Machinima - My New Favorite Way to Play Games

Red VS Blue
One of the most well known examples of Machinima

Machinima (a combination of the words machine and cinema) is a growing new art form that I've become increasingly interested in. Aside from a few short videos, I never did much with this. But I loved to see what others were able to accomplish. Red VS Blue is a great example, as well as various videos made with games like the Sims 2 and 3, World of Warcraft and Halo. Recently, I've been putting together some great machinima pieces with Champions Online.

Machinima was used heavily in the South Park episode, Make Love, not Warcraft

One of the things I love most about making machinima movies is that it gives me a new way to enjoy the games I play. Not only can they be an entertaining pastime, but also as something of an animation tool. One that can be much simpler and much more fun to use than professional animation programs. Unfortunately, the biggest drawback to machinima is that you're limited by the game(s) you're using. But if you're creative and resourceful enough, you find ways to get around the limitations, or get the most out of what you have.

The short film "A Child's War" was made using Second Life

As games become increasingly sophisticated and detailed, I hope that it only makes machinima easier to do. With the wide and colorful range of locations, emotes, characters, time periods, and animations, the possibilities could be endless. Using a virtual world such as Second Life, as its own film making tool, would also be a good idea.

Here's a book that I should probably pick up

Making machinima with Champions Online has been a lot of fun. The people who helped me out with it were really great. I look forward to doing more. I think this has really opened up an interesting door of opportunity for me. And I would encourage the creative minded to do the same. It's a whole new way to explore and enjoy games that hasn't really been possible until relatively recently. Technically, machinima could be traced back to an earlier day and age, but it didn't go much beyond software crackers putting signature animations in pirated versions of their games. We've evolved since that point, and it's a very, very good time to get into it.

If you've got the cash, register Fraps, find a good game of choice, and start shooting (in more ways than one, depending on what game you're making your machinima with :-D)