Mike Jones Digital Basin
cinematic media rinse cycle

Machinima is everywhere

In the 21st century Every filmmaker needs to be a Machimator. Every filmmaker needs to understand the core concepts that underpin Machinima.

The reasoning is simply that in the digital age every form and process of cinema invokes Machinma methodology and practice.  At one end is of course machinima itself - the 'shooting' of a movie within a realtime virtual environment. Neither animation nor live-action, machinima is a hybrid between.

But outside of pure machinima, right along the continuum of cinematic media forms and formats, machinima processes appears as  key components :

Pre-Visualization for directors
3D sets for designers
Virtual cameras for Cinematographers
3D Z-space for editors and compositors
3D environments for Animators

All these traditional non-machinima forms engage proactively with digital tools, concepts a process that are directly encapsulated in machinima. Being a filmmaker in the 21st century who doesn't know about Machinima, who doesn't grasp the idea of a virtual camera or virtual 3D spaces and objects is the equivalent of a filmmaker who doesn't know about montage or deep focus. The virtual space and the virtual camera are THE concepts for all cinema of the digital age regardless of whether they be computer generated or not.

Once the domain of game-engine hackers, there are array of software tools now available for machinima derived animation, simulation, game design, previs and 3D. Over the past couple of years i have taken most such tools through their paces, exploring what is possible, what they are capable of and, more importantly, what new conceptual opportunities and processes they represent? Tools that blur the line between traditional animation and storyboarding through to dedicated game design; FrameForge 3D, Moviestorm, FPSCreator, Toonboom and iClone

And now Antics with a very holistic perspective on pre-vis and virtual production. Antics attempts to satisfy all forms of users with a very open system viable for animation, pure machinima and very effective pre-visualization for live-action (or any hybrid combo of the above).



In the coming months ill be writing a detailed review Antics for DMN; in the meantime their base-pack is free and they have a huge array of free model resources to get you started.

You simply cannot be a filmmaker in the 21st century without an understanding of the cocnepts of Machinima. So do yourself a favour and go download... NOW..!

Posted at 12:00AM Jan 24, 2008 by Mike Jones in 3D graphics & gaming  |  Comments[2]