Machinima (S5E4)

[Aq]

In Season 5 Episode 4 we talked about machinima, the art of making animated films using 3D game engine technology. Is this going to overturn the cinema? Will the next big film hero be John Carmack, not John Cusack? Have you ever made an animated film?

[X|Rolando]

It probably isn't going to overturn Hollywood-level cinema since I doubt that Spielberg needs animations made by anyone but his 100-monkey-strong 3d-animation army. It is great however for amateurs since most of the stuff that you need can be found within the game. Just add some audio, an intro and then cut that bitch up!

Speaking of bitches, Bloodspell (while I haven't watched the whole of it) seems like a decent movie script and voice acting wise, but my god its really fucking ugly They must have actually started filming the thing 3 years ago because what today's engines support (facial animations, characters that don't look like they're cut out of wood and groovy effects) could really make an idea like Bloodspell shine.

[Allix]

Ive have no idea weather its going to change tinsel town, it could do well as animation for the masses , who do not care so much about creating something completely different.
Games that use the same engine do look similar , I admit its been a while since i have played recent games but I do remember seeing doom, hertic, hexen and so on , although the artwork was different , there was still a feel about it that i knew it was basically doom with different art.

I understand that nowdays game engines have a lot more detail, weather changing art will make them distinguishably from each another using the same engine.

Because with Blender, Softimage|XSI, Cinema 4D, 3ds Max, Maya and the like, its possible to make something completely different in all aspects. The user has complete control.

It would be interesting to see several films made with the same modern engine.

Non-animated films on the other hand are very open to absolutely anything.

[firefly2442]

Unfortunately, I can see these game publishers/developers getting mad about people using their game engine.

[Allix]

Unfortunately, I can see these game publishers/developers getting mad about people using their game engine.

You cannot do that with the latest game engines as there are licensed, with older ones that are released free , you can do what you want however there are old and with that you get older technology etc ...

[port7]

There is also a large Machinima community in the various Virtual Worlds such as Second Life, I was an extra in a commercial promo for a company.

Check out t Susi Spicoli's stuff which is quite good, www.susi-machinima.com

[mrben]

If you've not seen it, you need to see the South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" which is, basically, machinima. And it's hilarious.

[samgee]

When Red vs. Blue first appeared I expected that kind of stuff to pop up all over the Internet in no time. It seems I was mistaken (or maybe I missed it). It's nice to see people are still doing that.

The South Park episode is hilarious indeed. Btw, they also did one with The Brown Note a few seasons back.

[Nightwish]

Unfortunately, I can see these game publishers/developers getting mad about people using their game engine.

Their engine? So what? Nikon doesn't get a cut of my pictures if I sell them.
What they get mad about is about creating a derivative of their work in models, textures and sounds. It's shitty, it should be legal, but it isn't. The folks who did what's-its-name on Halo had an agreement with Bungie so they were able to profit from it.
It's a great concept, anyway. Of course the EAs and Valves and Blizzards want a cut, their treatment of IP is is the same as Disney's.
We can hope that this, at least, gives rise to a bunch of people who release assets with free licenses so they can be used with Machinima and Games.

[mrben]

Unfortunately, I can see these game publishers/developers getting mad about people using their game engine.

Their engine? So what? Nikon doesn't get a cut of my pictures if I sell them.
What they get mad about is about creating a derivative of their work in models, textures and sounds. It's shitty, it should be legal, but it isn't. The folks who did what's-its-name on Halo had an agreement with Bungie so they were able to profit from it.
It's a great concept, anyway. Of course the EAs and Valves and Blizzards want a cut, their treatment of IP is is the same as Disney's.
We can hope that this, at least, gives rise to a bunch of people who release assets with free licenses so they can be used with Machinima and Games.

FWIW, I believe that this is one of the things that Linden Labs got very right - allowing you to create your own IP within their system.

[No']

Since the Machinima concept looks very interesing, I think that it's "only" a media. There's much more than just characters generated by a game engine, if you want this technique to be _really_ successful.

The French actor Jean Gabin once said:

If you want a great movie, You need 3 things.
* A great story
* A great story
* A great story

As long as the stories told by the animations are interesting, entertaining, funny, deep, fascinating... this will work.

[Yuioup]

Somebody on the show (I've forgotten whom) didn't know where the term "Machinima" came from, and that it was some kind of anime Japanese term.

Well, Wikipedia sums it up on the first line:

Machinima (pronounced IPA: /məˈʃiːnəmə/ or /məˈʃɪnəmə/), a portmanteau of machine cinema,[1]

So: Machinima = Machine + Cinema.

Y

[Aq]

The French actor Jean Gabin once said:

If you want a great movie, You need 3 things.
* A great story
* A great story
* A great story

As long as the stories told by the animations are interesting, entertaining, funny, deep, fascinating... this will work.

This is the flaw we have, in the free software community; we have great hackers, we have a few great artists, and we have no great screenwriters. This, to my mind, is why Elephant's Dream was a bit weird and so on; the Blender team have proved that they have the technical prowess to pretty much match whatever else is out there in the cinemas, but matching Disney/Pixar's story-writing capabilities is another issue again...

[Allix]

but matching Disney/Pixar's story-writing capabilities is another issue again...

why is the aim in your eyes to match them? why not something different...
To look at it another way, in Cinema with actors , foreign, independent/arthouse and so on do not try and imitate tinsel town.
Elephant Dream whatever your opinions of it, the fact is it was just a demo, to show the capabilities of the tool.

According to wikipedia blender has been used in commerical productions.
If what your looking for is animation that matches commerical animation and for free, there is less chance its going to happen.
On video even since the creative commons licences, there is very little films that have a well thought out script.

The ones i have seen include cactuses
starwreck
Boy who Never slept
nobody needs to know
The good girl

There are initiatives to create open source films like A swarm of Angles
stray cinema

The more widely the tools become we could well see a insurgence of free films, its only just started.

[mrben]

One that looked interesting was Plumiferos a film from Argentina that looks quite Pixar-ish.