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S6 E217 Substitute | Ersatz (Mar 2026)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes March 12, 2026 Leave a reply

In Episode 217 of And Now for Something Completely Machinima, we explore “Ersatz” a haunting new solo animated film by Saint Greaver created in Blender’s Eevee engine.

Set within a surreal World War I–inspired landscape, the film blends virtual production techniques with painterly concept art aesthetics to create a disturbing, dreamlike vision of war, identity, and memory. The discussion unpacks the film’s themes of replaceability, dehumanization, and institutional machinery, where bodies are interchangeable and suffering becomes routine.

Drawing on cultural memory, surrealist art traditions, and early industrial warfare imagery, the episode examines how the film communicates trauma and systemic violence without explicit politics or historical specificity.

Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood, and Damien Valentine also highlight the production craft behind the film — from its stylized rendering and stop-motion-like animation feel to its exceptional voice performances and unsettling sound design. The hosts reflect on the emotional weight of the work, its historical echoes, and why its bleak, surreal horror feels both timeless and urgently relevant. A challenging but powerful viewing experience, Ersatz stands out as an important piece of animated storytelling that pushes machinima and virtual filmmaking into deeply thought-provoking territory.

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Show Notes & Links

ERSATZ | PILOT by Saint Greaver, released 10 Jan 2026

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen, who died one week before the Armistice in WW1, is worth reading. Link here.

Here’s more about the artist Zdzislaw Beksinski –

and Francis Bacon –

S6 E216 Machinima News Omnibus (Mar 2026)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes March 5, 2026 Leave a reply

In this episode of Completely Machinima, Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood, and Phil Rice unpack the biggest talking points at the intersection of machinima, AI, and creator rights.

We start with a quick birthday nod to id Software’s 35th anniversary—a foundational influence on game culture and the machinima scene—before diving into the headline debate: the Disney + OpenAI partnership. Tracy breaks down why Disney choosing licensing over litigation is a major signal for how entertainment giants may handle AI training and generation going forward—raising questions around copyright, compensation, and control. The team explores the ripple effects for fan creators: what stays “safe-ish,” what gets riskier when monetization enters the picture, and why platform policy enforcement (YouTube, TikTok, Steam Workshop) may tighten even before the law catches up.

From there, the conversation shifts to practical creator tech: new tools for posing and animation reference, the evolving state of video mocap (including clever ways to capture motion from existing footage), and the emerging frontier of text-to-motion generation. Finally, Phil highlights a standout release for creators: Hytale, a Minecraft-style sandbox game with built-in machinima tools (scriptable cameras, keyframe animation, and more) that could open up huge possibilities for in-engine filmmaking. Damien also points to Surviving Mars as another surprisingly useful source of cinematic footage thanks to its photo mode and camera controls.

The episode closes with two community spotlights: a playlist celebrating machinima creator Frank Fox, and a recommendation for the latest Biggs Trek chapter in the Forbidden Planet series.

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Show Notes & Links

The award-winning sci-fi city builder Surviving Mars: Relaunched

The $1bn deal will let fans generate videos and images of more than 200 Disney characters on ChatGPT and Sora. Creative industries ‘incredibly worried’ about OpenAI-Disney deal

Frank Fox Machinima –

BiggsTrek Ep 2! Forbidden Planet – Children Of The Krell (Chapter Two) –

HAELE 3D – Portrait Studio Pro is 3D facial anatomy drawing reference tool for beginner and advanced artists, with various characters, proportions, expressions lights and environments. HAELE 3D – Portrait Studio Pro – Drawing References

It is an easy to use app to complement tutorials, for those who are learning how to draw faces and heads.

Line of Action

Video Mocap any Games for iClone 8 Tested Work! #iclone #videomocap #gameplay #tutorial #3danimation –

Type It. Animate It. Swing Does It in Seconds –

Hytale is finally here!

Ultimate Hytale Machinima Tools Crash Course

How to Add Custom Humans to the Hytale Machinima Editor How to create Custom Animations for Hytale –

S6 E215 So, the Self-Aware Robot is Made (Feb 2026)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 26, 2026 Leave a reply

In this episode of And Now for Something Completely Machinima, the team dives deep into the chilling Blender short I Made a Self-Aware Robot by the enigmatic creator Lights Are Off ⁨@LIGHTSAREOFF⁩ 

Tracy brings the film to the table, praising its haunting realism, uncanny robot design, and smart use of found-footage aesthetics. What begins as a seemingly grounded “scientist vlog” quickly spirals into a modern Frankenstein story—raising powerful questions about consciousness, ethics, and the dangers of unchecked technological ambition.

Damien highlights how the home-built lab setting makes the horror feel disturbingly close to reality, while Phil marvels at the stunning Blender craftsmanship—from hyper-realistic lighting to meticulous set dressing and believable mechanical detail. The group also unpacks the film’s clever use of cameras, surveillance, and direct eye contact to unsettle the viewer.

While everyone agrees the short is visually brilliant and deeply atmospheric, Ricky and Phil note that the story follows familiar sci-fi tropes—leaving them wishing for a bigger twist. Still, with millions of views and a sequel already out, it’s clear this series has struck a nerve with audiences. Packed with insights on machinima, virtual filmmaking, sound design, horror storytelling, and the ethics of AI and robotics, this episode is a must-watch for creators, filmmakers, and sci-fi fans alike.

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Show Notes and Links

Film: I made a Self Aware Robot by Lights Are Off, released 18 October 2025

Check out Zoonomaly on Steam here.

Check out The Senster, created by artist Edward Ihnatowicz, archival notes and footage here –

The original creator notes for The Senster are help in a special collections archive at De Montfort University (Leicester, UK) – you can access these only in person at the moment. Here’s a link to the file notes about the archive.

S6 E214 Ancient Paths – Ozymandias (Feb 2026)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 19, 2026 Leave a reply

In this episode of Now for Something Completely Machinima, the team revisits Ozymandias (1999) — one of the earliest and most controversial works of machinima, created by Hugh Hancock and Strange Company using the experimental LithTech Film Producer toolkit.

What begins as a straightforward critique quickly turns into a deeper debate:

👉 Is Ozymandias a “bad film”… or a groundbreaking prototype that helped shape virtual filmmaking?

Ricky challenges the film’s pacing, visuals, and sound, arguing that by today’s standards it feels unfinished and awkward. But Tracy and Phil place the work in its historical context — revealing it as a crucial pivot point where machinima shifted from gameplay recording to intentional, cinematic storytelling inside game engines.

The panel explores:

  • How Ozymandias tested the first true machinima production tools

  • Why moving sand and free-camera shots were revolutionary at the time

  • How this experiment foreshadowed today’s virtual production (Unreal, Source Filmmaker, The Mandalorian, etc.)

  • Why the film mattered more as a technical and artistic manifesto than as a polished short film

  • Hugh Hancock’s legacy, ambition, and influence on the machinima movement

Along the way, the hosts reminisce about the wild early days of machinima — executable films, hacked tools, screen-recording cameras, and the struggle to share video before YouTube even existed.

Whether you’re a machinima veteran or a newcomer, this episode is a fascinating look at how a rough, experimental short helped open the door to modern virtual filmmaking.

🎬 Watch, debate, and decide for yourself: brilliant milestone… or broken relic?


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Show Notes & Links

Ozymandias by Hugh Hancock and Gordon McDonald, Strange Company, released 1999 – available on Vimeo here

Outside the Blocks

Arch Obeler Lights Out

Skyrim Mods

Skyrim Machinima –

Here’s an interesting new world builder with AI

S6 E213 Can Starfield Become a Machinima Platform? One Mod Might Prove It: Defying Fire (Feb 2026)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 12, 2026 Leave a reply

Starfield is one of the most cinematic games Bethesda’s ever shipped… so why haven’t we seen much machinima from it? Today we’re looking at a mod that might finally crack that open: a fully built settlement with lore, characters, quests, and surprisingly strong voice acting, presented with a “lore trailer” that feels like a slice-of-life tour through a corporate-controlled mining town. We’ll break down what it gets right, what it’s missing as machinima, and why projects like this might be the new bridge between fandom and professional virtual production.

Starfield has been sitting there looking cinematic… and creators have mostly not used it for machinima. In this ep, we dig into a standout exception by @team fire: an ambitious settlement + narrative mod (Arinya / Yeltsin Corp vibe) that ships with voice acting, lore, quests, factions, and “paid mod” ambitions – plus what that could mean for machinima, virtual production workflows, and the future of creator-made expansions.

We dive into one of the most ambitious Starfield mod creations we’ve seen: a new settlement with lore, characters, quests, factions, and fully voiced performances.

Why this works:

  • It’s a real Starfield creation with serious craft (environment dressing, lore framing, VO credits).

  • It tees up a bigger convo: “mods as mini-studios,” machinima as a portfolio path (again), and whether Starfield can become a true machinima platform.

  • It has stakes: paid creations, bugs/beta realities, Bethesda updates potentially reshaping the ecosystem.

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Show Notes & Links

Defying Fire: Welcome to Arinya – Lore Trailer (Starfield) by Firestarter Mods

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Tracy Harwood and Ben Grussi’s Machinima Book, On Sale Now!