News update: interjecting our normal weekly service for a short special – Damien discusses the latest Kitbash contest.
YouTube Version of This Episode
Show Notes & Links
Link to the contest here
A nice video about the contest here –
This month, we have another packed episode, iClone 8 update, Balder’s Gate 3 modding tools, Starfield expansion, projects, projects, projects, Sketchfab, Backrooms, YouTube AI disclosure and more. Check out the ep and be sure to comment too.
YouTube Version of This Eposide
Show Notes & Links
iClone 8 update
Baldur’s Gate 3 modding tools, news item here
Starfield expansion pack –
Documentary machinima: focus on TF2 –
Hollywood is broken: enter machinima? (Andreesson Horowitz seem to have had their eyes and ears closed for a few years!). Check out the article here
Game Sprout’s article about gameplay becoming performance –
Denuvo’s release of Unbotify –
YouTube app update discussion
Nice projects: Runway Gen3 Steampunk –
Metropius deiselpunk –
Mad Max memes –
Kane Pixel’s Backrooms, more ‘found footage’ fun –
Sketchfab and Epic’s Unreal Marketplace merge into FAB
YouTube AI disclosure rules, described here
Biggs Trek’s Forbidden Planet: Children of Krell (which we review in our ep next week) magazine article here
Shameless plug: Phil’s livestream show and Damien’s livestream show
This week, we take a deep dive into a film from one of the original machinima creator studios, Dead on Cue. This comprised the duo Mike Holochwost and Brian Mayberry. The film, Fake Science, had a couple more iterations, including one that allowed it to be played in the game itself, which was Half Life. It was released some 3 years before YouTube, and is another great example of how games could be used to produce artworks. Its wide recognition led to careers in games dev and production for both Mike and Brian, the former working on RoosterTeeth’s RWBY series and the latter on cinematics for games like the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic and Defiance. Brian is still active in the games dev industry and is working on his first game, called Gone Camping. Check out the discussion and memories we share.
YouTube Version of This Episode
Show Notes & Links
Dead on Cue, made in Half Life, was released on 13 Sept 2002 – the original versions can be found on the Internet Archive here.
BuddyDoQ (Brian Mayberry) has posted a YouTube version of the film here –
In this ep, we reflect on the key trends in #machinima we’ve observed during Season 4 of the Completely Machinima podcast. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the year too, so do add comments below.
During the past year, we have reviewed over 22 hours of content, and presented detailed analysis of over 50 films on this channel. As vets of the original community practices (that’s pre YouTube and the M.com/Inc days), one of the great pleasures we take in this podcast is that we get to look at machinima and virtual production across the breadth of genres and engines, by creators from anywhere in the world, and reflect on where its come from, how its evolved and is developing.
This year, we have seen amazing quality films made in popular games such as Half-Life, World of Warcraft, Elden Ring, Star Citizen, Warhammer 40K and Team Fortress 2; have had the pleasure of exploring work made in entirely new games, like BeamNG and Deep Rock Galactic; and others made using engines in their base form such as Unreal, iClone and Source. We’ve also started to see #genAIs become integrated into processes and works. What a year for creatives and creativity!
Our main observation is that we have noted a resurgence of interest in machinima as a terms for the creative form, and we feel creators are at long last focussing on creative practices rather than their channel return. Of course its great when these things collide but it was never what machinima was about originally: it was the passion for great storytelling, using novel processes to achieve a desired outcome and to share that with a community of equally passionate others. Other observations are why we are not seeing as many traditional short stories as we used to…
We hope you enjoy this ep as much as we have making it.
YouTube Version of This Episode
Show Notes & Links
Key trends observed –
Our reviews, mentioned during discussion in order –
And, check out the bonus episode of our very own RickyAI –
This week we review two films and again attempt to work with a rather impressive AI genie who covers things we just could not… The first film selected is a Deep Rock Galactic music video machinima called We All Lift Together, using the Futuna theme song Warframe, made by Szczebrzeszyniarz Brzeczyszczyczmoszyski (yep, that’s why we needed a genie). The second is a stunning visualisation of Helsreach made in Warhammer 40K by Richard Boylan, using a brilliant reading of Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s novel by Jonathan Keeble. Whilst the graphic style presented us with some challenges, which we discuss at length, the quality of this is outstanding.
YouTube Version of This Episode
Show Notes & Links
Deep Rock Galactic – We All Lift Together by Szczebrzeszyniarz Brzeczyszczyczmoszyski, released 17 Feb 2021 –
This is the Warframe song, put out over 6 years ago
Helsreach Part 2 – A Warhammer 40K Story by Richard Boylan, released 29 March 2017 –
Aaron Dembski-Bowden interview, on writing about Warhammer –
A Reddit thread discussion AMA with Aaron Dembski-Bowden here
Black Library audio books here
Recent Comments