Machinima

toc Machinima, a combination of the words machine and cinema, is a new trend in subversive film making. Instead of props and actors, avatars and virtual characters are used; the video game itself acts as a set.

History
Although the term itself was coined around 1998, the origins of machinima began some years before that. As soon as the ability to create scenes became available, fans took advantage of it. //Stunt Island// was one of the first games to cater to an audience eager to produce their own videos. Published in 1992 by Disney Interactive, the game had a strong following: the community posted their creations on the CompuServe message boards, for all to see (bear in mind, this was 1992, before the Internet was as prevalent).

//Doom// in 1993 gave players the ability to record and playback first-person game play demos. Players began to post first-person perspective 'speedruns'. This began a new honor among gamers: seeing who could finish extremely difficult levels fastest.

The modern form of machinima began as soon as players were able to freely control camera angles and positions in 3D space. //MechWarrior 2// was the first game to achieve this. //Quake// was so popular among the machinima community that until the term was coined, these game-generated movies were referred to as "Quake Movies".

Modern Machinima
In-game cut scenes often make use of a game engine's capabilities in its own machinima. Game engines are quickly reaching photo-realistic levels of graphics; by not resorting to pre-rendered movies, video games can remain immersive environments.

//The Sims// was such a popular tool for the machinima scene that Maxis added a cameraman mode. This allows the player to save video clips and scenes to their hard disk as they're playing. The developer also added cheat codes which allowing the movie-maker to force characters to have interactions they would not normally have.

Stunt Island
//Stunt Island// was the first to introduce gamers to movie-making using games.

Doom
First first-person shooter to save game play clips. Introduced speedruns

Quake
//Quake// was the first game that was popularly used to create movies with the gamer creating the setting.

MechWarrior 2
First game to have user-controllable camera angles in 3D space

Halo
Halo's engine hosts some of the most popular machinima to date. Notable series include Red vs. Blue, and This Spartan Life.

The Sims 2
//The Sims 2// incorporated a movie-making mode. This made it much easier for machinima artists to come up with scenes that were perfect for their liking.

World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft was recently featured in an episode of South Park, "Make Love, Not Warcraft" (Season 10, episode 8). Approximate half the show featured custom machinima footage created with the help of Blizzard Entertainment: they allowed the producers special access to content that normal players would not be able to access. The machinima scenes were created in-game, but the World of Warcraft characters were re-created in Maya afterwards at the behest of Blizzard.

Red vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue started out as a small series of videos posted online. After receiving surprising popularity the creators from Rooster Teeth Productions decided to continue the series which is now in its fifth season. Because of its creative originality, Red vs. Blue has even won awards from the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. Red vs. Blue videos can be found online at [|Red vs. Blue]

[|"Make Love, Not Warcraft" Teaser] [|"Make Love, Not Warcraft" Full Episode] [|"Male Restroom Etiquette" Machinima]