machinima podcast

S5 E174 creativeAI: The Glurons (Mar 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes March 20, 2025 Leave a reply

One of the most extraordinary picks we’ve made, probably ever, on the show! This week, we review an emergent absurdist talk show, focussing on the life of the Glurons – a post-human race of critters set in a future world, but most creatively uses generative AI tools. Its outstanding quality is, however, the writing. Check out our review and pick up the links mentioned on our show notes below.



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Unanswered Oddities by Neural Viz released on 9 Dec 2024, made using MidJourney, Runway Act One and ElevenLabs and Premiere for editing

Fandom page here and here

Reddit comments on ‘the full story theory’ here

Reddit comments on The Cop Files crime series – also brilliant!

JWallyman51’s Reddit link here – just in case you want to connect and read up further!

S5 E173 Machinima News Omnibig (Mar 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes March 13, 2025 Leave a reply

This is our regular monthly news update on things relevant to the world of machinima. Catch the episode on audio only or on YouTube – links below



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Esoterica‘s dysUTOPIA –

Hamilton made in Animal Crossing by GK Animations –

Cinematic of No Man’s Sky by EvilDr.Porkchop –

Phil’s Chuck Norris vs 50K Cavemen made in Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator 2 –

John Gaeta’s Escape.ai platform for emerging artists is now in beta.

At All Costs (by Studio Far Out Games) –

Second Life AI character designer tool

Project Odyssey awards ceremony and links to the winners, worth checking out –

BBC Radiophonic Workshop release link here

Valve’s TF2 client and server game code released, link here to article

Dune: Awakening game release trailer –

Tetris on AppleTV, trailer –

Liberty City (GTA4) ported to GTA5 –

John Martin II (Reallusion/iClone) on using Kling AI for character animation –


https://www.facebook.com/Animize/videos/608758092044056/?rdid=kMPddm0tlBjC6h4o&share_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshare%2Fv%2F1BepaNLxzD%2F

Nvidia Omniverse Launcher update, link here

S5 E172 GTA San Andreas: The Days After (Mar 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes March 6, 2025 Leave a reply

This week we review a ‘golden age’ machinima, starring none other than Ricky Grove playing ‘Bogart’, and Ingrid Moon playing err, ‘Ingrid’, with Phil having created the score and Ricky having produced the sound design. Its a short by German-American creator, Andre Pesch aka ‪@albi84‬ called The Days After, made in GTA San Andreas. Its a story that pre-2020 probably we’d have all said, simply, yep that was great, without any real appreciation for what is actually being portrayed in this 2006 film. However, there’s a sense in which this now brings back memories of lockdowns and isolation, and the fear of an unknown viral menace devastating our lives. It perfectly illustrates the narrow grip many had on reality, as Ricky observes in this “… war, crime, patriotism – you can name those things but you can never fix them.”



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

The Days After by Andre Pesch, released 2006 – on his channel here

and the Machiniplex Remaster by Phil Rice here –

S5 E171 Documenting Historic Events: Elite Dangerous (Feb 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 27, 2025 Leave a reply

A once in a lifetime event in Elite Dangerous? Yup, that’s what fascinated us all too. This week we review a series of machinimas that approach the destruction of a Thargoid ship attacking planet Earth in different ways – a strange and unusual phenomenon in a game world that we reflect on, only possible in open world sims.



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Three films –

Coeneman02’s Elite Dangerous Cinematic – The Battle for Sol, released 22 December 2024 –

Squynt’s Reflection – Fall of the Final Titan – Elite Dangerous, released 21 December 2024 –

eLCy’s apparently thargoids don’t like it when you try to film titan’s final moments, released 18 December 2024 –

S5 E170 Machinima News Omnibus (Feb 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 20, 2025 Leave a reply

A packed news episode, with Tracy’s analysis of the AI art copyright ruling decision and a discussion with Damien about his hit fan series, Heir to the Empire – the Star Wars story that everyone always wanted to see made. Do comment on the discussion (on the YouTube channel or the Blog post).



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

RunwayML’s third annual AI Film Festival is now open to submissions until 31st March

Second Life has been testing browser based streaming

Linden Labs has spent $1.3B building the world and paid $1.1B back to its creators

Animator’s Survival Kit, part of a Bloomsbury video series, and it has been created by Richard Williams

Gladiator II has all the kind of hallmarks you can achieve in Unreal Engine, with enough time and energy –

The Freeman Chronicles made by Ian James Duncan –

There’s also a fascinating website which documents how the film was made worth taking a look at too.

Tom Cook (aka ToCoSo) original fan song made for Elite Dangerous called ‘Mining on my Own’ by Ghost Giraffe –

A Mandalorian Cinematic Trailer made in Unreal Engine, made by Geoffrey Grandseign, it’s a showcase of his work as well as a fan film –

A Godot engine project, created in the 4.3 engine version by Jan Fidler –

The US Copyright Office’s ruling on AI art generated with text prompts.

Others asking questions about the implications of this ruling.

Announcement of a merger between Getty Images and Shutterstock

NVIDIA’s RTX 5070 family graphics cards announed here

HL3 teaser? Check this out!

Hollywood Animal trailer –

Astartes II – Official Teaser Trailer | Warhammer –

The Sims 1 & 2 re-releases – news item link here

Rooster Teeth is back?! Another news item link

Director’s comments: Heir to the Empire, Damien reflects on the series to date –

the full movies here –