Leo Lucien-Bay

S4 E135 Destruction & Hope: Day of Darkness II | The Wanderer (June 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes June 26, 2024 Leave a reply

In this episode, we analyse our picks’ cinematics, beginning with ‘Day of Darkness’ made in Eve Online by Dire Lauthris and completing with ‘The Wanderer’ made in the Source engine by Dominzki. We discuss the use of ambiguity, character development, and narrative qualities, as well as the advancement of video game cinematics and in-engine techniques. We also examine how the horror of war has been conveyed through the unique visuals and sound effects in both these films.



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Day of Darkness II by Dire Lauthris, released 30 March 2009

Interesting film review here

Best EVE Online fan video listings here

The Wanderer [SFM Short Film] by Dominzki, released 8 March 2024

Interview with Dominzki in Mann Magazine here

By way of reference, check out our review of Leo Lucien Bay’s film Beast here, which we did in the very first episode of our podcast!

Completely Machinima History with Ben Grussi (December)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes December 23, 2021 Leave a reply

In this episode of the podcast, Ben recalls some more of the great all time classics that got this whole movement rolling, events all taking place in December (1993 to 2005 inclusive).



Show notes and links –

Ranger Gone Bad 2: Assault on Gloom Keep (1996) https://archive.org/details/ranger-gone-bad-ii-assault-on-gloom-keep

Torn Apart 2: Ranger Down! one of the first Quake (1996) movies with voiced dialog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX75VLzin2I

Walking Wounded/Strange Company releases trailer for Eschaton: Darkness Twilight in Quake (1997) 

Blahbalicious by Avatar and Wendigo (1997) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yC7o5pt-lA

screencap: Blahbalicious

Fountainhead Entertainment’s Katherine Anna Kang announces Sidrial.  Slated to be the first Machinima film to be put on the big-screen as a commercial venture https://archive.org/details/sidrial_promo even made a total conversion mod for Quake 3 Arena (2000)

Bender ‘n Stein by Ken ‘3dfilmmaker’ Thain https://archive.org/details/bender_stein and Bender Strikes Back Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQCcVfwpChM (2001)

Anthony Bailey releases a patch for integration into Quake 1 engine code bases to enable capture of AVIs (audio/video, any resolution, frame rate and codec) on Win32 GL platforms http://quakecapture.sourceforge.net/ (2002)

Teaser for Stardate: Night Time by Dr Nemesis (Leo Lucien-Bay) https://archive.org/details/stardate-night-time-teaser (2002)

The Final Chapter (6) to the Killer Robot Saga by Nanoflix (Peter Rasmussen)  https://archive.org/details/killer-robot-machinima (2003)

Shadows of Auraxis Chapter 1 by Malvision in Planetscape https://archive.org/details/soa-e-1 (2003)

Remedy and Rockstar Games official Max Payne 2 Mod contest ‘Non-Interactive Movie’ winner Payne to the Max https://archive.org/details/payne-2-the-max (2003)

Canadian live-action/animated kids TV series ‘Zixx Level One’ is the first show for broadcast to contain animation created by a game engine, made using the Lithtech engine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtwhiFHOPQs (2003)

10th Anniversary of id Software’s Doom, Doomworld complied an extensive article about the early forms of demo recording featuring Uwe Girich https://www.doomworld.com/10years/demos/demos01.php (2003)

Epic Games revealed the winners of Phase 4 Real-Time Non-Interactive Movie contest (2004)

  • 1st Place: Bot (Eggman)
  • 2nd Place: Journey (Fitz)
  • 3rd Place: Infiltrators
  • 4th Place: Sparked Memory (CSWAT)
  • 5th Place: The Editor Has You (Angel_Mapper)

ATI and Crytek, creators of Far Cry, made a real-time interactive CGI movie called The Project, that harnessed the capabilities of the ATI RADEON® X800 XT and PLATINUM EDITION for Hollywood style machinima, demonstrating photorealistic cinematic computing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Uxc5rqbBI (2004)

Screencap: The Project

Just a Game by Mu Productions, a live action/machinima hybrid https://archive.org/details/Mu-just-a-game (2005)

SSPH Pre-Episode Part 2 The Healers by Amanda ‘AmandaJ3162’ Stanley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHZfJG0CgMU, I Got My Gmail https://archive.org/details/IGotMyGmail-MV and SSPH Pre-Episode 1 The Draftee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzAbyxe2mj4 were all selected for front page showcase status on Machinima.com – a first in its 5+ year history that three films created by one person are featured (2005)

screencap: Pre-Episode Part 2 The Healers

DigitalPhil and Dr. Nemesis’s  MachinimaLive! Episode 1 released entitled The Evolution of Machinima  https://archive.org/details/mlive12dec05 (2005)

The Machinima Reader book announced by Henry Lowood and Michael Nitsche https://www.amazon.com/Machinima-Reader-MIT-Press/dp/0262015331/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Machinima+Reader&qid=1639549609&sr=8-1 (2005)

Trailer for PG-13 series Adventures in Dating by Decorgal released https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykAxPDze0R0 (2005)

Completely Machinima S1 Ep 1 (February 2021)

Ricky Grove Podcast Episodes February 4, 2021 1 Comment



Show Notes for Season 1 Episode 1
And Now For Something Completely Machinima  is a monthly, hour-long podcast devoted to machinima (movies made in game engines), real-time technologies and virtual reality.

Podcast Hosts
This podcast was produced by 
Ricky Grove. He is joined by hosts Phil RiceTracy Harwood and Damien Valentine.  More detailed bios are available at our podcast website www.completelymachinima.com

Podcast 1 Summary
Our first podcast features four main sections along with a short satirical skit. We’ve created time-stamps for each section  and links for topics discussed are in the description.

*Disclosure: This podcast and blog is listener/reader supported. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, may earn us a small commission to help cover the costs of producing the show. Read full disclaimer here.

Machinima News 

Machinima Films of the Month

Aside: The original “The Town that Dreaded Sundown” is available at Amazon on Blu-Ray/DVD and also (at this time) on Amazon Prime.



Machinima Filmmaker Interview – David Vann

  • Ricky contacted the director of the “Town That Dreaded Sundown” trailer (David Vann) by phone and spoke with him about his background as a filmmaker and how he created his film in RDR2. David also spoke about his stop-motion Lego films which are hilarious and satirical. 

Machinima Group Discussion

  • Ricky posed two questions to his other three hosts 1, What is the difference between the terms “machinima”, “real-time animation” and “virtual cinema?” and 2, What is the status of machinima in 2021? Is machinima in decline or are we advancing?  The answers were diverse and  ranged through machinima films/filmmakers past and present.

Note:  Uncut version of our Machinima News is available here