Blog - Page 5 of 52 - Completely Machinima

S4 E143 We Were Wanderers (Aug 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes August 21, 2024 Leave a reply

A Star Citizen extravaganza: this week, we discuss a brilliant re-creation of Erik Wernquist’s epic short, Wanderers, released by one of its creators Mr Hasgaha. Whilst this is a faithful scene-by-scene depiction of the original, its actually so much more than that too. We comment once again on the incredible qualities of the game, and how the fact it is an open world reflects the original inspiration for Wernquist’s film: the artwork of Chesley Bonestell, whose paintings were partly the reason that NASA exists today. The machinima also pays homage to Carl Sagan in the only way it can, to his words in the iconic book Pale Blue Dot. If you have only particles of space nerd in you, we think you’ll absolutely love this week’s film, certainly we all do.

YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

We Were Wanderers by Mr Hasgaha, released 21 May 2024

Wanderers – a short film by Erik Wernquist (official version), by Erik Wernquist – digital artist

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), Random House – http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/boo…).

Erik Wernquist’s website, https://erikwernquist.com/work

Chesley Bonestell, film trailer –

Space Tomato’s (voice actor) channel, https://www.youtube.com/@SpaceTomato

S4 E142 Half Life: OVERWORLD (Aug 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes August 14, 2024 Leave a reply

This week’s selection is a stunning cinematic imaginary by Unknown Dino, focussing on the next version of Half Life (soon to be released… er, well, possibly in the next 10 years or so?). There is a lot of craft in this film, called HL: Overworld and made in Blender, which has taken its inspiration both from the HL Reddit community and the HL2 Artbook ‘Raising The Bar’. We also talk about the positioning of the new world portrayed as being the next obvious logical step in the story arc for Half Life – HL1 being a portal through which aliens jump to Earth, HL2 being a kind of survival against the odds, Alyx being the prequel, and HL3 being the fight back taken to those hateful Combine… yeah, we wish!

YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

E142 Half Life: OVERWORLD by Unknown Dino, released 27 May 2024 –

Half-Life 2 Raising The Bar, link to pdf of artbook (feature image)

S4 E141 Machinima News Omnibus (Aug 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes August 7, 2024 Leave a reply

Another packed episode of news items we found for machinima creators everywhere. We take a look at some games news including several that have released music albums recently and discuss why we think that is. We go through some of the latest AI matters, including Vimeo’s new AI content guidelines. We found one of the best Unreal master classes we ever seen, more like a work of art than a ‘how to’, but since its by the amazing Luis Andrade, we’d expect nothing less. We also found some partciularly juicy tidbits we think you’ll enjoy.

YouTube Version of This Episode

https://youtu.be/iQgqKU3O1eM

Show Notes & Links

Games, games, games…

PLEASE, if anyone has any great WoW machinima, share them with us!!! We are desperate to celebrate WoW achieving 20 years, but we just can’t find anything worth sharing…

Game developers releasing music albums, Runescape, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Tekken 8, Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and Deep Rock Galactic… a sideswipe at machinima, another way to make money from content creators or a quick way to get their IP onto YouTube?

Game destruction and consumer rights… what are the unintended consequences of Accursed Farms and others attempts to clear up this mess on machinima creators? See video discussion here –

No Man’s Sky Worlds, update trailer –

Flight Simulator cities update –

AI news

Epic AI gymnastics –

These new AI gymnasts are incredible! pic.twitter.com/YJuU151C29
— Daniel Feldman 🟥 (@d_feldman) June 29, 2024

ReplAI Film Festival challenges, link here

Runway Gen-3 out, link here

ElevenLabs voice cleaner, link here

Vimeo’s AI policy, link here

Suno’s creator contest results, and the winner is… Maybe!

Congratulations to all 500 winners of Vol. 1 of the #SummerofSuno challenge, where we awarded a total of $100,000 from the $1 million prize pool we’ll be giving away this year!

1st place winning $10,000 went to Jayden @around_once_ (https://t.co/OGyd1syIpm) for his hit song,… pic.twitter.com/a3QFpPNjPx
— Suno (@suno_ai_) July 12, 2024

Unreal!

Luis Andrade’s stunning ‘how to‘ video for the Firefly music video, a work of art as well as a tutorial –

Andy Davis released 5 sets of dynamic lenses now available on the Unreal Marketplace. No blueprints, only lens objects that apply to any CineCamera. When pulled from focusMin to INF, they distort dynamically. Sourced from VFX assets to work interactively within game engine, link here. This is an example of what they do, Vimeo link here

Tidbits

Lip sync tutorial for ComfUI –

Making the case for alternative content creator distribution channels, comments by Harmony Korine here

Video game actors are officially on strike (SAG AFTRA)… but those working on GTA6 are not permitted to, link here

S4 E140 This is one of the craziest videos I have ever made… (GTA5) (Aug 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 31, 2024 Leave a reply

Crazy, it is certainly that – and more. If you enjoy slasher horror, we think you’ll love this – and its definitely not for U18s! The film is by Toaster and is a music video for Code Mistake, a deathcore metal spectacular by CORPSE and Bring Me the Horizon. We examine Toaster’s GTA5 machinima, reflect on its anime qualities, and conclude its significantly better than the official music video: Ricky discusses it in the context of Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man, but Phil, Tracy & Damien feel the inspiration is much closer to home.

YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

This is one of the craziest videos I have ever made in my life (gta5 machinima) by Toaster, released 5 July –

Official video directed and animated by Tristan Zammit, and released 8 July 2023 –

Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man –

S4 E139 Star Citizen | Sims 4: Wonderful World | Plumbob Princess (July 2024

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 24, 2024 1 Comment

This week we cover two shorts, a love letter to Star Citizen and and an everyman’s fair-ytale of the life of a princess. First up, @neisannnn‘s ‘What a Wonderful World’, a love letter to Star Citizen, where we focus on its surreal nature, use of backwards music, and ability to capture the game’s vast universe. Our second film is ‘Plumbob Princess’ by @lReMi07l – one of the all time best machinimas we’ve seen in Sims 4. We discuss the visual quality and storytelling of machinima videos for The Sims 4 and Star Citizen, highlighting the creative use of animation, music, and language. Check out the films, info below.

YouTube Version of This Episode