Just don't call me Twiki!

After my recent stint helping AMAS to organize the 2008 Machinima Film Festival, I got thinking about other things I might be able to do to help out. It occurred to me that the Academy could use a good wiki.

I promptly googled free wiki hosting services, and set about creating one. I hadn't gotten very far before my age-addled grey matter reminded me that a machinima wiki already exists. It couldn't tell me where though, annoyingly, but eventually I found it again at mprem.com. There's some really good stuff there. However, a lot of it is out of date, and there are some pretty big gaps in the content. So I gleefully set about adding and updating where I could.

Classic procrastination. Finding something else to do when I should be teaching myself MovieStorm (hats off to ShortFuze for putting out a Mac version! Hint, hint, Reallusion), Blender, Wings3d, SketchUp7, StudioArtist, Anime Studio, VirtualStage, and in particular, Unity. Oh well. At least it's useful procrastination.

In my previous post, I invited the machinima community to volunteer with the AMAS. Well, here's another way to help, that ironically doesn't involve the Academy. Why not contribute to the wiki? Just don't call me Twiki!

Machinimation?

So, typically, I'm the last to hear. I just figured out that Fountainhead Entertainment, creators of Machinimation Studio, have merged with (been absorbed by?) id Software. It seems like all of their FAQ pages for Machinimation have gone by the wayside, although they're still in the Google cache.

What a bummer. Of all the machinima interfaces, UI paradigms, whatever - theirs was the best that I've seen. Why?

• Real-time interactivity. Characters could be puppeteered by the a group of players, LAN style, or by the director, working alone. Game engines like HALO etc can only be played in multi-player mode. There is no director-puppeteer option, which is the only option in iClone, MovieStorm, and Antics. These engines still don't offer the real-time interactivity that Machinimation does. Of course, it looks like iClone3 will have this kind of puppeteering capability. I'd love to check it out. (Hint Hint, Reallusion!) Games like Half-Life and UnReal offer something in between, but only for those with heavy-duty level-editor and scripting chops.
  
• Camera paths that are fully editable. No need to have a player act like a camera, no need for hacks to remove the UI or HUD from the players screen. Antics/iClone/MS have something similar. The visible path in Machinimation is cool though. Just wish there were a focal length/field-of-view option.
• Animatable lights. They are limited, but they're there.
• Renderable output. No need for FRAPS. Don't get me wrong, FRAPS is a truly awesome tool, and I am a proud licensee. But I like knowing that once I've constructed a scene to my liking it will output just that way. I don't have to hope that my actors will hit their marks just the same way. I haven't seen it, but apparently the SaveGame feature of Halo 3 offers the same functionality by allowing for a free camera after the fact. MS offers this, but on my mac version the rendering is FLAKY. To be fair, I've only rendered the tutorial scene so far, but oy vey! iClone2's renderer is useless - you basically have to use fraps. Hopefully this has been fixed in a update. Anybody want to fill me in here?

So the long and the short of it is that I'm sad to see it go. I wish that someone would update the idea with a new engine... Unreal 3, dare I hope? It can't be denied that Machinimation has some serious shortcomings:

• Image Quality. Its Quake 3, so its quite out of date. It looks it.
  
• Limited animation. Gesture (!!!). That's it, just 'Gesture'. Run, Walk, Jump, Shoot, and 'Gesture'. Not exactly channelling Thespis, is it?

Neither of these relate to the interface, and could all be fixed by implementing it with a modern, licensable engine.

So, Fountainhead, if you're listening... you've got a product with market-dominating potential in Machinimation Studio. Now is the time to bring to market!

please?