Machini-what? Odds are Machinima is a word you've never heard before. I didn't until after I was already doing it. Kind of like how I bet a lot of people came to learn the word blog. ‘Blog?’ they’d say. ‘So that thing I’ve been doing has a phrase now. Good to know’. I actually had to read the word a few times to get the pronunciation (it's muh-sheen-a-mah).
So what is Machinima? The Yiddish word for workstation? No. It's a new way to make animated movies. Take a video-game, and instead of playing the game, use the characters to make a movie. You'll see a great example of it called Acutoria here. This actually was made with my own source code rather than a commercial game. Either way the end result is animation made easy. Well, not that easy. Don’t look for a MoveableType Machinima offering anytime soon.
There’s of course more examples flying around on the web. Typically these are vehicles for sarcasm or have a strong bent towards hardcore gamers only. They range from the good to the bad, pretty much like anything else. But I believe Acutoria is the first use of it to express opinion, which it will do in this and upcoming Webisodes. Maybe that makes it world’s first animation-blog? At least I don’t feel stupid pronouncing that.
But back to the story. Acutoria’s a futuristic place where the people are gone and the slave robots they left behind run the show. Acutoria is one of many space colonies the robots have acquired. Each one has a government run by the robots with laws and leaders.
Of course, instead of creating a utopia to spend their new-found freedom in, the bots decide to bicker, fight, be corrupt, and generally act like us. Being a sci-fi fan is definitely not a pre-requisite to enjoy watching.
These ‘webisodes’ will be 3-5 minutes long, and will be produced on a schedule of one every two-three weeks.
The first two are out there now. Watch the first, and then click the link for the second. Enjoy.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
It's hard to ever identify real "first," as there's prior art for everything.
One of the most popular and long-running machinima examples is Red vs Blue, which uses Halo to produce 72 episodes and counting. They're on season four now, and have been going for quite some time.
2 - Bill Wallo
The new video game The Movies has a machinima editor essentially built into it - you play a game about the movie business, and get to make movies (plus there are lots of extensions to it). Wired has an interesting article about it.
3 - Carl Stronzo
I'm really looking forward to the ILL Clan's new show, Trash Talk. They have been making Machinima longer than anybody!