Machinima Info Barf #8

Today's post is brought to you by the word 'Gush'. Stand up and say it loud 10 times. Isn't that a fun word. Then after your family and friends look at you strangely settle back into your comfortable chair and peruse this enormous collection of links.

Previous Info Barfs (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7).

Away for a week.

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eSports:

The World Cyber Games are taking place this weekend. Coverage at GotFrag.
The Escapist covers fraggers.

Video Game News:

Bungie and Microsoft broke up (more at Law of the Game) from 8bitjoystick. You can send sympathy flowers.
Koster talks about the current game industry (Gamasutra).
Top 10 most influential AI games (via AIgamedev.net). Please, why is Black and White at #1?
In-game ads using discussing historical Monopoly, Monopoly today, and social commentary games like Disaffected (via Gamasutra).
Top 21 Linux Games (from LinuxGames).
The Guardian talks about in-game advertising.
BBspot has a flowchart for those who can't decide to stop playing video games.
McDonald's video game, social commentary? (via Play This Thing). Any game where you pay to corrupt politicians has to be fun?
Minerva single-player mod episode 3 for Half Life 2 released.
Writer's Guild announces video game writing award.
The next 25 years of video games on Cracked.com. Likely to be oh so wrong.

Virtual World News:

Habbo Hotel manager discusses the enormous popularity of this free retro virtual world (via Gamespot).
More on Habbo's development (via Gamasutra).
Habbo's mobile version has 110 000 users (via Virtual World News).
Some strange virtual worlds like The Endless Forest (via Clickable Culture).
Metaversed discusses MTV's 6 virtual worlds.
MellaniuM showcases Skype broadcasting of Second Life. I recently had a chance to talk to Joe Rigby about this, and he used Skype to show some virtual worlds they were creating (using Unreal Engine - see previous post and comments). Fascinating stuff.
Virtual world numbers from virtual world news.
Virtual world venture captial from Cnet.

Contests/Festivals:

Bitfilm voting is over. All machinima nominees are listed here.
Hellgate London is having a contest. Machinima accepted (via What Providence).
Machinima will be shown at U of Wisc.
Machinima Europe is next weekend. Who's going?

Machinima News:

Paraworld movie game for kids.
Blizzard introduces WoW machinima page, recognizing the importance of machinima and coupled with their recent announcements on machinima usage, this is great news (WoWInsider).
Machinima mailing list and wiki for Second Life. Linden labs also realizes the importance of machinima.
Plopp moves sculpted prims into Second Life.

Machinima/Video Clips:

Artist almost drawing dirty pictures and then transforming them into something else (NSFW - WebTVHub).
Burning man time lapse (via O'reilley Radar).
Richard Kelly's Southland Tales trailer shows that the movie certainly looks to raise the bar on the weirdness from his first movie, Donnie Darko. Brazil meets Inland Empire, meets Donnie Darko?
Virtual Guatanamo in Second Life.
NewTeeVee has a list of Nintendo Odes.
When Cell Phones Attack (ad from Argentinian Leandro Fuez).
23 Things We've Learned From Movies (metacafe). Hilarious slide show (the pics are brilliant). There should be a contest to parody all of them in a single movie.
MachinimaCam demo for SL (via SecondLifeInsider).
Game Probe explores video game narratives (Thinking Cinematic, ie. Lucifer Jones, ie. Mike Jones). He also does Motion Sketches which is very impressive.
I'm sick of Halo3, but the Believe ad is well made. Production info on Motionographer.
Wired covered The Sex Life of Robots. Then YouTube pulled the video.
Lego Half Life episode one and two. Remaking HL stories using stop motion lego.
Club Elona hi-res Guild Wars machinima (via Mike Abundo).
More Guild Wars machinima listed here (from Max Damage).
Pirates in Saskatchewan using Everquest (Captain Tractor song).
IdeaWorld documentary on early days of Second Life.
iCloneTV covers Second Life Convention. Isn't that a little strange?
Greek tragedy Oresteia in the Sims2.
Elk Cloner student animation is impressive (via Cartoon Brew).
Terrible video game endings (so 8 bit - via Videosift).
Grouchobeer is back with his bizarre political commentary - Strange Interregnum.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

Some interesting notes on interactive cinema from the 1967 Montreal Expo from Czechoslovakia's entry the Kinoautomat (via Radio Praha).
NewTeeVee lists some new internet video startups. Scenecaster looks interesting (sharing 3D spaces with people?).
Graspr (more how-to videos).
Blade Runner to be released again this December. (Wired, NYT). One of my all time favorite movies, no matter what you think about the ending, the voiceover, or the ambiguity (or apparently not) about Deckard's humanity.
A comparison chart of 3D applications (extremely useful, but damn is 3DS expensive - via TDT 3D).
Flip Animation online magazine.
Digital puppetry (site, video).
David Cronenberg at the Washington Post
BoingBoingTV vs. Wired Science. Fight!
Dataisnature talks about live cinema. Interesting, and Indonesian shadow theater. Cool. (Solu).

Misc:

These images of the reimagining of books are fascinating (book autopsies - from Centripetal Notion). I wonder if it could be done with the world's longest book (million page books? - via
The Millions).