Machinima Festival Discussed, Picks Announced

Thanks to HomeLan Fed for their interview with Machinima Academy director Paul Marino about the nominees for the 2003 Machinima Awards, honoring "filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment." Those up for awards include the ever-popular Red Vs. Blue, and more than one title from the commercial machinima company Fountainhead Entertainment, and Marino makes the interesting claim that "the holy grail of rendering systems is real-time rendering - and after that point, the creative language shifts and becomes more like filmmaking where shots are recorded in real-time."

That was quite an adventure

[iendedi]

I followed the link and watched every episode of Red & Blue. I must say, that was a refreshing and new experience. Quite cool.

This could be a really profitable segment for some game company to enter. Take a good 3D engine and make it possible to import all sorts of models, provide hooks for motion capture and whatnot and tools for cinematic capture and edits...

Re:That was quite an adventure

[WoTG]

Yeah, I just watched an episode (probably others in the future). I guess it really is all about storyline! Very cool.

Animator != Camera

[Bazzargh]

"the holy grail of rendering systems is real-time rendering - and after that point, the creative language shifts and becomes more like filmmaking where shots are recorded in real-time."

Having the ability to "film" a virtual world in real time, as if you were using a camera, is only possible if your virtual world has rules - like physics in the real world - that allows the world to change over time without the intervention of a human - the animator.

Thinking about it that way, I'd guess a whole lot of anim

Re:Animator != Camera

[Saige]

Well, just because the world has rules doesn't mean they won't break what the AUDIENCE thinks the rules are. One of the possibilities of a virtual world is that the rules can be different. They can create unexpected rules, then bring them into play at just the right time and still keep the suprise factor.

I don't see how real-time rendering will really affect animation in straightfoward ways. Will they bother to make use of it when they're going to be having to plan out all the details anyways? I'd thin