iClone vs Garry's Mod: Excited to Compare

We were honored to receive the jury award at MachinExpo 2009 that included full versions of iClone 4 Pro and 3DXchange from Reallusion.

It is exciting that we won this award because we were wondering how the movie making software packages out there that are being used for machinima compare to the actual games being used to create machinima and iClone 4 Pro seems to be one of the best.

Now at some point we will need to put our thoughts in on the debate over whether movies made using software solely designed for making movies should be fully considered to be in the machinima proper genre but either way the outcome is still animated films created in real time so they are definitely in the same family to say the least. It may be that there should just be sub genres for machinima so all the platforms still fall under machinima but developers can specify there area...but again this is another discussion that would take over this post.

We have never used any movie making software to create films and so it will be interesting to compare the difference between at least iClone and our working environment, Garry's Mod.

It may take us a while to get deep into iClone because we are busy with Shelf Life but eventually we hope to see how far we can take it as well. It may be that we separate the two into sub genres since the production process and techniques are so very different.

This will likely also lead into a discussion concerning how festivals are conducted and how it may be useful to separate genres considering the vast differences between production platforms.

At first glance though iClone 4 Pro appears to be a very powerful platform that perhaps opens the door to a lot of film makers.

We would like to once again thank Reallusion for sponsoring the MachinExpo 2009 and awarding us with this great software package. Also a big thanks to the organizers of the Expo for making it all possible and creating a great machinima event for the community.

Shelf Life chapter one teaser

We just released a short teaser for our machinima Shelf Life.

This first teaser simply shows a few of the elements of our movie. We plan to release another teaser that has a different vibe to it and highlights other aspects of the film.

We have worked on and off on this project for quite some time and are finally getting close to a full release of chapter one. In the end the story will probably take three chapters to tell.

Thanks to garrysmod.com for highlighting the release of our first teaser trailer and thank you to the machinima community and everybody who has shown an interest in Shelf Life, left us great feedback and subscribed to our YouTube channel.

Thanks for watching! Please stay in touch!

Everybody Should Love Physics

I hated physics.

Well, I loved conceptual physics then I got into practical physics and that love curdled into a seething pit of despair.

It all started after one assignment took 12 hours of tedious formula solving, 21 pages of my little blue project book and enough caffeine to resurrect the dinosaurs only to result in me knowing how high the 14th brick up the wall in the lobby was within a plus or minus 1 degree of deviation. WTf!>?

Ok, so I got through the rest of school without touching physics again and the lingering depression of those equations just sat and smoldered until one day it happened, I fell in love with physics again!

You see, when you can light a barrel on fire, launch it into the air, have it bounce off a wall, explode causing a stack of crates to break and send shards out that knock over all the bottles you set up with a satisfying shattering of glass...then physics is once again fun.

The physics in Half Life 2 are incredible. Pick something up, drop it, toss it, fling...it will do exactly what you expect it to do.

Play through the entire story of Half Life 2 and notice how you spend time just messing around with stuff along the way not to help you through the story but just because you can and because it is fun.

Physics are a natural part of our world and often ground breaking and boundary pushing technologies result from those who dedicate time to further study in the field.

Machinima can also be pushed to great heights when great physics engines are combined with ambitious set design and scene development.

Accessing Half Life 2 through Garry's Mod offers a robust environment where simply tossing 40 melons down a hill will result in a spectacular shot. How far we push it beyond this depends on how creative and motivated machinima makers are able to become.

So let's go have some fun with physics!

Garry's Mod A Brief History In Geek

After playing through Half Life 2 and loving every minute it seemed as if the glory was over. Sure you can play through it again and it is almost just as fun as the first time but everything looses something after a while unless you do something to spice it up.

Then we started playing around with some mod that some guy apparently named "Garry" created...
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Download...load game...funny picture...join server...now what?

Oh, spawn whatever you want, really anything and just, like throw it around or something.

Funny, for about 1 hour. What's the point of this mod? Your bored and think about going to a TF2 or DoD server or something.

You reach for the quit button...but then...what the hell is that kid doing over there? Woah, she built a car out of random parts from scratch. Not bad, you bet you can do better.

Four hours later you have a working car, a little fort to park your car in and a jump that launches you into a wall of gas barrels. That was kinda fun...now what?
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For many the next step was creating more and more advanced creations from massive working robot towers to very complicated Rube Goldberg machines. For others it was to take the flexibility Garry's Mod gave them to control game elements and apply it to creating machinima.

The machinima aspect is what inspired us the most. Given the ample time and dedication it takes to learn the many aspects of customizing and controlling all the elements available to you it is possible to create full cinematic glory from the comfort of your messy desk.

Thank you Garry for that crazy Mod of yours.