In this ep, we discuss two machinima films dealing with thematically similar issues, albeit presented with different treatments: Vigilante is made in GTA5 and tells the shocking story of how the lead character became cyberpunk. The second is a futuristic yet somehow more traditional gender-based story made in UE5. It is presented as a proof of concept for a proprietary tool made by its creator, who is none other than the VFX Oscar-winner Tim Webber in his directorial debut.
YouTube Version of This Episode
Show Notes & Links
GTAV – Vigilante | Episode 1 | Cyberpunk Machinima by Weedens, released 25 March 2023
FLITE | Hyper Realistic CGI Sci Fi Short Using Unreal Engine, released 1 Dec 2023
An interesting video featuring Tim Webber, talking about his approach to visual effects
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
This week we compare and contrast, in a way extending that ongoing debate about whose IP is the daddy… but the ep is about much more than that too. We discuss @solofilmmaking4857 ‘s use of #chatgpt to generate a film’s story, using the plots of 60 of his portfolio works on Batman, mixing styles and genres along the way. We don’t see it as wholly successful and we discuss why. We contrast that with an unusual hobbyist technique to create ‘analogue machinima’, inspired by Spiderman toy figurines digitised and animated by @MakeItMoveMedia. In the end, our conclusion is that its all Marvellous!
YouTube Version of This Episode
Show Notes and Links
Vengence: Batman Fan Made Cinematic | Unreal Engine 5.3 | DLSS 3.5 by Solo Filmmaking
‘Making of’ film, link –
Spider-Man Action Figure Animations Episodes 1-8 by Make It Move Media
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 –
YouTube Version of This Episode
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!
Backflip is a docu-style film, made over a period of three years where Nikita Diakur presents his progress using AI to teach a character to backflip. The character is the 3D scanned artist and the learning process applied is based on a technique he read in an academic paper. To say its chaos is an understatatement, and something anyone in research could probably have told him when attempting to replicate a finding in a publication (which of course is why LLMs using text alone will never be ‘intelligent’). It is also everything one would expect from a character rig with the physics of a double-jointed arachnid… but it sure is hugely entertaining to watch, and brilliantly edited together. Backflip is a must watch for anyone using AIs for animation, not least because it serves as a reminder of just how tough this all was pre-mid 2023!
We also begin the episode with some news updates: Half Life 2 @ 25 years, GTA6 trailer, Elden Ring DLCs and Baad Viibes (John MacInnes).
YouTube Version of This Episode
https://youtu.be/-iE2YKKQX9s
Show Notes & Links
Half Life 25th anniversay documentary and update –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZ3HzvFEto&t
The GTA6 official advert –
John MacInnes talking about Baad Viibes at the Unreal Fest, October 2023 –
Backflip – film by Nikita Diakur, released 27 September 2023 –
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