Machinima Info Barf #22

MIB#22

Oops, slipped to a month. Lots of people read these. Few comments? Is it worth it?
I killed the MIB collection list on the sidebar. Just do a google search on the blog.

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Machinima News:

The Overcast is...over.
MFD talks about women who have changed machinima for Ada Lovelace's day.
Othercinema covers machinima.
Filefront closed. Oops maybe not?
Moviewood3 is out.

Contests/Festivals:

Online Machinima Film Festival finalists. Looks like no online awards ceremony this year.
Mod of the year awards.
Weblog 2009 award winners announced.
Script Frenzy.
The Steam Awards celebrates online video.

Video Game/Virtual World News:

Java4K games. Minimum size, maximum fun.
The Path from Tale of Tales (makers of The Graveyard) looks like it follows their quirky indie game sense. The Escapist review.
Play Immortal Cities Nile Online.
Instant Action brings Tribes to web browser.
OnLive streams video games via the web. The big differences here appears to be that they are streaming the visuals and not requiring users to download anything more than a 1 Mb application. Is the web browser the new console?
Introversion talks.

Machinima/Video Clips:

The Cassiopeia Projects gives away HD science videos for your benefit. The ones on the solar system and space are impressive.
It really is a system of (pneumatic) tubes.
Dante's Inferno trailer.
This animated video, Khoda, composed of 6000 individual paintings is impressive. The music less so.
Nanotechnology is going to eat you.
Comedy sketches retold by famous directors.
Terror of golf course. Weird. Japanese. Usually I'm just worried about water hazards.
This short animated clip is minimalistic story telling at its best.
This animated Evil Nine video (Crooked) is amusing.
Zapping.
Don't Forget is a great animated clip.
Til Sunrise is a 10 min. Brazilian animation.
Animation based on Braid creator's discussion about game as cheap drugs.
Mykonos stop motion animation.
The Trailer for Avatar? Aliens?

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

The BBC has a piece on 3D cinema (Monsters v. Aliens is in 3D).
More 3D news.
'Blank' movie director puts up torrent. Beats pirates at own game.
The Big Picture does robots.
Who wouldn't love to use these miniature cities to film in.
Causes of color. Explanations abound.
Speedcine is a list of legal feature length movies available online.
Cyborg nation adds another to its citizen list. Wired covers the prosthetic camera implant.
Creating a graphic novel.
Time magazine has photos of Detroit's horrible decline. Is that the future for all?
Pirate Bay documentary.
AV Geeks has over 20 000 old school and 16 mm educational films available. Want to know how teenagers learned about sex education in 1975? Here's your answer.
Understanding the financial crisis through visualization.
Participatory films.
Movie recommendation engines. I still use Netflix almost exclusively.
If you took a single image and compressed it via the jpeg algorithm 600X, what would be the result?
Ansel Adams talks about the key to photography.

Misc:

A guide to sound effects.
Beware the new food chain.
How we tell stories.
Aviary's terms of use are brilliantly and succinctly explained.
Blender tutorial.
60 free 3D model sites.
Christy Denas has Alternate Reality Games.
Commissioning for attention.
Ah Pook Is Here looks like it would have been a fantastic graphical/visual/novel/short story from William S. Burroughs and Malcolm NcNeil. Animated version of Ah Pool on YouTube. More Burroughs at Ubu and the Archive.

Machinima Info Barf #21

MIB#21

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Machinima News:

Mcom gets into interactive YouTube. Take a video game, make a machinima piece, then make it interactive? Haven't you just reduced it to the essentials?

GoAnimate teleports to the 25th century and lands in a Star Trek episode.
Rooster Teeth starts up Relocated RvB series.
Moviewood online edition (machinima e-zine).
MMIF is today!
Zero Hour machinima trailer.
Adage article about Machinima.com:

Eighty percent of users in a recent Machinima.com survey said they bought a new game after watching it in videos on the site.

Contests/Festivals:

Double Kill wins Make Something Unreal phase 2 contest. Full list.
CGSociety Steampunk winners announced. Some impressive stuff.

Video Game/Virtual World News:

Gabe Newell discusses digital distribution. And Entertainment as service.
Quake. Live. Embedded in your browser. Play a ten year old FPS for free while watching ads painted on the gamespace. More on the Flash behind the scenes.
Disaster planning in video games.
Spore opens API. Contest ensues.

Machinima/Video Clips:

The Evolution of Technology and the Human Race.
Everything is possible. Or stupid human tricks.
Benkler talks about open source economics. His Wealth of Networks book is available online.
Get a Glimpse of Gary student animation.
Are video games preparing our children for the upcoming Apocalypse (Onion).
The Strange Fruit machinima tribute to Billie Holiday is fantastic.
Watch the entirety of Sita Sings The Blues animated film online.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

These images of melted brick are bizarre.
New Steal this Film documentary coincides with the Pirate Bay trial.
Datamoshing (altering keyframes in video).
25 Blender tutorials.
Short film distribution guide from filmmaking.net.
Architectual plugins for Google Sketchup.
This experiment with digital comics is cool, allowing the reader to control the flow of images.
Vunky search is a photoshop tutorial specific search engine.
3D satellite viewer (view satellite tracks around the Earth - watch them collide!).
Animation timeline (released animated movies).
This long article from Variety details the behind the scenes fights that took place before and during the Godfather being made. Success against all odds!
3D film releases over the years.

Misc:

This 1975 Rolling Stone article on Philip K Dick is a fascinating read.
WriteorDie - for when writer's block has got you down.
Steven Poole talks about professional writing, and the digital age.
Online Logo Generator.

Machinima Info Barf #20

MIB#20
Not getting smaller, are they?
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Machinima News:

Audio conference today!
Mixed Second Life/Amsterdam International Machinima Festival.

OMFF short list submissions due shortly.
Second part of Nitsche's interview.
MFD talks about Machinimods. (site).

Contests/Festivals:

The filmblazer two week community filmmaking tour.
Steampunk contest submissions.
Rod Serling script competition.

Video Game/Virtual World News:

Sun Tzu and Starcraft.
Wired talks about and shows pics of the recent 48 hour global game jam.
Second Life Battlemech roleplaying sim.
Odd casual game - you win if no one else is playing.
Philosophy of computer games online docs.

Machinima/Video Clips:

Watch Order of the Myths this weekend only.
MBC News.
Cool projection mapping video on Motionographer.
The Battery Menace.
m.dot.strange video and interview.
COGs steampunk game video preview.
Watch the Ascent of Money documentary. Probably better than watching the Oscars.
Spacechase in 3D - glasses required.
Interview with Andrew Stanton (director on Wall-E).
Francis (L4D) hates everything.
I hate my boss animated poem.
Big Sugar documentary (no, not the band, industrial sugar production).
Coraline artists panel.
Hemlock student animation.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

50 Gimp tutorials.
Create a color palette from a single image.
HDRI tips and tricks.
Sketchory.

Misc:

32 essential and free PC applications.
Interview with Werner Herzog.
Some preproduction photos for Alien3 (watch the behind the scenes on one of the DVDs for the full saga of the suite of directors attached to that movie until Fincher finally directed it).
A list of mindfuck movies.
Letter monster fonts/images on flickr.

Machinima Info Barf #19

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Machinima News:

Antics3D -> Scene Systems and LiveFrame.
I noted ZenCub3d is taking a sabbatical.
EEF talks about the recent YouTube witchhunt. Isn't it funny that it was the music industry that becomes the problem, not the game industry. After you get bored reading about the RIAA, read this ccMixter memoir (long pdf).
Bailey migrates towards casual video tools.
treadster media forges their own path.

Machiniplex premiere of Saving Grace Feb 15. The movie is now up.

Contests/Festivals:

GTAIV Best in Class 2 winners.
Gimme Credit screenplay competition.
Oscar shorts nominees.
Holland animation festival.
Machiniwhat movie competition.

Video Game/Virtual World News:

The global game jam sounded like fun. Perhaps a global machinima jam is needed?
The top ten money making MMOs. You can guess #1, but what about the rest? Note, at least SL appears profitable, so it will hopefully stick around as a virtual space and machinima platform for the time being.
Dystopia v 1.2 released.
Something absolutely massive has occurred in Eve Online. If I was studying online communities, MMOs, virtual spaces, and interactive fiction, then this is the stuff legends are made of.
Jenkins interviews Nitsche.
The Machinarium has wonderful visuals.

Machinima/Video Clips:

The history of the internet. Very informative.
The art of storyboarding.
Stop motion GTA spoof.
Second Life machinima or not?
Durham University uses the Source engine to make a fire escape simulator. Watch out for the camping snipers!
Speaking of snipers, The Sniper (iClone movie).

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

How Jeopardy technology has changed.
Public domain hi res government movies.
NASA clips.
The New Yorker does movie marketing. At least someone makes a killing these days.
Ira Glass on storytelling (host of This American Life).
Interactive online video.
A history of stop motion. Some interesting stuff and clips from ancient animation videos.
How to shoot 3D photos.
Google Earth historical images.
Giant spiders in Liverpool.

Misc:

The economics of giving it away. Matt comments on two books discussing internet production.
100 most beautiful words.
The American cargo cult.
Recommended reading list.
Comics grammar - on written word representation in comics.
Michael Cho on inking comics.
Director/animator?

Machinima Info Barf #18

Continuing the slimmer better info barf.

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Machinima News:

Next Machinima audio conference Feb 22.
Machiniplex premiere of Saving Grace Feb 15.
MellaniuM talks convergence.

Contests/Festivals:

Radiohead and Aniboom contest winners.
Siggraph entry deadline is March 4.

Video Game/Virtual World News:

How to create vector art from Alien Hominid designer.
Retro Atari ad. Ahh...the good old days of epileptic seizure-inducing PacMan.
Video Game Classics. The GoldenEye poster kills me.
Games eclipsed the Hollywood box office years ago. Now it's beating DVD and Blu-Ray sales.
The art of the videogame.
Second Life biology.
Dystopia's (HL2 Mod) Upcoming Release.

Machinima/Video Clips:

Scott McCloud analyzes comic books. His TED talk gives a 17 minute intro.
Augmented Second Reality.
One small step from reassembling robotic cubes to the T-1000. Their robotic dog was previously mentioned in info barf #1.
TheWorldThatYouKnow from Pineapple Pictures.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

3D sex in all its cinematic glory coming soon.
Some YouTube HD uploading tips.
Sites that allow HD uploads and which ones are the best.
Top 50 3D renders, some utterly fantastic, some utterly banal.
Inauguration meant big numbers on the web.
Mike Jones talks about shot length in movies based on some dubiously drawn chart junk curves.
Explore color themes at Kuler.
Bordwell has flashbacks.
MAKE magazine article on the Prelinger archive.
You can search google by image size.
The top 10 shots of 2008, part 1, part 2.
Film editing with Albert Brooks.
More procedural city generation.
Interactive photo hunt of Oscar nominees using YouTube annotations.

Misc:

Classic art from old books. The Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass art by Tenniel remind of my first foray into these books as a kid.
How to write a book.
50 most loathsome people in America.
Primitive robots.
2009: The Year of Panic. At least according to Sterling who is increasingly becoming the Andy Rooney of the internet age.
More Lessig and copyright in the digital age.
Digital literature with a nice set of links.

Machinima Info Barf #17

Continuing the slimmer better info barf.

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Machinima News:

VideoGameSpaces book by M. Nitsche.
Overman asks "wherefore art thou machinima critic?"
What's the point when all the clips are being removed?

Contests/Festivals:

Offworld talks about the Independent Games Festival. Minotaur in a China Shop is sadistic.
Waltz with Bashir wins a Golden Globe. Significant because it's the first documentary to win, and also because it is an animated picture.
Netflix find your voice competition.
TheJanusSyndicate talks about Gman Squad contest.

Video Game/Virtual World News:

Amusing rules for Second Life.
Anticipated games for 2009. Most of those look boring though. Where's some more Portal, or TF2. The world's crashing down all around us and you give us gritty realism?
1UP sold, EGM gone.

Machinima/Video Clips:

The Balloon is a great clip.
This condom ad is brilliant.
If this wingsuit base jumping video is real then wow! If not, then wow!
This time lapse animation "City of Books" is impressive.
Sci Fi Sleep Dealer movie sounds intriguing. Wired interview. Web. IMDB.
Laurence Lessig on Colbert Report.
LittleBigPlanet machinima.
Sequential Narration.
LainyVoomy's Fall.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

3D TV is coming.
Movie poster remakes. I love Die Hard.
AlJazeera releases creative commons footage for the Gaza conflict.
BAFTA animation nominees.
PrettyLoaded shows flash loaders from around the web.
This wall mural in Sao Paolo is cool.
Aurora Borealis images.
Nine Inch Nails releases HD concert footage.
Interactive film editing unlocks story.

Misc:

Internet argument generator.
Copyright extensions.
The dawn of ads. Hilarious.
Charlie Kaufmann interviewed.
Short animation production pipeline. Some chapters online.
Free software from Microsoft. Odd.
Top 10 animation tools of the year. Blender wins.
C. Doctorow. Writing in the age of distraction.

Machinima Info Barf #16

The people have spoken! Let their voices be heard!

Maybe. The poll I posted about is now closed, all of thirteen people responded. My non-scientific analysis is:

• 6 - think it is perfect as is
• 3 - think it is too long, it should be more frequent
• 4 - have other sillier ideas and will be ignored

Since I was leaning towards making it shorter, that is what I will do. Try it on a weekly schedule.

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Machinima News:

Allakhazam talks about machinima.
LitFuse puts their back catalog on YouTube in HD, ie. YouTube has new HD capabilities.
Machinima for Dummies covered 2008.
There was machinima at the Orlando Science Center. Did anyone go?
Upcoming Audio Conference on visual results when uploading to video sharing sites.
OMFF nominations.

Video Game/Virtual World News:

TerraNova posts a mini rant on tax compliance in virtual worlds (a report from the IRS, reported very superficially by several news outlets, at least according to TN).
How can someone create derivative art about video games and charge for it? A poster about two notorious AIs from video games on deviantart (Offworld).
The ten best places in Second Life, part 1, part 2. Nice post with links to the original articles, video clips, etc. InSilico would be a great place to film a cyberpunk thriller.
Vote for the mod of the year at ModDB.

Machinima/Video Clips:

NewTeeVee posts about an interactive Street Fighter video created for a toy company using stop motion animation of the toy characters. I posted about interactive links in YouTube in 2008.
I like this stop motion city.
Harvesting Creatives.
This French animation, Accro, is a take on addiction.
Folding the Yoshimoto cube.
This fan created video for Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger is very nice.
StarWars retold by someone who hasn't seen it. Altering the zeitgeist via ignorance and pop culture references.
Freeman's mind Ep 8.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

Black Dynamite is coming, can you dig it?
I thought this post on cinematic gaming would be more interesting than it was, but the poor presentation and ten minute clip spew made me nauseous.
Much more interesting is this article about interaction vs. story.
This super wide photo is aptly entitled "We're All Gonna Die".
The Remnants was a short clip produced over 3 days for 25 K. Is it dead in the water? Will it be resurrected Family Guy style?
CNN photosynths the inauguration, while the NYT does a panorama. The Big Picture has more. My pics posted here.
Best sites to stream TV. Hulu still wins IMO.

Misc:

Things I learned from losing and regaining my YouTube account.
Oscar nominees announced.
Hollywood needs a new model for storytelling.
Joss Whedon has top ten scriptwriting tips. Rule #1, finish it!
Claymation at Sundance.

Machinima Info Barf Poll

The Machinima Info Barf collection. Fifteen posts that are links with short descriptions. I started them in February, 2007 and almost two years later there are 15 of them (see the section in the sidebar halfway down the page) and they have gotten much longer. Before I do another Info Barf, I posted a poll on the side.

Basically, should it continue in the present form as a loose collection of links?

Is it useless and I should just drop it?

It is a lot of work collecting all of these, some are useful to me, some are not. I provide them all in case someone else finds them useful.

Two weeks to vote.

Add suggestions in the comment section.

Machinima Info Barf #14

Number 14.

I have not done one of these in awhile, and probably will not have time to do another for a few weeks.

Previous Info Barfs listed on the sidebar.

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Machinima News:

Antics v. 5 released. I have reservations.
ZenCub3d new beta.
Xtra Normal releases online animation tool. I made a brief clip.

Contests/Festivals:

The New York festival is coming up. 99.999% sure I will make it. Nominees and Panels listed. Note, the New York marathon is Sunday Nov. 2nd.
The Machinima Expo lost it's real world appendage, but it's virtual head will reappear in Second Life on Nov. 9th.Pineapple Pictures promo.
Imagina Awards 2009.
48 hour machinima contest. I tried to set up a team but no one seems to have the time. That's too bad because that kind of time pressure contest is an experience everyone should survive.
Suzanne Awards winners announced.

Video Game/Virtual World News:

Political Machine (Stardock). Smear your opponent to appeal to your base. Evade all questions while winking at the camera. Offer no solutions. Just like real candidates.
Linux Gamers release.
Mellanium talks industrial archaeology.
Bioshock2 trailer.
Interview with the maker of the Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. Playing Columbine is a documentary on the whole thing made by Danny Ledonne. (Part I, II, III).

Machinima/Video Clips:

Universal declaration of human rights.
Time lapse tilt shift video.
ill clan releases Tiny Nation.
In a few months this blog post might look like this.
YouSuckAtPhotoshop has gone hardcore ARG.
Fear of the Dark animated trailer looks like a nice collection of darker themed shorts by IFC.
The credit crisis as Antarctic exploration.
Virtualization of the Universe.
Cellular automaton in Second Life.
World animation day. Why isn't there a world machinima day.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

New DSLR can do HD.
Stock photo royalties.
ILoveSketch. 3D curve sketching system.
Five Gimp tricks.
Fake tilt shifting in Photoshop.
Real time raytracing.
Photosynth explained.

Misc:

ReadTheWords.com. Reads aloud typed text (plugins for Firefox and IE available).
This Wired report on Ramayan 3392 AD film has some interesting images.
RIP: Remix Manifesto. Open Source Cinema. Rip the system.
Animation explained. From storyboards to render by Dale Myers.

Machinima Info Barf #12

Made two 48 Hr. Film Festival entries this year. What a blast.

Herb and Dorothy at Silverdocs is an awesome documentary and an inspiring film.

Previous Info Barfs listed on the sidebar.

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Machinima News:

DigitalPhil asks about Gamestop's machinimercials.
NASA is sponsoring some SecondLife Machinima in the teengrid.
Freepixel asks some questions (and gets some answers).
Dr. of Machinima continues the "Machinima vs. Anymation" debate.

Contests/Festivals:

The Machinima festival in NY and the Montreal festival are one week apart. Is this maturation of the medium?
Dragoncon has machinima.
Nvision (see previous post).

Video Game/Virtual World News:

InSilico city is a fun Dystopian shopping mall. Too bad the stores bear the same gaudy neon lights as every other shopping mall in SL. With enough smoke and avatars, this would be straight out of Blade Runner.
Lego Designer (lifehacker).
MMORPG Tycoon lets you build games for virtual denizens?
3DFlash.
SF MMO.

Machinima/Video Clips:

This clip from the Onion describes the new Warcraft sequel that lets players play a player playing Warcraft. Very meta. This clip mentioned on Cinemassively is about Lagspikefilm's World of Workcraft where WoW characters play office workers (brilliantly filmed using Counterstrike's cs_office as background).
Rooster Teeth continues RvB Reconstruction, but also fires up Supreme Surrender.
The effort it took to make this giant Rube Goldberg apparatus in Gmod is either frightening or awe-inspiring.
Almost 40 minutes of Clear Skies, Half Life characters used in the Eve Online universe. Nice voice acting. Let's see more cross platform machinima (how does that change even the few rules we have on machinima usage)?
In For A Penny Part 1. Prologue. WoW B&W.
Another 40 minute machinima in Battlefield2 - The Break of Dawn (have not watched it).
The follow up to Half Life 2 Anxiety (see previous post - Nightmare).
Enter the Chameleon (more).


Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

Color management in Firefox3 (FF3 broke all of my damn extensions BTW, good job - almost as good as Ubuntu breaking on the last release).
Lost Zombies - crowdsourcing the film making experience.
FrameFilter.
The Drive-In is 75.
Early Movie Reviews.

Misc:
The future of the cinema experience. (the future will be interactive).
More about 3D (why does every article cite the 3D Hannah Montana crap - as if 3D had anything to do with the success of that fad).
Snowglobe scenes - odd.
Wall.E sounds like one of the few Pixar movies I might actually want to see.
Sony on voice acting in games.
Death and taxidermy = not normal.

Machima Info Barf #11

Post OMFF party.

Previous Info Barfs links are now on their own sidebar (the list was getting too long).

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Machinima News:

While some of us were celebrating machinima, some other people were receiving non-takedown notices. A very interesting development (MFD post). I wonder what else they could demand though?
The first every machinima video viewed by a Congressional subcommittee? (Second Life ad video).
Hands Free SL means puppeteering machinima?
Antics3D now works with sketchup. I've been playing with this a lot. Tips and tricks section.
Brief discussion with Gus from RvB down under.
Zach brags about the numbers.
Brief mention of machinima at Nmancer.
NPR talks machinima (around 22 minute mark).
Overman talks about 'machinima'. I will go on record saying I can't stand the term 'anymation'. Period.
The Shisha den talks about machinima.

Contests/Festivals:

OMFF Winners Announced (My Post, OMFF Site).
The Make Something Unreal contest includes a machinima section.
Koinup's SL Music Video Contest winners announced.
Iron Man contest (I got my avatar from somewhere). Here.
Overman's pointing out some Bitfilm gems.
Semi-Finalists for Radiohead's Aniboom Contest announced.

Video Game/Virtual World News:

A list of upcoming PC games with screenshots (that's a lot of eye candy).
Second Life Guantánamo Bay.
Oprah launches own reality.
Meet the Scout is another great Valve intro to a TF2 character.
The Escapist talks about Allegiance - which was a damn fine game that is still going strong.
Free Spore creature editor. This is the wave of the future = outsource your content creation to the world.
Learn about reality from a video game.
You are no longer hard core.
Halotography. Wired's how to miniaturize a scene.
Is modding over? I hope not. Modding paved the way for machinima.
Canadians planning virtual music festival in conjunction with real festival. Damn innovative canuckleheads.

Machinima/Video Clips:

Ross Scott releaed Galaxy Gulp (YouTube) which is a tutorial made for Noesis Interactive (the software company that produces the XSI Modeling Tool). That's a boring description for what really is a pretty damn funny vid.
This flip it video is a blast (Squeeze Me - Kraak & Smaak).
Xanatos and the Janus Syndicate made a western in TF2 (Garry's Mod Post).
Beware the Believers (Dawkins Rap Vid).
Quarantine goes viral (ha ha).
Clone Wars Animated Trailer looks pretty dull actually. Can we please go to some other time and place in this universe.
Transforming Robot Battle.
Bitstream Boogie Machinima.
Charlie Rose interviews Charlie Rose (very odd).
Custom animations in TF2.
Bloodspell making of documentary (behind the chaos there was order).
Cult of Sincerity is the first full length film released on YouTube.
Burning water does mocap for breakdancing Gman.
Topography at Vimeo (Vimeo has some great looking videos).
This machine is brilliant.
Presidential Reality. Forget the first African American or first woman President. How soon before we have an avatar for president?
Team Roomba's Meet The Pyro (the same guys who did the TF2 griefing video as detailed at The Escapist).
PEDS season 3 is starting.
What to do when a girl says she has a boyfriend.
Did old media release the first GTA IV machinima (Conan O'Brien)?
When We Two Parted by Strange Company. Controversy ensues.
Ironman vs. Batman (amusing).
Game Over in stop motion.
Instant City in Moviestorm.
Christian Aid ad using disaster footage shot in ?
Can't afford to shoot a video? There's millions of bloody cameras in the UK, so one band decided to make use of the cloud video.
Thirty minute Battlefield machinima (Hatred).

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

Hollywood is going 3D and Wired has some history. James Cameron.
The 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time. Too much SNL in the list. Where's my Monty Python.
The 50 greatest commercial parodies of all time. Ditto.
Not sure where I got this link to Carlos Baena's home page, but he has some great links to animation information, clips, shorts, etc.
Art of the Title Sequence.
Resolution vs. Framerate.
Swooping in Google Earth.
The movies that did not win best picture (not including There Will Be Blood which was robbed).
Hi-res YouTube hacks. And another.
Bjorks' Wanderlust in 3D.
Best macro photos at Wired.
Penny Arcade TV. Watch the process of creation. Forget the behind the scenes footage - make it the scene.
We've all heard about We Are The Strange - now a one woman created animation was shown at Tribeca (Sita Sings The Blues - by Nina Paley).
The 50 greatest TV shows of all time (another skewed list).
Free stock photo site.
Insect Sex and Rossellini.

Misc:

365 Tomorrows has one very short story every day. Some of my recent favorites (Retirement, The Rise and Fall of the First Shi Empire, Hard to Find).
Another interesting legal case mentioned at BoingBoing about the EFF fighting for the rights of 3D modellers.
Schematics of starship interiors. Now all you need is the 3D models.
Trapped in an Elevator. 41 hours changes man's life forever.
Search the web for sounds.
Do it yourself cable organizer.
Soundproof a room.
Have someone read your script for a fee.
Fontbots.
All about movies.
Processing ported to javascript.
YouTube comment snob Firefox extension.

Machima Info Barf #10

Away for a week, so enjoy some links.
Calling this #10, even though #9 was not titled.

Previous Info Barfs (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9).

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Updated*

Machinima News:

Bloodspell DVD released (thx Hugh).
RvB Boxed Set DVD released.


Contests/Festivals:

I posted about an online photoshop contest. The winners have been announced.
There's 12 videos tagged as 'animated' that are part of the Nine Inch Nails Ghosts Film Festival. There are none tagged as 'machinima'. Hello?!

Video Game/Virtual World News:

Flipside is an interesting premise for a game wherein the player must 'flip' from one side of reality to another (half life 2 net - mod review).
How soon before the Turing Test is passed? An AI has been created in Second Life.

Machinima/Video Clips:

A History of Evil (YouTube).
Lego and Biochemistry (YouTube).
Keiko Takamura sings about Bioshock (YouTube).
This robotic dog is bizarre (YouTube).
Roman Coppola makes an environmental short (nofatclips).
Interesting effect in this Half Life machinima - Message (YouTube).
I like this Portishead video (YouTube).
Low cost multitouch whiteboard (very cool - imagine the possibilities - YouTube).
This video of a TED talk by a neuroscientist discussing what happened when she had a stroke is very inspiring (TED).
Ammo Previz (some clips showing atmospheric previsualization).

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

As noted in Indymogul, this composer is offering to make free music for films/videos (forum post).
The secret strategies of viral videos.
Twenty-five brilliant animated shorts.
Photoshop Express is online, but beware the terms of use.
Kloseup is some sort of portal/online movie making platform? Example: (YouTube).

Misc:

Easter Eggs in your software (an amusing list of hidden embedded games and other easter eggs in a variety of programs, DVDs).
Maps and fiction - The 21 Steps. An interesting experiment (game, literature?).
OLPC is offering 8.5 GB of Creative Commons sample content (Wiki).

Machinima News - Bad And Good

Some news.

The bad first.

I was very shocked to hear the news of Peter Rasmussen's passing. I did not know him, but others in the machinima community did.

More information on these pages:

Machinima for Dummies
AFTRS Lamp
IHateSheep
EyesWiredOpen
Sydney SIGGRAPH
Dr. of Machinima

Now some good news.









The After After Party

The OMFF Second Life pre-awards cocktail party was yesterday. Unfortunately I missed most of it and have only 2 pics to show (plus what Frank took). But he's already posted them so take a look:

FlingFilms








The After After Party

Thx again to HatHead and Stormy. Remember, the awards are May 10. I am not wearing a pirate costume.

More news.

Machiniplex will be showcasing "Folie a Duex" in just a few hours.

Overcast contest.

Phil is having a contest to promote the Overcast podcast. Entries are due April 27, 2008.

Michael Nitsche has an article about machinima. I have not seen much discussion about it.

New video releases.

Tom Jantol just released another video called "Wizard of OS: The Fish Incident" that is bizarrely based on an experiment by Nikolai Tesla and some lab notes he left behind. Very strange as you might expect.

A fair use documentary (approx. 10 min.) made with The Movies (how does that work?).

Same As It Ever Was. Critics of video games recycle their arguments (what was this made in?).

Ross Scott released the third episode of Freeman's Mind.

Apparently students at the University of Utah were using Half Life to create some machinima clips and released them on YouTube.

PoorComputerScienceStudent
The Lumberjack Song
Secret Hillary/McCain Love Affair
The last one is especially well done.

Never played Half Life before? You can get the gist of the story from HL in 60 Seconds.

Not your cup of tea? How about Half Life: Full Life Conseqeuences #1 or #2. Machinima made from fan fiction created by a nine year old. Of course, it makes no sense. Or is it the work of a genius beyond our understanding?

LitFuseFilms released Melons 3.

Other news.

NIN film festival.

Some of you may have heard of Trent Reznor's (Nine Inch Nails) recent release of Ghosts, a set of instrumental tracks. You can get some tracks for free, the full set for a limited amount, or the special super deluxe mega version. Word is they already made $1.5 million after one week release. They are having a fan-submitted visuals contest to accompany the instrumental tracks. More information on this You Tube video.

Adobe is having a "See What's Possible" contest. Some very nice prizes. Check out the submissions.

The oldest animation ever found is very cool.

The Machinarium also has some fascinating visuals.

So does The World of Goo.

And Crayon Physics Deluxe. You Tube vid.

And Audiosurf (surf your music).

And Love.

Maxis has integrated YouTube into Spore, so that you can post to YT directly from the game. Talk about embedded gaming.

This is how to use You Tube to audition. A very attractive young woman doing 21 different accents. Judging by her resume she is very talented.

Impressive fan made art for Bioshock gets noticed by 2K Games.

Excel: The next generation 3D modeling software? YouTube.

The 20 minute dcumentary The Story of Stuff.

Goobees. What happens in a vending machine.

Line Rider vs. Pivot. Amusing.

Daily Monster. A new monster every day.

Strange Animation from Marcel Kaars - keukendingen.

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.

====

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).

Machinima Info Barf #7

Been busy and have not done one of these in awhile, so the links accumulated.

Time to purge.

Welcome to the future. Grab some popcorn, this one is long.

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

====

Robots:

There seemed to be a lot of news about robots recently.
Artificial boy built.
According to defensetech.org, the first armed drone in Iraq has killed (the MQ-9 "Reaper").
More ED209 news from Iraq.
Is Iraq to be the playground for the military industrial complex R&D divisions?

eSports:

Shocking news, the WSVG is cancelled. I guess they could not compete with CGS.
CGS to give out $1 million in prizes.

Contests:

Amazon and Microsoft team up to allow up to 1000 indie film developers the ability to get their film pressed on to HD-DVD and available from Amazon.

Machinima news:

Oxhorn talks about advertising.
Anthony Bailey posts about the origins of the word machinima.
Adobe is entering real time 3D animation at least as a research project (and ray-tracing). I always wondered when some of the big players would start to enter this turf.
Shaping Youth talks about machinima.
Casual WoW lists some machinima guides.

Machinima/Video Clips:

Thes two clips mentioned at Frames Per Second magazine from the 2006 Japan Media Arts Festival are fascinating. The first is Oh Hisse is by Hikaru Yamakawa and is either a celebration of rigidity, conformity, and the human machine, or is maybe a rejection of it, I haven't decided yet. Very Japanese. The second is Mix a Miniascape by Tomonori Hayase which has a cityscape constantly disassembling and reassembling as the viewer passes through it. Very cool (and must have taken a lot of work).
Speaking of lockstep, this human powered animation video is impressive.
Rubberdada episode #2 is released (rubberdada.com). This is just BIZARRE and sure to cause controversy. Juvenile, violent, immature, and yet strangely fascinating as it deals with topics like racism (episode #1 mentioned here). Think of South Park. They definitely seem to hate clowns.
More from the CRC Machinima Collection shot in SL. #1, #2.
This video of a system that allows users to create shadow puppets wherein extra animations are added in real time is very cool.
More Shadow Puppets.
Basho is a very impressive thirteen minute Japanese machinima (with English subtitles) made in Second Life with classic ninjas, shoguns, and the fate of a kingdom in hand at SL-machinima.com. Nice to see some hand-to-hand combat (English translated site; Metacafe trailer).
Someone liked the new GTAIV trailer so much, they remade it using GTAIII San Andreas (too bad the game is delayed till next year).
There's an epic machinima made in Halo called Trinity. I have not watched all of it.
Does what happen in Facebook stay in Facebook? Beware your personal bitstream and who's reading it.
Hallow3en is back with another musical machinima using U2's Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me.
OneJovialSim's Bjork based machinima Akin.
Someone's trying to escape their world. Do they succeed? Infiltrator.
Afonso Cuaron and Naomi Klein's trailer for The Shock Doctrine.
Animation Ramblings lists some iClone examples.
List of Siggraph shorts.

Video Games:

Remember when the specs for Microsoft's Xbox360, Sony's PS3, and the Nintendo Wii were released. Remember how everyone said Nintendo didn't know what it was doing and that it obviously couldn't compete in the high tech arena. Guess who's laughing now as the Wii outsells both the Xbox360 and the PS3, even after being released a year after the Xbox360. Never underestimate the company behind the plumber power Mario.
Neuromatrix is an educational video game where you enter a neuroscience facility and track down the nanobots invading the brains of the scientists within. Made by Morphonix. Check out the video introduction.
There was a report from the Eve Online economist and an interview on Slashdot. It would be nice to see reports from Second Life, WoW, and other MMOGs.
Artificial worlds to be artificial intelligence incubators. Now if only they can obey directions like "no, say it with more emotion".
Artificial worlds are the future of commerce.
The marines are using virtual worlds as training simulators.
VastPark is a virtual world content creation system. Site.
Next week, virtual worlds will do my laundry and wash the windows.

Digital Online Video/Cinema/Imaging:

Steam is a digital content delivery platform developed by Valve. Not only are a wide variety of games available, but apparently steammovies.com has been registered by Valve. If you've seen the recent videos Valve has made for Team Fortress 2 you will realize that high quality video can be delivered via Steam, either for free or after paying (via credit card).
Overman lists some free filmmaking tools. Other freeware/shareware lists specifically for Mac and more general tools here. More DIY list from The Workbook Project.
Revver has paid out $1 million to content creators to at least 25 000 people (the winners are the Diet Coke and Mentos people at $50 000). It may not be MySpace, which just seems to keep picking up new shows, but it is definitely a site to consider.
Speaking of which, NewTeeVee discusses what makes an online hit.
Brand Worlds 3D production for Flash and the web.
3D holographic display developed. Now when can I play Tank War Europa on it.
More 3D image creation using plasma balls.
SciVee brings science to the world of internet video.
IndyMogul talks about Reverse Shot, a film quarterly that goes into detail about film and cinema. Check out this extensive article on "the cut".