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 –
This week we celebrate Nvidia’s investment in machinima, discuss latest AIs and give you the heads up on some great projects we want to highlight – there are just too many for us to fully review everything we’re seeing that we want to share with you these days! Do check them out, we’d love to hear your thoughts too – links and notes below.
Youtube Version of This Episode
Show Notes & Links
Homage to Nvidia’s Omniverse Machinima app by Pekka Varis, released 14 April 2024 –
Endgame by Peaches Chrenko and Dark Machine Audio, sound track –
JP Ferre’s DCS: Spitfires – Cinematic, a real tribute to those brave souls in WWII –
TheDavedood (Scratby Films) animation for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon 50 years celebration – this one is for the single, Time –
Anomidae’s latest episode of the Half Life supernatural series Interloper –
Fallout inspired videos: JT Music’s Fallout rap, All in With the Fallout –
and Fallout – Dream on (tribute) by Couch Patrol –
Fables of the Foolish by Dreeko –
AI is Genie-us Init?
ElevenLabs has released a dubbing toolset tutorial, making different languages for videos even more accessible – link here
Google DeepMind has announced a new video generation model called Veo, which produces 1080p res videos for over a minute length in a whole range of different cinematic styles – link here
Stability AI has launched Stable Artisan to a wider user group on Discord – ats a tool for media generation and editing – link here
Showrunner by The Simulation, text to episode generator – link here
Winner of the 2nd AI Film Festival at Runway is by Daniel Antebi, called Get Me Out –
Luc Shurgers’ Skibidi Sam, video only on LinkedIn, created using Replikant – link here
Sony backs out of AI training with its catalogue – article here
This week, we cover three outstanding music videos, demonstrating different genres of music and different game engines – a re-imagined Simon and Garfunkel classic, a pop-tacular and a rap. We discuss the perfect match between the lyrics, the game and the images our three selected creators have demonstrated in these shorts. We suggest comparing and contrasting, but really we just mean enjoy them all for what they are.
YouTube Version of this Episode
Show Notes and Links
Portal – the Sound of Science by Harry101UK, released 29 May 2020
Who I Am | Portal Minecraft Animated Music Video [Song by CG5] by Cubical, released 6 May 2020 –
HELLDIVERS 2 RAP by JT Music – To Liberty and Beyond, released 9 March 2024
and here is the link to Harry1010UK’s Meet the Cores 1 mentioned –
This week, we discuss one of the most outstanding presentations of space science, by @EpicSpaceman , called I put 4M Suns in a Blackhole. Made in Blender, we discuss the creative workflow adopted, from zero to hero – and why the @BlenderOfficial Foundation should take note. We make a few suggestions for enhancing the work even more and discuss the primary audiences for this type of conrtent. Quite simply, the narrative style and animation makes hard science relatable!
YouTube Version of this Episode
Show Notes & Links
Film, I Put 4 Million Suns in a Black Hole over New York by Epic Spaceman, released 31 Jan 2024
Who is Epic Spaceman, video explainer and how he made the film here.
Another ending, Draxtor Dupres’ Second Life series supported by Linden Labs, Drax Files: World Makers. Here’s his final report and here’s a link to a livestream he did to celebrate the achievements of the show –
Accolades
Sam Crane’s Hamlet in GTA5 won a Jury prize for best documentary at SXSW 2024, link to news coverage here, and the distribution deal awarded here.
Electro League and Weta’s War is Over has become the first UE5 film to win an Oscar, Best Animated Short –
Congratulations to @ElectroLeagueX and @WetaFXofficial on winning the Oscar for Best Animated Short with "WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko". This is a first for an animated short created in Unreal Engine 5, we couldn't be more proud! https://t.co/bH3yrA23Jf
ConvAI has announced a partnership with Unity for NPCs, and also teamed up with Second Life. Here’s a link to Wagner James Au’s New World Notes blog – and here’s a couple of useful links –
Stability AI has introduced a 3D video generator, information here
RunwayML has partnered with Musixmatch to generate video to lyrics, link to information here
and it has also announced a new lipsync feature for generative audio, currently on early access to its creators programme members
Hume has a demo of a voice-to-voice generator, described as an Empathic Voice Interface – link to sign-up for early access here
and if you need a little overview of how all things generative AI are developing, here’s a nice video summary by Henrik Kniberg –
Inspiration
To celebrate the phenomenal success of Gozilla Minus One at the 2024 Oscars, Nelson Escobar, the VFX creator of the Godzilla model, has released it as a free download for Blender. Link here –
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