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Machinima (a portmanteau word for machine cinema and/or "machine" "animation") is both a film genre and a collection of associated production techniques. The term concerns the rendering of computer-generated imagery (CGI) with ordinary PCs and the 3D engines of video games (typically first person shooters) in real-time (on the computer of either the creator or the viewer) rather than offline with huge render farms.
Machinima is an example of emergent play, a process of putting game tools to unexpected ends, and of artistic computer game modification.
The real-time nature of machinima means that established techniques from traditional film-making can be reapplied in a virtual environment. As a result, production tends to be cheaper and more rapid than in keyframed CGI animation.
Although most often used to produce recordings that are later edited as in conventional film, machinima techniques have also occasionally been used for theatre. A New York improvisational comedy group called the ILL Clan (http://www.illclan.com) voice and puppet their characters before a virtual camera to produce machinima displayed on a screen to a live audience.
Because machinima describes events at a more abstract level than their concrete realization as a sequence of rendered 2D frames, it allows digital films that can be played at very high framerate and resolutions to be stored/transmitted more efficiently than conventional video formats. (Think of 3D animation software Macromedia Flash compression.)
History
The earliest roots of machinima can be found in the demoscene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when programmers created elaborate audiovisual displays animated in real-time. In 1992 the game Stunt Island was released, which allowed users to create movies by placing props and cameras, flying stunts, and splicing together takes. Communities emerged on CompuServe and the Internet, where users of the software were able to trade props and movies with each other.
When Doom was released in 1993, it included support for the recording and playback of gameplay demos. This resulted in the eventual creation of Doom speedruns, where players recorded rapid traversals of Doom levels.
Machinima per se arrived with the advent of true 3D game worlds and controlable cameras, from late 1993 to 1996. The Star Wars game X-Wing in 1993 featured a limited recording feature with a controlable camera system, but the camera was controlable only during playback of recordings, not during gameplay itself. While Quake is commonly given credit for being the first to introduce these, that honor technically belongs to MechWarrior 2, which was a year ahead of it and possesed most of the same capabilities. The first movies appeared in 1997, the term was coined at the start of 1998.
At this time, the term "Quake Movies" was used in most situations. Around about mid 2000, the community died out somewhat, due to the movement of players to newer games. Things have picked up in the last two years or so, however.
With the improvements in 3D game engine technology many developers added in-game cutscenes to their games. This led to improvements in animation capabilities and soon most game engines had the functionality (although often available to the developers only) necessary to produce machinima. The distinction beween cut-scenes and machinima is superficial. For example, the developers of Act of War, a real-time strategy game with advanced graphics, used machinima technique (one person playing, another recording the action in-game) to create pre-rendered cinematics. The recorded video was then post-processed and sound effects and dialog were added.
Quake II, Unreal and Battlefield 1942 are examples of video games which are currently used to create machinima. Understanding the future potential of machinima, Epic Games, the developers of Unreal Tournament 2003, included a tool called Matinee with the game, and sponsored a contest for $50,000 to create a machinima film with the video game. In 2004 Crytek, the developer of Far Cry, has included machinima tools in the upcoming version of CryENGINE in cooperation with ATI [1] (http://www.ati.com/gitg/promotions/crytek/index.html). This engine includes a realistic game engine with support for latest shaders and real-time post-processing effects.
Unreal engine was used by George Lucas for pre-visualisation of Star Wars movies and by some other directors.
The video game The Sims, which had a "photo album" feature, was used by players to stage elaborate "comic book" stories. For example, player nsknight has, over several months, staged a highly-rated photo album telling the story of three sisters whose mother is murdered; other players have staged stories of abusive relationships, drug addiction, and interracial adoptions. The Sims 2 has a built in movie making feature.
The Movies is a game being developed by Lionhead Studios that will put the player in the role of a movie director and allow them to create short feature films using the game engine.
This relatively new artform has attracted some interest in the media, as a "sign of things to come". But the number of machinima artists is rather small, as of 2004, and the number of works is still insufficient for the medium to produce a film comparable with mainstream or independent movies in quality and artistic value. As the quality of the engines, tools and 3D hardward improves, however, the popularity of the new medium continues to grow.
A similar technique is used on the MTV television show "Video Mods" that shows music videos, rendered using characters from popular video games, including Sims 2, Bloodrayne and Dawn. However, the creators of the show only re-use the models, which are manually animated using 3D-animation software, not the game engines.
Red vs. Blue is a comedic machinima series filmed within the Xbox game Halo. It was used by Microsoft to promote Halo and Xbox and was released on DVD.
This has inspired a fan tribute series called Sponsors vs. Freeloaders, based on the forums of Red vs. Blue
Another popular machinima series using the Halo engine is Fire Team Charlie, who started production in Mid-2003. While their videos share the same game engine as Red Vs Blue, that is about all they share, as Fire Team Charlie delves into the code of Halo and modifies it to increase their movie making posibilities. Their most notable change is removing all on screen displays, making each video seem less "in game" and more like a movie. This makes for more unique videos from a console game, though these types of modifications are extremly common in computer based machinima.
In late 2004 another Halo-based machinima series was launched called Stryke Force.
UK based, the team at Stryke Force HQ also modify the game engine for machinima purposes but only to remove the on screen displays. Preferring to film the series within the constraints of the game.
External links
- Machinima.com (http://www.machinima.com/), a central site for Machinima with hundreds of films and articles.
- Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (http://www.machinima.org/), an advocacy group for machinima.
- The Art of Machinima (http://book.machinima.org/), the first book about Machinima, written by Paul Marino
- Machinima Deutschland (http://www.machinima.de.vu/), a German site for Machinima with many articles and links.
- Machinimag (http://www.machinimag.com/), the first Machinima online Magazine with articles, tutorials and reviews.
- plugincinema’s 5 minute guide to Machinima Film Making (http://www.plugincinema.com/plugin/articles/article_machinima.htm), a brief introduction to Machinima.
- The machinima section (http://www.archive.org/movies/collection.php?collection=machinima) of the Internet Archive.
- Artery: Machinima (http://www.machinima.com/displayarticle2.php?article=327), a 22-minute documentary originally broadcast on Scottish TV about Machinima.
- A Wired piece about people using The Sims game to stage elaborate stories. (http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,59461,00.html)
- Red Vs Blue (http://www.redvsblue.com), one of the best examples of a Machinima web series
- The Strangerhood (http://www.strangerhood.com), another online series by the creators of Red vs. Blue, using The Sims 2.
- Sponsors vs. Freeloaders (http://www.sponsorsvsfreeloaders.com), a fan series/parody/homage to Red vs. Blue, created by sponsoring RvB Forum members.
- The ILL Clan (http://www.illclan.com/), another successful machinima production and performance group.
- The Seal of Nehahra (http://www.planetquake.com/nehahra), an epic Quake movie, nearly four hours long. Acts as a prequel to the events in Quake.
- Kai, Death of Dreams, a space opera by Richard deCosta being produced in Unreal Tournament 2004.
- The Buff and The Brutal (http://mildchoice.mine.nu/pub/buff), a soap opera parody made by Rebecca Cannon with Quake 3 Arena.
- Fire Team Charlie (http://www.xboxottawa.ca/index.html)
- Stryke Force (http://www.strykeforcehq.com) a halo based machinima series.
See also
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