Phil Rice 00:45
Hello and welcome to And Now For Something Completely Machinima, the podcast about machinima, virtual production and other technologies. I'm here. My name is Phil Rice and I'm here with my co hosts Damian Valentine and Tracy Harwood. Ricky is off scaling the Himalayas, but he will be back in a couple more episodes or so. So, this this episode, we're going to be kind of catching up on some news that's out there. And I'll kick things off. I think we've mentioned this video on a previous episode. Basically, there, someone has created a video that's titled learn Unreal Engine five, by making a short film in under 60 minutes. And I'm not particularly ambitious or in a hurry to learn Unreal Engine five, but I've had it downloaded for a while. And as Damien and I were discussing a week or so ago, I've kind of been trying to decide from my iClone productions, should I lean towards Omniverse or should I go the way Ben Tuttle is gone and do it more in Unreal Engine and maybe I need to learn to do both. And with Unreal Engine five, I've been intimidated by it. Even though I'm probably what people would term as experienced with machinima, generally, I've done it with games, I've done it with Moviestorm and I've been doing it with iClone. But Unreal Engine five really struck me as there's so much I'm gonna have to just learn all over again. And it concerned me and and it has legitimately kind of kept me away from really doing much there. I'm happy to say that this video that I've referred to, which we'll link to in the show notes has completely changed my my point of view on that I'm not intimidated by Unreal Engine and this video is responsible for that I followed it through almost in real time, like barely pausing, and was able to digest and retain information from this video to where I feel like I could fire up Unreal Engine five now and make a pretty decent go of it obviously, there's lots of levels of detail. There's more advanced features, that this doesn't even this video doesn't even pretend to cover. But it is an excellent tutorial. Just excellent. And it holds true to the promise of its title. Now, the caveat if there is one is that I'm not sure how to imagine what it would be like watching this video if I didn't have the background that I do. Meaning stuff like moving stuff around in blender or an iClone, you know, manipulating and resizing and rotating objects and that whole paradigm of 3d software which is common to well, now the modern Blender, it's common to iClone, it's common to a lot of the other 3d software's. I have a lot of experience with that. If I didn't, that'd be that, you'd have to add that to the list of things I would have to be able to grasp and learn while watching this video. I'm not sure how that would go. I'm familiar frame animation, how it generally works, you know, ik and the different types of animations and how things are interpolated. And you know, that wasn't new to me watching this. So that's I guess I'll express there's a little bit of caution there that if you're completely new to working in 3d software, you may have to watch this a few times. But the good thing is, is that all of that information is in this video, all those fundamentals of how to navigate around how to manipulate objects and bring them in and change them and stuff. It's all in this video, but he goes through it quite quickly. Like there's an expectation there, that you you're not completely unfamiliar with this stuff. So technically, let's say you've only made machinima in The Sims, or only made it in? Well, even if you've made it in Second Life, the way of moving and manipulating objects in Second Life is not that different from 3d Software. But if you've only done it in games, for example, then maybe plan on watching this a few times. And if you've got a dual monitor setup, that's ideal, because you open this video up on one screen, and you have the stuff that he's opening in Unreal Engine on the other, and pause that video as much as you need to, or rewind or whatever. But it is it is excellent. It's very accurate. It's very thorough. He doesn't waste time on details that you don't need when you're starting. It's just it's, it's maybe the perfect tutorial for Unreal Engine that I've ever seen. For complete beginners. So, yeah, it's great. Ricky is who drew my attention to this video. And I bookmarked it at that point, and finally got around to watching it this week. And it's terrific. It's really terrific. So if you've been wanting to wet your toe in Unreal Engine, this, this video can help kind of fill in some gaps for you, or maybe even get you started, you know, from the beginning. So yeah, that's that's my news item for this week. Tracy, my understanding is you've got a handful of items for us. Well,

Tracy Harwood 06:21
I've got Yeah, I mean, I have got a few. Let me start. Okay. So this is something I would sort of say, puts fan communities under a little bit of pressure. Now you'll remember, well, if you've been following us, you'll remember that last month, we mentioned that Valve's new Steam policy meant that there was a large number of AI games that would now be released, which I thought was really exciting news. This month, however, I have to say I'm pretty disappointed to see that Valve is actually getting tough with its modding fan communities, resulting in folks behind the Team Fortress VR mod to be pulled. Now I understand that the problem here is that the mods are using some of Nintendo's proprietary IP to get them to run, meaning that valve is taken, taking, well, I guess, some kind of indirect or maybe preemptive action on behalf of Nintendo. And that issue is also impacting Portal fans. And in turn, it seems to also be impacting a Halflife community of modders, too. I think it's really disappointing all around. Because of course, fans are the key ones behind some of the most exciting projects, such as the Team Fortress Source two, which was attempting to bring multiplayer back to life in its sandbox engine, and also Portal 64, which was attempting to make Portal run on the on the Nintendo - all pulled. We've often said we've rarely seen much machinima made with hand controllers. And in fact, I think it was Damian, you highlighted this last month, there's now more growth with PC games than there are in in controller based sales if you like kit sales. So I would think maybe what we're seeing here is a bit of a shot in the foot for Valve's Nintendo games, if I'm honest. Now Valve has always been very supportive of its fan communities. So I think it's going to be quite interesting to see what the impact of this might be on the Machinima community directly. And in relation to Valve support, you only have to look at fanmade entirely free game mods, which run on Half life two for example. The you know the the colloquial colloquially called Half Life three or Entropy Zero, which was launched in 2017. And it's sequel which launched in 2023, like last year called Entropy Zero 2. Now, I know I mentioned that because last week, we reviewed a feature length machinima called Emesis Blue, which was quite an astonishing film in so many ways made by Fortress Films, obviously using Team Fortress assets, but their latest film has become a major promo for Entropy Zero 2 And it's equally stunning work. I don't believe there's any actions being taken by Valve against the mod itself. To be honest, I think if there were the knock on impact, would see another fan community make a really major move more strategic move, I think across to tools like Unreal to make fan movies rather than attempt to use Source Filmmaker which has already lost a lot of ground because of the competition from such as iClone in Unreal so if all of that you know if they really hit those fan communities harder I my guess is Source Filmmaker may as well not may as well not exist really. So yeah, disappointing news there from from a couple of Valve take down notices basically. On the other side of things, there's two new moviemaking tool sets which have been released. Now this is quite interesting that we're seeing more games come to the fore that focus on machinima creators specifically playing with them moving, moving. start that again movie making process. Now we first mentioned the first one I want to talk about Blockbuster Inc. Actually, it was teased last summer. And that's when we talked about it now. They've just released the prologue version of it on Steam, I think it's free. And I've got to say thanks to Evan Ryan for bringing it to our attention. I quite like one of the reviews for it, it says the best parts. It includes basically the best part of the movies without without the alcoholism, and filling your lots with various celebrity trailers. I think when we first mentioned it, we felt it may be sat somewhere between Moviestorm and The Movies. But I guess over time, let's see what others think about it. I found a bit of a demo for it, which I'll put in the in the show notes. Another one that is worth highlighting is called Replikant. And thanks to John McKinnis, for highlighting this one. This is actually also in free beta as well and it's made in the Unreal Engine, and you can pick it up on the marketplace. And this is a game where you can simulate a virtual production platform for moviemaking, which seems to me to sit somewhere between The Movies, Moviestorm and actually the Sims as well. Now replicant has got a YouTube channel you might have seen it around a bit is it's quite cartoony with the animations that it enables you to create, there's a stack load of tutorials on how to do it. And I'll put the demo reel if you like on the show notes as well. So those are, those are two that I thought were really quite worth having a look at. I don't really think Moviestorm figures in or somehow it seems to be more a game about rather than a toolset for but I could be wrong. Then the other thing that I wanted to just sort of mention you know we said we'd follow what's going on with with steam Steamboat Willie Disney's Mickey IP. Well, I found a Minecraft Steamboat Willie, which is quite a fun take on it, which has been made by a team called Red and Blue, not red versus blue. But red and blue is just the first little bit of it, but it's it's pretty good. Got to say, got to watch it. And then I also found what has been called an official trailer or Official Teaser by future studios made in Unreal engine called the return of Steamboat Willie. And it's, it's you know, it's playing on this kind of horror creepy film that's supposed to be coming out away anytime soon. Or whenever. It's super creepy, I have to say and it's quite impressive. It's very well filmed. Turns out that CEO of the studio, about which you can actually find very little you can't really find anything much about Fewture Studios at all. But it CO is one guy called Chi Henry. And he's previously managed folks like Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Quincy Jones and also founded a lifestyle YouTube platform called SkeeTV to say he's quite professional in the way he goes about things. So it's not really very surprising ultimately, that it's actually a pretty good teaser for this film, or maybe it's just a standalone teaser. I don't know what the connection is between Fewture Studios and the new horror movie. But anyway, watch it. It's pretty good. The other thing that I found, which I'm sure you'll love is well in relation to scary things. A BBC documentary really short one, four minutes long about the origins and impact of the Wilhelm screen. Now we've talked about that quite a few times on the on the show in various machine amendments we've watched over the years. I'll put a link in the show notes. I'm not sure if you can watch BBC iPlayer stuff wherever you are in the world. I don't think you can but hopefully you can I know Ricky has in the past and I was kind of really interested to see what it's, there's

Phil Rice 15:06
there's some stuff that's region region limited and there's some stuff that's not

Tracy Harwood 15:10
right. Okay. Well, I hope it's not because I'm sure you'll enjoy this. It's a real, it's a real quick and dirty overview. Like I said, I was really interested to see what it had been in which is everything from things like Reservoir Dogs to Lord of The Lord of the Rings, and also every single Indiana Jones and Star Wars movie, as well as things like Monsters University and literally hundreds of others. It was first heard apparently, do you know when it was first heard? Phil?

Phil Rice 15:39
I don't I'm sure Ricky does, but I don't remember.

Tracy Harwood 15:42
Damien.

Damien Valentine 15:47
No, I've got no idea. No idea.

Tracy Harwood 15:49
Right. Well, it's well before our time, of course, Gary Cooper's 1951 classic called Distant Drums. That's when it was first heard. But actually, it only gained its name in the 1953 film called The Charge at Feature River. Yeah, the Charge at Feature River when a whole soldier apparently called Bright private Willem was shot in the leg. And do you know who it was voiced by? testing you, do you? No. No, no, no. Well, he was actually a singer, songwriter, actor and comedian his name was Shelby Wooley. Which is, you know, he's he was he was brilliant. When you look at his portfolio and stuff, Sheb Wooley, anyway, I'll put a link up and you'll you'll see for yourself, I think you'll, you'll find it really interesting, because there's a bit more to it than we'd actually assumed, I think. And then the last thing that I wanted to highlight this month, is yet another new generative AI that's actually not being released, but it's being teased. I'm not actually sure when this one will be released, I have heard hints that it might be the end of March. But we'll see this one's called surah. And it's text a video by open AI. Now, there's, you know, what, 20 or so videos, flying around the internet, millions of views, it's an incredibly impressive, because of the way it not only produces photorealistic quality film in slightly longer format than we've seen, say, from Runway or others, which is about a minute in length. But also because it includes physical properties, physics properties, for those things that are in the scene, such as rain falling, or, you know, traffic moving, or water flowing, or clothing moving those kinds of things. All quite integrated into into what you're seeing. So the physical properties is the the key component that we're looking at here. Have to say it's got quite a few of the big boys really twitchy. I mean, everything seems to make people twitchy these days. But I did see one studio boss, commenting that he's actually delaying building a new studio until he figures out how this is going to impact on filmmaking. And someone else that I saw commenting quite quite senior in the industry reckon that there would be over 200,000 jobs that are likely to be at risk, when this kind of tool comes out, I have to say, probably the main interest in this is going to be in scenery and background, or at least from what I understand at the moment, because you, you know, once you can start feeding video to video into this, then potentially what you've got is the the way that you can use use this tool to sort of look at other scenes, that they're all the same assets, but from other views within the scene playing out over video. So it's, I think, potentially a very sophisticated tool, although that's not what is being demoed at this moment in time. So, yeah, the other thing I will say, I think, is this, this, this is probably not as straightforward as we might imagine it will be and part of the reason for that is obviously the process of prompting. You know, we've we've all sort of had a go at doing image prompting from from text over the last 18 months or so. But now, if you imagine what we're looking at with this kind of thing, you're not just talking about creating the image you're also now going to have to think about what the language of movement is. And not just for one thing, but for multiple Different aspects have seen components. And if you're talking about, you know, a minute long film, also the durational aspect of that as well, that is just not going to be easy. And it's not it's, you know, that's, that's a whole kind of craft in itself. I didn't see anybody really being able to pick that up instantly, and craft with this in the way that, you know, maybe you could compose an image reasonably quickly. And in many ways, I you know, somebody asked me what I thought about it a couple of weeks ago, when I when I happened to be with some some, one of the major tech companies. And I basically said, it reminded me very much of the machinima community when they first sort of started picking up a game engine and looking at it as a tool set. And that machinima community when they had inside knowledge of how that game worked, we're the only ones really that could craft something new and novel out of it. But they had to know the game inside out to do it. To my were thinking what you're looking at here is very similar, you're going to have to know how to craft something with a deep knowledge of how this tool works. And nobody knows that at this moment in time, I don't think it will ever be that easy, because of the way that it will continually evolve and update. So yeah, great, really interesting tool set and whatnot. I think it's far from clear how people will use it and integrate it into their kind of workflow. It's also worth saying something that about a couple of weeks before this came out, I saw Runway release was also really interesting, which is this ability to create components within the image. And, you know, you use them and take control over them so that you can move that part of the animation with the rest of the animation going on around it. I think the promotion for that, that's probably gotten lost in all the hype about SORA, which I do think is a bit of a pity. So I will put a link, again, in the show notes to what Runway have done with this kind of control mechanism that they've they've generated. There is one sort of thing that I'll mention in relation to workflow and learning the craft and content production and what have you. Next week, or in a couple of weeks time, you'll see us review a film called FLITE. And in that what you're looking at is unreal engine being used with CG effects and real acting. And those things are being blended together almost in a real time way to create a quite a sophisticated looking short film using a propriety proprietary platform, which the film director is created based on Unreal Engine. We'll talk about that a bit more when we review that film. But that's an example I think of the kind of workflow and pipeline that needs to be thought through integrating these kinds of generative AIs. And we're not anywhere near developing those kinds of pipelines at this moment in time with possibly that exception. So yeah, that's, that's me. Oh, no, I've got one more thing I wanted to mention the SUNO model 11 Labs has released a new suno AI model which is great for music composition. I actually did find a really fun example of a rap that had been created which I'll share a link to as well. That's me me done on my news updates

Phil Rice 24:05
and a lot of lot of interesting stuff happening there. Yeah, Valve getting back to the to the top of the list there. Valve sure isn't a company that that shys away from having some drama. Are they I mean, it's it's been it's been a really interesting journey for them over the years, you know? Yeah. I kind of feel like that there's I've always thought about them having a little bit of parallel to Hugh Hancock when he founded machinima calm I feel like Taos and ultimately, as that has become the that is the way that games are distributed. I mean, of course there are competitors but I mean, they've they've Far and Away got the big market share there. So now they're this platform for distributing games, and regulating what games are allowed, and all this other, these layers of complexity and the legalities and, you know, compensation and royalties and all that stuff. From a company that essentially was a, they just liked making games, you know, and I feel like, in some ways, there's a parallel between their decision to do that. And Hugh's decision, he was a filmmaker, he loved making movies, that's what he wanted to do. But he realised that there was a lack of platform in 1999, or whatever it was that they launched that 1999 2000. And so he devoted just tonnes and tonnes of his energy to creating and then maintaining this website Machinima.com. For those of you who aren't familiar with that time period, it's before it was the YouTube channel and the big corporate thing, it was just run by you. And some some people he knew and was a private endeavour, they coded it, the whole website from scratch. This is before the days of WordPress, or CMS platforms that were really big, they just did it themselves. Partly because there weren't a whole lot of options, that in that regard, but also because Hugh had a devotion to the idea of, you know, kind of the the Free Software Foundation, the the Creative Commons aspect, and all that he was very philosophically invested in that idea. And so the idea of if we're going to build this site, we're not going to build it on something proprietary that anybody could ever, you know, disrupt or, or tell us what to do, kind of thing. He was a major thought leader in that regard, I feel like, but anyway, at some point, he just said, you know, I can't keep doing this, if I'm gonna be able to make films. There's just not enough time in a day or in a life. And he was fatefully, right about that, you know. So and, to a degree, I wonder how much of some of this drama that goes on with Valve and you know, the whole huge delay on finishing the Half Life story arc in video games? And how much of that is will they chose to take on a pretty big freakin distraction, when they decided we're going to become the leading distribution platform for games. And at one point, they didn't even know if they dropped this or follow through on it. But they were going to release their own hardware

Damien Valentine 27:47
still doing that. They called the Steam Deck. Yeah.

Phil Rice 27:50
Yes, yeah, the steam deck that that was we saw that developed over a period of a decade before it was ready to come to market and, and then they got into VR hardware themselves, and are a big, big player in that space as well. So it's like I don't I don't envy whoever has to, to run that place. It's kind of a behemoth. Now they've got their fingers in a lot of pies, as they say. So and then now yeah, they're actually there's someone who used to work for Valve in the design and development department that I saw on Twitter the other day, recently got rehired. It's kind of a big name, I won't mention it on here. But that that would tend to imply that something may be is starting to happen for something in the game making, but who knows, you know, so and then now they've got where they're clamping down on, potentially clamping down on some Mod stuff. And all of that seems to have to do with guarding their intellectual property, which means maybe they are going to do something with the Half Life story. There was talk years ago of maybe they'll make it into a movie and talk about the movie rights and order discussion. And just boy boy, man, what a what a, what a hot mess. And, you know, you know, I'm not saying that all new steam is a great plot, the half life and Portal games, and other things that are built on that platform, Left for Dead. And I mean, this whole series of games that are using that tech are undeniably popular games, Counter Strike and Team Fortress and that whole family of games. It's amazing. But it's also it must be a massive headache for whoever's at the top of that. So

Damien Valentine 29:42
with the Steam deck, alright, she got wine. It's a great little device, but I see a little it's very heavy. Yeah, but they're already working on the Steam deck too. And obviously that's several years away. But when the first one was released, one of the big thought points was they made sure all of their games compatible with it. So Half Life, Left For Dead, Portal. And the very sequels and spin offs of those games, they all have to be compatible with it. And they were and they even made a sort of spin off Portal game as the tutorial to how to use the steam deck. Oh, wow, it doesn't add anything to the story, it's just you wake up in the, in the laboratory and you have to when the AI is is giving you the guidance, you know. So if they are working on the Steam Deck 2, we've already got the old games working. So they'll probably want to have something to release alongside the Steam Deck 2, to say like, this is a good reason to buy the new device, I don't think they'd make a new game, exclusive to the steam deck too, because that would be bad business for people who don't want the Steam Deck. And obviously, there's a lot of PC gamers who don't want it or don't need it. They're not gonna restrict it, but it would be a good selling point to have a new Portal or a new Half Life game to go alongside the new hardware when it eventually gets to least well,

Phil Rice 31:07
and I think they've got reason to think that that's a good idea with with the the acclaim that Half Life Alyx has received, which was was basically to kind of, you know, extend their game world into the world of VR. And I mean, the reviews on that are fantastic. And my son's someone who played it. And he's dabbled a lot with VR stuff and says far and away. It's the best VR experience he's ever had. So, yeah, I wish them well, for sure. It just it as as someone who also, when I'm not having fun making movies and talking about movies, I run a business, I just can't imagine the headaches that go along with the business side of an enterprise like that. And, you know, it's very easy to cast them as the bad guy when they're having to do this stuff to protect their story. But you know, but at the same time, that is probably one of their most valuable properties is that very ethereal, intellectual property that is the Half Life world. And if they finally decided to actually really move forward with that story in additional way, I'm, like, mixed like, I feel bad for the modders. But also I'm like excited because they've never, not really they've never not delivered. Like they decided to do it. That's that's the hard part. There's a lot of hemming and hawing. And we made it out and a lot of rumours, and they've got that when it's done development mentality. So you never really know, it's kind of when they do put something out. It's good. You know, so target. And I'm excited about that a

Damien Valentine 32:49
little thing a stock said, because when, before Disney bought Star Wars, there was lots of time, video games, and novels and comics and all that kind of stuff. And when Disney bought it when the first thing they did was all this extra content isn't going to be something we think about when we tell our new stories, they kind of set it aside, you can still buy it, but they're not. They're just kind of ignoring it. And so someone asked one of the major contributors on the authors, I think he wrote about nine different novels across many years, what he thought about it, and he said, when you bought into rights, for something like Star Wars, you're playing with someone else's toys. So if they want to pack those things away, you can't really say anything about it, because they were letting you play with it after kindness. But you know, they ultimately it looks to them that

Phil Rice 33:41
and that's the age old machinima story. From the very earliest days, that's always been Yeah, the risk, I

Damien Valentine 33:48
guess. And it's the same with modelling as well in you're playing with someone else's engine. But if they want to say, you know, that's enough. Yeah. It's unfortunate. But

Tracy Harwood 33:59
yeah, by that, because games are just a bunch of code without the player. And without the machinima creators, there aren't really very many interesting stories other than the advertising stories. So you know, that it's, it's, it's a partnership of if you don't like that, I think each of these communities have a role to play. And the modding community is the kind of it's always been the hidden community, I think, in terms of the creative practice side of it, but they're just as important as the machinima creators are, as the game devs are as the fan communities are, each has a role to play here. And I think you take one of those away and you start losing the rest in minutes. It's more it's, it becomes more than the sum of the parts and each part is equally important. They would do well to remember that.

Phil Rice 35:05
Yes. So the other thing I wanted to talk about without getting too long into it, but what is the Steamboat Willie? Obsession? You know, I mean, just to, to not assume anything about what people know. So you know, Steamboat Willie is this iconic version of Mickey Mouse from the early days. And basically that that movie or the IP surrounding that early version has recently gone into the public domain. And so there's been this big surge of people kind of wanting to repurpose that character, and a lot of the choices of how to do so have been, let's say, of darker persuasion, right? Yeah. Very much recontextualizing this little, for, for decades, for almost a century, there's little thought to be lovable character. And now there's all this sense of wanting to kind of pounce on that and turn him into a monster or whatever. I mean, what is that? That's like, I know that there's an easy answer to that. Maybe that's all it is, is is? Is it a reflection of Disney a once loved company, Walt Disney a, for all intensive purposes, an admired man. And his reputation over the years has taken some hits. And, you know, it's kind of part of the whole woke movement of looking on these figures from the past and kind of reanalyzing you know, were they good or not? And, you know, there's a sense of, of, it's kind of a growing, what's the anti capitalist kind of sentiment? And, you know, that's, that's kind of the Zeitgeist right now. So is that all that's going on here is that that's a representation of a little piece of Disney, that we can actually turn into effigy. We meaning, you know, the, the general public? Is that all that's going on here? Is there more to it? Because like, I don't find Steamboat Willie, that make I don't find him a particularly compelling or interesting character. There's not really any depth to it. I mean, it's, there's, there's nothing there. So I have to think that it's what Mickey Mouse is a representation of is what we're really, there's some hunger to kind of tar and feather that Is that, am I reading into it or not.

Damien Valentine 38:01
And that is, because obviously, Disney do control their characters very tightly. And now they can't control the very first incarnation of Mickey Mouse. So people want to have fun with that and say, Well, you know, now you can't have this. And we can play around that and do it like that. Obviously, you can't use them, the more modern coloured version of the Mickey Mouse eventually, that's going to happen too. Because Disney did try and lobby the copyright laws to change so that to expand the length of copyright, so they wouldn't news. Willy, but eventually, you said no, we have to let it go. And so they're kind of forced to let it go. And then people just want to have fun at the expense of Disney, because you've got this huge international corporation that, that obviously lots of fans of it, and then lots of people who find some of the things I've done very questionable. And then there's the will so in between, and you know, you've got that and you can poke fun at it, because they've lost control of their most iconic character, at least, but the first incarnation of it. So I think it is, a lot of it is that because you look at some of the other stuff that was released some copyright, and no one's making fun of that. This Yeah. Right.

Phil Rice 39:13
That's, that's the thing is, is this is not this is not a regular tradition of how to treat stuff that falls into the public domain. It doesn't and and don't get me wrong, I don't think that anything that falls into the public domain that inherently deserves to be like treated with some sort of special reverence or anything like that. I'm not saying that. But it's just interesting that the level of ire that is directed towards this character and and, you know, the company that it represents, or maybe even the person, you know, the man that that is, you know, I don't know, I guess because I don't have I don't love every decision Disney's made for sure. I don't have any particular warmth, that I feel towards them. I mean, I guess if I, if I think about my childhood, watching the Wonderful World of Disney, with Walt himself coming out and introducing and then they do the movie and whatever, I mean, my gosh, how can you not just gush about in? And I guess I've just never really felt invested enough in, you know, Gosh, darn it, Walt Disney better really be a very nice guy in every way, or I'm going to feel betrayed here. No, I don't care. You know, I mean, everybody's got their skeletons, and nobody's perfect, you know, so. And there are certainly worse humans than Walt Disney. You know, there are worse people who have lived, there are certainly better. But there are definitely worse. So, yeah, I just don't, I don't know, I feel like that there's that there's got to be more to it than that. And because I'm not personally invested in that movement, or whatever.

Tracy Harwood 41:09
I think I think you're right, I think there might well be more to it. But I think possibly you might, you might not need to consider more than what Disney is doing right now. Which is, you know, if you think about it as a platform, and a channel, and it's an add on to all the other channels that you've got, and you pay for it. And, you know, you have a load of content on it. And it's all sorts of, well, whatever, whatever the whatever the content is, but but it's very much, one of the things that will be going out of people's wage packets every single month, if they're, you know, they're paying a subscription to it. So the fact that they then can get to play legitimately, with something that would have been core to that brand, is perhaps just a little dig at what Disney has become, and how people feel about it. And, you know, I think I think what you've got here is a cultural kickback targeting the company, not the man, I don't get the sense of it being the man, I think you've got a bit more going on in relation to how people feel about the corporate entity, and how it's controlling content generally. That would be my gut feel on this? Yeah, I guess really, you know, the reason why it

Phil Rice 41:44
was interesting, I, I grew up in the era. I grew up in the era, when the Disney Channel came to cable television, like I am old enough to be where I remember there was cable TV. And then after that Disney Channel came around, and it was a paid add on. Yeah, when it first came around, it wasn't part of a package. It was an individual channel, you can subscribe to and add it to your cable package. And there wasn't there wasn't this kind of reaction to that. I think the reaction was, if you don't want it, then we'll get it. You know? And to some degree, I feel like that that kind of should be the reaction to Disney plus, right? I mean, if you don't, you don't have to do it. It's not a tax. You know, if you don't want it then just don't just don't pay for it. Don't subscribe it. But coupled with this sense of entitlement, I should be able to watch Star Wars and Marvel movies whenever I want to. That's new. Nobody's ever thought that prior to Napster, for example. Yeah, I think that actually Napster which kind of blew up and the whole music industry and all this music was just freely available. You didn't have to pay for it. No accountability, no cost, no, nothing, just boom, it's out there. And it happened so fast that the music industry had no idea they were totally caught on their heels. It didn't know what to do about it. And I feel like that that. It was either a consequence of a new entitlement mentality, or it bred sense itself. It bred that new sense of this new attitude about digital content, frankly, machinima grew up in in under the same shadow of that. There was kind of a presumption, a seemingly harmless one, but a presumption Well, we got this video game Why do you go departments of the gaming companies are like, well, you know, not everything. That's been the conversation all along. So, you know, I guess, I mean, my, my, my hobby is has grown in the same ground in the same earth right under that same tree, you know, so I guess I get it, but it's just this same thing has happened before the pay for it, channel to get Disney content you can't watch anywhere else. And immediately Disney stopped making that stuff available. They stopped doing the Sunday night movies as much on the regular, you know, main channels. And now that's just on Disney. And if you want to watch the old cartoons now that's just on the Disney Channel. This all happened before. And I don't know there wasn't this kind of reaction, or maybe the internet wasn't there. So you didn't have a way to find out how many people in the world felt the same way as you go about it. Because I don't know. There's a lot of elements to it. But many

Damien Valentine 45:58
have done since then as well, because at the time, they only released this the content. Since then they've bought Marvel. And they've bought Lucasfilm. And they bought 20th Century Fox. So suddenly, they've got all the math, they got this all the Marvel characters produce a lot of films and division. The Star Wars fans can be quite vocal in what they like and don't like. Really? Yeah. And then of course, 20th Century Fox. I don't think anyone was too upset that he bought that. But suddenly, they've got all of the 20th century fox films and TV shows, which you know that you've got Alien and Predator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Die Hard. You know, all these, all this content, which they immediately put onto Disney plus, or onto Hulu for some of the more adult stuff. And I think it's the same age that Disney just wants to own everything. So by losing control of Mickey Mouse, their most iconic character, people feel like they've something Disney has lost something and they can kind of poke fun at this giant that is trying to claim everything. All their entertainment. Okay. Yeah, a lot of the stuff that 20th Century Fox have, obviously they own it now on Disney Plus, they're not touching it other than making it available. Yeah, so it doesn't really affect a lot of these films. But when they try and continue, or remake things that have finished, you know, fans of that aren't sure if they're going to like this new content or not. Because they've got a new movie coming out. So

Phil Rice 47:45
I think I think people that have criticisms of how the IP is being used, while they have very strong opinions, I do think they're in the vast minority. You know, people who have very strong opinions about what should be done with Marvel's property, or what should be done with Star Wars. Clearly, the fan base has very strong opinions about what Disney has done with that. But that doesn't represent, I think, a sizable portion of compared to the overall market. And I guess part of what I wrestle with is, okay, given that streaming is here, somebody would be doing this with the Marvel movies with the Star Wars movies, somebody would be doing it if it wasn't Disney, then it would just be Star Wars. Lucas would just do it. Yeah. Or Marvel would just do it and then you'd have to subscribe to yet more channels. So part of me pushes back against this notion of Well, that's what it is, is this. The fact that that stuff's on streaming? The truth is it would be on streaming. And fact, there would be more uproar if it wasn't at this point. You know, if everything else in the world was on streaming, but Star Wars, you still had to go buy blu rays, people would be pissed. Yeah, they demand, you know. So yeah, it's, I don't know, there's a particular IRA with Disney. And it's, it's wider, I'm aware of the criticisms of, let's say, what Disney has done, the decisions they've made and how to continue George Lucas's legacy in the Star Wars story in the universe and stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of people who think they could do that better. Most of them are incorrect on that, but there's a lot of people who feel that way. Okay, I get it. I totally get it. But the level of ire against the Disney brand is there's more to it than just those people. And I guess I'm just really puzzling over what that comes from and how quickly that has changed. That was you know, Disney was loved the Disney brand. Was was loved particularly in America. Oh, The if you get near Orlando, they've got a one of the big high voltage power line towers that wires go through, you know, that's shaped like the Mickey Mouse ears. And you see that from any direction when you're coming to Orlando to go to Disney. And as a kid, you're excited. And even as the parents are excited, and we that wasn't that long ago. And now, you know, the governor of Florida and, and and the Disney company are arguing about textbooks in schools and taking away tax benefits. And I mean, it's just become this whole other thing. And it happened so fast. I mean, relatively speaking, it's been very fast that this this turn of not just that people are ready to turn Steamboat Willie into a bloody savage, that that's the idea they get when they have public domain access to him is let's make him kill people. Let's make him really scary. But the fact that there's an audience for it like audiences just ready to Yeah, let's watch that. Let's see that. It's perplexing to me. And I don't I don't know if we're going to come up with the answer. No, I don't. But I just I did. I didn't want to mention it. It's

Tracy Harwood 51:16
really interesting to treat it. Because I think it's definitely something worth following. Because it's another form of community action, really, which is, yeah, you know, like, like, the machinima guys have always been the ones to take action. And, you know, and put stuff out there and garner an opinion around stuff. Well, we're seeing a little bit more than machinima creators doing stuff, really, we're seeing professionals doing it, I think. But people are trying to figure out how they, how they make a point and what that point will be. I, you know, we're not going to know, I think for maybe four or five years on what the impact of this will be on brand Disney, but I do think there will be an impact. Yeah.

Damien Valentine 52:09
So yeah, I think it's when they lose the more modern versions of the character, that's when that's when they'll feel a bigger impact. Because that's what people that's what children and people think about is that the modern day Mickey Mouse, the full coloured, people are aware of the Steamboat Willie one. But when you think when you talk about Mickey Mouse, that's not what instantly comes to mind. It's the modern take on him that they when they start losing that, and when I say modern, he's had that desire for quite a long time. So that is going to run out sooner or later, the copyright, and it'll be sooner rather than later. I don't know the exact date of when he had that design. But that's coming. And that sure he'll fellowship impact.

Phil Rice 52:52
Do you mean what news you got this week?

Damien Valentine 52:59
Because it's two things I was going to talk about. One actually came out, it's gonna

Phil Rice 53:03
be so fun to say, this is gonna be so fun to edit. Oh, my God. Sorry. Good. All right. So this,

Damien Valentine 53:13
this, I say news, but it came out a few days after our last recording. So it's not that new anymore. But it's one I just wanted to mention, because we've been talking about AI and following that for a while. And this is a case of AI misuse. And it's not directly related to machinima. But you know, this AI does factor in. So this is about Taylor Swift. And some people have been using AI image creators to create very adult pictures of Taylor Swift. Now, personally, I haven't looked at them, I don't want to know. But they were posted on various social media platforms and viewed by millions of people before they were taken down. And I imagine she's very upset by this and bloomer. So gross, it is there's no need for it. But now Congress is looking at what kind of laws and restrictions can be put on to AI image creation and misuse because of what happened with Taylor Swift. And this is the kind of misuse of AI that is going to cause governments around the world to legislate. And they'll probably legislate very harshly, especially when they themselves are the target of the misuse. Obviously, we've got the upcoming election in America this year. And again, in the UK, I imagined AI is going to be used and misused. But candidates on both sides, both in both elections in very bad situations. And that's when they're really going to take notice of it. So I don't know what's happened with this Taylor Swift thing since then it was just that was a big headline thing that came out a few weeks ago. Yeah, I was like a

Phil Rice 55:08
fan base, the fan base rallied in kind of an amazing way. Because apparently, when this first broke, I haven't seen them either. I have not sought them out. I don't want to see them. I have a daughter. I can't the good bros. But it was really cool to read about what happened with her fan base, because these were initially links to these were apparently on the X platform Twitter. And, of course, for a very brief period, then that trended which for, if you're not on attention, called to it for all the other users of the platform, whether you want to or not, right, right. So the the fan base, basically, for lack of a better term for it, they hacked the algorithm, by overloading Twitter, with tweets that were wholesome and supportive of Taylor Swift, and knocked that stuff right off the trending page. This is just a grassroots thing that just fans did a lot of fans, because you can't, you can't just be a person in a bot and pull that off on Twitter, it doesn't work that way. They shut it down. This was real users uniting together and taking action on this. And next thing, you know, you couldn't you couldn't have found that on there if you look for it. And that basically bought enough time to where then the admins at Twitter could track down these things and get them off the platform for real. Yeah, but in the meantime, the fan base basically stepped in human shield style and did this whole thing. It's really, it's really kind of cool. To see that happen, you know,

Damien Valentine 57:04
so he's got millions of fans. Oh, yeah. And yeah, well, younger and going to be tech savvy. So they're all going to be on that. Absolutely. Yeah, you're right. That was such a really good, it

Phil Rice 57:13
was pretty neat how they rallied together like that. I liked that. It is unfortunate that, yeah, it's incidents like this. And like, what's inevitably going to happen in the political season? You're right. Damien, was like, no, no getting around it, even if the official, you know, politicians and their staff don't do it. Anybody can do this stuff. Right? It doesn't require any special skill. No. And anything from anyone can go viral and be global and in minutes, so yeah, it's gonna happen. And you're right, that is, in the same way that like, you know, a lot of the way that politicians in the late 90s learned anything at all about video games, was when it was discovered that the two shooters at Columbine, in the late 90s, that they played the Doom video game. And that was the first thing that some of these, you know, frankly, elderly legislators had ever heard anything about video games, and what do they hear about? Well, these guys used to a murder simulator to practice for this. And it's like, and I mean, how do you fight against that? It's like, you can't deny they're not making a totally illogical connection there. But there's so much more to video games than that. And there's so many bazillions of people who play these games, and they don't go murder people. So, logically, you can't say that it causes that. Yeah. You know, people think that's the whole context. That discussion is the whole context. Kind of like in the 80s. Ozzy Osbourne, a lot of the way that people learned about him was that he was taken to court because a from a mother of a young man who committed suicide while listening to Ozzy Osbourne song Suicide Solution, which is not a song encouraging suicide, by the way. If you're if you're curious about the song, go look it up. It's not about that at all. But that's how so that's Ozzy Osbourne. Right? Or is that that's, that's rock music is it's making kids killed themselves. And yeah, this is that moment for AI. This is the beginning of that moment for AI. And so, I mean, as big as it is, in the news of circles, we follow, we assume that everybody knows about AI, but it's a very, very, very small percentage of people that are engaged with that particular thing that even know anything about it at all. Like, I mean, they may hear the term AI and draw their conclusions, but people who have actually gone and actually engaged with the product to see how it works like we have, that's such a tiny minority. And certainly nobody in friggin Congress has ever done that. You know, they have no clue. So this is their introduction is Taylor Swift, fake pornography or someone putting, you know, Joe Biden's head on a donkey and, or whatever, or frankly, you know, putting words in the mouth of such a such world leader. That's That's what, that's what the decision makers in these countries are going to get as their first exposure to AI. It's a shame. I mean, there are elements of AI that need to be regulated. For sure. I think anybody who's ever been in the development of AI, nobody says it should be completely unregulated and just go, even the people who are inspired by it and want to do it, they say, Hey, this is really powerful. We got to be careful with this. Right? So I'm not I'm not an anarchist. You know, I don't think that it should be unregulated. It's just, there's going to be an overcorrection now. Right. And it's, what's maybe the most sickening to me about it is that the people making those decisions on how to legislate this and the people creating and all that it's all about money. I mean, that's all it's about. So when they go to regulate AI, it's in terms of dollars and pounds and dinars, you know, it's, it's, that's it. It's just a it's just open AI is bringing in all this money. How can we get some of it?

Tracy Harwood 1:01:33
You know, the, in the UK and in Europe, there is already draft legislation on this sort of stuff about the the application of kind of moral principles in terms of the use of, of images and what they can represent and what have you. And I don't think the issue is to do with the making of the law, it's the application of the law, that's the challenge, because you can make the law, you could make this law, you know, stand tomorrow, basically, the issue is how do you get the platforms to act upon it. And it's, it's that, that, you know, the propagation of content across these multiple different types of platform by, you know, users, that is the challenge. Now, some of the ways that the platforms are responding is basically to flag content, to say, you know, you know, if it looks like a, looks like a politician, and he looks to have said something controversial or not, or whatever, whatever he said, one of the things that they're now sort of saying, if you see a little comment underneath it is that this is unverified, or this is verified by the community and is believed to be generated by AI. And you're gonna see more and more of that the way in which the content is generated, but that isn't the same as a takedown. And you know, how you get content off these platforms by, you know, getting the companies to act? Is this, you know, we've seen these platforms try to do this for years, manage, you know, IP, manage content, manage the distribution of it, manage the way that people share it in private files on WhatsApp, and what have you. There's no way that this is possible. You're not gonna do it. Absolutely not gonna do it. So So I guess what you've just said, and I haven't seen this I have. I kind of I guess I was aware that there was something going on with Taylor Swift. It's not something I'm I've been particularly following to be honest, I wasn't aware that that's what the community had done. If that's what they have done. I mean, what a great example of community action for good and how unusual that is the case, because normally, you see it go completely in the opposite direction is stuff right, flamed all over everywhere. And I dare say, It has been too, it's just that the dominant ways that you're seeing it is, is perhaps the way the algorithm has been tweaked to bring the more wholesome response to it to the fore, maybe, but you're never going to stop people behaving in this way. And more and more of these tools are only going to result in more and more of this type of content. And the onus sits with the platforms and with people themselves. Because if you start sharing this stuff, you're part of the problem. And, you know, in my way of thinking about this, you know, this kind of, how do you overcome this there is only really one way to sort of think about it and that is that the tools, the techniques, the technologies they have to be taught to, you know, and and the moral principles that go with their use have to be taught as part of our education system. Has to be. Because if people can't figure out how to behave in an ethical and moral way, then you need to teach them how to do that, in my opinion, because I don't think technology is the solution here. Certainly the companies aren't, it cannot act quickly enough. Communities seem to be able to act reasonably quickly, but they are not the problem themselves. It's others that are the problems. Yeah.

Phil Rice 1:05:39
No, that's a great point. Because if you were to try to fix the problem through education, and you did focus on technology, education will never catch up. Yeah, you know, but like you said, if you've if the focus is put in its proper place, which has kind of underlying moral principles, almost a sense of like, civics, citizenship, you know, that type of thing. And frankly, there has been a in the West, a decided de emphasis on that as part of Absolutely. of secondary education, as well as a liberal arts education, it's kind of out of fashion, to teach ethics and civics and that kind of thing. And well, frankly, this is kind of a result, you know, so yeah, and it's not too late to do that. It's just not going to be a pop it in the microwave, and it's done kind of fix it is a long term view. To, to start fixing it where we can. There's certainly there are ways to, to educate the adult population. Yeah. Yeah, if nothing else to say, let's at least Yeah, get started with, with kids. And it doesn't have to be a religious based education at all, there are universal principles that, that people of all persuasions can agree on. I mean, that's why we have a society is because there are those things absolutely. We can agree on, in spite of those differences. And it's, it's yeah, it's a good, good to get back to basics on this.

Tracy Harwood 1:07:17
It's just that we haven't thought about society as being digital. Right, in the past? Because I mean, you know, we often talk about how people behave in an absolutely appalling way in in these platforms. I mean, some of the language is just disgraceful. Would you say that to somebody for in, you know, face to face? No, you wouldn't. These people are

Phil Rice 1:07:39
keymaps. Actually, an interesting part of this is the fact that that is there is no dispute about that, there is a clear line of demarcation on even, you know, online, psychopaths, that there's a there's a line, they won't cross in person, maybe for no other reason, then if you do that, you might get punched in the face. But it maybe that's good. Do you know, that's that's, it's, it is good to temper oneself. And yeah, the digital realm has kind of encouraged an atmosphere where it's consequence free, well, I could just be anonymous and just say whatever I want, I can even not be anonymous and say, almost whatever I want. And if I'm not rich and famous, the consequences aren't that bad for me, you know, I mean, what is cancellation to Joe from down the street, it's nothing, you know, cancellation for like a prominent Hollywood entertainer or a prime minister. That's a big deal. He has something to lose. That can be, you know, tangibly taken away. But it's not the Prime Minister that's on there. You know, being a very filthy ugly person. Well, let's hope that it's the average, you know, these are people that are just in the populace. So yeah, it's more it's, it's discouraging in some ways, I'm reminded of kind of a I think it's a I think it's a saying with Zen origin that you know, the best time to the best time to plant that's time to plant a tree is 30 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is right now. Yeah. You know, and so there's this sense of this is a correction that I probably won't see manifest. Yes. You know, I'm saying this is this is something that others are going to need to take up the torch and see it finished. It's it's, it does take it takes time. Yeah. And we're up against, let's say the monster that the dragon that St. George is facing here is is is technology which does not slow down. It keeps moving it keeps adding to the challenge. So, yeah, it's not an enviable task, but it is. It's a necessary one. Or frankly, this tech will do us in. You know it. I really do. I hate to overstate it. I don't think that is overstating it. I think that there's a, there's a rot that can set in if this doesn't get addressed, and spoil the whole barrel, so to speak.

Tracy Harwood 1:10:28
You know, I'm sure the first person to actually create fire said exactly the same thing.

Phil Rice 1:10:38
That is probably true. Except it just sounded like they only had like three syllables then. So it just was ooga booga booga. Right? Yeah, Damien, did you have

Damien Valentine 1:10:50
anything? Of course, yeah, it's like a bit more careful than what we just talked about. Ah, good. So last month, we were talking about the iClone crowd simulation, the new update for the crowd simulation. And I hadn't actually tried it at that point, but I have now. So I can talk about it a little bit more. And it's very impressive, this update now they had crowd simulation with a crowd generation before. And it was kind of limited on what you could do, you can set a space size, and you can put some characters in it and then walk around. And as we go through it than that, but that was kind of the extent of it, now. You still have that option. But it's a lot more advanced. So you can place a is not really a square use Select a piece of ground. And it will, this is where a crowd can be placed. But it's smart enough to detect where objects and other characters placed are. So it makes little holes around them. So you won't get someone spawning inside, you know, an arm sticking out of a wall or anything like that, or you know, inside another character. And when they start moving around, they will avoid those other objects, which I thought was very impressive. Yeah, that's another modes to it, where you can create a path and you can set the width of it. So you have a really tight path, we can a wide one. And what will happen is it'll place characters on that path, and they will move along it. And if you set a wide one, they're not gonna be following it very tight, they'll there'll be spread out, which is good. And if you've got a city street, for example, you set the path to be as wide as the street, and then you've got your characters will follow the street, but they won't bump into Oh, yeah. And they're smart enough as well to not bump into each other, or anything else that they detect in front of them. So you know, if you've got a lamppost, they won't walk into it, they will walk around it, or you know, a bench or a tree or something

Phil Rice 1:12:46
like that. But it's a huge time saver. Yeah, my goodness. And it

Damien Valentine 1:12:51
gets better than that, because you could also take any of the animations you've got on your animation library, and you can drop them in. And so it will choose from those and you can tag them as you want. So the obvious one be male and female. So you wouldn't necessarily, maybe you would, but let's say you got on your couch, Melissa's got high heeled shoes, and you got a specific animation work for someone wearing high heels, you put the appropriate tags for that character. And for the animation, it's just a drop down box. So you can do it in a second. And then, it's a similar thing with the character models, you select a little box, you can drag in the character models, you want it to generate generator. And so you know, you bring in your crowd, you can do whatever you like. But there's also an option. So let's see, you got a character model with a blue shirt, you can enable the coding variant option. So you may get multiple characters the same model. But if you've got versions of that shirt in different colours, you'll get random. They'll they'll randomly pick from those colours. So you're not getting identical characters walking along, they'll be wearing different coloured clothing, even if it's the same model itself. And this is also you can do so incredibly quickly. And I created a crowd scene, I think I watched the tutorial on the religion paid YouTube channel. There's about seven minutes long. I watched it twice. And then I had within minutes, I had populated a crowded marketplace with alien characters. And they're all doing different. Some are walking around some we're talking from the animations are brought into the selection. And the aliens are all different from the by an alien collection just to you know, then we'll look identical. And those ready to go in less than 10 minutes. Wow. And it's actually quicker than that now because most of that templates was just playing around with the settings to see what they could do. Once you know what you're doing. You could do it in a lot less time than that. So it is an incredibly Powerful crowd simulation tool. I'm really glad that they've done it because I'm gonna make good use of it.

1:15:04
Amazing. Yeah.

Damien Valentine 1:15:08
So yeah, that's, that's my coverage of that, for this matter. Yeah, it's definitely worth exploring if you got some busy sittings. And the other thing I noticed is, even though you're seeing multiple copies of the same character, somehow, it's only processing one model of that. But if you've got multiple versions of a character appearing, it'll only process one. So you're not killing a huge memory draw that if you placed yourself, you know, 20 copies of the same character. I don't Wow, possibly could work. But it does, because it's a little memory usage thing. And it doesn't go up.

Phil Rice 1:15:46
And I saw, I saw Warlord, he showed a demonstration of this new feature. And it was it was basically a Star Wars Hoth scene. And he had stormtroopers spread, like all over this large area and all of a marching. And I think I remember him mentioning something about the efficiency, but he didn't he didn't. I didn't listen to him enough to get get the detail of that. That you just mentioned. That must be how, how they make it manageable. Yeah. Because if you if you were to do that loading up individual models, you'd eat up your resources pretty quick for sure. What a neat

Damien Valentine 1:16:22
solution. So that Stormtrooper scene you're talking about? I don't have any story to say 20 or 30. It only actually processing one, even if the animation is different as well. I don't know how it does it.

Phil Rice 1:16:35
That's amazing. Yeah. And this is something that's built into iClone eight, is that correct? It's not a not a paid add on? Yeah,

Damien Valentine 1:16:42
it's completely free. Why do you need to pay for the content that you're bringing in? Like the animated characters, but the actual ad on itself that's free? And there's no, there's no pro version as well. It's all it all included. Nice. Yeah. That's it. That's all I've got for this month. I'm very happy with that last one.

Phil Rice 1:17:06
Okay. Well, thanks for joining us, everyone. And thank you, Damian and Tracy. And we will, we would love to hear your feedback on any of these items. So you can do that in the comment section. If you're watching this on YouTube, or in the comment section of wherever you did see this posted? I think, Tracy don't you syndicate it over to LinkedIn. And I know we put it out on Facebook as well, so long that we are we eventually go around and corral them all up and review them together. So feel free to do that, or drop us an email at talk at completely machinima.com. So again, thanks for joining us, and we'll look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Thank you, bye bye