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Fountainhead Boss On Machinima Perils

Posted by simoniker on from the real-time-shenanigans dept.

Thanks to Machinima.com for their interview with Fountainhead Entertainment boss Katherine Anna Kang, in which the ex-id software biz person discusses their "independent production company that specializes in documentaries and animation... our specialty is Machinima" - that is, "filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment", often involving videogame engines. Kang laments: "I'm sad that Machinima isn't as popular as I thought it would be by today... the one thing that worries me is that Machinima will be seen as a hobby and not taken seriously, and that very much annoys me." She also mentions: "We may open-source an academic version of [in-house movie tool] Machinimation in the very near future."

4 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. Video Game animation by Fux+the+Penguin · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "I'm sad that Machinima isn't as popular as I thought it would be by today... the one thing that worries me is that Machinima will be seen as a hobby and not taken seriously, and that very much annoys me." She also mentions: "We may open-source an academic version of [in-house movie tool] Machinimation in the very near future."

    I agree with the author of this article. I've really enjoyed a lot of the video game animation I've seen from hobbiests and students. I'm a big fan of the Star Wars Kid and Homestar Runner. It's too bad that more people aren't aware of the students and hobbyists who make these highly entertaining shorts available to us, between classes and during time off from their real jobs. Perhaps with the release of the anemic version of their tool, more students and hobbyists will be able to create short works placed on obscure websites for our enjoyment. Who knows, maybe one day they will rival the likes of SpikeTV and The Outdoor Life network for our entertainment dollar.
    1. Re:Video Game animation by SuuSt · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's not really Machinima, that's mostly cartoons/video editing done a computer. What she's referring to is videos made entirely within a pre-existing 3d environment like a video game engine. The acting is similar to traditional movies in that there are takes and people can mess it up, it's not being meticulously animated.

      hence: Red vs. Blue

  2. Re:A "Fountainhead Boss"? (offtopic but I had to a by a.koepke · · Score: 3, Funny

    No... Dilbert has the Pointy Haired Boss (PHB)

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  3. Machinema is not... by yellow*five · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Prerendered cutscenes. It is not necessarily "live acted", although Red vs. Blue is. It can be scripted and keyframed. It's defined by being "in engine", meaning rendered at one point in real time by what is typically a game engine. This is most often seen in cutscenes in action games that don't cut out to some prerendered or animated sequence. When a community as tech savvy as /. doesn't really understand what machinema is, I think it's a little early to worry about how seriously it will be taken.