unreal engine

S5 E194 For the Empire: Worst Jobs in Star Wars (Aug 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes August 13, 2025 Leave a reply

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

Generation Tech channel here

Completely Machinima episode on Talky Orcs by AFK here

AFK Academy channel here

Interview with Peter Haynes, Feb 2016 by Diane Riggins for Legendarium Magazine here

Peter Haynes on AccuLips for Reallusion

Interview with Peter Haynes, July 2023 by Reallusion here

Haynes’ production, Cheng Beng on Vimeo here –

S5 E192 Machinima News Omnibus (July 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 30, 2025 Leave a reply

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

RIP Tutsy

Completely Machinima Interview with Tutsy Navarathna here https://completelymachinima.com/cm-interview-tutsy-navarathna/

Flowers of Evil filmed by Tutsy Navarathna, discussed on our episode here https://completelymachinima.com/s4-e121-cosmic-flowers-of-evil-mar-2024/

Glasz DeCuir’s tribute here –

and an interview with the man himself, recorded for the Machinima Expo –

Projects

A RDR2 inspired Minecraft animation made using Blender

An Egyptian Renaissance cinematic made in Unreal Engine –

A trailer for an upcoming movie which the creators are trying to fund and involve the original voice actors from Team Fortress 2 –

An intro to an updated game, Back to the Future 2025, made in Unreal Engine –

And a webcam test for metahuman, also in Unreal Engine –

genAI projects worth looking at –

Interesting Convos

Darren Aronofsky and Demis Hassabis on storytelling in the age of AI –

AIFF 2025, update here

Judge backs AI gen firm called Anthropic over use of copyrighted books, here

I turned down a [REDACTED] show –

New tools, techniques & how tos

Meta’s Worlds creator tool for VR, here

Eleven Labs – another update!

Creating a crowd of metahumans in Unreal –

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!

S5 E190 Unreal: Rally (July 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 16, 2025 Leave a reply

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.



YouTube Version of This Episode

https://youtu.be/AxIjycwnhNo

Show Notes & Links

Rally by Santiago Menghini, released 20 Nov 2024 –

About Menghini’s filmmaking approach, courtesy of an interview with The VFX Process podcast –

S5 E170 Machinima News Omnibus (Feb 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 20, 2025 Leave a reply

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

Second Life has been testing browser based streaming

Linden Labs has spent $1.3B building the world and paid $1.1B back to its creators

Animator’s Survival Kit, part of a Bloomsbury video series, and it has been created by Richard Williams

Gladiator II has all the kind of hallmarks you can achieve in Unreal Engine, with enough time and energy –

The Freeman Chronicles made by Ian James Duncan –

There’s also a fascinating website which documents how the film was made worth taking a look at too.

Tom Cook (aka ToCoSo) original fan song made for Elite Dangerous called ‘Mining on my Own’ by Ghost Giraffe –

A Mandalorian Cinematic Trailer made in Unreal Engine, made by Geoffrey Grandseign, it’s a showcase of his work as well as a fan film –

A Godot engine project, created in the 4.3 engine version by Jan Fidler –

The US Copyright Office’s ruling on AI art generated with text prompts.

Others asking questions about the implications of this ruling.

Announcement of a merger between Getty Images and Shutterstock

NVIDIA’s RTX 5070 family graphics cards announed here

HL3 teaser? Check this out!

Hollywood Animal trailer –

Astartes II – Official Teaser Trailer | Warhammer –

The Sims 1 & 2 re-releases – news item link here

Rooster Teeth is back?! Another news item link

Director’s comments: Heir to the Empire, Damien reflects on the series to date –

the full movies here –

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 –