Damien Valentine 00:04
Hello, and welcome to the June episode of And Now For Something Completely Machinima. I am Damian Valentine, on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. And I'm joined by Ricky grove.

Ricky Grove 00:16
Hi there.

Damien Valentine 00:17
And Tracy Harwood. Hello. So Phil couldn't join us this time. So we're going to be doing without him. And he's sadly missed. But let's go on with the show. We've had some excellent feedback. And Tracy, I believe that you'd like to share that with us?

Tracy Harwood 00:35
Yes, absolutely. First of all, we've heard Ben Tuttle. In response to our discussion in Episode 35 films and discussion that we did in April. Ben has commented on the issue of the lack of films for iClone that we talked about you remember, he says there's kind of a double edged sword when it comes to iClone. He says whilst says versatility, it takes quite a bit of time to get the process down. And creating a full production requires skill in all areas, plus money, and a lot of time to do it as well. Which he compares to The Movies game where most of the time, it's right there to create with some adjustments and modding. But most of the groundwork, he says is done. So in contrast, he thinks iClone is more complex. And especially with the new tools, which I think you guys are going to be talking about later. He says the Curve Editor is intimidating and takes time to get used to as well as learning the 12 principles of animation, learn to light and so on. It can kind of be too much for the hobbyist, which explains why there is a vast number of tech demos compared to films. He says you can create a little demo in a short amount of time compared to maybe a minute per week of production in iClone. Wow. So yeah, there you go.

Ricky Grove 01:58
That's a little ironic, because I couldn't set out to be the popular tool where people could make the Machinima fast. Now they've in order to improve their the quality of their production. They've moved towards professional attributes for the programme, which makes it more complex and harder to use.

Tracy Harwood 02:18
Yeah, yeah. But I suppose once you've learned the skills, then it's, you know, it does improve the out the quality of the output. Yes, you. You spend so much time and effort in creating.

Damien Valentine 02:29
I think Benjamin has some excellent points there about the amount of work that goes into making something longer than just a tech demo. So good feedback there. Yeah. Thank you, Ben.

Tracy Harwood 02:41
Absolutely. Thanks, Ben. Now, the next one is from 3DChick, and I'm going to assume this is a lady but forgive me if it's not. So this

Ricky Grove 02:53
1955 You will safely assume that, 2022 No,

Tracy Harwood 02:58
I don't know. Anyway, in response to Episode 37 May news, and the question about what's your experience on the laptops, heating up running Omniverse, 3DCheck says they have an Asus is it Roger ROG Stryx laptop? Rog ROG rug strict strict laptop with an RTX 38 C and Ryzen 5900. And yes, it gets hot when pushed, like rendering complex scenes, they use a laptop fan, and it's really pushing it an ice pack under the fan. But it's amazing, she says you can run and render in Unreal, and iClone on a laptop and do it well. And they do have several external SSDs velcroed to the lid, which she says is a shame given how pretty it is. But even with four terabytes on board, it fills up fast. Wow, and then she also says, commenting on Unreal, that it's the most amazing thing, how very much you can do for free with Unreal, with hundreds of assets, characters and environments. And quite frankly, I couldn't agree more. So thanks very much for those comments. They were they were really good.

Ricky Grove 04:12
Thank you 3DChick. Thank you.

Tracy Harwood 04:15
Next, we heard from Mike Clements. Now, Mike's in the process of making his first machinima and asked what should you do after you've made your film? And it's a really good question, and one we're going to pick up later in the show this month. So bear with us on that. We'll come back to that. Good question. Absolutely. And then we've also had a couple of really appreciative comments for which we are eternally grateful. From CD and from Pooky both thoroughly enjoying the podcast. CD says you don't often what he says he's calling us the A Team. And, you know, we don't often get coordinating, which is great. Even Xanadu whose film Blu x Teflon Sega meta saga. So you may remember we had some discussion about last month. Basically, Damien Phil, and I loved it. And Ricky sat on totally the opposite end of the spectrum.

Ricky Grove 05:14
I'm the kind of guy that kids cross on the grass, get off the grass, you stupid.

Tracy Harwood 05:20
Well, would you say then Ricky is more of a BA Baracus? I think so. Anyway, that those those comments are really appreciated. Thanks very much. And of course, if you do have questions, or firms you'd like us to discuss, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Ricky Grove 05:37
Yes, please. We'd love to get suggestions and answer any questions you might have even technical ones. Phil is really good on sound and music. I'm good on sound and the acting and production. And Damian is excellent on film production as well. And if you have any script issues, Tracy could help you with that as well.

Tracy Harwood 06:02
Thanks very much. Anyway, you can find all the usual details on how to get in touch with us on the completely machinima.com website. And that's it for feedback this month. Thanks very much, everyone.

Ricky Grove 06:12
Thank you, Tracy.

Damien Valentine 06:14
Thank you for Tracy for reading that feedback. And thank you everyone for sending it in. It's nice to know that you are either watching or listening to the show and giving us these very kind comments. So thank you. Yeah, it's

Ricky Grove 06:25
much better listening to real people than the sound of the wind blowing across the desert.

Damien Valentine 06:32
Yeah, much. Definitely.

Tracy Harwood 06:34
tumbleweeds just rattling through. Takes a while Yeah.

Damien Valentine 06:40
Okay, so moving on to the news. I'm going to start with a few short pieces before we go into the the main story of the month, I think. First off, Nvidia has a getting started video, which is for their contest, the Make Something with Nvidia Machinima contest doing, they just did a an hour long stream talking about the basics of how to use Nvidia Omniverse and machinima app specifically. And even if you're not entering the contest, it's worth taking the time to watch this video, because it's an hour long, so it's not a huge investment to sit down and watch it. It goes through all the basics of how to use the software. And I think is an essential thing to do. And of course, last month, we've kind of talked about how it seemed like Craig was getting all the attention and they were going to abandon the mission. And then a few days after we recorded that, they released a massive update for the Machinima app. So this tutorial will guide you through all the changes, because now everything that they added to create in the machinery app. And then if I didn't even more animation tools to the machinima app that you can use to make your film.

Ricky Grove 07:51
I think sometimes users just get impatient because they want things now, you know, instead of written not realising that it takes a while to get this stuff done. And you just have to be patient.

Damien Valentine 08:02
I think so too. And obviously, I'm a little bit guilty of that, because I was saying that I think they've abandoned this app, so next time, I will be a bit more cautious on my assessment of where they are not releasing an update for of them. Me too. But yeah, take the time to watch that if you're interested in learning how to use Omniverse. And if you're looking at Create, well, there's a lot of overlap between the two application. So you can learn a lot about how to use Create from the Machinima tutorial. So

Ricky Grove 08:30
remember, the Omniverse app requires an RTX graphics card. So you have to have a medium level machine to do it. It's free. So you can do it anytime. And the quality of the output is just absolutely superb. So it's worth the time. But it's it's still in the beta. Well, no, it hasn't hasn't gone out of beta Demian.

Damien Valentine 08:55
No, it's kind of an open beta before you have to sign up. And if you're lucky, they'll pick you. But

Ricky Grove 09:02
right now you can. Right off the bat. It is a little complex, but worth the investment. And there's lots of good tutorials. And as Damian said, there's a full hour of how to get started and how to use the programme.

Damien Valentine 09:16
Yeah, so that's, that's the Machinima Omniverse news for now. I saw a video I watched the film recently of the Batman. It's the live action film. And you're probably wondering, why am I talking about a live action film on the machinima podcast, but they use the same virtual environment technology that the Mandalorian uses. And they released about six minutes long, sort making of video which they spend talking about how they used the same sort of screens and everything and also videos of them on set and how they were using it. It was quite amusing for me because they were trying not to talk about it being used to Star Wars but that's the only other example of so far that's why They no no saying things like, so far it's only been used for desert scenes. And they want to use it to create an urban environment because they obviously Batman's in Gotham City, and they show some scenes where Batman, Batman and Cat Woman are on this rooftop and out the sunset, on the screens behind them. And they were talking about how they could just keep that there all day. Whereas if they were on location, they would only have about half an hour or so to capture that and then move on to the next time. And I think it's just just as nice to see how it looks on a big feature film, I would kind of wish I'd seen it in the cinema on a big screen, because on the Mandalorian, you're watching a TV. And if there are only floors, you're not going to see them. But if you're on a cinema screen, every single mistake is going to be very easy to see. So they also put a lot of time into making sure there was nothing noticeable.

Ricky Grove 10:55
Did they use unreal for the virtual world?

Damien Valentine 10:59
They didn't mention unreal by name, but it's the same. They'd hired the same team from Lucas Film, who did the Mandalorian. So I'm assuming is they just mentioned the name. Yeah, was all about, you know, the rights and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, and, and, you know, it was just a little interesting to see how it's done for a feature length, film, and that kind of capacity rather than just a TV show. Right.

Damien Valentine 11:26
My final part of small news, I say small, this is kind of big if you're a Star Trek fan. Last month, my film I chose was a fan speculating on what the introduction would look like on the Star Trek Captain Pike series, which, at the time, there's, there wasn't even sure if there's going to be one, there's this whole fan campaign saying we'd like one of these. Well, the show is actually launched now. And they released the title sequence as a video just for people to watch. And other be interesting to see how the fan one we talked about last month, compared to the real one for the show, which right now watch. That, obviously, the show, the real show is called Strange New Worlds, and the fan wants to call it Star Trek Pike. But the intro itself is very similar. It's kind of the ship flying around and all those beauty shots, obviously, the real one that is going to look much more stunning because they got the whole production team behind it, whereas the machinima one has to rely on the assets from the game. Right? Music is kind of similar. Although the real one relies more on the original series soundtrack, you know, the, the famous theme for Star Trek, and they kind of put their own spin on it, but it's kind of a similar tone to what the fan one had. And of course, the real one has the Space the final frontier monologue over the top of it as well. But, you know, it's interesting to see how they found one in the real one, compared to side by side. So I thought I just mentioned that briefly. For those who are interested.

Ricky Grove 13:02
Yeah, looks like a good series. I think I'm gonna watch it.

Damien Valentine 13:05
I think you should, if you'd like the original series of Star Trek, it kind of captures that adventure vibe. But it's also got some of the themes from the Next Generation in it as well. So it's kind of a nice blend. And it's very episodic as well as you can just watch one episode you don't have to worry about you know, you if you haven't seen the previous five episodes, you have no idea what's happening. It's not like that. It's just you can sit down watch ones. This is a joy for what it is. And it is really good. Yeah.

Damien Valentine 13:34
Alright, so the big story of the month, I believe, is iClone eight and Character Creator four have finally been released. And obviously, I'm a iClone user have been six. So this is very exciting development. There's a lot of new features and enhancements in both packages software. I have not explored all of them yet. There's there's just so much there. So I've liked what I've seen so far. And Ricky, do you want to talk about it as well? Sure,

Ricky Grove 14:07
yeah. People have been waiting for this for a long time. The user base has grown substantially. Reallusion has grown substantially as I mentioned earlier, they've moved towards more professional products, more professional features, which ironically has made it harder for a little bit harder to use the programme but has made the look and the feel of the programme better. Probably the biggest feature new feature is the motion director included which allows you to do point and click animation, and all sorts of interesting things. Animation is the biggest update in it and I think that's a welcome feature because while in the past I've concentrated on rendering in the look of the characters, they haven't give animation a much love and in this version of icon it's really front and centre much easier. Volumetric lighting, lens flares, there's a pose mixer, which is really cool. There's a brand new Content Manager, which is a welcome aspect of the programme, because content management was also always confusing for me. They've also incorporated the Curve Editor and 3d Exchange, which in the past have been separate programmes that you had to spend money for. They've included them with iClone eight for free. So you've gotten some money there. CC 4, Character Creator 4 the biggest change in the programme was the fact that you can import rigged characters, whereas in the past, you could only do iClone characters. And you can do everything with eager to lip sync, animation. They've made an effort to make the characters more expressive. So they've worked hard on facial animation and lip sync and all of that. And the relationship between Character Creator 4 an iClone eight is perfect. So you can move back and forth with ease. So you can create interesting characters with new animation in a new production environment, which personally I think is the best iClone version ever. However, there are some caveats. While they still have a perpetual licence, that means you can buy the one programme and have it forever, you don't have to pay a subscription fee, they've raised the price to $599. Now, I understand that the reason why they do that, because they have to pay for all of the upgrades and research. But the upgrade price is $499. That's only $100 less than the retail price, that's really going to put the thing out of reach for some people. So even though these features are great, it's going to take a hit in the pocket book. And again, I understand why they're doing it commercially, they've got a good base of people, people just put it on their cards. But frankly, I think the upgrade version is too expensive. It should have been closer to 399. To make it more reasonable for people who have been supporters of iClone for years, giving them a break $100. Break is not that's like 20%. This guy, it's just just doesn't work. CC 4 as the same thing, I can't remember what the exact price of that was. It was like 249 I think it's lower than then I iClone 8 but you're going to be spending close to if you're a new user, you're going to spend even close to $1,000, with these two programme, if you're an upgrade, you're going to be spending close to 7 to 800. That's a lot of money. You're basically in the territory of the high end, professional programmes. And that means that the the Reallusion iClone and Character Creator 4 are going to move into a new user base, I think. And they're going to leave some people behind. And I'm sorry to hear that. So that's the caveat on that. But otherwise, I think it's a fantastic programme. And I'm looking forward to reviewing it myself and hearing news from Damien on the production side of it.

Damien Valentine 18:31
I haven't had a chance to test that was because I look at the motion director. And I can see that's going to be really useful. And he kind of at this point, click thing like you said, there's also the option. If you've got a game controller, you can make a character walk around, like a video game character, which is Yeah, yeah, very machinima kind of throwback there. And if you don't have a controller be still use that feature, you can use a mouse and keyboard, like a PC game as well, which is quite handy because I don't have a controller that I'd want to use for, for this. And you can pick different types of animations. So if you want to have a character walk, you can set it to the walk animation. And then you know, you make pester the perfect key to control them, make them walk and turn left to avoid an object or whatever. Or if you want to make the run, you choose the Run option. And you can do the exact same thing, then the character is running obviously much faster than walking, but you can you know, the run friend and object and then have them do whatever. And if you've got other animations you want them to do, you can tie them in. So if you want to jump over that object, you press to have them run towards it. And then you press the jump button and then they'll jump over it rather than swerve around it which so you call a features there which I have not had access to have not had a chance to fully explore that just yet. And there's new facial animation features, like the characters have got more ways to move and then more expressive. Which I think it's gonna be quite interesting. I haven't had a chance to try out the new visuals, I did have a quick look at the lens flare options. I thought JJ Abrams would really like this can go really over the top and have you really want to Yeah, there's more, I haven't had a chance to sit down look at the time recording. It's been about a week and a half. So there's a lot to sit down and go. Yeah, I'm very excited for it.

Ricky Grove 20:37
Quick clarification, when I say that iClone is a more professional programme. It is, and it's priced like that. But it is still easier to use than moving towards Autodesk or Cinema 4d or any of those other progs even unreal, real illusions, iClone eight and Character Creator 4 are very easy to use, compared to their professional programmes.

Damien Valentine 21:05
And they because then focusing more on the animation side, they're also adding more options for taking your scenes and rendering them elsewhere. So you can render in Nvidia Omniverse or Unreal. And I suspect some of those formats can be used in other platforms as well. It's not something I've looked too closely at. But I think Blender is an option as well. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So if you want to animate easily, then iClone is a good way do it. And then if you wanted to look better than what I can actually produce as a render, then you can take it elsewhere very easily. Yep. All right. So that's the end of my news. Ricky wants to have you got for us.

Ricky Grove 21:48
Why we did the iClone 8 quickly, I just said some interesting news that I got from the Milan machinima festival, I joined their newsletter. And it's really good. Even though it focuses primarily on academic machinima. They do post interesting stories and artists. In fact, the artists that I chose for our film section, I discovered through the their newsletter, so it's easy to just join and subscribe. An article that I found in there was a a, a filmmaker who made a film using a pre trained AI script creator using OpenAI. And basically it can translate texts, it can answer questions, it could summarise passages, and it can generate text output on a level that can be almost indistinguishable from human generated content. They use that to create the script. Now granted, it's not Streetcar Named Desire, or, you know at the shrug. It is primarily more abstract. But it did create a very interesting text. And I find that that development that we've been talking about quite a bit of AI in machinima to be, I never expected it to go into the script element of it. So check out the link, we'll put it on our show notes and find out more about it and see the film that they used Open AI to create the film for because it might be an interesting alternative for writing your own script.

Tracy Harwood 23:35
Begs a question. What are you going to do as a machinima creator if everything is done automatically for you?

Ricky Grove 23:41
Well, I was just going to say you know, what's the ultimate automatic? I don't think I can sit back and eat Fritos while AIs make my movies for me.

Damien Valentine 23:51
It's the almost the the make film button. Yeah, that's right. Well, they Yeah.

Ricky Grove 24:00
Anyway, check out the link. It's an interesting article, and I urge you to, to think about it. Okay, that's my news.

Damien Valentine 24:09
All right. Tracy, what have you got for us?

Tracy Harwood 24:12
Oh, I've got quite a lot actually. I'm going to talk about legal news. I've got a little bit of competition news. I've got a little bit of tech news and some project news. Okay, I want to start with legals now. Firstly, in April, Cloud Imperium Games and Robert Robert space industries who are the developer and publisher of Star Citizen, as you know, have updated their fan film and machinima rules and regulations, which actually seems to be more about them posturing over the impending release of Squadron 42, which they state is a Hollywood calibre single player story driven game set in the same universe, which will start Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, Mark Strong and Gillian Anderson and they do state they actually support the making of machinima, live actually video and audio dramas setting the world of Star Citizen, but have now tightened up their policies specifically, that means creators must credit them with a disclaimer stating the work is a non commercial fan production and not in any way affiliated to Cloud Imperium. You're also precluded from attempting to raise more than $50,000 on your portfolio of Star Citizen fan films, however that sun might be generated. And explicitly, they state that content or material from Squadron 42, once it's released, I'm not sure if it's been released yet will be prohibited even if it just sounds like the characters. And plus, putting content of any kind that's been generated in Star Citizen behind any sort of paywall is also going to be excluded. So there you go, Patreon creators that shot you in the foot, I think. Now, a couple of things on this. Firstly, I think it's going to be quite interesting to see how this evolves over time, since fan films and indeed, Squadron 42, are also in the same universe. And basically, what they're trying to do is head off I think any kind of community inspired competition for their Squadron 42 game, but it's hard to see how something works, how it just can't bear any of the hallmarks when it's created the same environment. So I think it's kind of an interesting development from that point of view. But also, not least, because last week, as we're recording this, there was a pretty interesting legal case in the US which not, which isn't actually about machinima, but was about the film called Greece. I don't know if you guys saw it. In this particular case, the co authors of the original film had sent a cease and desist letter to a production company called Sketchworks regarding a stage play that they had created called Vape. Now Vape is basically the same story as Greece, just updated for a modern age, less mysogeny, and including electric cars, but otherwise, a clear parody of the original and characters plot the narrative right down to names and story environment. Sketchworks argued that the parody was fair use and basically the judge agreed that Vape did not infringe the rights of the owners of Greece's copyright. Another point to note here is that in the discussion they had reflected on transformative use, relating presumably to the making of a play rather than film. Now hearing that analysis, what I've seen is it makes reference to an appeal case that has yet to be judged, which is where the estate of the artist, formerly known as Prince has apparently claimed that Warhol's drawing on a photograph of him was not transformative enough, presumably, that case isn't due to be heard on appeal until the back end of this year. But I think it's going to be one to watch. And in the meantime, fair use and parody, which we've talked about extensively before, in the world of machinima has become I think, just that little bit more refined in law than it had previously. And it may well be the Cloud Imperium are not able to defend against content that has been recorded in Star Citizen and which reflects the stories told in Squadron 42 be that either accidental or deliberate. And furthermore, the matter of transformation of content from game to film, will also make that situation clear. Of course, in the meantime, we've seen loads of folks putting disclaimers over their videos. And as ever, the one thing that Cloud Imperium has done is to create another whole raft of uncertainty just like all the other game environments that have attempted this kind of thing before over the last 25 years that we've been exploring machinima. Ultimately, the only thing they're ham fisted attempt has done I think, is basically closed down their community of fans. And that will push them onto other environments, and a whole new platforms. So I think it's a shot in the foot for them really. And interestingly, I see when I was just sort of looking generally at their website, they're already promoting jobs for gameplay capture artists, when in fact, all they needed to do was empower their community to continue to be creative and allow them to survive as an independent creator over time. By the way, that 50,000 sounds like quite a lot of money for machinima. But you only need to crowdfund a few films certainly looking at on Patreon these days If you're working over a series of three or four years, I'm pretty sure that 50,000 will be probably fairly easily exceeded by certainly a few of those more successful indies who are out there, creating it, I'm not not going to mention any names in this particular thing at all. So that was my legal updates.

Tracy Harwood 25:01
Can I comment on that? I think you've covered the basis of everything. And I think that's just excellent reporting. Tracy, thank you for that story. My only thought is, is that I'd like to say is that fair use in the United States clearly, excepts parody and satire, it's in the language of fair use. So even if they sue, they would lose because it's clear language. However, there's a detriment to being sued. People who put out a thing thats satire, they know they're legal on good legal grounds. And the company says, Well, we're going to sue you. And you have to go to court. It's a detriment. It keeps people from wanting to use their programme, to create things and spread the content and the game and all of that, which is too bad because Star Citizen has had some really outstanding machinima that we've covered this year. And they're, what they've done is they've shot themselves in the foot by putting this stepback policy in there, this ill considered policy, and it's just going to hurt their hurt their game and the reputation with the fan community. Yeah, I'm

Damien Valentine 31:38
really surprised by it. Because from the day that the camp, the crowdfunding campaign, started, fans are creating fan videos. And it's helped me spread the word and the company was encouraging this. And once the crowdfunding campaign is finished, obviously didn't have anything to show off. But one of the developers who stopped doing this weekly, live video where he would answer questions that parents had sent in and talked about what they were doing, which, you know, started off with things like, we've got our office space today, and he kind of took the camera around. This is where the kitchen is, this is where we're gonna sit the desks up, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then over time, fans got more and more creative, the questions and they started sending in videos, which I think one guy made himself a costume, which is like this futuristic space suit news. You do it at night, so you couldn't see me see where he was new to us on this alien planet beheaded. He's stopping his adventure for a moment to ask this question. And, you know, and they were encouraging this. And so the current videos we get from Star Citizen, and it's all evolved from that happening all those years ago. So it's a surprise to hear about all this is new restrictions. The only one I can really understand is not using the character like this, your character models of the celebrities that they've hired, because obviously, they don't want someone to do something unfortunate maybe with Mark Hamels character, because that's his likeness. And he's doing something that he may not like. So I can see why they wouldn't want to protect that, and maybe not, you know, tell stories that go against what they're planning and don't just my understanding with Squardron 42 is they're going to release a series of missions. But that's not the whole story, and that they're going to do it in chunks. I have no idea when they're going to come out because it's been so long. And it's so vague on the roadmap of when it's actually going to be finished. So it's

Tracy Harwood 33:36
probably coming out sooner rather than later if they were doing the legals because my gut feeling is what they're doing isn't anything really to do with what current machinima folks are creating but more to do with protecting the IP on Squadron 42. And I really think they've totally misjudged it.

Ricky Grove 33:53
Yeah, I think the lawyers have made their impact in the company, which is really helps me understand why Shakespeare wanted to kill all the lawyers first. Because they just ruin everything for everyone.

Tracy Harwood 34:09
Yeah, yeah. Well, they Yeah, I just thought I'd throw my 10 cents and Yeah. Next, I got a bit of competition news. Well, you guys have just been talking about Omniverse and the Machinima competition is still open until the 27th of June. Obviously you need to use as the guys we're saying, the RTX kit and either remix characters from Squad Mountain Blade 2, Bannerlord Mech Warrior Mercenaries 5 or your own characters using Omniverse machinima

Damien Valentine 34:41
at least one of those characters

Tracy Harwood 34:43
they do you okay.

Damien Valentine 34:45
I don't know how extensively you have to use it. But you have to use at least one of those characters from their list of providers. You can use anything else you want, but one has to be what have you. Yeah,

Tracy Harwood 34:58
yeah. Well, what I was gonna say It was two minutes or less is all they're asking for. So I do not think anybody that has this kit has an excuse to not put something in. Because quite honestly, you're not gonna get a lot of story in a couple of minutes. Or are you? That's my challenge. Yeah, I think I really want to see what comes with it. There's, there's also an interesting lineup of judges, including Dane Johnston, who Ricky interviewed last year on the podcast, just as the machinima app was being launched. And I was also interested to see that RoosterTeeth have created the ad for it. which I guess means we all know what kind of machinima they're really expecting, which I have to say I will be disappointed about if that's the case.

Ricky Grove 35:48
Humorous, irreverent humour, Halo kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's a smart move on their part professional. RoosterTeeth has the highest visibility of any machinima creators ever. Yeah. And they have a huge community. So to tie that community in with the Nvidia Omniverse is a smart move on their part.

Tracy Harwood 36:09
For sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Next, I want to highlight Reallusions, continuous pitch and produce programme. I don't know if you guys have come across this at all. No, I don't know much about it. Well, it's not actually a contest of such a programme which offers creators a chance to receive software content and also financial support to accelerate projects, whether or whether they're just on the drawing board or are more developed. Anyone who shows knowledge and experience with Reallusion's tools can apply. using religion as the main application software, you're going to need to submit detailed plans and visuals. Proposals are formally reviewed on a monthly basis. And there's a process if your idea is accepted to the next stage, quite a detailed process. But it's definitely something I think to consider if you're looking to develop high quality projects or even business propositions, much in the same vein, as what appears to be much in the same vein as Unreal's mega grant. So I thought I would highlight that one.

Tracy Harwood 37:14
Next, I found a stunning and I do mean stunning showreel of 100 3d renders that was put together from a 3d competition which focused on the theme of infinite journeys. The quality of the work sample is pretty amazing was curated and edited together from entries into what was badged as the world's biggest CG challenge hosted by Clinton Jones, otherwise known as Pwnisher. That contest actually ran last year, but Pwnisher runs a weekly 3d challenge from his Patreon and Discord accounts. And we'll put a link to those in the in the show notes. One thing to note is there's basically an entry fee of about four pounds per month to join the community and participate in the challenges. He's has apparently about 79 creators in that community at the moment, but his YouTube channel is incredibly popular for its VFX tutorials. Now, the show report I mentioned is nine minutes long, but it's definitely worth the watch. So I'll put a link to the show notes in that and I'd be really interested to see what other reels come out of his curation of these 3d challenges that he puts up.

Ricky Grove 38:35
Tracy, when you say 3d renders it includes machinima obviously, right? Yes,

Tracy Harwood 38:40
yes, absolutely. Yes. Okay. Yes. Well, I think so. I mean, he doesn't really. Yeah, I would say there definitely is machinima in there for sure. 100%. Now, I also have a contest that we miss promoting when it was live. But in the spirit of highlighting machinima contests, I just want to give it a mention. This took place in Second Life and was organised by Sofia Widdershins and Chantal Harvey, who ran the second annual film festival at the Fantasy Faire sim which took place at the end of April and into early May so last month, basically. Fantasy Faire is the largest gathering of fantasy designers enthusiasts, role players and performers in Second Life and has been running since 2009. Now, Chantal and Sofia ran three categories of film entry in their contests, one for fiction, one for factual and another live stream strand. Creators basically had 10 days to make their film, and the content was required to be 100% based on the fantasy fair sin. The prices was wasn't actually software. It wasn't even hardware or money, but a virtual award is sorted. have this wonderful Wafflie that they created, which looked pretty amazing. I think what we'll do is we'll put the winners link to the winners of each of the categories in the show notes. But one film I wanted to highlight, which actually wasn't one of the contest films was a review of the Fantasy Faire sim by predeparture. called, she called it her epic walk documentary of the sim. It's, it's, as I said, not about the competition, but it just illustrates how much incredible design work has gone into that whole sim, I have to say it's one of the longest machinimas over two and a half hours. But it's timestamped for each of the 20 regions, it features. And each of those regions has about 10 minutes devoted to it, so you can kind of chunk it up and watch it bit at a time. Now, Chantal tells me the fancy firmer cinema contest is going to return next year. So if you're a Second Lifer, or interested in participating in, in that contest with either live stream, or fantasy or documentary type content, it's definitely one to look out for. And it'll be about the same time again next year. So April ish, gives you plenty of time to learn how to create machinima in Second Life.

Tracy Harwood 41:19
The next thing I want to talk about is a bit of tech news. And this one I have to say is especially for you, Ricky: Elden ring has a new VR mod in development, which allows you to play the game in first person. And it's been created by a modder called Luke Ross. He's done lots of other VR mods for things like Red Dead Redemption two. And I think GTA as well as are games that he's created VR versions for. We'll put a link in his to his channel, in the in the show notes, so you can kind of find out a little bit more about it. There's a really nice little video, which shows you what it looks like on YouTube, which we'll also put in the show notes. But basically, it's something to have a look at, if you like looking inside a dragon's mouth. So, Ricky, over to you on that one!

Ricky Grove 42:18
Well, I haven't heard of this particular development, although it makes sense. Because the user base for Elden Ring is just massive, it's still continuing to sell like crazy. And the Let's Play machinima creators for Elden Ring are just over what there must be a million there are some there are some that have gone over 100,000 200,000 500,000 views, showing how they access certain areas, how they work on defeating certain bosses, discover certain parts of the world, how to organise your weapons and all of that stuff. There hasn't been any. I haven't looked seriously because I've been too busy playing the game, but I haven't really seen any pure machinima being done from it, in which there's a story based story with characters that is shot in the world. I suspect that's going to come after the first wave of interest in the programme is over. Although, as it's going now it just gets bigger

Tracy Harwood 43:26
and bigger and bigger. It's still early days though, right? Yeah.

Ricky Grove 43:29
Yes, it is. It's only been out for what? Two months, I think you know, but I mean, if you go into YouTube and you type Eldon Ring let's play you you will get a list of 1000s and 1000s and 1000s. In fact, this game I've accessed more online content for this game than any other I've ever played. Partially because it's just so damn hard. And you need people to help you veterans help you solve the problem. I'm a much better player now than I was before but I'm still not even near some of the guys who and girls to which I was really happy to see a lot of women are participating. But the VR mode would be very, very interesting because the beauty and gothic nature of this world which is a ruined world, you come across ruins and and caves and things that are not necessarily play areas you're not fighting or you're not questing or anything like that. But just the stark beauty of the world is amazing. And I think seeing that in VR would be would just be a stunning experience because of the lighting and the rain and the the desolate and beauty and then the all the careful detail. They went to creating the flowers and the plants, the world ecosphere of it is just stunning. Just stunning.

Tracy Harwood 44:58
Yeah, well I look forward to do an update from you on that, too cool. So,

Ricky Grove 45:03
indeed, when I finished my first playthrough, I'm going to start a new character, which is just going to be using the photo mod. And I'm going to go in and take photos and videos of interesting things that are not necessarily connected to the game, we're going to talk about an artist named David Blandy. In our film section, who uses GTA four, in just this way, you know, GTA four, has the content, or GTA five, excuse me, has content that is, you know, crime based, urban based, but he steps outside of it. And you can find all sorts of interesting things that have nothing to do with that theme. And that's what I hope to do with Eldon Ring.

Tracy Harwood 45:48
Didn't you tell us that last month you Have you still not finished your first run through on it?

Ricky Grove 45:53
Well, that's a curious thing. I had a character. And then I abandoned it after about 80 hours, and I went to another character. And I have that character about, oh, gosh, two or three steps towards finishing it. And I stopped it, and I started a new character. And I don't know why. I don't know why I'm doing that. But for some reason, I'm, I'm just avoiding finishing the game. I don't know why. But it's just happening. And I'm just following my instinct. I'm enjoying it. I'm loving it. But going back on the third sort of third playthrough, it's much easier for me, and I think that's what I liked. Level of hardness. The first time I went through was so high that you'd go into an area and you'd literally die 50 times, 75 times. And it would become so frustrating that you just said I'm not gonna play this game anymore. But then you reason with yourself, and you go, no, just stay with it. So I think now that I know how everything works. This third playthrough is the actual playthrough that I think a veteran of the games would have, because they know everything. They know how everything works. But we'll see, you know, I'll finish that that second character, who is a mage, which is very easy to play, and I'll report on that. I'll definitely keep everybody up to date.

Tracy Harwood 47:22
Definitely, like see that? Yeah, I'm okay, I've got a couple more bits for you.

Ricky Grove 47:28
Oh, my God, Tracy. Yeah, sorry.

Tracy Harwood 47:30
I got loads this month, I just kept collecting stuff. And I just want to share it all with you. So next, the developers over Roblox are working on real time motion capture of facial animation for their avatars. It's not part of the game yet. But it's something that's coming down the road and clearly has potential, I think, for animating facial performance for machinima creators. So I think it's a really interesting development to watch out for, will give you an update as as on when it takes off. And then in another sensory vein, a VRchat mode is being developed that helps you feel virtual content, using the Bhaptic system. I don't know if you can. I think this has lots of future potential for machinima to particularly for immersive storytelling. But But so far, I'd be honest, I haven't seen very much done with it at all. So if anybody's you know, picking this up at all, I'd be really interested to see and hear about some of the projects that you're working on with this kind of kit for filmmaking in particular, that's the kind of the haptic feedback systems.

Tracy Harwood 48:43
And then with this one, I want to give thanks to Chantal Harvey for highlighting it, great article on the Shopify website, which has reviewed the best free video video editing software available for all 2022. So if you want the side by side comparison, it's a pretty good read. And we'll put a link to that in the show notes.

Tracy Harwood 49:06
I've got a bit of project news as well, which I'd like to share with you. First of all, if you are thinking about the potential of Nvidia Omniverse as a creative platform, JSFilmz and other of the judges on the Machinima contest has made a nice little cyberpunk short, and on the back end of that video, it's a kind of how it was made overview so it's a kind of enjoyable informational. It's kind of an interesting approach to doing the tutorial - I really liked it. And then, finally, our good friend Pookey Amsterdam, who was one of the first and most prolific machinima creators in Second Life is in the process of developing a stage musical of the metaverse experience. It's called Mambo Motel and this is basically the first Metaverse play to be created. Now I have to say she shared the script with me and I was involved in a run through of it, as she was working out the wrinkles of it, it's really great fun, has some fantastic original songs in it, I think are 16 original songs in it, and that she's written and well, it's just everything that you've come to expect from Pooky. Now she's in the process of pulling together her team of creators, I think she's just about there. On that she's got an she's, she's got Ben Tuttle, who's on the creative team side of things as well, which is great to see. Because the next stage that they're going to be working at is doing the creative side, and then looking for funding to actually get it on the stage, as well. So if you're interested in backing a great original project, then this is definitely something to follow. I'm really looking forward to seeing it. It's going to be shown first in New York. I'm going to go over there. I'm really looking forward to, to seeing it on the stage there. And hopefully, we'll see on the stage in the UK as well as some point.

Ricky Grove 51:10
Kudos to Pooky, who has been a stalwart in machinima for over a decade. Yeah. That's a very creative idea. And I'm really glad to hear about it. Yeah, me too.

Tracy Harwood 51:20
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm honoured to be on the advisory board of it as well. So yeah, can't wait to see that one. That's it for me this month. Thank you very much. I'm sorry. That was a long one.

Damien Valentine 51:32
interesting news. Alright, so thank you for excellent news, Tracy and Ricky. Thank you all for listening. And please send us your feedback. As we discussed in the in the episode, we will read it out. So we're going to go and discuss our films next week. So come back for us to see what we've chosen. So thank you, everyone, and see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.