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On-line Documentary on Machinima
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.
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?
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.
Because you can't open a zip file if the end of the file is not present. Its a built in safeguard to make sure you ("you" in this case is you average idiot trying to download something off of the "interweb") get the entire file.
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
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.
Actually, I think the simplest answer is that, amazing as it sounds, they can be compressed further by using zip. For example, I just downloaded the Militia 2 movie that people have been mentioning, and it looks like they reduced the WMV file size another 10% by zipping it. I have noticed this before with other formats too. Makes you wonder why these formats don't have this final compression built into them.
I'll turn the corner when CG porn turns me on, and not a second sooner!
Current CG chicks leave me limp.
--
Power to the Peaceful