This week is our monthly news ep. We discuss various developments in the machinima and virtual production community. Tracy mentions the Reallusions 2024 3D Character Contest, highlighting Stefan Dufour's entry. Phil and Tracy discuss the potential of AI in character creation. Damien reports on Activision shutting down a Call of Duty mod and the impact of AI on modding. We also cover the Dragon Age: The Veil Guard game, the Secret Level series on Amazon Prime, and the new game inZOI. Phil introduces Daz AI Studio, a generative AI platform for DAZ Studio, and reflects on the impact of AI on the music industry, sharing the story of composer Sasha transitioning to AI-generated music.

1:14 Reallusion’s 3D Character Creator contest

3:41 Skibidi Toilet being made into a move with Michael Bay? No way!

5:03 Sandbox, the spiritual successor to Garry’s Mod

8:42 Celebrating TF2 community – a great fan-made trailer promo

9:21 Activision shuts down a key CoD mod – not the best choice, and we discuss how the community is responding to this, free mods and review bombs

16:58 Gamescon notes… Dragon Age; Secret Level on Amazon Prime; Inzoy

22:34 DAZ Studio has a great AI tool in it

25:25 Filmmusic.io update – the real impact of generative AI?

Credits -
Speakers: Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood, Damien Rice
Producer/editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

What is #machinima?! Good question these days, and this week we review a new video essay on tackling just that question... which is always interesting for us pioneers and vets to reflect on in this podcast. In the vid we review, Collin Aull introduces a few thoughts we've not really considered before, plus some comments we've discussed many times over the years, so its worth a listen as well as if you want to spot some of the older machinimas from those very early years in the narrative edit.

1:14 Ricky discusses his latest performance award success
8:49 Shout out for @Mr_Matt_Lee - some of the best build tuts around
11:22 Ricky introduces Collin Aull's video essay: The Game of Video
15:52 Damien's comments
17:27 Phil's comments
24:05 Tracy's comments
our conclusions... the biggest problem today is finding good machinima (because we know it exists as evidenced in EVERY episode of this show)!

Credits -
Speakers: Ricky Grove, Phil Rice, Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood
Producer/Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

This week we take a look at another stunning Team Fortress 2 short called Assault on 2Fort by JP Stevens aka Lolripk, a recommendation made to us by Dominzki (whose own TF2 short we reviewed in E135). What a great choice this is: we loved this film, a classic RED vs BLU tale but with a layer of emotion that is as beautifully portrayed as it is unexpected in SFM. These characters have real depth to them and we note how that's been achieved, even though the focal character doesn't even speak. Did we mention the fight choreography too? We reflect on the game lore, the significance of the community in the creative process, and how this story is told from an unusal perspective. We also reflect on why machinima series almost never complete... but we certainly hope Lolripk doesn't follow the pattern!

1:44 Introduction to film, its qualities: great choreography and emotional depth to characters
11:26 Why this is an unusual red vs blue story
15:27 What is the lore in TF2?
19:00 Violence portrayed: why it bothered some of us more in this than in E140, and vice versa
24:28 Little details, and why they mattered in this
35:45 The Source creator community rocks

Credits -
Speakers: Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood, Phil Rice
Producer: Damien Valentine
Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

A Star Citizen extravaganza: this week, we discuss a brilliant re-creation of Erik Wernquist's epic short, Wanderers, released by one of its creators Mr Hasgaha. Whilst this is a faithful scene-by-scene depiction of the original, its actually so much more than that too. We comment once again on the incredible qualities of the game, and how the fact it is an open world reflects the original inspiration for Wernquist's film: the artwork of Chesley Bonestell, whose paintings were partly the reason that NASA exists today. The machinima also pays homage to Carl Sagan in the only way it can, to his words in the iconic book Pale Blue Dot. If you have only particles of space nerd in you, we think you'll absolutely love this week's film, certainly we all do.

2:21 Based on Eric Wernquist's original, We Were Wanderers - film vs game and why cinematic machinimas like this matter for conveying director intent
4:45 How to pay homage to Carl Sagan without actually using his voice? Check this film out!
15:55 Making machinima in Star Citizen, what are the challenges?

Credits -
Speakers: Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood, Damien Valentine
Producer: Damien Valentine
Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

This week's selection is a stunning cinematic imaginary by Unknown Dino, focussing on the next version of Half Life (soon to be released... er, well, possibly in the next 10 years or so?). There is a lot of craft in this film, called HL: Overworld and made in Blender, which has taken its inspiration both from the HL Reddit community and the HL2 Artbook 'Raising The Bar'. We also talk about the positioning of the new world portrayed as being the next obvious logical step in the story arc for Half Life - HL1 being a portal through which aliens jump to Earth, HL2 being a kind of survival against the odds, Alyx being the prequel, and HL3 being the fight back taken to those hateful Combine... yeah, we wish!

1:19 Phil introduces the film and describes his impression of the vision of the HL3 world being articulated
9:40 Tracy talks about the inspiration for the film and the role of community but why even bother mentioning generative AI here?
17:55 Damien reflects on why there will never be HL3, which leads us into all sorts of speculative nonsense!

Credits -
Speakers: Phil Rice, Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood
Producer: Damien Valentine
Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

Another packed episode of news items we found for machinima creators everywhere. We take a look at some games news including several that have released music albums recently and discuss why we think that is. We go through some of the latest AI matters, including Vimeo's new AI content guidelines. We found one of the best Unreal master classes we ever seen, more like a work of art than a 'how to', but since its by the amazing Luis Andrade, we'd expect nothing less. We also found some partciularly juicy tidbits we think you'll enjoy.

1:24 HELP! Can anyone PLEEASSEEEE find us a WoW machinima to celebrate Blizzard's 20 years with this stunning game???
2:50 Games releasing music albums - why is that? We discuss why we're expecting a lot more games to follow this trend
18:56 Implications of this for machinima creators
21:50 Dead games and consumer rights and why there is no real legal precident for the latest goings on, plus implications for machinima content
37:01 Generative AIs - again! And Vimeo is on the band wagon...
44:08 Luis Andrade's 'how to' is stunning
45:00 ... now available on UE marketplace
46:00 Another call out for new distribution channels for content creators
50:00 No Man's Sky updates
51:00 Microsoft Flight Sim... just wow, but what are the implications for brand owners' IP and haven't we seen something similar happen elsewhere? Question: are you simulating flying or what you see looking at the ground?
1:06:28 SAG AFTRA on strike, this time in support of game actors... but GTA6 isn't covered?

Credits -
Speakers: Damien Valentine, Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood
Producer: Damien Valentine
Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

Crazy, it is certainly that - and more. If you enjoy slasher horror, we think you'll love this - and its definitely not for U18s! The film is by Toaster and is a music video for Code Mistake, a deathcore metal spectacular by CORPSE and Bring Me the Horizon. We examine Toaster's GTA5 machinima, reflect on its anime qualities, and conclude its significantly better than the official music video: Ricky discusses it in the context of Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man, but Phil, Tracy & Damien feel the inspiration is much closer to home.

1:29 Ricky’s introduction to the film, how it reminds him of avant-garde machinima and the work of Stan Brakhage – wishing we could go back in a time machine to show the early machinima community!

7:11 The official music video uses anime and fantasy horror, vs the machinima video using GTA5 which results in a different type of horror representation

13:00 Deathcore, production quality, edits, unleashed chaos – the energy is outstanding. To what extent are we desensitised to the gore in the film?

19:56 Strong fit between visuals and the music. The creator’s evident enjoyment in making the film shines through

23:26 Reflecting on Manhunt – highly controversial in its day, hyper horror

Credits -
Speakers: Ricky Grove, Phil Rice, Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood
Producer: Damien Valentine
Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

This week, we discussion two films: @neisannnn 'What a Wonderful World', a love letter to Star Citizen, where we focus on its surreal nature, use of backwards music, and ability to capture the game's vast universe. Our second film is 'Plumbob Princess' by @lReMi07l - one of the all time best machinimas we've seen in Sims 4. We discuss the visual quality and storytelling of machinima videos for The Sims 4 and Star Citizen, highlighting the creative use of animation, music, and language. Check out the films, with links on our website, info below. S

Credits -
Speakers: Phil Rice, Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood
Producer: Damien Valentine
Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats