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Projects Update (Oct 2022)

Tracy Harwood Blog October 10, 2022 1 Comment

This week’s Projects Update on machinima, virtual production and content creation:

The Crow

One of the most interesting creative projects we’ve seen so far using MidJourney, a creative AI generator is the The Crow (by Glenn Marshall Neural Art). Here the generator has been used to recreate a version of the ballet performance portrayed in the short film, Painted (by Duncan McDowall and Dorotea Saykaly). Stunning to say the least and we recommend you play it at least once side-by-side against the original performance too for added insight.

We’re so impressed with the potential of AI generators, whether that’s DALL-E, MidJourney, Stable Diffusion or any of the others that are now emerging, that we’re going to dedicate a special episode of the podcast to the subject next month, so watch out for that!

Jim Henson Company

Jim Henson Company is using real-time animation on their new show, Earth to Ned. Characters are created with Unreal (its the AI in the background) but JHC has been so impressed with the workflow and no post production requirement that it is looking to use the virtual production method more. What’s interesting is the level of feedback in the process that guests experience – they are not aware of the puppeteering in the background, just the virtual actor on the screen, performing naturalistically in real-time! We’ve not seen much of this kind of machinima before although actually Hugh Hancock did some very early work on this and of course Rooster Teeth have done live performances using similar techniques. We can certainly expect to see a lot more of it, particularly for interactive theatre, VR and AR.

Half Life 3

Half Life 3 was never going to be like the originals? This article on Tech Radar is interesting: the author (Phil Iwanuik) contends the Half Life franchise remakes would never be like the originals because the extreme attention to the world of HL created so much pressure the Valve team could never live up to it. We’re not sure about that, but it’s an interesting idea.

Dune: Awakening

A very impressive MMO has launched using the Dune world, currently in beta, Dune: Awakening. Here’s the trailer – we’re looking forward to seeing machinima made with this –

Dungeons & Dragons?

What does Dungeons and Dragons, typically a game played around a table, have to do with machinima? There’s been a rise in popularity of web based shows where people play the game and act out scenes. This group (Corridor Crew) is using Unreal Engine 5 for virtual production (not quite The Mandalorian but sort of similar) to put their actors, real-time, into the environments of their adventure. Check it out here –

S3 Ep 47 ‘How I learned Unity without following Tutorials’ by Mark Brown

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes October 5, 2022 1 Comment

This week, we share feedback on our reviews from September’s selection and discuss a video about learning production techniques, selected by Phil: ‘How I learned Unity without following tutorials’ by Mark Brown.

Youtube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

0:47 Ricky highlights some of the news items we’re released in a series of blogs this month, being released on Mondays, starting with out Tech Update on 3 Oct, then Projects Update on 10 Oct, Fests & Contests Update on 17 Oct and finally a Report on Creative AI Generators on 24 Oct. You can find these on https://CompletelyMachinima.com/Blog

2:19 Feedback on previous episodes – see original episode on our website relating to Prazinburk Ridge, The Inquisitor and person2184 and Facing the Wolf

6:51 How I learned Unity without following tutorials (Developing 1) by Mark Brown on his Game Maker’s Toolkit channel, released 28 September 2021 – discussion, learning by rote vs learning concepts, different learning styles and role of prototyping in machinima and virtual production.

Q: What are your favourite tutorials on machinima making? Get in touch and let us know on our email or other channels

Tech Update (Oct 2022)

Tracy Harwood Blog October 3, 2022 2 Comments

This week’s Tech Update picks for machinima, virtual production and 3D content producers:

Nvidia RTX4080

Nvidia is launching two RTX 4080 graphics cards in November… you know what they say, you wait ages for a bus and then two come at once: the RTX 4080 12GB and RTX 4080 16GB. Here’s the story on PC Gamer‘s website. You can also catch up on all latest Nvidia’s announcements made in Jensen Huang’s (CEO) keyote at GTC in September in this video and on their blog here.

Ricky comments: Of course it was only a matter of time before NVidia announced the 40x series of RTX graphics cards. Two models have been announced so far, the 4080 and the 4090, with the 30x series sticking around for the lower price range. My guess is so they can focus their resources on producing more of just two high end cards instead of a whole range. Although given the prices of these new cards ($800+), I think I’ll be sticking with my 3070 for the time being.

UE 5.1.0

Unreal Engine have teased the new features coming to V5.1.0 – see the features documentation on their website here. Onsetfacilities.com has produced a nice overview – link here – and a nice explainer by JSFilmz here –

Cine Tracer

Check out the new Actor Animation system in Cine Tracer v0.7.6. This update gives the Actors a set of talking animations that can be used as an alternative to the Posing system.

Follow the socials on Instagram and download Cine Tracer on Steam

Sketchfab

Sketchfab is doing a weekly listing of top cultural heritage and history models – these are actually pretty amazing and of course downloadable (for a fee)!

DALL-E

DALL-E, one of the creative AI generators that is all the buzz at the moment, has developed a new feature called Outpainting which can help users extend an image beyond its original borders by adding visual elements in the same style, or taking a story in new directions. This could be great for background shots in virtual productions.

Second Life

Second Life have launched a puppetry project for their avatars. As Wagner James Au reports in his regular blog on all things metaverse and Second Life in particular, this is using a webcam and mocap. Check out Au’s review of it here and go directly to Second Life here to read their post about it and follow their channel on YouTube for latest updates and how-tos here.

Eleven Labs

Eleven Labs have launched Voice Conversion. This lets you transform one person’s voice into another’s. It uses a process called voice cloning to encode the target voice – ie, the voice we convert to – to generate the same message spoken in a way which matches the target speaker’s identity but preserves the original intonation. What’s interesting about this is the filmmaking potential but of course there are very clearly IP interests that have to be considered here – it has potential for machinima application but beware the guidelines on using it. Importantly, note that it is primarily going to be used as part of an identity-preserving automatic dubbing tool which Eleven is launching in 2023. More here on this and the guidlines on using Voice Conversion.

S2 Ep 46: Film Review – Facing the Wolf

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes September 15, 2022 Leave a reply

In this episode, we focus our discussion on Facing the Wolf, a series of films by Iain Douglas and Mark Coverdale, submitted to the Milan Machinima Film Festival 2022. The film presents a series of provocative ideas which provoke Ricky, Phil, Tracy and Damien to have a deep discussion on the role of information, ambiguity and audience investment. What are your thoughts on the film series?

YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

Facing the Wolf, by Iain Douglas and Mark Coverdale, released 2021

Poem, Coverdale – https://www.artschoolmodpoet.com/facing-the-wolf-poems

A trilogy of poetic machinima –

Facing the Wolf: i, Douglas and Coverdale, released 16 July 2021

Facing the Wolf: ii, Douglas and Coverdale, released 16 July 2021

Facing the Wolf: iii, Douglas and Coverdale, released 16 July 2021

1:35 Interview with Matteo Bittanti, Milan Machinima Film Festival

5:00 Ricky poses an interesting question: is machinima an animation style or a form of art that ideas can dominate, as opposed to feelings?

27:56 Discussion: for idea films, do you have to have more information than the film provides to appreciate the work? What is the role of ambiguity in filmmaking? How much time should audience invest in understanding a film?

Useful lnks

Luis Bunuel’s An Andalusian Dog (1929)

Bertolt Brecht’s alienation effect

Completely Machinima S2 Ep 45 Films (September 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes September 8, 2022 1 Comment

In this episode, Ricky, Tracy, Phil and Damien review some of the best short movies we’ve seen made using machinima and virtual production techniques yet! Not all are hot off the press, but certainly films like The Lord Inquisitor – Prologue allude to why Unreal Engine has become such a key tool for creators today, as beautifully exemplified in extraordinary films we review this week, The Cloud Racer and Prazinburk Ridge. Person2184, made in Unreal Tournament 2004, was an altogether different approach to experiencing real-time content – originally intended to be experienced in-game and is an early example of the promise of what VR may yet become in future.

YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

0:10 Ricky introduces our new episode format – feedback welcome on the plans!

0:59 The Cloud Racer by Impossible Objects (UE5), released 15 August 2022 and Short of the Week, curated review by Jason Sondhi, released 10 August 2022

21:16 The Lord Inquisitor – Prologue, by Warpgazer Animations (released 28 August 2016). See also this promotional video released in 2013, when it had already been in production for 2 years!

39:15 Person2184 (UT2004 machinima), by Friedrich Kirschner released 4 April 2008 (and the version we’re linking to uploaded by mdvhimself on 17 August 2022) and hear more about The Journey in our Unreal history episode by Ben Grussi, recently released. Addendum: Friedrich has confirmed the work was released in 2005 and premiered at the Machinima Film Festival that year.

This image is from the Machinima Europe Festival 2007, showing Friedrich Kirschner front left (striped jumper) among other machinima luminaries including Hugh Hancock (mid back), Paul Marino (right front), Alex Chan (next to Friedrich) and Tracy (centre front).

Friedrich Kirschner at Machinima Festival Europe 2007

59:09 Prazinburk Ridge by Yes, Commissioner? aka Martin Bell, Unreal Engine 4 (released 27 June 2022) and Steven Bell’s book about the life of the character portrayed in the film, Dougie Clark, https://www.pitchpublishing.co.uk/shop/man-all-talents