GDC 2007: Machinima in the house - Pt. 1b

Another interesting development that's quasi-Machinima related is the new addition to the Sims franchise - MySims - a cute and cuddly affair from Maxis headed to the Wii and Nintendo DS.

But here's the coolness stuff - the creation utilities MySims includes - which includes a new character creator (which, in all fairness, gives what looks like more options than The Sims2 provides) and the most impressive part - a simple object modeler. Its unclear from the vid how the objects work and live in the MySims world (I didnt get any further info from Maxis/EA while at the GDC) but, to me, its yet another fascinating blend of playful interface for "work."

MySims Character Creation


MySims Build-A-Thing creator


Looks to be very similar to the character creator Friedrich Kirschner is doing with the UE2-based MovieSandbox. It'll be interesting to see how much flexibility these features give the end user - and more importantly, what users will do with them.

More GDC stuff soon.

GDC 2007: Machinima in the house - Pt. 1

I'm finally back in NYC after an extended trip between Australia and San Francisco. It was not only an extremely rewarding trip, but I had a chance to catch up with some really close friends as well.

The GDC, as always, was a blast. This was the second year in San Francisco (first there in 2005) and I had the chance to see friends and acquaintances who I hadn't seen in a year's time. SF still has some catching up to do in terms of San Jose as a location. Specifically, San Jose had the Fairmont - a hotel whose lobby was the impromptu meeting place for anyone and everyone. SF still has yet to find this space, but I'm sure it will over the next few years (GDC is in SF for the next six years from what I understand).

Machinima awareness
This year, more than any other, Machinima had its place around the GDC. While there wasn't a Machinima showcase like the presentations at the Austin Game Conference, speaking to game devs about Machinima as nearly as accessible as speaking to them about art pipelines or project milestones. While this probably doesn's surprise readers of this blog, this is a huge difference between GDC 2003 and GDC 2007. In 2003, I gained lots of mileage with my Machinima schpiel to various folks. Four years later, I'm approached by people as "that Machinima guy." While the moniker brings a smile, it's rewarding to know there's a more general awareness about the medium.

Interface happy
One of the great things coming out of this year's GDC was the attention to interface. No doubt driven by the masses purchasing interface innovation over graphics (Wii, please), quite a few of the booths on the expo floor were demonstrating desktop motion capture hardware/software.

This device by Emotiv, allows you to control motion though a brain's electrical activity. While still crude in terms of actual control (as compared to the conventional joystick), it will be very interesting to see its impact in say 3-4 years time. However, one area very interesting to Machinima is its ability to capture facial expressions in real-time (not shown in the sample vid). When asked about price and availability, their spokesperson said that "it would be out before the end of the year, and at a price less than the PS3." Ouch! -- and cool all at the same time.

Other takes at performance capture were applications such as Organic Motion (markerless motion capture) and Mova's Contour Reality "painted" facial capture system. We also saw another interesting application called Motion Portrait which captured a person's face (from a front view) and then laid it over a 3D mesh in real-time. (sorry, only a PDF is available to show in detail). The application also had hooks into using it for real-time performance capture as well.

In all, it was a very interesting shift in focus for the GDC. There are several Machinima folks who are also considering interface issues (Friedrich Kirschner, Andrew Young, Mark Riedl, and The ILL Clan), which I will cover a bit more in later posting.

I have some additional post-GDC thoughts to follow up - particularly with Sony's new virtual space, Home, and Jerry O'Flaherty's UE3-powered session on Digital Cinematography for Gears of War.

Machinima vid takedown'ed by Viacom

No doubt as part of the Viacom vs. Youtube battle, YouTube has complied with Viacom's request to yank this SL Machinima piece, The Birth of Stephen EagleMan, created as part of last fall's Colbert Report's Green Screen Challenge.

Obviously, this isn't a takedown because of Machinima per se (that ongoing fuzzy IP questions of game-related content), but because of footage that wasn't sanctioned by Viacom for use in the segment. Still, the murky waters of IP ownership/brand extensions are starting to churn again.

Thanks to New World Notes for the heads up. Here's their initial write-up around the work. More on this as it develops...

GDC 07: Up-and-coming goodness

Just finished touring this year's Game Developer's Conference, and it was another year of "wow that's cool!" There was a number of items that could help/affect Machinimators in the future. Some were interesting interfaces, features and new games/technologies to forge additional Machinima works.

There's more to report here, but as the jetlag is still kicking my arse, I'll post another update within the next day.