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 accidents.

2:33 Phil introduces the film
8:33 Ricky’s comments: crash test dummies; machinima as spectacle; is this educational?
14:13 Damien’s comments: it’s not a comedy! and limitations of the game
18:16 Tracy’s comments: from a nice driving vid to a compete horror story to has this just gone too far?
30:13 We discuss the pros and cons of the film and its effects

Credits -
Speakers: Phil Rice, Ricky Grove, Damien Valentine, Tracy Harwood
Producer/editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

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 on the music industry, sharing the story of composer Sasha transitioning to AI-generated music.

1:14 Reallusion’s 3D Character Creator contest

3:41 Skibidi Toilet being made into a move with Michael Bay? No way!

5:03 Sandbox, the spiritual successor to Garry’s Mod

8:42 Celebrating TF2 community – a great fan-made trailer promo

9:21 Activision shuts down a key CoD mod – not the best choice, and we discuss how the community is responding to this, free mods and review bombs

16:58 Gamescon notes… Dragon Age; Secret Level on Amazon Prime; Inzoy

22:34 DAZ Studio has a great AI tool in it

25:25 Filmmusic.io update – the real impact of generative AI?

Credits -
Speakers: Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood, Damien Rice
Producer/editor: Phil Rice
Music: Animo Domini Beats

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 Shout out for @Mr_Matt_Lee - some of the best build tuts around
11:22 Ricky introduces Collin Aull's video essay: The Game of Video
15:52 Damien's comments
17:27 Phil's comments
24:05 Tracy's comments
our conclusions... the biggest problem today is finding good machinima (because we know it exists as evidenced in EVERY episode of this show)!

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