Machinima for Dummies

Boingboing has just reported that Second Life’s Chief Technical Officer, Cory Ondrejka, has just left Linden Labs citing “irreconcilable differences”.

Since he was the man behind the movement to Open-Source both the viewer and the server, I can’t help but wonder if those differences had something to do with the apparent reversal in policy on open-sourcing the SL servers which we reported on recently. If so, things don’t look good for Second Life Open-Source right now.

EDIT (Johnnie): The original story was broken on Massively by Moo Money. There are a few follow-ups linked from there too, including Cory’s official response.

A couple of Machinima awards popping up on the radar:

The GuildCafe awards include a section for “Best Machinima”.

The Online Machinima Film Festival awards are looking for nominations.

And in other news, I notice that film festival submissions engine Withoutabox now includes a Machinima category under Animation when submitting a film! I’ll be writing more about Withoutabox soon.

Antics 3D has been around for quite a while now, but up until very recently has had a moderately hefty price tag. Not any more! Along with a shiny new website design, the Antics team have released version 3 of their product for free! Can I get a “woo”, and also a “hoo!”?

The free version is the Version 3 Base Pack – you’ll still need to reach for the credit card if you want the Pro pack (it’ll cost you $595/£295 in fact). Having access to a powerful package like this for free is great news for machinimators everywhere, though.

In much the same way as Moviestorm has been doing, the Antics guys are planning to launch some premium content packs soon. The first 500 downloaders of the free base pack will get the first content pack for free when it eventually launches! You can’t say fairer than that.

The Characters Police pack, of course, is already available and still free.

And some less-good news. According to the Second Life Open Source page,

What source code won’t you be releasing?

We don’t (yet) plan to release the code that runs our simulators or other server code (“the Grid”).

I’m not sure whether this is seriously out of date, or if it represents a change of plan chez Linden. I hope it’s the former. As we’ve blogged before, not to mention also talked about in the book, an open-source SL server would be a fantastic development for Machinima in general, removing or limiting a lot of the existing problems with creating Second Life Machinima. If it’s not going to happen, that’s a real pity.

I’m going to try and get hold of the Lindens to see if I can get a confirm/deny on this issue. Anyone who knows what’s up, please do comment below!

Otherwise, I guess we’re all hoping that Open Simulator (the Open-source SL-compatible server that’s under development right now) comes along well.

A few days ago I wrote about the release of Moviestorm version 1.0. Among the many boasts I made was that the new release included the Modder’s Workshop that certain prominent machinimators have been jonesing for.

Alas, it was too good to be true. The decision was made to hold back the Mod Shop from this release at the very last second. Overman’s screams of frustration could be heard around the globe.

This time, it’s for real. The Modder’s Workshop has officially returned, with an all-new publishers licence key system. You’ll need to request a key if you want to use it, and we’re limiting the release of them, so if you’re a Moviestorm pioneer, head over to the forums and register your interest right now, that’s my advice.

( Disclosure: I’m employed by Short Fuze as Moviestorm’s Technical Author )

Moviestorm, which features pretty heavily in the book, officially left Beta status a few hours ago. Moviestorm 1.0 is a brand new release, featuring new base assets, a new interactive tutorial, and – best of all – the long-awaited return of the Modders Workshop! And about darned time too, as Moviestorm Beta users will attest.

Moviestorm 1.0 and the new Base pack are completely free to download and use, and any machinima you create is yours to exploit, so take a look if you haven’t already.

Moviestorm has moved on so much since we wrote Machinima For Dummies that I really wouldn’t recommend trying to follow on with the book using this new version of the software. Not to worry, though – you can safely install and run this new version and the version we supplied on our cover DVD simultaneously. Just resist the urge to click “Yes” when you’re asked if you want to do an automatic update.

If you’re already a Moviestorm user, note that Moviestorm’s automatic update process won’t update to this new release. There’s a fat goody bag of new content, so you’ll have to visit your Downloads page on the Moviestorm site to grab the new gear.

We’ll try to get an updated version of the Moviestorm sections from the book up on the blog soon – both Hugh and I are up to our necks in busy-ness at the moment!

(Disclosure: I’m employed by Short Fuze as Moviestorm’s Technical Author)

Ok, so I’m going to be in Vancouver between the 13th and the 17th of November. I’m mostly on holiday, but wouldn’t object to meeting Machinima people whilst I’m there!

(I’m also going to be in Montreal and Edmonton on that trip, but I’ll put a seperate post up about that.)

So - any Machinima enthusiasts out there in the cold north, and if so, care to show a tired author your friendly local beer establishments?

I’ve just learned that I’m quoted in a recent magazine (I’m not going to go into more details until I’ve tracked down what happened) being less than enthusiastic about Microsoft’s Machinima rules, after the meeting that Fred and I had with them.

I don’t recall the interview, and I don’t recall the context in which I might have said things, but I’m rather surprised that I was quoted as anything other than enthusiastic about Microsoft’s response to Machinima after that initial meeting. I think it was pretty clear that I was enthusiastic.

However, let me just state for the record: with the exception of not-exactly-games people like Linden Labs, Microsoft’s recent moves make them absolutely the most responsive and intelligent, not to say just generally cool, games company in their approach to Machinima by a country mile. I wish more games companies were following suit not just in releasing Machinima rules, but in then being open to discussion and negotiation with the community they’re supporting. Microsoft are really leading the way on this one, and I’m very impressed by them, and particularly by the work of Don McGowan, who is leading the effort.

The new version of the Microsoft Game Content Usage Rules are out, out, out! You can read them here - I’ll write a longer post on them once I’m back from the Festival fully, but the short version is that I’m quite impressed. The fanfic problem is fixed, the audio and Creative Commons issues are solved, and there’s a direct contact email for questions.

(For those of you who may be wondering - no, I’m still trying to get hold of Blizzard to have a similar discussion…

UPDATE - I just received an email from Blizzard - they’re not interested in entering into discussion at the moment.)

Free Pixel has the Machinima Europe award winners