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Red vs Blue Sweeps Machinima Awards 106

Posted by timothy from the fightin'-colors dept.
TheNomad writes "The Machinima Film Festival 2003 is over, and the results from the awards are in. Red Vs Blue swept the awards with 3 awards for "Best Independent Film", "Best Writing" and "Best Picture". Katherine Anna Kang's firm Fountainhead did very well too, with wins for "Best Direction", "Best Commercial Machinima", "Best Technical Achievement" and "Best Visual Design". Most of the films are available now, and there is a whole bunch of coverage of the event (with pictures) over at Machinima.com."
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Red vs Blue Sweeps Machinima Awards More

Red vs Blue Sweeps Machinima Awards

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  • yay (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @11:42PM (#7325417) Homepage Journal
    favorite quote: "We have a tank and no tank driver?!? Who is running this army???!!!"

  • Can someone post BitTorrent links for any of these (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'd like to see the one from Fountainhead, in particular, but it's only accessible via the digital abortion known as FilePlanet.

  • Direct link to video (Score:4, Informative)

    by chalker ( 718945 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @11:44PM (#7325432) Homepage
    Direct link to the Red vs. Blue Blood Gulch Chronicles Videos is here http://www.redvsblue.com/bloodgulch.shtml [redvsblue.com]

  • Great... Thanks Slashdot!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr. Flibble ( 12943 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @11:46PM (#7325450) Homepage
    Sure, I decide to download the last few Red vs. Blue episodes that I have not yet seen. I decide to do it on a monday night, because, hey, who downloads Red vs. Blue on a Monday?

    Apparently everyone on Slashdot...

    Thanks a heap. (I can't even find bittorrent links - bugger!)

    8P

  • But I thought... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ravind ( 701403 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @11:47PM (#7325459)
    Red (Hat) & (Big) Blue were working together to defend the world from the SCO of the universe.
  • ...what's your favourite Machinima? Do you agree with their choices, do you know of any little known Machinima that you wish others would... or have you done some yourself?

    • The Quake Done Quick videos, especially the edited versions with plot stuff and narration (Scourge Done Slick and Quake Done Quicker). Funny commentary and totally skillful Quake playing, what could be better. =)

      Also, the intro of Team Fortress rules - but it won't count because it's an actual game intro demo...

      • If you like game "trick" demos, especially Quake ones, check out "Frags Done Extreme" [qhlan.org] also known as FDE... and also check out "Def Dag Extreme" (DDE) [planetquake.com]. There are actually 2 movies in both of those series.

        Basically they involve "best of" clips, blooper clips, and acrobatic stunts gathered from countless Quake deathmatches. If it has been a while since you have played Quake deathmatch, then I know you will be surprised with the stuff people are able to do in the game after playing it for seven years.

        They c

  • Robbery! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Planx_Constant ( 594897 ) <planx.constant@gmail.com> on Monday October 27, 2003 @11:50PM (#7325489) Homepage
    Sarge didn't win for best office assistant.

    "Where do you want to go today, dirtbag?"

  • Swept? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 27, 2003 @11:51PM (#7325491)
    How could this "red vs blue" have swept the awards, when the second one you mention had 4 awards?

    • Ummmmmmmmmm (Score:3, Insightful)

      by StewedSquirrel ( 574170 )
      Because the second one listed is a "firm" which leads me to believe it was one shop with multiple, perhaps quite a few entries. Of that, I would guess that none of their individual films won more than two awards.

      Stewey

      • Re:Ummmmmmmmmm (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Still.. RvB only won 3 awards.. I don't think that can be considered a sweep from any angle.

    • How could this "red vs blue" have swept the awards, when the second one you mention had 4 awards?

      "Swept" may be stretching it a bit, but it's arguable that Red vs Blue's Blood Gulch Chronicles did the best.

      Fountainhead Entertainment [fountainheadent.com] did indeed win four awards, but these were split between the two different films that they entered. Anna won one, and their (and Ghost Robot's) In The Waiting Line video won three. The three for Blood Gulch Chronicles, though, included Best Picture.

  • Congrats. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by agent dero ( 680753 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @11:54PM (#7325517) Homepage
    I ran across Red vs Blue a while ago, they are funny as hell; and not just geek-gamer humor.

    Creative new ideas, good job guys!

  • Machinima FAQ (Score:5, Informative)

    by illogic ( 52099 ) on Monday October 27, 2003 @11:57PM (#7325540)
    in case it gets slashdotted...

    Machinima FAQ
    By Frank "ILL Bixby" Dellario

    What is Machinima?

    Machinima is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment.

    In an expanded definition, it is the convergence of filmmaking, animation and game development. By combining the techniques of filmmaking, the flexibility of animation production and the technology of real-time 3D game engines, Machinima makes for a very cost- and time-efficient way to produce films.

    What are the major advantages of this technique vis-a-vis the old-fashioned way of making animation?

    Because it is shot live or scripted in real-time, it's much faster to produce Machinima then traditional CGI animation. A live action director will feel right at home and an animation director will be able to direct without having to rely on key frames. Multiple takes can be made in real-time or just a few takes while the rest is adjusted in post, dependent on the director's style. And because you can modify the original recorded data files, we can change anything in post--add characters, adjust camera angles, create camera moves, fine-tune animation, etc. It's much like doing a reshoot without having to call back the cast and crew.

    What is so significant about shooting animation live?

    Shooting live can produce a considerable time and cost savings of up to 30-40% and is a radical departure from the traditional key frame animation process. Now animation directors can direct puppeteers as they manipulate the character models in real-time while a live action director will feel right at home.

    How does it save time and money?

    It saves money by eliminating the time intensive processes of non-real-time character animation and scene compositing. In traditional 3D animation, characters are animated traditionally with keyframes. These animations are either painstakingly choreographed with other characters or composited together into the same scene. A one minute Machinima scene, for example, can be shot in real-time with all characters in the scene at once. And just like a film set, you shoot multiple takes until the director is satisfied. Without the need for a compositing process, you can view each take right there and then.

    Sorry, I'm a laymen, can you explain that a little more?

    Two-dimensional (2D) animation, like Disney's Tarzan or a Warner Brothers Looney Tune Cartoon, is drawn, inked & painted by hand and then shot frame-by-frame for the final animation. This is obviously labor and time intensive. A half hour cartoon could take six to nine months to draw and is usually done overseas to minimize labor cost. A feature could take two to four years to complete.

    3D Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) animation, was pioneered in the late 80's early 90's and put on the map by Pixar's Toy Story. Instead of each frame being drawn by hand, a computer "renders" all of the characters and backgrounds. But a team of computer animators have to animate each character model individually for each scene. Once done, a "compositing" bank of computers renders all of the characters models and objects into the 3D background, making your complete shot. But because of the large amount of 3D graphic, lighting and animated information in each frame, it can take a very fast bank of computers hours, if not days, to render each frame. Some frames of Pixar's Monsters Inc took over 90 hours to process using over 400 computers ganged together in parallel. With 24 frames per sec of footage, you can image how long this process can get. Subsequently, Monsters Inc took four years to produce.

    What a minute, are you saying you can produce Pixar level animation in almost half the time?

    Well, no, not yet. A company like Pixar will always push the boundaries of what's possible in animation, I mean, come on, they're Pixar, and they've got an Oscar. But, with the advances in computer hardware coming in the next year, it looks pretty good that we can get much closer.

    How do you use a c
    • Bah! CGI animation was put on the map by the one and only TRON! Toy Story was just playing catch up. :)
      • actually for TRON the majority of the film was filmed in black and white and then each frame was hand painted to give it the look it has, no CGI at all....although nowdays it could be done pretty easily...
        • I'm aware of that, however unless I'm totally and utterly mistaken there was a pretty good deal of CGI in the film. Some of it was filters and rotoscoping, yes, but not all.
    • Was that really necessary? I mean the FAQ isn't even linked in the article.
    • I've been WONDERING what these are; the last /. post about it I've seen didn't provide ANY information about what the hell it was talking about, like everybody automatically knows what a machinima is. Isn't in the dictionary either.
      So thanks very much indeed.

  • Wrong tense (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Stephen Samuel ( 106962 )
    . Most of the films are available now [machinima.com]

    They were available -- until this article got posted.

    Now they're stuck on the server, vainly trying to make their way against a veritable SYN flood.

  • Very influential (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think Red vs. Blue really deserves this sort of recognition... It's had quite a lot of influence, and at every Halo party i've been to in the last month, we have, in all seriousness, called them "Pumas". I don't know what's next: "Ok, who's the cheap bastard with Shiela?"

  • This just in ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by obsidianpreacher ( 316585 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @12:11AM (#7325640)
    They awarded the ChupaThingy (you mean the Puma?) best supporting actor, very narrowly beating out Shiela the Tank

  • Just to inform... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Crimson Midget ( 41436 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @12:19AM (#7325699) Homepage
    For those who don't know, machinima is the process of creating movies using a video game engine.

    Red vs Blue has created some hilarious work using the Halo engine. The "Blood Gulch Chronicles" are about a bunch of dopey marines stuck in the bottom of a dry creek bed. They live, they love, they laugh, they blow stuff up.

    Check out the trailer [o1.com].
    Red vs Blue [redvsblue.com]

  • Fountainhead (Score:4, Informative)

    by The Munger ( 695154 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @12:37AM (#7325784) Homepage
    For those of you who don't know, Fountainhead is the company of John Carmack's wife. As mentioned a long way down in his .plan [clanbase.com] file. So there's even more geek news for you.

    Although it doesn't quite count as machinima, I always found Summoner Geeks [ifilm.com] (warning: annoying flash ads) pretty funny.
    • Hmmm... How ironic for a company called Fountainhead to get press on /. I mean Ayn Rand was pro-patents and pro-copyright, and the plot of the Fountainhead is pretty much anti-thetical to the GPL.

      -a
      • Isn't that a little far-fetched? The company isn't named after the book, and I think that most people around here aren't so rabid that they won't have anything to do with something that relates to copyrights and patents over several degrees.

        Ayn Rand lived and wrote in a very different era from ours. I see no trouble combining the notion of free software with her ideas: I think people who do have misunderstood free software just as bad as Gates and Balmer when they claim it is "un-American" (or more likely

        • Ayn Rand lived and wrote in a very different era from ours. I see no trouble combining the notion of free software with her ideas:
          I don't hold Ayn Rand's opinions as sacred, but I have read several of her books and I think you'd have trouble doing that sensibly. She believed that ultimate control of the product should remain with the creator, not the end user (that was the whole theme of the Fountainhead).

          Free software is not about socialism, or even charity - everybody who writes it is working freely
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Sarge: I would like to thank all you dirtbags at the Machinimainma Machininianma Machininama... dammit all!
  • The site's already been /.ed

  • RvB FAQs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This seems like a good time to mention the Red vs Blue FAQs [redvsblue.com]. There fairly easy to read for a FAQ. I just wish the Linux FAQs were that amusing!

  • BitTorrent links for the early episodes? (Score:3)

    by koreth ( 409849 ) * on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @02:37AM (#7326287)
    Okay, so the redvsblue site has BT links for the most recent few episodes, which is great -- now does anyone have BT links for the trailer and early episodes, for those of us who've never seen any of it?

  • I wish they'd put more effort back into writing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Illserve ( 56215 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @05:50AM (#7326812)
    The early episodes are beyond comparison, very top notch stuff.

    However, as the season gets on, the writing seems to degrade noticeably and the plot gets a little wonky at the end when Church decides to do that thing he does (avoiding spoilage).

    I'd advise them to slow down a bit, produce fewer episodes and take us back to the excellent writing of the first 5 episodes.

    "Simons.... I want you to poison Griff's next meal"
  • ...since watching RvB a few weeks ago:

    "Chicks are like Voltron; The more you hook up, the better it gets."

    Gr@ve_Rose
  • First the battle between the Bloods and Crips takes over our cities and schools, and now we as geeks encourage its spread to the internet? When will the madness end!

  • Complete RvB torrent (Score:4, Informative)

    by Kalak ( 260968 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @01:43PM (#7329862) Homepage Journal
    Here is a newly created torrent [vt.edu] that has all the episodes. This means that it includes the earlier files, and all of the extras except the original trailer. This is is one .zip and weighs in at 254.9MB.

    You should watch the trailer [o1.com] before you abuse everyone's bandwith.
  • I noticed that the Red vs Blue files are 360x240. Are there files that will allow us to watch using the native engine? Imagine being able to turn up the detail/graphics.

    I remember Operation Bayshield for Quake allowed me to up the resolution. Nice and crisp. 360x240 is bleh.

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