Quake-Based 'Anna' Machinima Publically Released

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Quake-Based 'Anna' Machinima Publically Released

Posted by simoniker on Wednesday February 25, 2004 @04:29AM from the pretty-real-time-pictures dept.

TheNomad writes "Made in Fountainhead Entertainment's Quake III-based tool, Machinimation, 'Anna' is a real-time generated machinima showing the story of a single flower's life, from birth to - well, I won't spoil it for you. There's a showcase of the film over at Machinima.com, and they also have a download page, as well as a FilePlanet mirror." We've recently run an interview with Katherine Anna Kang, Fountainhead boss and ex-id software employee, and also discussed the 2003 Machinima Film Festival Awards, in which 'Anna' won several awards.

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Damnit, it's on Slashdot now? by Cecil · 2004-02-25 04:32 · Score: 1

I was waiting for the BluesNews effect to die down so I could get decent download speeds on this. Now I'm really screwed, eh?

--
Random and weird software I've written.
a real boring showcase if you ask me.. by gl4ss · 2004-02-25 04:32 · Score: 2, Funny

Warning: Too many connections in /usr/local/home/httpd/docs/machinima/PHP/article_c lass.inc on line 22

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /usr/local/home/httpd/docs/machinima/PHP/article_c lass.inc on line 23

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /usr/local/home/httpd/docs/machinima/PHP/article_c lass.inc on line 27

Warning: Supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /usr/local/home/httpd/docs/machinima/PHP/article_c lass.inc on line 29

Warning: Too many connections in /usr/local/home/httpd/docs/machinima/PHP/article_c lass.inc on line 45

*

it's a joke yeah laugh.

--
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
1. Re:a real boring showcase if you ask me.. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-25 04:43 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Just copy and paste the link text (not the link itself) into the address bar to skip the indirection that's causing the trouble.
2. Re:a real boring showcase if you ask me.. by TheNomad · 2004-02-25 06:28 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Working on it, working on it!
  
  *Runs around like a headless chicken*.
Indeed by BigBir3d · 2004-02-25 04:33 · Score: 0, Redundant

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Warning: Too many connections in /usr/local/home/httpd/docs/machinima/PHP/article_c lass.inc on line 45

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Too many connections
OK, so Machinima by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-25 04:34 · Score: 0, Interesting

What's up with this Machinima? Is it good, or is it bunk?
Viewing without Quake, without PC? by torpor · 2004-02-25 04:41 · Score: 2, Interesting

How do you watch these machinima's without Quake, or even if you're not on a PC?

Are there .mov downloads available? I haven't checked yet, so please forgive me if they are ...

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
1. Re:Viewing without Quake, without PC? by ILL+Clinton · 2004-02-25 06:25 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Most Machinima movies are released in video format. Not many Machinima makers do their editing in-game anymore.
  Open source sig, feel free to modify and redistribute.
torrent? by endrek · 2004-02-25 04:49 · Score: 0, Redundant

Any chance some kind soul would like to put up a torrent. I mean the site's been slashdotted, but a few people must have gotten it. Here's hoping
1. Re:torrent? by Walker2323 · 2004-02-25 07:46 · Score: 0
  
  It's not a torrent, but a direct download link from the site. I'm currently getting around 350 KB/s as we speak. http://www.machinima.com/count.php?url=http://stud ents.washington.edu/jvenable/Anna.wmv&id=525
Google? Doh! by redtail1 · 2004-02-25 04:55 · Score: 4, Funny

Too bad searching for anna.wmv in Google only returns links from pr0n sites...
Nope by CrazyClimber · 2004-02-25 05:11 · Score: 1

Then you get a page telling you that there's too many connections and begging you for money.
Obligatory Family Guy reference... by dmayle · 2004-02-25 05:11 · Score: 4, Funny

I am ANNA! (automaton-nuclear-neohuman-android)
1. Re:Obligatory Family Guy reference... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-25 07:48 · Score: 0
  
  Can I get a hand with all this talent?
It's here by fexk · 2004-02-25 05:50 · Score: 5, Informative

www.fileplanet.com/files/130000/137468.shtml
My review - Spoilers by Torgo's+Pizza · 2004-02-25 06:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

I'll repost my comments from [H]ard|OCP on the flick.

I'll get accusations of "not getting it" but... I want those 7 minutes and 48 seconds of my life back. The story of a little girl devastating the ecosystem of a forest with a viral plant just isn't for me.

I'll "critique" this on two levels: The story, themes and concept; and the use of the Quake III engine itself. Spoilers ahead!

I get all the artsy "flower must overcome obstacles" theme, but it also shows why computer scientists aren't very good at art... or botany for that matter. From the moment that our flapper '30s girl traipses through the forest, devoid of light or grass, we know something is going to happen. Perhaps it's the goosestepping of her walk or the Roland MT-32 music that clues us in that nothing can be this happy for this long.

Sure enough, just like my five year-old who can trip over an ant, she tumbles to the ground, spilling her six peach-pit sized seeds of radioactivity. The girl cries probably because the radioactivity has stricken her blind because she doesn't pick up her precious seeds despite them glowing brighter than the Las Vegas strip. With the haunting crying of a Disney chipmunk, the scene rotates from above focusing on the now seven seeds on the ground. Fade to black.

Sometime later a maple leaf falls from an elm tree and covers one of the seeds. An albino crow decides to play god and eat six of the seeds. The radioactivity doesn't sit well with the crow, so he doesn't eat the seventh seed under the leaf, despite it's blinding glare. This allows the demon seed to take root and grow despite the lack of sun and water.

Bambi's mom, who didn't die at the hand of the hunter enters the scene. Mom carries the scars of the incident because she walks with tiny baby steps. With a crack of thunder, she steps on the budding weed. Not one to throw in the towel, a rainstorm revives the flower. With a "Feed me Seymour!" battle cry the plant stands upright once more.

Not all is well however. During the night, noxious weeds sprout up choking our hero. As he withers, the weeds taunt him with names, calling him "root" and "stamen". But our little plant has a trick up his sleeve. He sits there and takes it, distracting the weeds from their one true enemy! The sun! Yes, all weeds hate the sun. The weeds all promptly wither from the Vitamin K deathray while our plant soaks it in like a sponge.

With the weeds dispatched and our plant feeling like a hero, he waits until the sun leaves to unfurl his petals in triumph. He's on top of the world. He's conquered all. He's no pansy! Wait... those petals, those colors. Damn it, he is a pansy. He double checks Google Image Search. Yep, he's a pansy. He weaves around in disgust like a drunken sailor. Why me? Why was I born this way?

After a few drunken hours, the pansy suddenly finds himself in the death grip on the little girl. After being stricken with cancer, she came back to the woods to find tree back from yew trees to make Taxol when she stumbled upon the flower. Yanking with all her might, she tears the flower from his roots. Knowing it's just a matter of time now, the flower spews pollen in the futile hope that the girl has allergies. The pollen flows like blood in a Monty Python sketch complete with slow motion. It covers the forest in a Claritin haze that makes the forest ferns want to sneeze.

The pansy ends up in a vase with other flower corpses. With his last dying moments, the flower decides to make his last stand defying gravity by staying upright in the large open mouthed vase and convincing the others not to lose their petals. It's all for naught as they lose their color and end up resembling a Ted Turner colorized black and white movie.

Despite the tragedy, the happy music and scene at the end let us know that the girl only triggered a pansy infestation in the forest. Pansies don't need peach pits to spread! How silly! It only takes a single radioactive pansy to vomit enough pollen to spread in a dense forest. Ful
1. Re:My review - Spoilers by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-25 06:59 · Score: 0
  
  You must have nothing todo if you wrote all that.
  
  You wasted 7min 48seconds watching it and then wasted 10minutes more writting crap about it.
  
  Other than your comments on the use of the engine, why did you even bother writting the rest? You actually applied real world logic and science to a make believe world?
  
  You must be some stuck up botanist or something.
2. Re:My review - Spoilers by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-25 08:46 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  He was probably so traumatized by the experience that he needed to write this as a form of therapy. It's completely understandable.
3. Re:My review - Spoilers by Xzzy · 2004-02-25 09:24 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah no kidding. Every so often I consider trying my hand at machinima, and if nothing else watching this has convinced me to never, EVER try to create my own musical score. Yikes that was horrid.
  
  Technically it's quite good. If I didn't know beforehand I wouldn't have pegged it as rendered in the q3 engine, though obviously an ameteur did it because the animation of the animals/girl is pretty stiff.
  
  But the poor story and poor audio made watching the whole thing painful.
4. Re:My review - Spoilers by Black+Hitler · 2004-02-25 20:20 · Score: 1
  
  Is anybody actually shocked that it sucks? Naming your company after an Ayn Rand book is like stamping a big fat "AVOID" sign on everything you produce.
5. Re:My review - Spoilers by Bibbity · 2004-02-26 14:03 · Score: 1
  
  My review of this review:
  In a desperate attempt to sound knowledgeable, an amateur reviewer of films delves into an imaginary universe with comparisons of what he knows to exist in his reality. His lackluster attempt to correlate animation and fantasy with real life occurrences leave the reader wondering if he lives in a super sped up world where plants grow in 7 or so minutes.
  It's a good thing this reviewer does not earn a living thorough reviews, god forbid a comparison of Lion King to his real world... the review would include paragraph after paragraph about how animals don't talk, how lions have better things to do than spend time with ONE lioness and ONE cub, and how apes don't do half the things they did in the movie. Sadly, one can't help but be reminded of Quayle's attempt at bashing the fictional Murphy character as a "poor mother".
  As a reviewer, on a scale from 1-10, I give him an appalling -1. As a comic hopeful, I give him a 7.
  The writer would have served readers interested in viewing machinima better by telling them that it was not his type of story, that he found the download a waste of his time, but that the end result showed off a fairly good engine. A better reviewer would have confessed that despite the many who had enjoyed it, he found it unenjoyable due to his lack of imagination.
6. Re:My review - Spoilers by Torgo's+Pizza · 2004-02-26 16:04 · Score: 1
  
  Blame my facination with Mystery Science Theater 3000, my being a wiseass and being bored with nothing better to do than downloading a seven minute video and thinking I could do something funny with it.
  Although I'm much thinner and have a lower cholesterol rate than Roger Ebert.
7. Re:My review - Spoilers by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-26 17:41 · Score: 0
  
  The writer would have served readers interested in viewing machinima better by telling them that it was not his type of story, that he found the download a waste of his time, but that the end result showed off a fairly good engine.
  You know what else shows off the engine? Quake III. The difference is that Quake III is more interesting and more fun than having your fingernails slowly pulled out.
8. Re:My review - Spoilers by Bibbity · 2004-02-26 19:04 · Score: 1
  Blame my facination with Mystery Science Theater 3000...
  
  There's nobody to blame but yourself. When will people take responsibilities for their actions?!
  
  I'm much thinner and have a lower cholesterol rate than Roger Ebert
  
  Not much of an accomplishment there buddy, so is most of the world. Now, if you were bigger, that'd be something to talk about... but then most people would talk about how you need to get your ass to a gym and stop eating Torgo's Pizzas.
  Everybody can be a wiseass. Most of us just don't waste too much time on it.
9. Re:My review - Spoilers by Bibbity · 2004-02-26 19:06 · Score: 1
  ...more fun than having your fingernails slowly pulled out
  
  Next time you slowly pull your fingernails out, as soon as you feel the pain, STOP. You'll feel much better.
And now it's actually available! by TheNomad · 2004-02-25 06:48 · Score: 1

I may be speaking too soon, but - I think we've got the /.games effect under control now, so enjoy the article!
Not BitTorrent? by GeorgeH · 2004-02-25 07:10 · Score: 1

BitTorrent was in the New York Times for crying out loud, it's mainstream. Why wouldn't you use it? What possible drawback is there?

--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
1. Re:Not BitTorrent? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-25 08:00 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe because it sucks and a lot of people (myself included) cannot download with BitTorrent at more than 1 k/s.
2. Re:Not BitTorrent? by GeorgeH · 2004-02-25 09:44 · Score: 1
  
  Compared to the 0k/s of an overloaded server refusing connections?
  
  --
  Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Spoiler warning - pop in by drewmca · 2004-02-25 07:16 · Score: 1

Did anyone else notice the pop in at the end? As the camera pans over a sea of pansies (?!), more pansies pop in on the horizon. I can understand pop-in to a certain extent. But what about color? The grass is green and as the pansies pop into view, they're purple. I think that even if you couldn't see the pansies at a distance, you'd at least notice that the ground was purplish. I don't think color pops in.
Re:BitTorrent by notsoclever · 2004-02-25 07:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

Or, better yet, FreeCache as well. (FreeCache is better for the "big picture" view of things with the assumption of lots of ISPs and universities contributing bandwidth. It's better economics in the long run than BitTorrent.)

--
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
Re:BitTorrent by LordJezo · 2004-02-25 07:54 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Except bittorent crashes half of the pcs that use it!

Go look it up on google for proof.
wmv9 by wan-fu · 2004-02-25 08:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

Does anyone have this file in a non-wmv9 file format (i.e. some kind soul who's converted it) or have suggestions on getting wmv9 to work well under linux? My MPlayer (1.0pre5) doesn't seem to like it. Nor VLC (0.7) for that matter.
1. Re:wmv9 by Hettch · 2004-02-25 12:26 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Did you try xine with all win32 codecs? WMV's generally work for me there. And build it yourself instead of getting a binary package, that may help as well.
new download link by johnopolis · 2004-02-25 08:26 · Score: 2, Informative

A new download link has just been added for those that cannot get through the Machinima connection and don't want to register with file planet. http://students.washington.edu/jvenable/Anna.wmv -enjoy
1. Re:new download link by notsoclever · 2004-02-25 08:44 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  And to avoid pissing off your admins, try: http://freecache.org/http://students.washington.ed u/jvenable/Anna.wmv
  
  --
  There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
not surprised by mnemonic_ · 2004-02-25 10:28 · Score: 1

I'm not surprised... A lot of attempts at emotional art done by techies are often cliche and ludricrously melodramatic, bordering on the silly. Look at the demo scene and their so called "poetry." Most of it is shit, made by people who think poetic meaning is derived from loosely (or not at all) connected words.

P.S. This ties in with the whole "what is art?" debate, which I don't feel like getting into...
I heard its going through a name change by JVert · 2004-02-25 11:07 · Score: 2, Funny

Anna is actually just the working title. When it hits theaters its going to be titled "The Passion of the Flower".
Re:BitTorrent by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-25 12:33 · Score: 0

Windows crashes 100% of the pcs that use it. But I bet you still do, don't you?
Re:BitTorrent by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-25 20:09 · Score: 0

Mainly those belonging to stupid people using shitty clients.
Wow....... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-25 20:12 · Score: 0

That sure was a) totally irrelevant (OMG THEY HAVE THE SAME NAME ROFL HEY HERE'S ANOTHER ONE: ANNA KARENINA!!!!!!! LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!) and b) not funny at all. But since Family Guy seems to be the "in" thing among complete fucking retards I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by the moderation.
Mod parent down troll... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-02-26 00:32 · Score: 0

...'cause Ayn Rand's books rule!
Re:BitTorrent by TheNomad · 2004-02-26 12:41 · Score: 1

I'd not heard of FreeCache - I'll be very seriously looking into this!