machinima CREATOR

Machinima Creator aims to put machinima in context, help you watch some of the best stuff that's out there, and get you started in creating in your own films (Machinima Creator).

Machinima Creator has really taken off lately, and is set to explode as it gets easier and easier to get started. Games like The Sims 2 and The Movies (now released!) give everyone a leg-up to making their own films. At the other end of the scale, an ever-growing open source community is likewise making it easier to use and create custom content and control the action through scripting. Some games also have level and character editors so you can create these in-game.

Machinima is the next movement to burst from the underground and go mainstream. It doesn't seem hyperbole to call it the new punk. While it's hard to think of something really new happening in popular music, the world of film has never been explored and popularised in anything like the same way. Until now. Machinima Creator is going to be at the cutting edge.

what is machinima?

Machinima is the art of using a game engine to create film. It started out in the late 90s with Quake, when gamers realised they could capture the game footage, edit it, stick some dialogue in, and end up with an animated film.

With network games, a group of people can come together in cyberspace and virtually act in the films. Alternatively, the movement of computer contolled characters on a solitary computer can be filmed. Other machinimators connect a dedicated games machine such as a PS2, Xbox or Gamecube to a video recorder, camcorder or computer.

With the advent of broadband, it's now really easy to share the films created with a global audience. It also gives an important legitimate use to P2P (peer to peer) networks such as Kazaa and Bitorrent, coming just at the right time to (hopefully) save them from restrictive legislation.

Kids in their bedrooms can create films for a global audience, or just for their own enjoyment. In much the same way that the best news footage now often comes from the mobile phones and camcorders of members of the public, the most relevant films are starting to come from bedroom film companies. They don't have to worry about losing a budget of millions of dollars, so they can do what they want with Machinima Creator and take their artistic vision wherever they want to.

who's doing machinima?

Already, machinima is not just an underground movement. It's recently been revealed that top directors such as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg use Machinima Creator applications to storyboard their film ideas. Similarly, animation studios are starting to see the incredible potential of machinima.

The BBC TV programme Time Commanders used Rome: Total War. Read an interview with Ian Roxburgh of Creative Assembly.

The first machinima music video has already been screened on MTV.

Machinima is also being used in advertising.

Young film makers are able to realise their visions for a fraction of the cost of traditional filming or animation techniques.

how do i do it?

There are loads of different ways of getting your film together. We will be working on Machinima Creator more details to come. You can film within the game itself with The Sims 2 and The Movies, so if you want quick results you're best off buying a copy of one of those games and following the in-game tutorials. There's a lot of stuff to help you on EA Sims 2 movie site and The Movies forum.

Alternatively you can use a video capture program such as fraps or gamecam to capture footage from any game.

What I've been doing lately is to rig up my PS2 to the TV card on my computer. This makes video capture really easy, as I just use the PVR record option on the TV card.

The next step is to edit your clips into a film and maybe add dialogue, music, video effects and transitions, sound effects and titles.

As you progress you might want to start creating your own skins, wireframes, animations, music, sound effects etc etc.

Another option, especially if you don't have the money to shell out on The Sims 2 or The Movies, is to download the machinima.com production kit. This contains everything you need to get going, including tutorials.

getting started

You don't have to spend a lot of money to start creating your own machinima. A lot of the tools are open source and many more are freeware. There are inexpensive alternatives to just about everything.

To get started you'll need:

• a game
• a video capture program
• a video editing program
• an audio recording / editing program

You'll probably also want sound effects and music, which you can create yourself or download. You may also want to create your own bitmaps, wireframes and animations, or maybe even create your own games to capture from, to be completely original. Broadband is helpful for distributing your films, but if that's not an option you can always burn them to cd or dvd.

As you progress you might want to start creating your own skins, wireframes, animations, music, sound effects etc etc.

Another option, especially if you don't have the money to shell out on The Sims 2 or The Movies, is to download the machinima.com production kit. This contains everything you need to get going, including tutorials. Machinima Creator will be here soon.