In this episode of And Now For Something Completely Machinima, Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood, and Damien Valentine dive into the latest news in machinima, virtual production, AI creative tools, game cinematics, and real-time animation.

They discuss the explosive hype around Kane Parsons’ The Backrooms movie, new Starfield expansions and what they could mean for Starfield machinima, the release of Fortnite Star Wars assets for fan-made experiences, and useful production updates including DaVinci Resolve optimisation, Headshot 3, free mocap tools, and local AI voice cloning.

The conversation also takes a deeper turn with a thoughtful debate on AI video generation, Sora, creative AI fatigue, public sentiment toward AI tools, and where AI in filmmaking and digital storytelling may be heading next.

If you’re interested in machinima filmmaking, AI tools for creators, virtual production workflows, Star Wars fan creation, The Backrooms, Starfield, Fortnite UEFN, or digital storytelling, this episode is packed with insights.

Topics covered:

• Kane Parsons and The Backrooms trailer reaction
• Starfield Free Lanes and Terra Nomada
• Fortnite Star Wars creator tools
• DaVinci Resolve performance tips
• Headshot 3 for Character Creator
• Free motion capture and text-to-mocap tools
• Local AI voice cloning
• Sora shutdown and shifting attitudes toward AI
• Project Hail Mary and practical effects vs AI hype

Audio Only Version of this Episode

YouTube Version of this Episode

https://youtu.be/ej4AGA8RbmU

Show Notes & Links

Backrooms cinema release, and trailer –

Starfield Announcement

Free Lanes and Terran Armada official trailer –

Developer deep dive –

Fortnite / Star Wars – create your galaxy

New tools now available in Fortnite for developers looking to create Star Wars content –

This is HUGE for Star Wars Games! Check out this commentary –

Fortnite / GTA inspired sandbox game

Grand Heist City game launching, check out the story here.

DaVinci Resolve for Machinima

How to optimise the settings, great tutorial video here by Andrew Farmer –

Reallusion’s Character Creator Update

Headshot 3 for CC5 pre-launch offer here –

CC5 & Headshot & Blender – example of a process for creating your own character –

CC and Houdini workflow –

AI Tools

Freemocap – a Github project, does what it says on the box (video to mocap). Check out the link to the files here.

Nvidia announces Kimodo, a text-to-mocap which is free to use –

end result is a BVH file, which can be brought into iClone and convert into an animation file (Phil will provide an interesting video to show how it works)

AI voice, not Eleven Labs, but this is free!  Check out Voicebox here.  This does voice cloning and text to speech and runs locally.