Heir to the Empire

S4 E127 May the Force: A Tribute (May 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes May 2, 2024 Leave a reply

This week we celebrate Star Wars with a fabulous short portraying the infamous AT-AT death walkers as ‘nature-creatures’ in their natural habitat – this is a beautifully observed work, made in Unreal Engine by Jeremy Cummins.  Cummins is an experienced character creator, now working for Tippett Studio, with an impressive list of credits including Ant-Man and the Wasp, Spider-Man and Avengers, among others.  We discuss the transition pros are making in the development of an Unreal pipeline and the impact this has on the creative machinima community.  #maythe4thbewithyou



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

Star Wars AT-AT Walkers in Unreal Engine by Jeremy Cummins, released 9 April 2024, link here –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAlaIjCE1Ek

Video about the Tippett Studios take-over here –

Damien’s Heir to the Empire Star Wars adaptation series ep celebrating 2024 May 4th –

Pie in the Sky, by Jeremy Cummins –

Projects Update – Not [ALL] Machinima (July 2023)

Tracy Harwood Blog July 24, 2023 Leave a reply

Our review of inspirational projects often includes work which is NOT machinima, and this week we have picked out a couple that we’re sure our followers will enjoy too… of course, interspersed with examples of great machinima projects. Not least, this includes the podcast’s Damien’s (aka Darth Angelus) Star Wars fan series, a stalwart of the Second Life machinima creator community, Tutsy NAvArAthnA, whom Tracy interviewed a couple of years back here, and the only stereoscopic machinima we’ve actually seen!

The Classics: from Star Trek to Star Wars

Firstly, a parody of the original Star Trek series, this is the latest episode of Mark Largent’s long-running Stalled Trek project. The ep is called The City of the Edge of Foreclosure (released on YT on 25 April). It is based on Harlan Ellison’s epic episode called The City on the Edge of Forever, which originally aired in 1969 should you want to look it up on IMdB. As Largent says in those importal words ‘You cannot have your fate, and Edith too’!

Damien’s Star Wars series, Heir to the Empire, is featured on SFW Magazine’s website here. The article explains Damien’s process for animating the original novel by Timothy Zahn. You can watch the whole series on his channel, or the latest episode here –

and plus, given the recent pap interest in Damien, we can confirm that he is NOT married, or at least, he’s never declared that status to us!

Stop Mo

This is a great fun short stop-mo by Winga (released 4 May). Yes its an ad for an AI-using mobile phone image tracking stabilizer called Insta360, but definitely worth a view. The back end of the vid is an explainer of the kit and how Winga shot the film, also worth a view –

The REAL Metaverse

In this short, Mon Metaverse (released 16 Jan 2022), well-known Second Life creator and documentarian Tutsy NAvArAthna, discusses his observations on the metaverse, the promise of Second Life and the sinister ways in which some are turning the ‘digital screw’ by orchestrating our online experiences. The film features the creative work on dozens of creators (see the film credits for details). There’s an advisory warning with this but, then again, that’s the point being made (its also our featured image for this post). With Second Life having recently celebrated its 20th year, its timely to share the work too –

Double Vision?

I knew if we waited awhile someone would share a stereoscopic machinima with us… if you recall, Tracy highlighted there were very few (if any) that had been made, a point arising from the panel discussion at the Oberhausen International Film Festival earlier this year (reported here). Well, here you go. This short has been made by the uber-talented Second Life creator Ataro Asbrink. It is called Mandala Moods 3D and is a hypnotising example of what’s possible. You will need anaglyph glasses to appreciate it of course –

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire – Making a Scene

Damien Valentine Blog August 19, 2021 Leave a reply

This month, each of us put together a ‘Let’s Play’ video covering a different aspect of Machinima. For mine, I chose to do a behind the scenes video for Heir to the Empire. Watch as I put together a scene from Chapter 14 using iClone. From animating the characters, fixing some clipping issues to lip sync and facial expressions.

Completely Machinima S1 Ep 5 Discussion (April 2021)

Ricky Grove Podcast Episodes April 15, 2021 Leave a reply



S1 Ep 5 Machinima Discussion & Show Notes

And Now For Something Completely Machinima is a long-form podcast devoted to machinima (movies made in game engines), real-time technologies, and virtual reality. This month (April 2021) we are splitting our podcast into four sections which will post once a week: Machinima News (April 1), Machinima Films (April 8), Machinima Discussion (April 15), and a Special “Build a Machinima PC” podcast (April 22).

This episode was produced by Ricky Grove joined by hosts Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood, and Damien Valentine.

Summary: After Ricky’s Milan Machinima Festival report he brings up a question that was put to one of the Festival jurors (Henry Lowood – “…has machinima dissolved into the larger culture of streaming and game videos“) and then asks the other hosts their opinion. The next topic for discussion is the status and quality of the “Let’s Play” machinima in 2021. Phil has particularly good insights. Finally, the gang takes on a contemporary topic that might impact machinima creators in “What the Hell is NFT?“. As usual, Tracy has the best insights on this topic.

Contact and Feedback for this show: https://completelymachinima.com/#talk

Timecode for this Episode

00:00:38
Damien’s newest Episode of his machinima series, “Star Wars: Heir to the Empire” is out

00:02:32
Ricky’s Report on the Milan Machinima Festival

00:07:15
Ricky’s fav Milan Festival film “Fire Underground” by NIck Crockett

00:09:50
First discussion question, “..has machinima dissolved into the larger culture of streaming and game videos?

00:10:36
Tracy’s answer

00:16:22
Phil’s take

00:23:17
Damien’s response

00:25:26
Ricky’s answer

00:32:14
Second question, “Is Let’s Play just game-play, or is it a more significant type of machinima?”

00:40:09
Ricky on a Let’s Play machinima at the Milan Machinima Festival

00:47:23
Phil on shooting “Father Frags Best”

00:52:44
Third question, “What the hell is NFT?”

01:06:50
Tracy nails the NFT question

Are we just all full of shit? Please contact us! We are desperately hoping to be told off in no uncertain terms. Phil especially is stressed because he reads all of the bot spam being posted as comments. Please help save Phil’s sanity, for God’s sake!