It’s not hard to imagine a world in which customized game tools become simple 3D environments for producing truly original visuals — work that looks unrelated to the game engines that power it. The fact that 3D engines are designed for real-time operation makes them even more appealing for live visuals and VJ work. Artists like Julian Oliver have produced whole music and visual performance pieces, as we’ve seen on Create Digital Music.

So, could the fact South Park did an episode this season with World of Warcraft mean full productions are close at hand? Absolutely, and thanks to the good folks of machinima.com, we’ve learned all you’ll need is:

1. The production, animation, and technology team of South Park
2. Maya
3. Access to original 3D models from Maya from a company like Blizzard
4. 12 PCs and one MacPro
5. Folding tables (no details on what kind here … you may need a nearby IKEA)
6. A budget (admittedly bare-bones) from Comedy Central — this part you can probably muster
7. 28 members of the staff at Blizzard to help you out
8. Lots of time

Be sure to read the whole interview; it’s fantastic. Ultimately, to get more expression out of the characters without programming, Maya filled in for the character shots. In the true ghetto-fabulous tradition of South Park, though, the team used my favorite Mac video capture tool, Ambrosia’s inexpensive Snapz Pro, to grab in-game footage from the actual World of Warcraft. (And if you haven’t seen the episode, by all means, please do!)

“Make Love, Not Warcraft” [Behind-the-scenes interview on machinima.com]

Okay, granted, not the most practical approach here. I still think game engines could make for interesting custom visuals, though, and the fact that some of the footage really did come from the game should raise a few eyebrows. Now go hack those textures so it’s not recognizable, and send the results.

[tags]television, machinima, 3D, behind-the-scenes, oddities[/tags]

This video is technically from the same crop as the post-apocalyptic roundup, but it’s so fantastic it deserves its own post.

Machinima, made in Trackmania Sunrise. 1K Project II.

Beautiful.

via Ticklebooth

I’ve watched the new “Coke Theft Auto” spot quite a few times, and I’m not quite sure whether it’s pure genius or pop culture cash-in, so I thought I’d post and let the collective sort it out. You can download the video from Motionographer’s article, or check the ugly compressified youtube version.

This could be considered about as much a Machinima as James Brown’s Trafalgar Square spot from a couple of years ago. They both reference a computer game, but throwing in an ad agency and a large wad of cash negates any possible “machinima” tag, I think. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Coke spot had a bigger budget than Trafalgar Square, despite the live action, trashing of cars and probably exorbitant fees to shoot at Trafalgar Square.

So if this isn’t Machinima, it’s just another big budget TV ad, and useful how? Well it did remind me of the Machinima world, which is a world which visualists should feel an affinity towards. Repurposing games old or new is a great way to get source material (Resolume’s Freeframe plugins even include a ZX Spectrum emulator). I’m feeling quite surprised that I don’t have any Quake3 samples (or at least a collection of gibbings) to keep my Tron clips company.

Has anyone been using games to produce material for their VJ sets? Mixing in video from the geeks playing Halo in the green room?

A slightly related aside: I’d love to hear any suggestions people have for alternatives to youtube or google video . Youtube is an amazing resource but their compression and implementation isn’t of the highest quality.