Machinima

S5 E165 What is it about those HL NPCs? Ridiculous Ties (Jan 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes January 16, 2025 Leave a reply

This week’s #machinima short is ridiculous, yep Ridiculous Ties – a meme response to Eltorro64Rus’ review of favorite and least favorite words used by the Scientist in Half Life, created by Finzlow. And did we say its ridiculous?! We love the well-crafted humor in this, in-jokes with some of the best timing and inspired editing we’ve seen for quite some time. Although its strictly not machinima, it is definitely from a machinima stable, so it counts for us at least. Our review –



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Ridiculous Ties by Finzlow, released 5 March 2024

Eltorro64Rus’ short about the Scientist’s favorite and least favorite words –

Lazzi (plural of lazzo) are comedic routines or gags used in Commedia dell’Arte. They are pre-rehearsed bits of physical or verbal humor that can be inserted into performances, often improvised, to entertain the audience or punctuate the action. Here’s a link to a teacher’s pack you mind find useful.

S5 E164 Machinima News Omnibus (Jan 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes January 9, 2025 Leave a reply

Whilst January’s news begins with more of the same ole genAIs doing their thang, because they can, there’s now evidence of more concerted effort to control the efforts of creators… because the corporates and policymakers can at least try to do that, right? Well, maybe, but all this has achieved in the past is even more creative energy invested in jumping through the hoops, clambering over the walls and crashing through the hedges – so Happy New Year, we’re looking forward to seeing what the amazing machinima creative communities of all engine persuasions around the World can achieve in 2025! Plus, we discuss iClone’s new update, a couple of interesting creative projects celebrating content creators in their own ways, as well as interesting milestones.



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

SORA‘s launch trailer (although the AI is still not available in EU apparently) –

Runway’s Act One is as good as SORA, here’s the promo –

Face Depth Frame Mancer is similar to Act One – a $20 plug-in for UE5 – here’s the trailer and here’s the link to the download

Riot Games issuing penalties for ‘off platform’ conduct violations – here’s the notice

Epic’s Fortnite hits a new milestone of 14M concurrent players participating in Snoop Dogg/Eminem’s concert (er, well, its slightly less than the last milestone but apparently more if you add in some other metrics too…) –

RDR2‘s how to involving its horses and mocap – what could be more fun than this?!

JT Music‘s tribute to Halo, includes a nice mention of RVB, as anything that celebrates the achievements of Halo should –

Bullet Time Agent – a new VRchat combat/puzzler game by Lakuza has released. Here’s the trailer –

Reallusion‘s iClone update, overview here –

Whatever happened to Syama Pedersen, the creator of that stunning Warhammer 40K film, Astartes? Find out in this episode! And here’s the Secret Level trailer for a quick overview –

Our review episode all about the Astartes film –

S5 E163 20 years on HL2: I’m Still Seeing Breen (Jan 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes January 2, 2025 Leave a reply

Kicking off 2025 with a review of a classic and iconic #machinima by one of the pioneers of the movement, Paul Marino aka ILLRobinson – and its 20 years almost to the day this was released! I’m Still Seeing Breen, made in HL2, holds a special place in our memories from those early years – not only was it a perfect ‘protest piece’ as the feature machinima demonstrating its potential for a 2005 Sundance Film Festival panel discussion (alongside RoosterTeeth’s RVB) but was further developed for MTV2’s Season 2 premiere of its Video Mods TV show later that same year. In this episode, we go over the back story, discuss how this was made and its impact on machinima in general.



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

I’m Still Seeing Breen, released 5 March 2005 by Paul Marino

480p broadcast version for MTV2 –

Steam link for HL2 upgrade including Source Filmmaker here

Background information also from the Pioneers in Machinima book, written by Tracy Harwood and Ben Grussi

Paul Marino’s book, published in 2004, available as a free download on the Internet Archive (log-in/account required) here

S5 E162 Lethal Company Mini Series: Pilot (Dec 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes December 26, 2024 Leave a reply

What a fantastic short to end 2024 on… this week is yet another great creative work by GibbsonTV, released in April. The film is based on the award-winning Roblox-inspired game Lethal Company by Zeekerss. It’s not actually machinima, being made in Blender, but in the spirit of being inspired by the game and with a original tale, it has all the right heritage for our show. Check out our comments and add your own – and see you on the other side of the New Year for more creative tidbits.



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Lethal Company Mini-Series: PILOT by GibbsonTV, released 21 Apr 2024

S5 E161 Classic vs Contemporary Xmas Sillies (Dec 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes December 19, 2024 Leave a reply

Not an actual comparison but a review of two shorts: The Internet is for Porn by Evilhoof & Flayed, originally released way back in 2005 and The Marstons Celebrate Christmas, But Things Get Out of Hand, by Paradise385 released 22 Dec 2023. Lots of lampoonery in both our reviews, but we especially hope you enjoy watching them. Happy Christmas from the crew here at Completely Machinima.



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Internet is for Porn by Evilhoof & Flayed, originally released in 2005, available on Jobbejoe’s channel –

and Internet Archive here

All-time top 20 World of Warcraft machinimas on the Warcraft Movies forum, listing here

Argent Dawn (EU) role-play server link here

The Marstons Celebrate Christmas, But Things Get Out of Hand | RDR2 by Paradise385, released 22 Dec 2023 –