Completely Machinima

Completely Machinima History with Ben Grussi: Quake I Machinima

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 24, 2022 Leave a reply

In this episode, Ben reminds us where the story of machinima originated in those early Quake movies which have become classic game-based films.  He talks us through the most notable contributions by the pioneers using the Quake 1 engine.  Tune in next month when Ben concludes the history of Quake with reviews of notables in Quake 2 and 3.  You can find links to the films on our blog and some in our YouTube playlist for History of Machinima.



YouTube Version of Episode

Show Notes & Links

Ben reviews classic Quake 1 films from the machinima archives –

0.48 Diary of a Camper by The Rangers, released 26 October 1996

2.00 Torn Apart series by The Rangers, first released 6 November 1996

2.28 Apartment Huntin’ by The ILL Clan, released 17 May 1998

3.23 Eschaton: Darkness Twilight by Strange Company, released 20 January 1998 (by Walking Wounded)

Hugh Hancock, Strange Company

4.30 Blahbalicious by Avatar & Wendigo, released 9 December 1997

5.40 Devil’s Covenant by Clan Phantasm, released 2 August 1998

6.59 Operation Bayshield by Clan Undead, released 24 January 1997

8.02 Zerstorer by Nihilism Unlimited, released 27 September 1997

9.06 Seal of Nehahra by Nehahra Team, released 6 August 2000

9.46 Scourge Done Slick by Quake Done Quick Team, released 25 July 1998

Completely Machinima Interview: John Gaeta, The Matrix

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 17, 2022 4 Comments

In this episode, Tracy talks to John Gaeta about his interests in machinima and real time filmmaking, The Matrix Awakens Experience, the influence of the bullet time shot, building the metaverse, future of storytelling in immersive environments, the potential of NFTs and his advice for indie creators.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

John Gaeta on IMDb

screencap: Matrix Resurrections (l-r Donald Mustard, Kim Libreri, John Gaeta, Keanu Reeves)

Pioneers in Machinima, Prologue by Kim Libreri, CTO Epic Games

SIGGRAPH 2000

The Matrix Awakens Experience video (UE5)

bullet time

UE5 Nanite

News coverage of Disney’s AR patent application

3D Game-Based Filmmaking: Art of Machinima (book published 2004) by Paul Marino

Time Stamps and Themes

3.32 Backstory to Matrix Awakens Experience

10.01 Game vs Experience

12.00 World building The Matrix

18.11 Why PS5 and Xbox X/S?

21.36 Bullet time – again!

26.04 Awakens as a time capsule – remaking the virtual Neo

29.03 Multi-modal storytelling is the future

33.06 Storytelling and AI

37.00 Real time vs cinema – a cross-over moment

39.39 Scalable metaverses, AR and AI – reflecting on Disney’s recent announcements

49.27 The space between bones and spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey – vis Paul Marino’s 2004 Art of Machinima book

52.10 The role of Nvidia’s Omniverse platform

54.46 NFTs and open markets

1.03.00 Advice to machinima and real-time creators: passion and knowledge!

1.08.00: Red or Blue?

Credits

Producer/Editor: Ricky Grove

Music credits: frankum’s Nebua Techno House. freesound.org Creative Commons

Completely Machinima S2 Ep 31 Films (February 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 10, 2022 Leave a reply

Ricky, Tracy, Phil and Damien present a mixed bag of machinima delights made in GTA5, Matrix Awakens Experience, Knights of the Old Republic and using Reallusion’s Character Creator, Unreal 5 and, surprisingly, Real Life!  The episode poses an important question to listeners: what do YOU think about adaptations using film audio? Get in touch and let the team know! 



YouTube Version of Episode

Show Notes & Links

Time stamps and film links here –

1:17 Shino and the Witch | Animal Crossing Short Film by Evil Imp, released 24 Dec 2021

10:32 GTA5 vs The Matrix Awakens (RAGE vs Unreal Engine 5) by ENXGMA, released 16 Dec 2021

16:31 Malak: An Old Republic Story | Star Wars Short Film by Unreal Cinema, released 24 Dec 2021

23:28 First Day – A Star Wars short film made with Unreal Engine 5 by AFK – The Webseries, released 16 Dec 2021

33:24 Realistic Environments | RealityCapture + Unreal Engine 4 (Dimension Studio) by Capturing Reality, released 19 May 2020

45:39 Terminator 2 (GTA 5 film) 2022 part 1 by Kramers Media, released 13 Jan 2022

57:51 Ricky’s question to audience: What do you think about adaptations using film audio soundtracks?

58:22 Red Dead Redemption 2 Supercut by Viva La Dirt League, released 6 Mar 2020

Credits:
Producer/Editor: Ricky Grove
Music: Octopussy by Juanitos. Creative Commons. Freemusicarchive.org

Completely Machinima S2 Ep 30 News & Discussion (February 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 3, 2022 Leave a reply

In this episode, Tracy, Ricky, Phil and Damien cover the relevance of Nvidia’s special address at CES for machinima creators, Adobe’s Project Shasta, Kerbal Space Programme, the uptake in VR kit over the Christmas period, growth in machinima, NFTs, Philip Rosedale’s return to the Second Life fold, the nail in RoosterTeeth’s RVB saga, Minecraft’s and Rockstar’s astonishing achievements, Ben Grussi’s history episodes and discuss two great questions posed by our followers: what’s the difference between machinima and animation and what’s the advice for adapting prose to visual media formats.



YouTube version of podcast

Show Links

1:10 Nvidia’s special address at CES, points relevant for machinima creators eg., Omniverse, AI

12:55 RDR2 images in the news!

13:40 Austin Film Festival

14:24 Adobe Project Shasta for audio recording

14:56 Kerbal Space Programme 2 impending launch

Kerbal Space Programme 2 screencap

16:25 Machinima growth observations

17:28 VR growth observations

19:46 NFTs observations – Peter Molyneux and John Gaeta

23:57 Philip Rosedale and the future of Second Life for creators

40:30 Halo Xbox 360 multiplayer servers close – the end of the story for Rooster Teeth’s RVB series?

42:50 Ben Grussi’s history of machinima episodes of the Completely Machinima podcast

44:34 Matthew Loris/Zeke: what are the differences between machinima and animation discussion; Completely Machinima interview with Mr Anymation, Tom Jantol

1:00:48 Rockstar’s lawsuit against a modding group

1:02:21 Minecraft’s astonishing video reach

1:03:43 Pandora’s 3d Films: adapting prose to visual media formats preliminary comments

Completely Machinima History with Ben Grussi (January)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes January 27, 2022 2 Comments

Ben reviews some of the major happenings during the month of January in the early days of machinima. Starting with 1997 there’s Operation Bay-Shield. 1998 has the First Quake 2 movie – The Mad Bomber. Rematic, a machinima tool by Anthony Bailey is released in 1999. Also in this year Phil Rice released his notable film, Father Frags Best – a machinima classic. 2000 sees Machinima.com founded and Quad God film was released along with several other notable films. 2002 saw the Reel-Time Challenge contest along with Psyk’s Popcorn Jungle retiring (a big machinima review site). 2003 Anachronox the Movie Part 1 was released. 2004 Red vs Blue second season launched. In 2005 the first noveletta about machinima was written by Mike Hoefflinger called Moving Pictures. In 2006, Hugh Hancock, founder of Machinima.com stepped away from the site to focus on his filmmaking.



youtube version of podcast

Operation Bay-shield (1997) by WendCA

Eschaton: Darkness Twilight (1998) by Strange Company

First Quake 2 Movie: The Mad Bomber (1998)

Rematic (1999) tool created by Anthony Bailey (Quake Done Quick Team). The tool enabled reshoots of existing Quake (1) demos from new perspectives

Father Frags Best (1999) by Phil Rice aka ZS Overman

Quad God (2000) by Tritin Films

A Warrior’s Life (2000) by Donnovan

Ozymandias (2000) by Strange Company

Anachronox: The Movie Part 1 (2003) by Jake Hughes

Rebel Vs Thug (2003) by Ken “3DFilmmaker” Thain – a commercial project with Public Enemy’s Chuck D side project

The Gamer’s Benchmark (2003) by Futuremark released a teaser movies for 3DMark03 – the link is to the full movie after release

Bang the Machine: Computer Gaming Art and Artifacts (17 Jan to 4 April 2004) and The Game Scenes exhibition was created by Stanford Humanities Laboratory and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University presented on ‘the pervasive influence of computer game culture’, curated by Galen Davis and Henry Lowood.

Lenny and Larry Lumberjack (2004) by The ILL Clan – a video of excerpts from their premiere performance of On The Campaign Trail at Void in New York City

“Moving Pictures” (2005), a novelette by Mike Hoefflinger, published by Packet Switched Press – the novel is about a group of people who start their own machinima production with the desire to make it to the big time!

I Surrender (2005) by Tristan Pope is mentioned on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft main website page

The Los Angeles Machinima Collective (LAMC) announces their first machinima production William Shakespear’s Mechbeth – the film was never produced!  Ricky was here?!

Ricky Was Here!

Epic Games’ winners of the Grand Finals of the Make Something Unreal Contest (MSUC) for the Non-Interactive Movie Category 2005 –

– The Journey, 1st Place ($25,000)

– Bot, 2nd Place ($15,000)

– Sparked Memory, 3rd Place ($5,000)

– Scrap, 4th Place ($3,000)

– Damnation, 5th Place ($1,500)

Adventures in Dating, first episode (PG13 series) entitled Frustration (2005) by Decorgal