
* Filming the scene will be you guys standing around for about an hour or two while I fly around and capture shots exactly as I want them to be, swapping texture packs. Getting camera movement in Minecraft as I want is very hard for me and takes me lots of time, while the scene doesn't require much movement - Only people to turn around and nod when I want them to. It'll be boring. Filming it offline with NPCs would mean none of you would have to do that.
* Knowing that what I'm asking 9 of you to do is boring, I wouldn't be under pressure to get the filming done as quick as I can - It also allows me to shoot as many re-takes as I like. Remember how bored people got with filming the scene with the pig conveyor?
* I have used texture packs to make glowstones invisible to get better lighting. I can fly with noclip in single player to fly through them - I cannot noclip in Multiplayer even with the same mod. I can fly around them but I'll often hit them, meaning I'll probably have to take many, many re-takes.
Cons of using NPCs:
* I kind of agree with Splat on sacrificing some of the community spirit of the project for the sake of convenience, even with the existing contributions. And that's a rather large point. I'd feel a bit bad about that if I decided to use NPCs.
* NPCs can only face North, East, South or West, not in-between those directions.
* NPCs move randomly and not when I ask them to. This will make timing things right difficult, but at least I'll be wasting my own time then and not somebody else's.
* NPCs can only nod randomly - They can't punch the air or anything. There's only so much in editing I can do to give the illusion that they're cackling manically or talking to each other. It's possible, but difficult.
So yes, this is what I'm facing. You can probably see why I've considered this.
Regardless, tomorrow evening I'll make a list of people who have said they're available/maybe available for the 5th.
