We love AFK! This week’s ep covers another of AFK’s ambitious world building attempts to round out the Star Wars universe… and of course it works. What do you imagine the worst jobs to be for the most hapless Stormtroopers? These totally make sense to us! Check out our comments, our overview of AFK’s background and other projects, and what we really think of this short.
YouTube Version of This Episode
Show Notes & Links
Worst Jobs in Star Wars – A ‘For the Empire’ minisode created in Unreal 5.6 by AFK, released 19 June 2025
This week, we cover a lot of things this month, as usual, but start with a tribute to a machinima pioneer who has sadly crossed the bridge into an unknown world – Tutsy NAvArAthnA. We then go through some more fascinating projects that we want to share, more about genAI and machinima, a bunch of new tools and techniques, some wise words from some great artists, latest games and relevant updates. All links below.
YouTube Version of This Episode
Show Notes & Links
Celebrating Tutsy NAvArAthAa / Basile Vignes’ Life
Character Creator 5 update and connection to Unreal –
Fender Studio release for creating audio for 8 tracks, here
Martin Bell’s Unreal tutorial series –
How one detail completely changed a scene –
A LoRA for a Pierson’s Puppeteer –
NaturalVision Enhanced – release trailer –
Game Release
Dune Awakening –
Cyberpunk 2077 –
And finally…
Fortnite definition of machinima states: ‘the use of real-time computer graphics engines, like that used with Fortnite, to create a cinematic production. The word machinima is a portmanteau of the words machine and cinema.’
Take a look at the interview Tracy did with Epic’s Chief Tech Officer Kim Libreri in Pioneers in Machinima!
To think this film’s creator knew nothing about animation prior to making this short is absolutely astonishing. Of course, as we discuss, many crossed this path as a consequence of the pandemic, but there are few gems we’ve found like this. The film, Rally, draws heavily on Santiago Menghini’s experience as a live action director and producer. What’s fascinating, in our analysis, is our evaluation of ambiguity and how its clever use makes up for the animation and limitations. Watch the movie, check out our comments and add your own.
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
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 –
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