Machinima

Completely Machinima S2 Ep 43 Films (August 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes August 11, 2022 Leave a reply

In this episode, Damien, Ricky and Tracy discuss four very different films.  Damien reviews an interesting explainer on witches in The Folklore of Phasmophobia game, Ricky presents us with another of Jae Solina’s tutorials, this time on path tracing in Omniverse, Tracy selects Tiny Elden Ring – yep, its tiny! And Phil, absent due to sickness, ironically picked a satirical Zombie fest, which mixed Walking Dead ‘live action’ with machinima!  The team then discuss that approach to creating films, highlighting some of the key challenges with some more fab examples of films that have used the techniques well. 



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

0:57 The Folklore of Phasmophobia | Modern Mythology, by The Digital Dream Club (released 9 January 2021)

The Folklore of Phasmophobia

9:51 NVIDIA Omniverse Machinima Path Tracing Test, by JSFilmz (21 June 2022) and a nice little article on the difference between rasterization, ray tracing and path tracing that folks might find interesting, Nvidia says real-time path tracing is on the horizon, but what is it? By Eric Frederiksen, Gamespot.com, 1 May 2022

NVIDIA Omniverse Machinima Path Tracing Test

17:33 Tiny Elden Ring | Tilt Shift, by Flurdeh (11 April 2022) and here’s Flurdeh’s list of filmmaking tools https://github.com/Flurdeh/Youtube-Resources and a post-production tutorial on the tilt shift effect tutorial, How to create Tilt-Shift / Miniature World Time-lapses, by Science Filmmaking Tips (24 Jan 2017)

Tiny Elden Ring

27:27 What a typical project Zomboid Run looks like, by Pathoze (26 Jan 2022)

What a typical project Zomboid Run looks like

31:45 Discussion: using live action with machinima footage in films, what are the challenges?

Examples mentioned –

39:11 Damien’s The Great Bug War on Machinima Expo (8 December 2014)

Damien and Kim Genly

46:12 Ricky’s reference to a 2D/3D combo – Carson Mell’s TARANTULA A-1 : Nightmares (5 August 2012), shot in  Los Angeles

TARANTULA A-1: Nightmares

48:30 Phil Tippett’s stop mo film Mad God, including live action with animation (now available on Shudder TV)

Mad God

51:20 Tutsy Navarathna’s film, A Journey into the Metaverse and an interview we did with him on the podcast in Season 1

A Journey into the Metaverse

Real-Time Movie Challenge: Mood Scenes Announcement!

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes August 8, 2022 2 Comments

Award-winning screenwriter John MacInnes talks to Tracy about his new real-time movie challenge just launched – its a contest with a very interesting difference, using Unreal Engine 5. Its all about mis-en-scene… “the skill, the challenge, is to actually reproduce a tone or a feeling and affect the audience… there’s something really challenging and valuable in that exercise in itself…” And the end result? Well, its a meta-movie of course! Oh, and did we mention the prizes…?!



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

The Real Time Mood Scene Challenge website

Unreal Engine 5 download from website

Start practising being moody! John has created 6 very different scenes and prompts for you to work with in the contest… pick your favourite!

Find out more about John MacInnes and his passion for virtual production and machinima in our interview here

and if you want to find out more about Jae Solina’s aka JSFilmz movie we discuss in the interview, here’s a link to the CM Film’s ep where we reviewed the short. Go to time stamp 35:57

Completely Machinima S2 Ep 42 News (August 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes August 3, 2022 Leave a reply

In this episode, Ricky, Tracy and Damien discuss some of the more interesting machinima and real-time things they’ve trawled the internet for during the last month.  Tracy gives her take on the GTA Online performance of Hamlet by Sam Crane, some interesting uses of Unreal Engine, tech tools and a fun way to simulate gravity. Damien brings Godot to the table and highlights some worrisome news about Unity, before waxing lyrical on Star Trek’s Strange New World’s use of Unreal. Ricky finds an interesting Unreal Engine Field Guide and discusses the latest updates to Nightmare Puppeteer. 



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

1:30 Feedback and comments from Mike Clements, 3D Chick, EE Studios, JSFilmz, TMC, Lord Krit and Chris Newell

4:04 The Snow Witch, by Britannica Productions, reviewed on CM podcast Season 1, Episode 18

16:20 Sam Crane’s GTA Online performance of Hamlet, an interesting audience experience (live 4 July 2022)

22:41 Digital replica of co-op live music venue strikes the right chord, Unreal Engine, 23 June 2022

23:22 Christopher Nolan: How to make a good no-budget film | Christopher Nolan on Following, by Cinedome, published 28 June 2022

23:51 50 Greatest Fictional deaths, Slate.com, by Dan Kois, 20 July 2022

24:31 AI dubbing service by Papercup

25:00 Markerless hand tracking in DeepMotion Animate 3D

25:50 Rotate you monitor to simulate gravity in Unreal Engine 5 using Android orientation data, by Ayoub Attache, 12 July 2022

27:14 Godot 4 engine can now make movies – explainer, by Gamefromscratch, released 29 June 2022

Godot 4

29:08 Behind the scenes of Netflix’s ‘In Valuted Halls Entombed’ | Spotlight | Unreal Engine, by Unreal Engine, released 27 June 2022

32:29 Star Trek’s Strange New Worlds – a better use of Unreal than Mando?! Review in American Cinematographer, by Noah Kadner, 23 June 2022

42:04 Should we be concerned?  Unity is merging with a company who made a malware installer, by Jody Macgregor, 16 July 2022

43:48 Unreal Engine Field Guide, free download book

44:57 Updates to Nightmare Puppeteer, available on Steam

Nightmare Puppeteer

Completely Machinima Interview: David Blandy, artist

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 21, 2022 1 Comment

In this month’s interview, Tracy talks with British media artist, David Blandy, whose film How to Fly was reviewed by the Completely Machinima podcast team in the June 2022 films episode of the show.  David shares his love and passion for games as both forms of entertainment and tools for his creative practice, having grown up with them to the point when the choice to include games in his work became obvious.  David tells us about why he chose the cormorant in How to Fly and what he really thinks about YouTube, TikTok and the future of machinima.  His reflection on his creative practice makes for fascinating listening.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

June Episode of Completely Machinima podcast  https://completelymachinima.com/2022/06/08/completely-machinima-s2-ep-39-films-june-2022/) – go to time stamp 18:57 for discussion of How to Fly

5:40 Backgrounds (released 19 February 2013), collaboration with John Blandy, father

screencap: Backgrounds

7:08 Franz Fanon series, Finding Fanon 2 (Grand Theft Auto, released 11 September 2015), collaboration with Larry Achiampong

screencap: Finding Fanon 2

14:12 Reflecting on the cultural forces represented by games, meaning in games, cultural capital and the importance of shared memories through games

23:15 Telling alternative stories in ways such as to deal with the social anxieties intertwined in them eg., Henrietta Lacks and John Edmonson

screencap: A Lament for Power

25:06 Discussing How to Fly (released 22 April 2020) and How to Live (released 21 May 2020), pandemic project – and why the cormorant?

screencap: How to Fly

32:14 Discussing Androids Dream and the use of a voice trained AI to create a meditative effect

35:13 Discussing Henrietta Lacks and the film A Lament for Power (released 20 July 2020), also being shown at WORLDBUILDING at the Julia Stoschek Foundation between June 2022 and December 2023

38:49 Reflecting on different types of creative practice, objectivity, collaboration, space, happy accidents and found objects

55:53 Reflecting on future practice using machinima

Additional links:

Website http://davidblandy.co.uk/

David Blandy’s video channel on Vimeo

screencap: Backgrounds

Completely Machinima S2 Ep 41 Films (July 2022)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 14, 2022 Leave a reply

In this episode, Tracy, Damien and Phil discuss another great selection of recently released films from creators using a diverse range of engines.  Firstly, two films inspired by the recent release of Top Gun Maverick: a British take on the story followed by a trailer of the movie remade in a serious flight sim – to which Tracy asks ‘why?’ and Phil responds with his best Rocky impression.  Then films made in Mech, Star Citizen and Unreal Engine 5 – meantime, the team are expecting good news in the near future (Ricky’s escape from Elden Ring).



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

1:21 If Top Gun Was a British Film Part 2, by Squire (released 31 March 2022)

6:49 DCS World Movie | Top Gun: Maverick Intro by Phenom (released 16 June 2022)

If Top Gun was a British Film Part 2 (Square)

13:05 Discussion: Why recreate scenes from big budget films, such as Top Gun Maverick?

20:00 Hired Steel: A Mech Machinima – Episode Two, by TMC (released 25 February 2022) and the review of Episode One in Completely Machinima S1 Ep 16 Films (August 2021)

Hired Steel: A Mech Machinima Ep 2 (TMC)

27:40 Star Citizen – News – RED LINE Episode 2 (Elite Expeditionary), by EE Studios (released 13 April 2022)

35:57 Unreal Engine 5 Concept Short Film by JSFilmz (released 17 June 2022)