Charles Stross' Diary (RSS Feed)
10-22-2007, 03:03 PM
Continuing from the "recommended reading" thing, I'd like to mention a project my friend Hugh Hancock has just completed. Hugh specializes in Machinima (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima) — making movies in virtual reality. He's just released the full-length feature cut of Bloodspell (http://www.bloodspell.com/), an epic swords'n'sorcery movie — originally released in 5-10 minute episodes, now watchable as a 90 minute feature film.
(How does machinima work, you ask? Well, in conventional computer animations such as Shrek, the animators use 3D modeling software to pose the figures, then generate a sequence of still frames, one by one. In machinima, using a multi-user VR system — either a game engine such as Neverwinter Nights, or a more specialized tool — the animators prepare scenery, design in-environment avatars, then film the thing in continuous shoots, much as you'd film real actors on a stage set.)
Bloodspell's good fun, but it's also worth looking at as the first full-length example of a new medium. It's got some rough edges: but then again, if you produce a feature movie on a budget of under £10,000 you expect rough edges. (Most of them are down to the animation toolkit Strange Company used — the Neverwinter Nights 1.0 engine, which was state of the art circa 2001, and is now well-understood but some way behind the state of the art.) The important thing to note is that this sort of movie would have been flat-out impossible on that sort of budget, using traditional CGI techniques. It's a triumph of guerilla cinematography, and it points out something really interesting: that the cost of entry to CGI movie-making has dropped way down.
Back in the old days of CGI movies from the likes of Pixar, you'd need 130-300 animators working for 2-3 years on a budget of £20-30M to produce a 90-120 minute feature. Today, you could produce something to the same standard as Shrek using a dozen animators in twelve months, on a budget of £1-2M. And with machinima, the budget floor drops even lower — falling into the high end of graphic novel/comic productions.
Charlie says: go have a look at Bloodspell — it's only a 900-1000Mb download. And remember: this isn't about to replace Hollywood tomorrow, but if Marvell and DC Comics aren't feeling the chill wind down the back of their neck, they're asleep at the switch. Because as streaming internet media players become ubiquitous, this sort of thing — cheap, fast and out of control — could very well be the future of mobile entertainment.
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/10/old_art_form_bitten_by_new_tec.html)
(How does machinima work, you ask? Well, in conventional computer animations such as Shrek, the animators use 3D modeling software to pose the figures, then generate a sequence of still frames, one by one. In machinima, using a multi-user VR system — either a game engine such as Neverwinter Nights, or a more specialized tool — the animators prepare scenery, design in-environment avatars, then film the thing in continuous shoots, much as you'd film real actors on a stage set.)
Bloodspell's good fun, but it's also worth looking at as the first full-length example of a new medium. It's got some rough edges: but then again, if you produce a feature movie on a budget of under £10,000 you expect rough edges. (Most of them are down to the animation toolkit Strange Company used — the Neverwinter Nights 1.0 engine, which was state of the art circa 2001, and is now well-understood but some way behind the state of the art.) The important thing to note is that this sort of movie would have been flat-out impossible on that sort of budget, using traditional CGI techniques. It's a triumph of guerilla cinematography, and it points out something really interesting: that the cost of entry to CGI movie-making has dropped way down.
Back in the old days of CGI movies from the likes of Pixar, you'd need 130-300 animators working for 2-3 years on a budget of £20-30M to produce a 90-120 minute feature. Today, you could produce something to the same standard as Shrek using a dozen animators in twelve months, on a budget of £1-2M. And with machinima, the budget floor drops even lower — falling into the high end of graphic novel/comic productions.
Charlie says: go have a look at Bloodspell — it's only a 900-1000Mb download. And remember: this isn't about to replace Hollywood tomorrow, but if Marvell and DC Comics aren't feeling the chill wind down the back of their neck, they're asleep at the switch. Because as streaming internet media players become ubiquitous, this sort of thing — cheap, fast and out of control — could very well be the future of mobile entertainment.
(Original Post) (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/10/old_art_form_bitten_by_new_tec.html)