[EPISODE 10 IS OUT!!] "The Soviet Connection" - Turning GTA IV's story into a TV series

[Thelema93]

I always wanted to make something like this. Beat me to it

[Zuma4Life]

19 hours ago, H-G said:

@zuma 4 life - Hi there, just dropping by to say that you've done an excellent job on the TV series. This has to be the perfect TV show version of GTA IV.

 

I have only watched Episode #6 and Episode #7 yet, but even then the experience is extremely solid and cinematic despite being a rather "short"-ish one, it's almost like a movie. I can't wait to see how you'll handle the diamond deal scene with such excellent perfection.

 

Keep it up, brother!

Thank you, bro!

[Zuma4Life]

Progress on the re-make of Episode 1 is picking up again. I had some issues with my hard drives and they almost broke and lost all of my work, but thankfully I managed to fix them. Prepare yourself for what's coming!!

 

[Zuma4Life]

This is a remastered version of the original first episode. You can watch the original here: https://youtu.be/Odmmmi03nm

I unlisted the old one and removed it from the playlist so that new viewers will not be confused.

I made this because I made the original one with no intention of making it an actual series. So, when the series got noticed, I paid more attention to it and the episodes' quality increased over time. Now, the original doesn't live up to the most recent episodes, so I wanted to redo it with better quality and an updated vision.

I hope you like it.

 

[Zuma4Life]

 

[Yannerrins]

It even have a standart US 40-45 minutes episode length!

 

That's some impressive work man.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Yannerrins

[Zuma4Life]

On 9/8/2022 at 5:38 AM, Yannerrins said:

It even have a standart US 40-45 minutes episode length!

 

That's some impressive work man.

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it

[Zuma4Life]

 

[Zuma4Life]

A comparison between the original ep 1 and the remastered one I recently released

Watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/S4mRcIz9Fg

Edited September 25, 2022 by zuma 4 life

[Zuma4Life]

 

[Zuma4Life]

 

 

Edited September 30, 2022 by zuma 4 life

[Zuma4Life]

 

[Zuma4Life]

EPISODE 8 COMING IN NOVEMBER

[Zuma4Life]

Episode 8 is out now!!

 

 

[luckycanadian95]

This series looks great, I appreciate all the effort you're putting into it haha.

Looking forward to the rest 

[Zuma4Life]

On 11/2/2022 at 7:03 AM, luckycanadian95 said:

This series looks great, I appreciate all the effort you're putting into it haha.

Looking forward to the rest 

Thank you for your support

[Thelema93]

Love this. You've actually inspired me to start a possible trinity playthrough where I play all 3 stories simultaneously. So thanks for that. Keep up the good work.. 

[Zuma4Life]

13 hours ago, Homicidal Hipster said:

Love this. You've actually inspired me to start a possible trinity playthrough where I play all 3 stories simultaneously. So thanks for that. Keep up the good work.. 

Thank you! and good luck on your playthrough!

[Zuma4Life]

 

[Zuma4Life]

EPISODE 9 IS OUT NOW!!!

 

 

[Thelema93]

Good stuff been waiting for this one. 

[Zuma4Life]

On 1/14/2023 at 2:42 AM, Homicidal Hipster said:

Good stuff been waiting for this one. 

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it

[Zuma4Life]

EPISODE 10 TEASER

 

 

[Zuma4Life]

I made a small VFX breakdown of two shots from Episode 9! Watch it here!!

 

[D T]

The thing I cannot get behind with this series are the mods you've used. Rockstar's visuals still looks incredibly good by today's standards and lends itself beautifully to the overarching narrative. The orange skies and gloomy atmosphere are as much of a character as Niko is, and yet it's totally absent in this series. I don't understand the purpose of having modified Niko's appearance either, nor setting the story during winter. Another downside to using ENB is it usually breaks interior lighting, causing things to look super unnatural. In that cutscene with Francis everything appears way too yellow.

 

Using depth of field would also go a long way in keeping the focus on the characters, rather than the distracting environments around them. I'd take advantage of Light Spawning as well. You can find it on Zolika's trainer and it's capable of completely transforming a scene, and even telling a story all on its own without the use of dialogue. I took this screenshot a while back with nothing more than some lights around Niko and the built in DoF on Nvidia's filters. The game still looks AMAZING without ENB.

 

 

I think your action sequences need to focus more on capturing the magic of Rockstar's cutscenes and trailers. I do respect the effort you've put into this. The problem is you're trying to turn fetch quest dialogue into something cinematic and I'm not sure that can ever work, at least when the majority of it is during car rides. I attempted something like this a long time ago and I realized early on that the dialogue while driving was far too boring. It was meant to be played through in third person while focused on an interactive activity, not watched up close like a film with no input. There's just no emotion be seen in their faces and ultimately renders the point of this series null, because in film that's what ties everything together. And so to properly turn a story like this into an enjoyable viewing experience, I think you would need to condense a lot of that, which is unfortunate because you lose so much character development. It's tricky and I'm not sure it can be pulled off either way.

[Zuma4Life]

1 hour ago, D T said:

The thing I cannot get behind with this series are the mods you've used. Rockstar's visuals still looks incredibly good by today's standards and lends itself beautifully to the overarching narrative. The orange skies and gloomy atmosphere are as much of a character as Niko is, and yet it's totally absent in this series. I don't understand the purpose of having modified Niko's appearance either, nor setting the story during winter. Another downside to using ENB is it usually breaks interior lighting, causing things to look super unnatural. In that cutscene with Francis everything appears way too yellow.

 

Using depth of field would also go a long way in keeping the focus on the characters, rather than the distracting environments around them. I'd take advantage of Light Spawning as well. You can find it on Zolika's trainer and it's capable of completely transforming a scene, and even telling a story all on its own without the use of dialogue. I took this screenshot a while back with nothing more than some lights around Niko and the built in DoF on Nvidia's filters. The game still looks AMAZING without ENB.

 

 

I think your action sequences need to focus more on capturing the magic of Rockstar's cutscenes and trailers. I do respect the effort you've put into this. The problem is you're trying to turn fetch quest dialogue into something cinematic and I'm not sure that can ever work, at least when the majority of it is during car rides. I attempted something like this a long time ago and I realized early on that the dialogue while driving was far too boring. It was meant to be played through in third person while focused on an interactive activity, not watched up close like a film with no input. There's just no emotion be seen in their faces and ultimately renders the point of this series null, because in film that's what ties everything together. And so to properly turn a story like this into an enjoyable viewing experience, I think you would need to condense a lot of that, which is unfortunate because you lose so much character development. It's tricky and I'm not sure it can be pulled off either way.

 

I'm continually evolving with time. I know the issue about car mods and enb and I'm now leaning more toward vanilla-friendly mods (I reverted to vanilla cars starting from episode 8). As for the lights, I do use them occasionally, but maybe I should put more of them. I appreciate your comment and will take it into consideration moving forward.

[AngelilloBubus]

Almost a year later but..Amazing job! I really like your idea and how you are doing. Amazing. Will watch all your episodes during this week. Hope you still making them

 

[HOW'S ANNIE?]

Hey guys, I didn't want to make another topic in the V section for this so I decided maybe a reply to this topic is more apt. I've been inspired by Zuma's work on this to consider trying to do something similar with GTA V.

 

Yes the game's story isn't the masterpiece that IV was. However the dialogue, acting, cinematography and beautiful world design are all great enough to be able to salvage something great out of. The structure of the overall story is where it all falls apart, and I think that can all be fixed by using good editing to reframe the story. Instead of it being about a trio of thieves against the system, it's the story of Michael and Franklin against Trevor. Ultimately everything would culminate to ending A, with everything involving the FIB/Triads/Strech simply being used to advance the story.

[String]

@HOW'S ANNIE? it will be good to see more fan made content for GTA V. You could share it on the new GTA V general chat topic, one of the pinned topics in V section. 

[Zuma4Life]

NEW!!: Watch the new Episode 10 Tease Trailer here: