And Now For Something Completely Machinima

Our monthly roundup of all things we enjoy about this crazy world of machinima.

Key discussion items -
Machinima and virtual production updates
AI-generated content and tools
Video game trailers and announcements
Character creation software developments
AI music generation and legal considerations
Creative video game content creation techniques

0:01:21 - AFK Season Three Star Wars parody discussion  ⁨@EpicallyCasual⁩
0:04:36 - GTA VI trailer speculation  ⁨@RockstarGames⁩ ⁨@RickyGrove⁩
0:11:33 - Character Creator 5 announcement  ⁨@reallusion⁩
0:22:10 - Star Wars video game with machinima potential  ⁨@EAStarWars⁩
0:34:24 - Phil's AI music generation experiment with Suno  ⁨@SunoAi7⁩
0:4...

This week's machinima is made in Skyrim, and whilst its a little older, it shows off beautifully the quality of the game, characters and lip sync capability.  The film, by Wanderersofthedas was released in 2015, and was made using lines drawn only from the game's NPCs.  It makes for an oddly familial campfire conversation, notwithstanding the numerous references to in game lore.  Do you and add your comments on our channels, as usual.

0:31 Introduction by Damien, using NPCs in a single player game

4:12 Schizophrenia!

6:37 The role of the campfire, and familial dysfunctional conversations 

8...

This week's ep focusses on the 2024 Crowbar Productions Machinima Mayhem contest winner: Fragile Harmony, made in Garry's Mod by Logan and released on 9 Sept 2024.  Logan sent this in for us to take a look at, and we're sure glad he did.  Yes there are a few things we could be critical about, but storytelling isn't one of them.  Check out our review and leave your comments in the usual way.

1:14 Introduction by Phil, a classic Philip K Dick sci fi, storytelling and production values: deer in the headlights

9:16 Emotional reactions, lip sync and the aesthetic qua...

This week we discuss a machinima form we've not really talked about before - anime. Whilst its one of Ricky's favourite creative forms, for the rest of us its a little out of our comfort zone!  We take a look at two films, both made in Final Fantasy 14 (FFXIV), Frieren: Beyond Journey's End by Wheat Tea (released 2 Feb 2025) and Arcadion by Magitek Productions (released 1 Jan 2025).  Check out our discussion and reviews, and do add your comments.

1:24 What is anime machinima?

3:44 Studio Ghibli: “An insult to life itself”

4:20 About FFXIV for machinima

7:14 Friere...

In this week's episode, we discuss the month's news items we've found most interesting and relevant to making machinima, including more great projects to be inspired by, genAIs we've spotted, Steam's rip off, inZOI's challenge to Sims and the phenomenon known as the 'Minecraft Movie'.  Check out our discussion and do add comments on our YT or blog posts.

1:18 Projects: a zombie film in GTA5, Trillo’s Cuco, NeuralViz’ Tigg Talk – an alternative perspective on tariffs

3:33 The speed of a creative and production process – efficiencies and pivoting to topical content a la South Park!

6:25 An...

This week is another pick from the Archives, a short by Thuyen Nguyen aka @evaneon and  @collectivenounfilmworksdev4297 . The film was released in 2007 - it is a love letter to games and gamers at a time when seemingly the whole world was filled with haters. Catch up with our comments and reflections and do add your own below. 

1:13 About the Archive - How They Got Game, a Stanford University project

3:30 The Most Powerful Person in the World by Thuyen Nguyen

7:17 I am omnipotent!

9:12 The historical context – and the ‘hot coffee mod’

12:50...

Alongside S5 E176 Red Faction Guerilla: Optimism Bias (Apr 2025), Tracy spoke to Andrew about his machinima series, his creative practice and the problems he encountered when attempting to distribute the work.  They also discuss his upcoming works and aspirations for his future career.  Check out the interview (also on YouTube).

Credits -
Speakers: Andrew Knight, Tracy Harwood
Editor: Phil Rice

A viewer nominated series, this week's ep is another great example of brilliant writing. Optimism Bias was directed by @AndrewGoodKnight and originally released in 2013 having been showcased at the Melbourne International Animation Festival  @melbourneinternationalanim3991 - its Australian comedy, deeply rooted in game lore, at its very best.  Tracy also grabbed an interview with Andrew which you can check out in our season specials, released alongside this ep.

1:17 Introduction to the film and its original inspiration – not surprisingly RoosterTeeth’s #RVB

9:35 Everything is funnier in an Australia accent!

10:15 Puppeteering vs keyframe

11:15 Phil’s broken...

It's lovely to hear a fellow machinima fan discuss their passion for the creative works that have inspired them. This week's ep is a documentary by one such person, Angelikatosh, who reminisces about the 'golden age' of classic World of Warcraft films.  We highlight a few films from our own and possibly slightly older archives that she's not managed to cover too.

1:19 Introduction to this week’s pick – a documentary about the ‘golden age’ of WOW machinima

4:55 What Ben’s tome says!

8:00 Why has WOW machinima dried up?

10:07 What the hell is Activisi...

One of the most extraordinary picks we've made, probably ever, on the show! This week, we review an emergent absurdist talk show, focussing on the life of the Glurons - a post-human race of critters set in a future world, but most creatively uses generative AI tools.  Its outstanding quality is, however, the writing.  Check out our review and pick up the links mentioned on our show notes blog post on the Completely Machinima website (link below).

1:27 A first for a machinima show: Unanswered Oddities by Neural Viz, episode 7 is part of a creative AI series, a ta...

This is our regular monthly news update on things relevant to the world of machinima.

1:19 Projects: Isoterica’s latest release, DisUtopia; Hamilton in Animal Crossing by GK Animations; EvilDrPorkChop’s No Man’s Sky cinematic

4:28 Phil’s Chuck Norris vs 50K Cavemen – a true scientific experiment

11:20 ElevenLabs vs a cast – choices and rationale

15:30 The Remarkable Life of Ibelin – shortlisted for the Oscars (sadly, didn’t win) >>> but Flow, made in Blender did WIN!!! Congratulations to the creative team

20:00 John Gaeta’s Escape.ai platform

21:30 At All Costs, car chase physics...

This week we review a 'golden age' machinima, starring none other than Ricky Grove playing 'Bogart', and Ingrid Moon playing err, 'Ingrid', with Phil having created the score and Ricky having produced the sound design.  Its a short by German-American creator, Andre Pesch, called The Days After, made in GTA San Andreas. Its a story that pre-2020 probably we'd have all said, simply, yep that was great, without any real appreciation for what is actually being portrayed in this 2006 film. However, there's a sense in which this now brings back memories of lockdowns and isolation, and the fear of a...

A once in a lifetime event in Elite Dangerous? Yup, that's what fascinated us all too.  This week we review a series of machinimas that approach the destruction of a Thargoid ship attacking planet Earth in different ways - a strange and unusual phenomenon in a game world that we reflect on, only possible in open world sims.  

1:30 Elite Dangerous: an historic event – Thargoids heading for Earth

3:30 The ship’s problems, community action, the countdown and the consequences – a once in a lifetime event in the game

5:30 Recording the event: a documentary; first person r...

A packed news episode, with Tracy's analysis of the AI art copyright ruling decision and a discussion with Damien about his hit fan series, Heir to the Empire - the Star Wars story that everyone always wanted to see made.  Do comment on the discussion (on the YouTube channel or the Blog post).  The links are available in the show notes.

0:45 Tracy is the first woman on Mars!!!

2:38 RunwayML’s third annual film festival – call for submissions now open

4:20 Second Life evolves [again]

7:00 Bloomsbury’s video series: Richard Williams’ Animation Series

7:30...

This ep, we take a walk down memory lane to the first major peak of #machinima with a documentary produced by  @ProducerStuartBrown , released in 2003. The film is a fly on the wall documentary of the creative practice of the legendary Hugh Hancock (founder of #Machinima.com) and his @strangecompany

0:39 Introduction to the film; shock and awe: Hugh’s bravado, character, energy and enthusiasm shines through
3:09 Foundations of Machinima.com, the Strange Company, the ILL Clan and others – the first peak of machinima
6:54 Stuart Brown’s YouTube channel
7:50 Minority report: “This may be the future of filmma...

This week's pick is nostalgic for a time before machinima... its a rare look back at the demoscene era that informed and influenced the evolution of machinima all those years ago.  The film selection is called We Are Demo, made in 2016 by Fairlight, Noice, Offence, and it was originally shared on X by the Commodore Computer Museum. Check out our review and thoughts, and do add your comments on our YouTube channel.

This week's pick is a machinima run through of the female V character in Cyberpunk 2077, by Charles Liu, edited to a Johnny Cash classic, Hurt. Sound design in this is everything, and we especially like how the fade is used to emphasise the game footage vs the words of the song at different points in the film.  Check out our views -

1:14 Intro to film, music video, a perfect complement to I’m Still Seeing Breen (S5 E163)?

3:37 Music storytelling vs film storytelling – interplay and aesthetic choice

6:10 Phil’s perspective: over saturation?

10:15...

The Little Limpet is an Elite Dangerous animation by CMDR Nickweb85, released in July 2024. It has shades of Disney X David Attenborough X Busby Barkley. You could say it has something for everyone then... well, assuming you enjoy a good space opera/ballet (which of course we do).  Check out our comments -

0:44 Intro to film, Elite Dangerous, Pixar-like, composited game footage using Blender

4:17 Story, Tom Cook’s music and anthropomorphic animations

6:45 Experimental work, testing emotional representations

7:59 Ep 1 vs Ep 2, a Busby Barkley space ballet

10:16 Criticism: why split the epi...

This week's #machinima short is ridiculous, yep Ridiculous Ties - a meme response to Eltorro64Rus' review of favorite and least favorite words used by the Scientist in Half Life, created by Finzlow.  And did we say its ridiculous?!  We love the well-crafted humor in this, in-jokes with some of the best timing and inspired editing we've seen for quite some time. Although its strictly not machinima, it is definitely from a machinima stable, so it counts for us at least.  Our review -

1:01 Intro to the film, models and the stylistic choices Finzlow has made, Marx Bro...

Whilst January's news begins with more of the same ole genAIs doing their thang, because they can, there's now evidence of more concerted effort to control the efforts of creators... because the corporates and policymakers can at least try to do that, right?  Well, maybe, but all this has achieved in the past is even more creative energy invested in jumping through the hoops, clambering over the walls and crashing through the hedges - so Happy New Year, we're looking forward to seeing what the amazing machinima creative communities of all engine persuasions around the World can achieve in 2025!  Pl...

Kicking off 2025 with a review of a classic and iconic #machinima by one of the pioneers of the movement, Paul Marino aka ILLRobinson. I'm Still Seeing Breen, made in HL2, holds a special place in our memories from those early years - not only was it a perfect 'protest piece' as the feature machinima demonstrating its potential for a 2005 Sundance Film Festival panel discussion (alongside RoosterTeeth's RVB) but was further developed for MTV2's Season 2 premiere of its Video Mods TV show later that same year. In this episode, we go over the back story, discuss how this was...

What a fantastic short to end 2024 on... this week is yet another great creative work by GibbsonTV, released in April.  The film is based on the award-winning Roblox-inspired game Lethal Company by Zeekerss.  It's not actually machinima, being made in Blender, but in the spirit of being inspired by the game and with a original tale, it has all the right heritage for our show.  Check out our comments and add your own - and see you on the other side of the New Year for more creative tidbits.

1:04 Introduction to the film, the game and the rul...

Not an actual comparison but a review of two shorts: The Internet is for Porn by Evilhoof & Flayed, originally released way back in 2005 and The Marstons Celebrate Christmas, But Things Get Out of Hand, by Paradise385 released 22 Dec 2023.  Lots of lampoonery in both our reviews, but we especially hope you enjoy watching them. Happy Christmas from the crew here at Completely Machinima.

1:45 The Internet is for Porn - porn, pawn or pwn?!
26:35 The Marstons Celebrate Christmas - a flaw fest, perfect for a glass in hand viewing, right after Miracle on 34th
39:50 Ricky's bonus update... H...

Our monthly news update this month covers more genAI matters, game-related items and WoWness in the form of a 2 hour + stunning orchestral performance celebrating 20 years of musical history. Check out the news and our discussion, and do leave comments too! 

1:35 Pioneers in Machinima, published by Vernon Press, is becoming part of the genAI ecosystem + a plea to keep us up to date 
13:05 AI filmmaking studio launched aka #mAIchinima 
14:29 Silent Hill Remake 2 mod by Praydog 
15:30 Philip Rosedale back at Second Life, yay! 
21:25 Remarkable Life of Ibelin – a remarkable story 
22:50 20 years of WoW, orchestral extravag...

A Source Filmmaker short by Dominzki, this is another of his well-crafted stories told in 3 parts, called Mission. This episode we focus on the third part Exodus and discuss its merits in detail. We conclude that if there was ever a machinima that should be made in a film studio, this would be it.  Check out our comments.

1:17 Tracy's introduction to the film
11:47 Complexity and dialogue
13:51 Scifi and the clone, and the director's clever device of using a disrupted world to portray the ethical considerations of cloning
15:31 Clay-like characters and the portrayal of emotion

This week's film review is a Star Citizen cinematic machinima by Virtuality Media called Dangerous Love, beautifully made and with a well chosen music accompaniment. Its a tale that has a tragic twist for its lead character. The layers of emotion and depth to the storytelling are inspirational. Check out our review and do add your own comments.

1:12 Introducing the film and the creator

6:50 The music choice

7:50 The shots, life and death

14:50 This film is an inspiration

16:29 A story driven music video

17:25 Editing is weak

Who doesn't love a good olde Western? This week we delve into a great short by avidredeadenjoyer, released 21 Sept 2024, called The Loss. It has been made in the only engine a Western machinima can be, RDR2. We all especially liked one particular shot, which really goes to the heart of why machinima has added so much to movie-making. This week, we also talk about a second pick, a Frontier: Elite 2 short by The Mystic Mushroom accompanied by the Blue Danube: The second best space sim ever made... Enjoy!

1:15 The Western vibe

4:00 The tropes, the story...

A packed ep this month, key tools, what's happening roundup and some fascinating projects - links to everything on the Show Notes page of our website.

1:29 BBC Sound Archive

2:30 Auto painter AI for Blender

2:56 Google image/film search AI

5:00 Tribute to David Graham

6:05 Mouse: PI For Hire!

7:05 Azeroth politicised? Surely not!

10:13 Pigeon Bringer of Doom and Destroyer of Humanity, by Solofilms

10:50 The Flower that Never Dies, by NewGates Entertainment

11:21 Terminator and Cyberpunk 2077, by eli_handle_b.wav 

12:27 Warhammer, JT M...

This week's ep we dedicate to a 3D animation by a French student collective made in their final year of studies, streamed through @TheRookiesCo channel. It is not technically #machinima as its made using traditional #animation tools but nonetheless we absolutely loved it - and its a recommendation by one of our channel's regular followers @3dchick. The film is a post-apocaylptic robot tale, inspired by Zaha Hadid's architectonic style. 

2:00 Ricky's intro
8:25 Benevolence vs malificence? A moral tale for bots! 
13:46 How to achieve personality in machines? This is an example reminiscent from the early days of ma...

In this ep, we discuss The Nomad | Cyberpunk 2077, a Lifepath cinematic by Zero-Sum Story, and Ian Hubert's Lazy Tutorials, which are not for the feinthearted yet somehow full of the very best machinima advice, such as "... just drag it to a place where you don't think it looks stupid" and "... imagine doing all this and actually putting in some effort - its something to think about" - yep, it sure is.  Enjoy the discussions.

Credits -
Speakers: Phil Rice, Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood
Producer: Damien Valentine
Editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

This week, we review a machinima that has taken its inspiration and cue from the original movie Forbidden Planet, released in 1956. This is the animated and stylized sequel we've all been waiting for, set immediately after the events reported in the film.  It has been written and directed by Biggs Trek, aka Philip Browne, whose creative talent shines through in this.  

1:19 Intro to the film 
6:00 Takes us back to the original film, in a very good way! 
14:52 A couple of quibbles? 
19:53 Color grading 
23:00 Clay face 
27:00 Eye movement

Credits 
Speakers: Ricky Gr...

News update: interjecting our normal weekly service for a short special - Damien discusses the latest Kitbash contest. Links in the show notes.

Credits -
Speaker/Producer/Editor: Damien Valentine
Music: Animo Domini Beats

We have another packed news update ep this week, check out the show notes for links to our discussion points -
1:14 iClone 8 update discussion, and Phil picks the discussion up again at 34:38 on broken grass

6:30 Baldur’s Gate 3 modding tools release discussion

8:20 Starfield expansion pack discussion

10:00 Documentary machinima: focus on TF2

10:45 Hollywood is broken: enter machinima? (Andreasson Horowitz seem to have had their eyes and ears closed for a few years!)

12:27 Game Sprout’s article about gameplay becoming performance 

12:50 Denuvo’s release of Unbotify and discussion

25...

This week, we take a deep dive into a film from one of the original machinima creator studios, Dead on Cue. This comprised the duo Mike Holochwost and Brian Mayberry. The film, Fake Science, had a couple more iterations, including one that allowed it to be played in the game itself, which was Half Life.  It was released some 3 years before YouTube, and is another great example of how games could be used to produce artworks. Its wide recognition led to careers in games dev and production for both Mike and Brian, the former working on RoosterTeeth's RWBY series a...

In this ep, we reflect on the key trends in #machinima we've observed during Season 4 of the Completely Machinima podcast. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the year too, so do add comments below. 

During the past year, we have reviewed over 22 hours of content, and presented detailed analysis of over 50 films on this channel. As vets of the original community practices (that's pre YouTube and the M.com/Inc days), one of the great pleasures we take in this podcast is that we get to look at machinima and virtual production across the breadth of g...

This week we review two films and again attempt to work with a rather impressive AI genie who covers things we just could not... The first film selected is a Deep Rock Galactic music video machinima called We All Lift Together, using the Futuna theme song Warframe, made by Szczebrzeszyniarz Brzeczyszczyczmosszyski (yep, that's why we needed a genie).  The second is a stunning visualisation of Helsreach made in Warhammer 40K by Richard Boylan, using a brilliant reading of Aaron Dembski-Bowden's novel by Jonathan Keeble. Whilst the graphic style presented us with some challenges, which we discuss at length, the q...

In this ep, we discuss a film by Patrick Zeugirdor, which uses the game BeamNG to simulate realistic freeway crashes. The game features advanced physics and modding capabilities, allowing for detailed crash simulations. The film shows various crash scenarios, each with multiple camera perspectives, highlighting the game's recamming feature. We debate the film's educational value, its potential to encourage poor driving behavior, and its popularity due to morbid curiosity - a good combination? Suffice to say, it evokes some strong emotions from us! We also discuss the game's potential for use in narrative storytelling and its realistic portrayal of...

This week is our monthly news ep. We discuss various developments in the machinima and virtual production community. Tracy mentions the Reallusions 2024 3D Character Contest, highlighting Stefan Dufour's entry. Phil and Tracy discuss the potential of AI in character creation. Damien reports on Activision shutting down a Call of Duty mod and the impact of AI on modding. We also cover the Dragon Age: The Veil Guard game, the Secret Level series on Amazon Prime, and the new game inZOI. Phil introduces Daz AI Studio, a generative AI platform for DAZ Studio, and reflects on the impact of AI...

What is #machinima?! Good question these days, and this week we review a new video essay on tackling just that question... which is always interesting for us pioneers and vets to reflect on in this podcast. In the vid we review, Collin Aull introduces a few thoughts we've not really considered before, plus some comments we've discussed many times over the years, so its worth a listen as well as if you want to spot some of the older machinimas from those very early years in the narrative edit.

1:14 Ricky discusses his latest performance award success
8:49...

This week we take a look at another stunning Team Fortress 2 short called Assault on 2Fort by JP Stevens aka Lolripk, a recommendation made to us by Dominzki (whose own TF2 short we reviewed in E135). What a great choice this is: we loved this film, a classic RED vs BLU tale but with a layer of emotion that is as beautifully portrayed as it is unexpected in SFM. These characters have real depth to them and we note how that's been achieved, even though the focal character doesn't even speak. Did we mention the fight choreography too? We...