S6 E241 Machinima News Omnibus (Sept 2026)
In this news episode, Tracy Harwood and Damien Valentine explore three very different developments shaping machinima and virtual storytelling.
Tracy introduces DramaMancer, an experimental AI-powered storytelling platform developed through Midjourney’s Storytelling Lab. Rather than generating an entire story, DramaMancer combines an author’s characters, scenes and narrative framework with natural-language player input. Tracy considers whether this represents genuine player agency or merely a more sophisticated illusion of choice—and asks where authorship lies when stories are co-created by the writer, player and AI.
Damien responds by considering what happens when players push an AI-generated narrative so far from its intended path that the story can no longer progress, recalling the infamous research-order bug in X-COM: Terror from the Deep.
The discussion then turns to a recent panel featuring pioneers of Second Life machinima. Tracy reflects on how early creators transformed a social virtual world into a collectively maintained filmmaking environment through experimentation, shared knowledge and community initiatives such as Machinima Mondays. She contrasts this socially driven model of innovation with DramaMancer’s attempt to lower creative barriers through automation.
Finally, Damien discusses Reallusion’s new iClone RTX renderer, which promises ray-traced rendering inside iClone without exporting projects to NVIDIA Omniverse. He also explains his practical approach to facial performance capture with AccuFACE, including why subtle expressions, head movements and accurately performed dialogue can make such a dramatic difference to animated characters.
Audio Only Version of this Episode
YouTube Version of this Episode
Show Notes & Links
Dramamancer case study here, available on Storytelling Lab at Midjourney.
Q&A recorded at Silver City on 25 July 2026. The featured pioneers are Phaylen Fairchild, Chantal Harvey, Toxic Menges, Petlove Petshop and Saffia Widdershins –
Reallusion at SIGGRAPH 2026: with HP and NVIDIA RTX – Reallusion Magazine
RTX Render Open Beta Begins : Path-Traced Quality Inside Character Creator 5 and iClone 8
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