Welcome to our latest bonus episode. We had the pleasure of catching up with Phil Rice aka zsOverman to talk exclusively about his latest machinima, called Being Moses. If there’s such as thing as a parody of a Let’s Play, this film is it! Check out Phil’s comments and watch the film.
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Show Notes and Links
Being Moses – a Vintage Story #machinima tale by zsOverman aka Phil Rice, released 17 May 2024
This week, we spend some time talking about new tools, emergent topics, AI and copyright (again), with some interesting links for you below. Check out the episode here –
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Show Notes & Links
New tool releases
iClone’s ‘clumsy moves’ pack, available at $70, can be downloaded here
Crowd simulation tools, including Reallusion’s sim bundle for CC4 and social groups for iClone 8, link here and a nice video here –
and Kenneth MacLean’s MegaHumans plugin WIP. No link for the latter, but here’s a neat show and tell video –
A free new VR mod by Praydog for Unreal Engine – here’s an overview about it –
Mickey and AI discussion
Disney’s Mickey in a horror game called Infestation Origins that will be released later this year –
and an interesting AI generated short that seems to confirm Mickey’s transmogrification into a horror character –
Princeton’s Public Domain Project released an annual report – check it out here for 2024.
Improving the quality of your machinima films with AI, check out Pryda Parx suggestions here –
and you can also check out the restored machinimas Phil did for the Machiniplex channel here, and here’s the trailer for the body of work too –
Google’s VideoPoet that turns prompts into animations without the interim stage of an image and a separate tool like Runway to animate it. Here’s a neat example of its capabilities, focussing on a travelling raccoon –
Mods and Cockers!
The Convergence mod for Elden Ring (and many others), v 1.4 – a nice overview here –
A case of corporate bullying? Check out the situation this Minecrafter is facing and if you’re a legal expert, do please get in touch with him to help out!
This week’s film review focusses on a story made with building blocks and without voice acting… and yet, what a spectacular story! The game world is Minecraft of course, and the story is based on Telltale Games’ episodic release called Story Mode. Made by @SquaredMediaAnimations , we discuss the production values emcompassed within the film, why we think adding voice acting would have enhanced the film and a number of other things we nit-picked but conclude that its really no wonder Squared Media are one of the top machinima producers in Minecraft.
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Links and Notes
Film, by Squared Media Animations, released 6 May 2023 –
Megabuilds and complexity are increasingly themes being promoted by the creative tool developers, and this week’s selection highlights a few projects that demonstrate what’s possible.
Who would have even thought about building our entire universe in Minecraft, let alone actually done it? This video, released 3 October 2022, is how Chris DaCow went about the project, including his preparatory trip/fall from an aircraft (IRL) for inspiration –
Covering similar themes, MelodySheep discusses Water Worlds, released 28 April (our feature image). This is not a megabuild per se but is a good illustration of the future of inter-planetary reviews. The approach is interesting, drawing inspiration from the discoveries of the James Webb Telescope: think a combination of the style of Sagan and Attenborough –
The next film is a descriptor of a 2D game called Rain World, released in 2017. The video creator, Curious Archive, outlines why he believes this game is one of the most sophisticated and complex virtual worlds ever created. The short (22 mins) is called The Most Complex Ecosystem in any Game, released 22 December 2022…. mmm, 22 is a bit of a theme here too. I’m fairly sure Ricky will disagree on this, with his elder Elden Ring hat on, but check it out and do let us have your thoughts –
Finally, this official music video, released on 5 May, shows an expansive world to tell a visually stunning story that compliments the song. The creators unfortunately do not credit the tools that have been used, which look like Unreal Engine and Blender. The song is called Angels by Frank Polucci, lyrics by Marco Genovesi and the video is by Alex Popescu. Its another short that illustrates the diversity of creative skills now being deployed for increasingly complex visualizations –
In this episode, Ricky, Tracy and Damien discuss latest developments in Nvidia Omniverse – Code and Omnivores, the KGB in Minecraft, Backlot, best games for M1 Mac, a video about setting up your home studio for sound recording, the upcoming Nvidia AI conference, implications for machinima creators of Microsoft’s announcements to buy Activision Blizzard, Philip Rosedale & Wagner James Au’s podcast, a music celebration of TMUnderground by Edan Mackenzie called A Fond Farewell and a discussion about Second Life and machinima.
YouTube version of this Episode
Show Notes and Links
1:56 Nvidia Omniverse, Omniverse Code and Meet the Creators (Omnivores)
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