It's called a "bootleg maneuver." Didn't any of you guys play Car Wars? I wonder if someone tried the same defense back in the early 80's "Well judge, there's this pen and paper game where you put guns, flamethrowers and even missles on cars and uh...nevermind your honor.
How do you know that in addition to this heart felt means of expressing their feelings at this persons passing, they didn't also send a card, flowers or actually attend the funeral?
I think at times, when we argue about the differences and similarities between the "real" and "virtual" world, we're just as confused by the distinctions. Just because a world is virtual and simulates the real world or storybook worlds, doesn't mean it's not a valid form of expression or of relating to other human beings. Whether I send email, a card, call on the phone, act in a play, sing a song, swing dance with a partner, send flowers, send a page, or show up in person, they're all means of expression inside of "relationship." If a person sings a song on stage, taking on the persona of an imaginary character, are they not expressing themselves? I have seen singers belt out tunes at a wake that touched everyone in attendence. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Looking at this image from DaoC, I'm just as touched by the human spirit. That's, to me, a real moment.
One of the main points people are missing re: the machinima process and what IMHO will be the revolutionary aspect of it when it really hits, is that it's a "real-time 3D animation rendering process." That means no compositing and no rendering. That means possibly shaving 30-40% off of animation production times. That means saving money for TV and video production companies (not film production, not yet). And that means I get to make a living from my favorite past-time, computer gaming (and I can tell all those old girlfriends who gave me grief about the amount of time I spent gaming to kiss my...).
The other cool aspect is that it's bottom-up, grassroots tech vs. the high end mo-cap suits and big, number crunching, parallel machines. I love that. It gives me a chubby. I like having a chubby.
Now, if only some of those big fish in Hollywood TV land would take a bite *dangling a machinima budget from a fish hook*. Come one, just a nibble.
P.S. re: quality of the artwork--high in-game quality, did you see the Doom III demo? Amazing! Low TV quality that does just fine, have you ever watched South Park or Beavis and Butthead? Nuff said.
ILL Bixby www.illclan.com Makes of the award winning short "Hardly Workin'"
Come on you guys, some of you are like the established scientific community getting riled up because someone hinted that the big bang theory may not be...it.
Because of the advances in desktop pcs, tasks that could only be done in the past by mainframes can be done by the little guy now. But main frames still exist. The same goes with CGI animation. Yes, Pixar and ILM will still be the highend boys using renderfarm (they're the mainframe guys). It just means the network of users has expanded because once existing barriers to entry have been knocked down.
There are a lot of animation houses that would love to be able to produce cgi animation cheaper and faster, and therefore be more competitive. And because of the increased quality and speed of 3D accelerator cards they can produce much better quality rendered in realtime that ever before. They won't match Pixar's quality (yet) but there's no need to, look at South Park. And a number of PC games (Max Payne, GTAIII, MOH:AA) are using actual game rendered footage in their commercials on TV.
How: It's just like playing Quake III on a LAN except instead of shooting each other with rockets you have different characters that emote. Because it's saved in a datafile everything can be tweaked in post. Which means, you shoot with limited keyboard bound animation (waves, eye blink, a few expressions, etc) and then fine-tune the character animation and camera angles (or anything you want really) in post. And because there's no rendering time or compositing, you see immediately if it works. We've (The ILL Clan) have been doing for four years now and have won awards and press. It works. I mean think about, a pc game played on a LAN is just like renderfarm except in realtime. That's it really.
Bottom Line: Machinima speeds up the production process by allowing cgi animators to shoot in realtime, saving time and therefore money$$$. A typical 22min CGI animated show on TV can take 16-18 weeks to produce. Using machinima, it can be done in 8-9 weeks. Half the time and possibly half the budget. Hmm, I think Hollywood will eventually take notice. My guess, summer of 2003 when Doom III is released.
Slashdot Mirror
You are a god sir, a hilarious god. I bow before your prose.
It's called a "bootleg maneuver." Didn't any of you guys play Car Wars? I wonder if someone tried the same defense back in the early 80's "Well judge, there's this pen and paper game where you put guns, flamethrowers and even missles on cars and uh...nevermind your honor.
How do you know that in addition to this heart felt means of expressing their feelings at this persons passing, they didn't also send a card, flowers or actually attend the funeral?
I think at times, when we argue about the differences and similarities between the "real" and "virtual" world, we're just as confused by the distinctions. Just because a world is virtual and simulates the real world or storybook worlds, doesn't mean it's not a valid form of expression or of relating to other human beings. Whether I send email, a card, call on the phone, act in a play, sing a song, swing dance with a partner, send flowers, send a page, or show up in person, they're all means of expression inside of "relationship." If a person sings a song on stage, taking on the persona of an imaginary character, are they not expressing themselves? I have seen singers belt out tunes at a wake that touched everyone in attendence. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Looking at this image from DaoC, I'm just as touched by the human spirit. That's, to me, a real moment.
One of the main points people are missing re: the machinima process and what IMHO will be the revolutionary aspect of it when it really hits, is that it's a "real-time 3D animation rendering process." That means no compositing and no rendering. That means possibly shaving 30-40% off of animation production times. That means saving money for TV and video production companies (not film production, not yet). And that means I get to make a living from my favorite past-time, computer gaming (and I can tell all those old girlfriends who gave me grief about the amount of time I spent gaming to kiss my...).
The other cool aspect is that it's bottom-up, grassroots tech vs. the high end mo-cap suits and big, number crunching, parallel machines. I love that. It gives me a chubby. I like having a chubby.
Now, if only some of those big fish in Hollywood TV land would take a bite *dangling a machinima budget from a fish hook*. Come one, just a nibble.
P.S. re: quality of the artwork--high in-game quality, did you see the Doom III demo? Amazing! Low TV quality that does just fine, have you ever watched South Park or Beavis and Butthead? Nuff said.
ILL Bixby
www.illclan.com
Makes of the award winning short "Hardly Workin'"
Come on you guys, some of you are like the established scientific community getting riled up because someone hinted that the big bang theory may not be...it.
Because of the advances in desktop pcs, tasks that could only be done in the past by mainframes can be done by the little guy now. But main frames still exist. The same goes with CGI animation. Yes, Pixar and ILM will still be the highend boys using renderfarm (they're the mainframe guys). It just means the network of users has expanded because once existing barriers to entry have been knocked down.
There are a lot of animation houses that would love to be able to produce cgi animation cheaper and faster, and therefore be more competitive. And because of the increased quality and speed of 3D accelerator cards they can produce much better quality rendered in realtime that ever before. They won't match Pixar's quality (yet) but there's no need to, look at South Park. And a number of PC games (Max Payne, GTAIII, MOH:AA) are using actual game rendered footage in their commercials on TV.
How: It's just like playing Quake III on a LAN except instead of shooting each other with rockets you have different characters that emote. Because it's saved in a datafile everything can be tweaked in post. Which means, you shoot with limited keyboard bound animation (waves, eye blink, a few expressions, etc) and then fine-tune the character animation and camera angles (or anything you want really) in post. And because there's no rendering time or compositing, you see immediately if it works. We've (The ILL Clan) have been doing for four years now and have won awards and press. It works. I mean think about, a pc game played on a LAN is just like renderfarm except in realtime. That's it really.
Bottom Line: Machinima speeds up the production process by allowing cgi animators to shoot in realtime, saving time and therefore money$$$. A typical 22min CGI animated show on TV can take 16-18 weeks to produce. Using machinima, it can be done in 8-9 weeks. Half the time and possibly half the budget. Hmm, I think Hollywood will eventually take notice. My guess, summer of 2003 when Doom III is released.