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On-line Documentary on Machinima 116

Posted by CmdrTaco from the bizarre-new-generation-of-movie-making dept.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock writes "Over at Machinima.com we've released "Artery: Machinima", a 22-minute broadcast TV program on the Machinima movement- film-making in real-time 3D. Originally broadcast on Scottish TV station STV, this documentary includes interviews with Uwe Girlich, the guy who got the whole thing started, sci-fi writer Charlie Stross, who is working with the Machinima group Strange Company, award-winning film director Peter Rasmussen, and Machinima makers including the Ill Clan (Hardly Workin'), Strange Company (Eschaton) and Nanoflix. Plus, lots of swords!" There's also a BitTorrent link to the documentary, courtesy GameTab.
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On-line Documentary on Machinima More

On-line Documentary on Machinima

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  • Animated Worlds (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dTaylorSingletary ( 448723 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @03:12PM (#6464771) Homepage

    I am a writer of alternative worlds, a sculptor of different realities and narratives taking place in such realities. I also do music that helps to describe these environments. However, I've always thought that the next logical step is film, and after that whatever comes beyond--immersive virtual environments. And yet, it is very difficult to get ahold of the technology and creative teams who would want to do this purely for the love of art, for the drive to create something new.

    Are there any resources for the "imagineers" out there, like myself? Where we can contact those who are more technically oriented and feed them ideas, worlds, concepts, and general feelings and allow them to aid us realizing such visions? I've often seen that very good computer animators/modelers, etc. are without GREAT ideas at the core, and thus while technically adept, their creations are more pale than they could be.

    In other words, where do animators looking for material and starting points "hang out" on the internet? Where can I start proposing my ideas to turn into realities?

    • Re:Animated Worlds (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17, 2003 @03:25PM (#6464930)
      it is very difficult to get ahold of the technology and creative teams who would want to do this purely for the love of art, for the drive to create something new

      That's not true at all. The problem is that nobody wants to spend their efforts on projects that you want to take credit for. And there's a good reason: Ideas are cheap. Everybody has them, and yours are no better than anyone else's.

      Learn to implement your own ideas, because without making yourself useful you're spinning your mental wheels while you watch things get done by people who actually have the drive to do the work.

    • Good Luck. . ! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @03:49PM (#6465177)
      It is a very, very rare thing to meet film makers/animators/comic artists who don't also have script ideas of their own which they want to produce. --Further, though you observe that many animators are without great core ideas, I doubt that you will find very many who would agree with you, nor who are willing to set aside their own personal explorations into story-telling so that you can 'feed' them your ideas.)

      And pardon me for saying, but until you work out a less offensive manner in which to approach the 'labor' on a project, you probably also need to work further on your writing skills. Understanding the why's and wherefore's of social graces is to understand the human condition. And if writers don't understand the human condition, they're no place.

      But anyway. . .

      Unfortunately, most of the labour will never get the opportunity, nor will they be able to raise their own energy level to a point where they can begin to realize their ambitions. They usually end up by default, working for others. And this is where the media industry comes from.

      Enter Machinima. Dirt cheep. Fast. Low quality.

      Three things can happen;

      1. The technically able people will FINALLY be able to work on their own projects.

      2. The technically able people will see the low quality and say, "Pass."

      3. The technically able will be faced again with having to come up with new excuses for their lack of motivation.

      Now finally. . .

      If your work is amazing and provocative enough, then you should be able draw to you people who will be willing to set aside their own goals and who will want to work on yours; to make your goals their own. --But make no mistake; your work has to be big and bright, or you will only draw to you the lower-end of craftspeople. So get some of your stuff published. Get it out there. There are millions of ways. --Build a browsable webpage version of your world/s. Heck, if it's really that important to you, you might even consider learning some of the technical craft yourself.

      There now. --Aren't you sorry you solicited advice from a legion of keyboard jockies?


      -FL

    • I have a wild idea... try some of those links in the "Related Links" box at the top of the page, Like machinima.com or strange company.

      Don't mean to be nasty, but your post makes you sound a bit arrogant. You apparently are a designer, not a techie. All fine and good, but you really should find some technically oriented people who aren't there just to be "fed" your creative ideas, but who listen to your ideas, and really like them and can get into them and give you feedback and (buzzword alert) synergy. Th

    • I just want to take this time to reply to all the people who responded below, rather than replying to each individually. I by no means meant to imply that techies were but beasts for the feeding of creative ideas, or that my ideas worth necessarily worth feeding.

      I've been a geek since the moment I was born. Been reading slashdot since day one. Been playing with 3D software and electronic music and linux and a variety of other geeky things since the beginning of my computing times. I know my limitations

      • Re:Animated Worlds (Score:4, Informative)

        by Mooncaller ( 669824 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @07:28PM (#6466922)
        I'm only 23 years old, but I already feel like I'm heading down the wrong path because of poor choices made when I was 17

        Don't be silly. Your still a kid. If you feel like you have the wrong degree, go back to school. There is nothing wrong with having degrees in different area. If you feel your headed down the wrong path, figure out the path you want to be on and look for the nearest trail to get you to it. And what ever you do, do not think that the time you spent on one path was a wast of time. The experience you gained will make you a richer person. This is especialy true if you what to explore the creative side of existance. On the other hand the sooner you take action, the easier a change will be. There are more trails between the paths

        I'm in my 40s. I've loved animation my entire life. I also love math and programming. I am a programmer, and have been an electronic tech. I don't have a degree. I have learned everything the hard way. Even though I know as much about software design as any college grad, not having a degree has limited my career. I have spent the last 10 years whining about the impossibility of getting that degree. I said things like "Try finding time to do anything when working 10 h/week OT jsut to feed myself and my son", or "Even if I get my degree, who is going to hire a 50 year old programmer, cause thats how old I'll be by the time I get it." Well now I say F it all. I'm going back to school. I'm gona get my degree, and its not going to be a CS. What I realy what to do is draw, sooo, I'll be starting school soon to get a degree in Character Design. If I finaly got the "stuff" to do a career redirect at 40+, you should be able to find the same "stuff" at 23. Now I wonder, whos gona hire a 50 year old newbie artist. I guess that 20+ years of programming experience will be usefull for a while yet:)

      • Brevity, dude. Ideas may be a dime a dozen, but it's the most tangible currency I have. You may not think my ideas are revolutionary, just by the very fact that I am here, posting on slashdot, apparently appearing as some arrogant fuck, but I never claimed that they were. Don't judge someone by three paragraphs they write in a comment on slashdot. That's ridiculous. I hope you don't think I'm an arrogant fuck for criticizing your writing on Slashdot, but I understand if you do.

  • Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cyranose ( 522976 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @03:19PM (#6464859) Homepage
    This guy is posting to several boards now, hyping this up. I don't have a problem with claiming machinima is cool, but words like "new art form" and "the first real-time 3D movies" are definitely over the top.

    If you define "machinima" as using real-time 3D to make movies, it's been done since 1994 (at least) and even done professionally. There was a project at Disney that used 3D graphics hardware to play movies in real-time, with characters, dialog, and everything. It was even interactive if you wanted (or automatic, if you did nothing). You could watch on a monitor if you didn't like the VR gear that went along with the official ride. But it was not a game and the "engine," called the "player," was custom-built. Disney had other examples of movies rendered using real-time, like the Cyberspace Mountain ride. The 3D hardware was essentially a big decompressor and video-mixer, giving better compression ratios using polygons than any block encoder ever did.

    A third example, from the game community itself, is Dungeon Keeper II, which used its own 3D engine to animate the ends of the levels with some semblance of story. I don't even expect it was the first or the best, but it was the first I remember.

    Now, if you want to define "Machinima" as using Game Engines and their free (sometimes open source) editors as the "tools," then we're in the realm of reason. As an art form, it is essentially defined by the styles and restrictions the game engines impose, just as any art form is shaped by the tools it uses. But lose the game engine and it's just a relatively poor (compared to pixar) animated movie.

    But then to ship the resulting movies as AVI files? That's the biggest cop out I've ever seen in any art form. If no one was allowed to see a great painting except as a photograph, we'd call it photography, not painting.

    Ultimately, for machinima to be a real art-form, it needs to deliver the goods in the form they're created. Otherwise, who cares whether you used Maya or Quake to make your animation and who can even prove it was rendered in real-time and not frame-by-frame?
    • Thank you for posting a little common sense. Last time there was one of these stories, there were a bunch of people posting about how a bunch of small independents were going to use these "revolutionary" new tools to demolish the Hollywood monopoly. What a load.
    • "But then to ship the resulting movies as AVI files? That's the biggest cop out I've ever seen in any art form. If no one was allowed to see a great painting except as a photograph, we'd call it photography, not painting. " What about those who don't own the game? If we only allowed people with cameras to see the photographs, it wouldn't be very GOOD photography.
      • Agreed. It would be quite elitist photography. But for Machinima to be art, at least some people other than the creators need to be able to experience the original content. No problem with releasing AVI files for the masses who can't afford the game engine or player--we have books about art, after all. But we don't mistake the books for the art itself. And someone other than the artist generally writes the book and we trust _they've_ seen the art.

        But my preference in this case would be to have a game-less
    • And yet there are "artists" who piss in a bucket and set it on an American Flag and get to call it art.

      And why is there a need to "prove" that they're real-time rendered? The idea is to "tell a story", "express ideas" and the message is more important than the damn engine you used to create it. Are you going to say that a work created in Maya is more "important" than one created in 3DS Max?

      You've obviously missed the real point about the possibilities Machinima create. How about "Create a film with you
      • Try to distinguish between me saying it's not art (which I'm not) versus me saying it's not a "new art form" (which I am). Pissing in a bucket for an audience is not a new art form either. It's still performance art and it's been done.

        "Proving" is not important unless the artist is claiming that using a game engine is what makes his or her art unique. I don't know about you, but I've seen Machinima enthusiasts make that claim precisely.

        Alas, I don't think I've missed the real point about the possibili
    • if you want to define "Machinima" as using Game Engines and their free (sometimes open source) editors as the "tools," then we're in the realm of reason.

      I can confirm that when I coined the term, that was what it meant. People were beginning to make stuff in Unreal, Half-Life, etc. as well as pieces that didn't use the original games as the basis for their plots - but they were still describing such things as "Quake movies".

      That term was inaccurate, and likely to put off creative people who wanted to m

  • That's the one application that actually benefits from a good-ol slashdot effect :-))
    • But hey, what is this!?

      saving: artery-machinima.zip (150.5 MB)
      percent done: 2.0
      time left: 12 hour 15 min 20 sec
      download to: /home/joebob/artery-machinima.zip
      download rate: 6 kB/s
      upload rate: 20 kB/s

      I'm giving more than I'm getting! Has the entire world gone mad?

  • Squeezing the sausage (Score:3, Funny)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @03:20PM (#6464872)
    "...traditional CGI (Computer Ganerated Imagery) techniques... productions can be dsitributed over the internet..."

    Sadly, due to the mind-blowing resources needed to do this, we had to leave something out of our PCs. We 86'd the spel-chekur.

  • QMT (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkVein ( 5418 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @03:25PM (#6464920) Journal
    As an early Quake movie maker, I have to say, I really hate the word "Machinema". I mean, I really hate that word. It's such a lame word, I won't touch game-engine movies because my work would be classified as "Machinema".

    To put it another way, would Steven Speilburg make movies if they were called dingleberries? He can get a Grammy for Best Drama Dingleberry. He'll be featured in documentaries called Dingleberry Magic.

    I really hate that word.

    • Re:QMT (Score:3, Funny)

      by realdpk ( 116490 )
      How do you feel about the word Machinima?

    • Re:QMT (Score:3, Informative)

      by ewhac ( 5844 )

      I never cared for the term either. It's obviously a combination of the words "machine" and "cinema", but the result is ungainly and ugly.

      I cooked up my own word for the same thing, a combination of the words "mechanical" and "animation": Mechanime. Sadly, this term may not be good, either, as the "anime" half of the word may tend to connote Japanese animation, which is not intended. But it scans a hell of a lot better than, "Machinima."

      Schwab

      • Before reading a few comments I thought Machinima was something to do with anime anyway.

        How about in true geek fashion, LANPR meaning LANPR are not pre-rendered. Pronounced Lanper. This idea will obviously sink without trace and settle at the bottom of the ideas ocean, and the horrible Machinima will continue to be used, ho-hum.
      • Mechanime is anime with giant robots.
      • I never cared for the term either. It's obviously a combination of the words "machine" and "cinema", but the result is ungainly and ugly.

        You mean its something akin to "blog"?

  • A Major New Art Form (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It's the equivallent of rendering Star Wars in ASCII. It's time consuming. It looks like crap. And for a brief second, it's geeky cool. But the question is still: why bother?
  • That's always a good sign =)

    You know what would be cool? If this "Introducing Machinma with Interviews" *was* a machinma... like UT2003 engined or whatever.

    Of course, it might actually be that way, I didn't WTFMachima, it seems to be /.'ed...

    • Re:Plus, lots of swords (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, cool. And Charlie Stross could be rendered as a giant bipedal lizard with a beard and long hair.
    • Yeah, this is something I've wanted to do for ages, but never had the time.
    • It's actually not "swords", but "S words"; words that begin with the letter "S".

      The answer is "Popeye is this sort of man". Remember, your question must begin with the letter "S".
      • I'll play your game, you rogue.

        But first let pose you a connundrum, a riddle if I may: What's the difference between you and a mallard with a cold?

        One's a sick duck and I've forgotten the rest but your mother's a whore.

        (from Celebrity Jeopardy if you don't know, don't get angry)

        Anyway, to umm.. question your answer: "Spinchroids" is a powerful drug that can rarely be taken a few times before producing serious bodily injury. What famous popular culture figure was the sort of man who could take this stren
  • oooooh, Slashdotted it 3D!

  • This just in! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @03:57PM (#6465259) Homepage
    I know this is just the latest trend in game tech, but this could be an important milestone. William Gibson wrote a letter to the Director's Guild which had some very interesting ideas for our future in it. Here's the link [williamgibsonbooks.com]. The relevant part is towards the end where it talks about how the kid makes the movie however he wants and can change settings on the fly. Such as giving all the characters dog-heads, or adding in a kung-fu scene.

    What if game engines and machinima are the first step in this 'do it yourself' movie? Now all someone needs to release is software that makes the directing and editing of such a movie very simple, and BAM! new generation of home movie making. I wonder what kind of software can be used to simplify this work and enable Joe Everybody to get their hands dirty in the wonderful world of home video production.

    • Gibson's various writings have been a huge inspiration for us at M.Com. His latest piece, which you linked, is absolutely mind-blowing stuff, very closely tied in with all the stuff we envision (but cooler, because, well, he's Bill Gibson).

      Actually, one of the inspirations for the creation of Machinima.com was a much, much older piece of Mr Gibson's in Wired, in the year 2000. A quick bit of digging brings it up [wired.com]. It was in this article that Gibson proposed the idea of the "Garage Kubrick" - a kid who has
    • what kind of software can be used to simplify this work

      The easiest way would require new hardware - to get the immersive visualization and manipulation that real directors have.

      Combine that "matrix construct" immersiveness with some very very smart software that fills in the detail gaps with appropriate meshes, textures, and object properties, and you'd have something pretty damn easy.

      Instead of pushing a mouse around a small viewport and tediously specifying your 3D scenes down to the very last detai

  • Machinama by and large pretentious crap (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Harry S. Truman ( 690307 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @04:17PM (#6465491) Homepage
    Is it just me, or are these Strange Company characters more than a little full of themselves? Other than the Ill Clan, I can't think of any Machinima I've seen that has been worth half a damn. Plus, for such a "fast" system of filmmaking, most of these machinima producers seem to take their own sweet time actually coming out with any real product. When they do, its a victim of its own hype. For example, look at the Matrix series. "You have to see it for yourself", the banner declares. Well, I did, and here's what I thought: Amazing. Trinity runs across a room, and a computer explodes. That's just about the most innovative thing ever. Whoop. I don't think Hollywood has anything to worry about in the near future.
    • You're right, most of the their stuff isin't actually that good, I personally think they're doing machinima a disfavour.

      First and foremost, they're not good directors at all which is why the films are consistently poor. Even in machinima, it's about story telling, it's about characters, their conflicts and how they interact with other characters. While one can do a film show casing techonology, it is never as good a film with a good story.

      D/L and watch militia 2 by The_Family_God. You will not regret i
      • Actually, to go back on my first statement a tiny bit, there was a movie done with the Quake 1 engine (the name of which escapes me) that was essentially a cop/buddy 70's flick. It was pretty damn funny, and pushed the envelope of what you could do with the Quake Engine, too. Plus everybody had big square afros. :) Anyone remember the "film" I'm talking about?
    • Explodin computers.
      Sounds like a case of machine ENEMA what.
  • I can't believe that no one has talked about the success of red vs. blue [redvsblue.com]. It would seem to be machinima (Halo) and it is hilarious and original. Although is does not seem to diverge very much from the game I could easily see the concept taken in many directions from what they have done. I think that it is an emerging field.
  • These have been made since about 1910 onwards....

    even soccer mums with cam corders can do it now.

    As I believe the article to mean is real time computer generated 3D movies. Well I'm really don't know enough about that
  • It always surprises me when people talk about machinima, they always mention stuff from machinima.com, but the thing is, their stuff isin't really that good at all.

    Whats even more surprising is that nobody ever mentions militia 2 [cscentral.com] by The_Family_God [gworxpictures.com]. It's the 2nd part of a 2 part movie based in the map cs_militia. This is the by FAR best machinima I've seen on the net, and arguably better than Red vs. Blue.

    TFG has started working on Pre/Selection a machinima in the Natural Selection [natural-selection.org] universe which also pr
  • "Hardly Workin'" is a great little short. Additionally impressive (to me) is that a good portion of Ill Clan's stuff is either improvised, or developed through improvisation. I had the good fortune to meet these guys, and they are some damn talented improvisors.

    m.

  • In The Wating Line (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John Carmack ( 101025 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @07:43PM (#6467018)
    Arguably the most professional and widely viewed machinima so far is the music video for Zero 7's "In the Waiting Line", produced by my wife's company,
    Fountainhead Entertainment [fountainheadent.com]. This was a real, commercial production using machinima tools.

    It was neat to see the Q3 engine playing on MTV, but it made me greatly regret the quantized normals in Q3 models, which resulted in a noticeable popping on the environment maps. This was largely my motivation for adding per-pixel environment map calculation to the new Doom engine (under the ARB2 path, at least).

    John Carmack
  • For those who remember this old article [slashdot.org] about Quake done Quick, they are also hosted [machinima.com] and part of machinima.com.

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