iClone

S4 E149 Special: Season Finale 2024

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes September 27, 2024 1 Comment

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 –

  • The highest quality of machinima we’ve ever seen
  • Unreal, by comparison, doesn’t actually really compare!
  • Experimentation
  • Meme’s
  • Distribution channels
  • Generative AIs

Our reviews, mentioned during discussion in order –

And, check out the bonus episode of our very own RickyAI –

S4 E134 iClone: Lonely Episode 2: The Package Thief (June 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes June 19, 2024 Leave a reply

This week, we discuss the art of machinima filmmaking, emphasizing the importance of craftsmanship, freshness, and humor in exceptional storytelling, as evidenced in ‘Lonely Episode Two: The Package Thief’ by TheBizTheBiz. We analyze the efficiency and density used in delivering witty lines and twists in what is essentially a modern retelling of the Lone Ranger, using mariachi music, masks, and character development, clever use of language and a well-executed comedic setup.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

Lonely Episode 2: The Package Thief by thebizthebiz, released 10 May 2024

The opening scene from the TV series –

Monty Pythony’s constitutional peasants sketch –

S4 E130 Music Maestro Please! (May 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes May 22, 2024 1 Comment

This week, we discuss two stunning music videos: Children of Pain by @VincereSylph with video created by  @TomJantol and  @tanyasubaBg; and Firefly by Esterica in Unreal Engine. Children of Pain is a perfect example of Tom’s ‘anymation’ approach whilst Firefly demonstrates just how far Unreal Engine has come as a creative toolset in one year alone!



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Children of Pain (Official Single) by Vincere Sylph, released 6 April 2024

Tom Jantol’s video for WiL/William Mimnaugh called Lion’s Feet (in 2022) –

Tanya’s channel here

Firefly by Esoterica, released 21 March 2024

Luis Andrade, showreel here

Luis Andrade’s Mastering Cinematics channel here

There’s a how to video on Tiktok, link here –

@esoband

The music video for Firefly took just under a year to create, here’s a peek behind the scenes to see how it was done with the help of mastermind Luis F Andrade. #esoterica #firefly #unrealengine #moveai #behindthescene #bts #progmetal #metalcore

♬ Firefly – Esoterica

Jackson Wang, Cruel –

Paul Marino’s I’m Still Seeing Breen –

The Creator, trailer –

S4 E129 Cinematics: GTA5 (May 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes May 15, 2024 Leave a reply

Not for the first time do we discuss the gorgeous cinematic qualities of GTA5, and this week we share a beaut by @Salva.Padilla. This one has a distinct vibe to it, but it is its general ambiguity that we especially love about the machinima. We each see something a little different in it! What do you see in it?



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Film, Cinematic Experience GTA V Machinima by Salva Padilla, released 15 April 2024

About Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, 1927 –

Nina Simone estate interview excerpt, To Be Free, released 16 Feb 2013 –

Feelings by Fuxkyodie, released 20 Sept 2023 –

Official trailer for Asphalt City –

S4 E120 Machinima News Omnibus (Mar 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes March 14, 2024 Leave a reply

This week’s podcast episode is our curated news omnibus for this month.  We cover lots, and enjoy reflecting on the significance of the stories we highlight for the world of machinima and virtual production. 

btw, the international internet pipes failed and microwaves fried our apps during this recording session, video corrupted and monsters ran loose among us, so enjoy the voice data we’ve managed to resurrect and video clips we’ve added – we’ll be back next week in full glory!



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Fan communities under pressure?

Valve’s Steam policy and recent take downs for Team Fortress 2 and Portal fan projects – article on Games Radar here

Half Life 3 aka Entropy Zero (and 2) projects – Fandom.com overview here and video –

New Moviemaking Toolsets

Blockbuster Inc, Prologue version now on Steam here

Demo by Orbital Potato here –

Replikant now in free beta on the Unreal Marketplace.

Replikant has a Youtube channel with plenty of tutorials on it already, and there’s a great demo of it which gives you a sense of the animation quality it produces –

And for those wanting a quick and dirty tutorial on UE5, check this out –

Steamboatin’ Along!

Minecraft Steamboat Willie which is a fun take on it, made by Red and Blue –

Fewture Studios’ trailer for The Return of Steamboat Willie, made in Unreal Engine –

Screams

The origins and impact of the Wilhelm Scream – BBC shorts here

More about Sheb Wooley here

And another video about it here –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNvZYzg7o68

AI Genies Rising

Community action against deepfakes of Taylor Swift – link to story on BBC site here

Jae Solina has done a nice overview of OpenAI’s SORA here –

and this is a link to RunwayML’s video controller toolset (and our feature image for this post) –

The Suno model, released by ElevenLabs, for music composition – here is a fun example on X –