Intersection of Video and Gaming
Charlie posted about a full length version of Bloodspell created by Hugh Hancock using a technique called machinima. I’m downloading it now. What it is at heart is using an engine from a gaming system (or something not meant for movie production) and using it to create videos. Anyone following Halo 3 has probably seen a whole bunch of clips of in game play meant to just be amusing antics, sometimes with voiceovers for the characters added afterward.
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.
Interesting, very interesting. What I was watching for, and haven’t really seen yet, was the use of spectator modes in online game networks like Microsoft Live to generate content. It follows right along with the whole user generated content set of ideas that’s been popping in and out of every aspect of internet services for the last few years. And although I know it’s possible to do some stuff like create fly-throughs and saved films (for instance saved films is one of the new features in Halo 3) sharing them outside the realm of the Live network seems to be clunky at best:
Q: How do I get my Saved Films onto YouTube and the like?
A: The simplest method would be to use a video capture card and appropriate software to turn the Saved Film into video data. At this time there is no software capable of doing this without video capture hardware. Machinima makers and amateur videographers already know lots of tricks and methods for doing this.
I was expecting it to take a lot less time for Live to run something like a “highlights reel” for users. They know what games I’m playing, which is likely what I’m going to be interested in seeing highlights for. Saved films at least allow you share with contacts. It sounds like they’re thinking about a collective intelligence style emergent network for recommending clips and letting them bubble up overall (check out the last few Q/As on that Bungie page). I would assume that stuff like this would make great content for the G4 channel, and would definitely be the kind of thing I would watch from my mobile. If Russ sent me a clip titled “Expert plasma grenade technique, beat that!” it’s the kind of thing I would pull out my phone to watch. Especially if he were challenging my plasma grenade sk1llz like that, immediate representation would be required.
