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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.

Audio Only Version of this Episode



YouTube Version of this Episode

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 –

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 –

S4 E137 Machinima News Omnibus (July 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 10, 2024 Leave a reply

This month’s news omnibus covers our usual breadth of topics – from Reallusion’s Character Creator contest; to a ‘how to create in SL’, available only in SL; to Project Odyssey’s contest for genAIers; to the winners of the second AIFF; to some fabulous projects such as  @EpicSpaceman  latest film, an Elden Ring band, Jennifer McKnew’s Sydney and Socket project, and one dedicated to sharing with us the ‘speed of animals’; to the fallout from the Prince Charles Cinema debate about showcasing an genAI film; launch of the Starfield Creation Kit; Homefield 3; and a must have tool for creating great quality 3D backbounds called Distopica. Its a must watch for anyone working in #machinima!



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Reallusion’s Character Creator contest, link here

SL marketplace, Stem Van Helsinki’s virtual book on ‘how to be a video artist in Second Life’, link here

Skibidi toilet meme and Roblox game link here

Project Odyssey contest for genAI films, link here

Stable Diffusion’s Stable Audio Open, link here

OpenAI’s Sora and screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, links here and here

Epic Spaceman’s latest science jaunt – this time to the nano scale –

An Elden Ring band, not the usual kind of thing you will run into inside the game for sure –

A curious short about a swan and a robot, made in Unreal, entitled Sydney and Socket directed by Jennifer McKnew –

and Jennifer’s reflections on the creative process here

Red Side’s speed comparison of 3D animals –

Prince Charles Cinema debate, link here

Starfield Creation Kit, available here

Homeworld 3 mod tools and editor, available here

Dystopika, sandbox for futuristic cities, available on Steam here

S4 E120 Machinima News Omnibus (Mar 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes March 14, 2024 Leave a reply

This week’s podcast episode is our curated news omnibus for this month.  We cover lots, and enjoy reflecting on the significance of the stories we highlight for the world of machinima and virtual production. 

btw, the international internet pipes failed and microwaves fried our apps during this recording session, video corrupted and monsters ran loose among us, so enjoy the voice data we’ve managed to resurrect and video clips we’ve added – we’ll be back next week in full glory!



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Fan communities under pressure?

Valve’s Steam policy and recent take downs for Team Fortress 2 and Portal fan projects – article on Games Radar here

Half Life 3 aka Entropy Zero (and 2) projects – Fandom.com overview here and video –

New Moviemaking Toolsets

Blockbuster Inc, Prologue version now on Steam here

Demo by Orbital Potato here –

Replikant now in free beta on the Unreal Marketplace.

Replikant has a Youtube channel with plenty of tutorials on it already, and there’s a great demo of it which gives you a sense of the animation quality it produces –

And for those wanting a quick and dirty tutorial on UE5, check this out –

Steamboatin’ Along!

Minecraft Steamboat Willie which is a fun take on it, made by Red and Blue –

Fewture Studios’ trailer for The Return of Steamboat Willie, made in Unreal Engine –

Screams

The origins and impact of the Wilhelm Scream – BBC shorts here

More about Sheb Wooley here

And another video about it here –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNvZYzg7o68

AI Genies Rising

Community action against deepfakes of Taylor Swift – link to story on BBC site here

Jae Solina has done a nice overview of OpenAI’s SORA here –

and this is a link to RunwayML’s video controller toolset (and our feature image for this post) –

The Suno model, released by ElevenLabs, for music composition – here is a fun example on X –

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