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Lorne Lanning On Real-Time CG & Machinima

Posted by timothy on from the dancing-with-light dept.

ILL Robinson writes "Just finished reading a great interview with Oddworld president, Lorne Lanning, over on VFX World. In the interview, Lorne speaks of the latest in real-time 3D technologies and Machinima, and how it relates to not only game graphics, but also how it will impact filmmaking in general. He also speaks about Epic Game's latest engine, Unreal3, and how powerful and impressive the latest Epic Games engine is."

3 of 11 comments (clear)

  1. it's like reviewing half-life2 before release by abandonment · · Score: 3, Insightful

    sure the screens look good but they don't tell you that they are running at 3 fps because the engine doesn't run on anything close to consumer-level hardware...

    what's the point of giving these glowing reviews to an engine that isn't going to be released until 2006 (by their estimate)...

    spend some time reviewing the existing tools for machinima developers that are available.

    http://www.realityfactory.ca provides a complete machinima game engine under an MIT license, complete source code, scripting language, cinematic camera system, not to mention the interactive possibilities...

    of course i'm biased (i'm the project lead), but these articles do nothing to help the machinima community, which is almost exclusively indie (no budget) and needs tools that are affordable and commercial quality...

    --
    Gekido's Lair
    1. Re:it's like reviewing half-life2 before release by Naffer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You know, I found myself marveling at the quality of 3d graphics that can be done on today's hardware. I remember my Super Nintendo, and how great the graphics on it were. Then I remember buying a 3d accelerator card, a Voodoo Blaster Banshee (16MB PCI) and playing OpenGL quake2 for hours. I swore to myself, "It'll never get any better then this" Boy was I wrong. I can remember a dozen games that wowed me at the time, but are now totally unimpressive. That is the nature of computer generated graphics. As computers and their addin cards get faster, we can push more polygons, use higher resolution textures, and play with complicated lighting and surface manipulation in a way that no one was able to before.
      Yea, those screenshots are impressive. So what if they won't run on consumer grade stuff yet? Give it a year or two and we'll be looking back at Doom3 and wondering what was so impressive.

  2. Thriller by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting


    A machinima version of Michael Jackson's Thriller using Second Life's custom animation feature can be found here. The graphics are as good as UT and Second Life provides in-world tools to create sets, costumes, and props. Custom animations can then be uploaded to animate characters. It's a machinimist's dream!

    If you are a machinimist and would like to sign up for a free trial of Second Life, enter "Ulrika Zugzwang", the film's creator, in the "Resident Referral" box and join the in-world film-production crew.