I guess I'm a poor judge of this stuff since I don't watch any television at all, and if I did, the last thing I would watch is news. I prefer to read my news. And I like getting it from the web so I can pick and choose by headline.
But seriously, this kind of automated thing baffles me. Even though I'm a machinima director, I'm not sure I would want to watch an animated talking head deliver my news.
Yes, Machinima started with Quake. I know because I directed one of the first Machinima movies, Apartment Huntin'. We used Quake for that. You can see that movie if you scroll to the bottom of this page.
In fact we still sometimes use a modified version of Quake 2 called Qfusion which allows us to use Quake 3 assets within the open source Quake 2 game engine. A nice example of this can be seen in a series of shorts we did for SpikeTV called Gamer Gags.
I admit I generalized a bit. Maybe Syngress is different.
But one thing that's true is that how-to books have to target their audience based on expertise. It can be very annoying to be an expert in a subject looking for a reference guide, and the only thing you can find is a giant how-to book filled with fluff aimed at grandma.
Heh. How many things can we say are "aimed at grandma?"
ILL Clinton
typical how-to publishers meddling with content
on
Apple I Replica Creation
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I'll bet that the author originally intended to do a more technical book aimed at a tech-savvy demographic, but the publishers tried to turn it into a book even grandma would buy.
I had a conversation with Paul Marino about this very problem when he was writing his book, 3D Game-Based Filmmaking: The Art of Machinima. His original intention was to create a detailed reference guide on how to make a machinima movie, and instead the publisher forced him to dumb it down to appeal to the largest demographic possible.
It went from a book for film-makers and 3D animators on how to use a new medium, to a book for everyone on how to use a game to make a movie with "no special skills required."
The only place this technology has any applicability is in the hands of police if they feel they may lose their firearm to a suspect and have it used against them. And you don't hear about that happening to often because police have training.
Your second sentence argues against your first.
Police are unlikely to be disarmed. But my feeble uncle might need the gun to protect himself from an intruder in his home, and if the criminal takes my feeble uncle's weapon, then my feeble uncle will be a lot more feeble. And the criminal will now have a gun that works. But if that gun only works in my feeble uncle's hand, then the perp can't use it. (Unless he severs my uncle's feeble hand and uses that somehow to bypass the mechanism. Like in that book I read.)
(And yes, I understand that adding the potential for a malfunction also endangers my poor little uncle.)
ILL Clinton
I love my feeble uncle.
Re:Labor Unions unappreciated
on
NYT on EA Games
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· Score: 1
I think you're right. I used to be one of those guys complaining that union guys are lazy. Now that I'm in my 30s I realize that there is a role for the unions to play.
I also find it very interesting that the natural tendency in a new industry is for the workers to be treated like dirt.
All the reviews talk about the piece that goes over your thumb that you can use instead of the stylus. Has anyone played with that extensively yet? I haven't seen it yet (except for the photos,) but it sounds to me like it has the potential of causing some serious repetitive stress injuries.
Labor Unions unappreciated
on
NYT on EA Games
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· Score: 4, Interesting
How many times have we heard complaints about labor unions from people who don't realize the important role they continue to play in our society. "Union guys are lazy." "Unionized labor costs too much." etc.
And especially young people who don't have a clue, have no idea that if it wasn't for labor unions, things like 80 hour work weeks and no weekends would be common throughout most industries.
Obviously unions aren't perfect, and like any powerful entity, there are abuses and corruption, but the fact is that for the most part the game industry is not organized and as a result the workers are treated unfairly.
If you look closely you can see that the U.S. has some hot-spots, concentrated over the northeast and the west coast. Which include New York and L.A. respectively.
Every small improv company comes up with an idea that makes one person in the group say, "But wait a minute... we might get in trouble for copyright infringement." and someone else says, "Yeah, but think of all the press we'd get if LUCASFILM came after us!"
The original machine had a base plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in direct line with the pentametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzelvanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbline was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-0-delta type placed in panendermic semiboiloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible tremie pipe to the differential gridlespring on the "up" end of the grammeters.
Capcom isnt shying away from Nintendo. Where did you get that?
Actually, you're right. I was thinking of another company that was known for its exclusive Nintendo titles, Factor 5. Makers of the Rogue Leader series of X-Wing fighter games. Which will not only no longer be exclusive to Nintendo, but, iirc will not even be available for Nintendo at all next time around.
Why have more than one console, if all the games are available on all consoles?
It would seem better for the consumer if we could buy whatever console we want, and play all the games. But if it means that a company like Nintendo will go out of business, then the world would be deprived of games like Wario, et al. That can't be good.
Sega stopped making consoles, but they still make games. I don't really know. I guess I'm just posing a question for people to think about.
And using these posts to promote my upcoming show.:)
Wario Ware and Viewtiful Joe are both games only available on Nintendo. They are both games that are pretty much nothing like any other game you've played.
Yet Nintendo is losing market share, and as a result, developers (like Capcom who developed Viewtiful Joe exclusively for GameCube) are shying away.
It may be better to have a great game like Viewtiful Joe available on other consoles, but then what is left to distinguish one console from the others?
Winning awards is nice, but winning customers is apparently more important.
300 frames is 10 seconds. User draws every 10 or 15 frames. 300 divided by 15 (help me out, I'm an animator not a mathemetician,) that's about 40 drawings? That can become quite time consuming (and boring to an non-animator.)
But here's my favorite part of the article...
"I hope there will be a time when people will be able to use this for their home videos. But at the moment it's not a one click process," said Cohen.
I agree with the idea that higher resolution and realism may not contribute to good game-play without good game design.
That said, as someone who uses game technology for uses other than playing games (ie machinima,) I can say that the real-time lighting effects in Doom 3 are a huge change, and a sort of breakthrough in terms of what's possible.
When making Machinima, we are able to come very close to the techniques of real film-making. But the lighting has always been a limitation. Film-making is all about light. So the fact that we can now position lights in-game in real-time and create shadows, means we are that much closer to real film-making techniques.
Of course, if the past is any indication, we won't actually start to use Doom 3 for Machinima until Doom 4 is released. ; )
According to id, they have a commitment to release on all platforms (including Linux) simultaneously. I'm pretty sure that was the case with Quake 3 Arena.
It's about time Vinge has a new novel coming out. I have had a lot of trouble (and believe me I've tried) finding a science fiction writer that comes close. "A Fire upon the deep" remains my favorite sci-fi novel, and I have been toying with the idea of reading it again.
I've read a lot of good sci-fi writers, but so few are as good at character development AND hard core science fiction writing.
If Vinge didn't spend so much time teaching, he'd probably have time to write more novels.
Anyone have some suggestions of writers who come close to Vinge for great sci-fi? (I've already read most of Gibson, Stephenson, Simmons, Bear, Sagan, Haldeman)
Slashdot Mirror
True!
I guess I'm a poor judge of this stuff since I don't watch any television at all, and if I did, the last thing I would watch is news. I prefer to read my news. And I like getting it from the web so I can pick and choose by headline.
Have you seen the machinima gaming news show, Tra5hTa1k? http://trashtalk.illclan.com/
But seriously, this kind of automated thing baffles me. Even though I'm a machinima director, I'm not sure I would want to watch an animated talking head deliver my news.
In fact we still sometimes use a modified version of Quake 2 called Qfusion which allows us to use Quake 3 assets within the open source Quake 2 game engine. A nice example of this can be seen in a series of shorts we did for SpikeTV called Gamer Gags.
The Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences has announced the 2005, not so annual, Machinima Film Festival. The festival will once again be held at the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York.
Machinima in general has grown in popularity and commercial success since the last festival in 2003 with such recent work as Paul Marino's Half Life 2 music video, "I'm Still Seeing Breen" appearing on MTV2's Video Mods, Rooster Teeth's recent series of shorts for IFC, the Nisha Chronicles for GMD Studios' latest A.R.G. promoting the Audi A3, and The ILL Clan's "Gamer Gags" for SpikeTV.
In all it's been a good year for Machinima, and it's only August.
I admit I generalized a bit. Maybe Syngress is different.
But one thing that's true is that how-to books have to target their audience based on expertise. It can be very annoying to be an expert in a subject looking for a reference guide, and the only thing you can find is a giant how-to book filled with fluff aimed at grandma.
Heh. How many things can we say are "aimed at grandma?"
ILL Clinton
It went from a book for film-makers and 3D animators on how to use a new medium, to a book for everyone on how to use a game to make a movie with "no special skills required."
ILL Clinton Maker of Machinima Movies
Your second sentence argues against your first.
Police are unlikely to be disarmed. But my feeble uncle might need the gun to protect himself from an intruder in his home, and if the criminal takes my feeble uncle's weapon, then my feeble uncle will be a lot more feeble. And the criminal will now have a gun that works. But if that gun only works in my feeble uncle's hand, then the perp can't use it. (Unless he severs my uncle's feeble hand and uses that somehow to bypass the mechanism. Like in that book I read.)
(And yes, I understand that adding the potential for a malfunction also endangers my poor little uncle.)
ILL Clinton
I love my feeble uncle.
I also find it very interesting that the natural tendency in a new industry is for the workers to be treated like dirt.
All the reviews talk about the piece that goes over your thumb that you can use instead of the stylus. Has anyone played with that extensively yet? I haven't seen it yet (except for the photos,) but it sounds to me like it has the potential of causing some serious repetitive stress injuries.
And especially young people who don't have a clue, have no idea that if it wasn't for labor unions, things like 80 hour work weeks and no weekends would be common throughout most industries.
Obviously unions aren't perfect, and like any powerful entity, there are abuses and corruption, but the fact is that for the most part the game industry is not organized and as a result the workers are treated unfairly.
ILL Clinton Machinima Movie Maker
That's similar to how the electoral map looks.
ILL Clinton
Maker of Machinima movies.
Well, they're getting some press alright.
ILL Clinton - Maker of Machinima Movies
Reminds me of the Retro-Encabulator...
The original machine had a base plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in direct line with the pentametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzelvanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbline was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-0-delta type placed in panendermic semiboiloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible tremie pipe to the differential gridlespring on the "up" end of the grammeters.
ILL Clinton
Live Machinima Comedy Performance-August 28th-NYC
Actually, you're right. I was thinking of another company that was known for its exclusive Nintendo titles, Factor 5. Makers of the Rogue Leader series of X-Wing fighter games. Which will not only no longer be exclusive to Nintendo, but, iirc will not even be available for Nintendo at all next time around.
Why have more than one console, if all the games are available on all consoles?
It would seem better for the consumer if we could buy whatever console we want, and play all the games. But if it means that a company like Nintendo will go out of business, then the world would be deprived of games like Wario, et al. That can't be good.
Sega stopped making consoles, but they still make games. I don't really know. I guess I'm just posing a question for people to think about.
And using these posts to promote my upcoming show. :)
ILL Clinton
Live Improvised Machinima-August 28th NYC
Yet Nintendo is losing market share, and as a result, developers (like Capcom who developed Viewtiful Joe exclusively for GameCube) are shying away.
It may be better to have a great game like Viewtiful Joe available on other consoles, but then what is left to distinguish one console from the others?
Winning awards is nice, but winning customers is apparently more important.
ILL Clinton
Live Machinima Performance, August 28th, NYC.
But here's my favorite part of the article...
"I hope there will be a time when people will be able to use this for their home videos. But at the moment it's not a one click process," said Cohen.
Wait a minute! Isn't that patented by Amazon!
ILL Clinton Live Machinima Show, August 28th, NYC.
That's a great little article you wrote. Somebody mod that up for informative, huh?
That said, as someone who uses game technology for uses other than playing games (ie machinima,) I can say that the real-time lighting effects in Doom 3 are a huge change, and a sort of breakthrough in terms of what's possible.
When making Machinima, we are able to come very close to the techniques of real film-making. But the lighting has always been a limitation. Film-making is all about light. So the fact that we can now position lights in-game in real-time and create shadows, means we are that much closer to real film-making techniques.
Of course, if the past is any indication, we won't actually start to use Doom 3 for Machinima until Doom 4 is released. ; )
The ILL Clan - Machinima Pioneers
What about Xbox?
The ILL Clan - Machinima Pioneers
Thanks everyone for the great suggestions. Looks like I've got enough authors in this thread to last me all summer.
ILL Clinton
The ILL Clan - Machinima Pioneers
I've read a lot of good sci-fi writers, but so few are as good at character development AND hard core science fiction writing.
If Vinge didn't spend so much time teaching, he'd probably have time to write more novels.
Anyone have some suggestions of writers who come close to Vinge for great sci-fi? (I've already read most of Gibson, Stephenson, Simmons, Bear, Sagan, Haldeman)
ILL Clinton
The ILL Clan - Machinima Pioneers
Maybe by then I can affford health insurance.