Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/371911
26 cgw j u ly . a u g u s t 2 0 1 4 G A M I N G . C I N E M A is what helps drive the unique community of followers that watches these fi lms. The embryo of machinima comes from the game devel- opers that build these game engines and tools from scratch to support their own produc- tion needs. These tools include worldbuilding, scripting, and cinematic tools to allow for camera control – similar to what a director needs to make a fi lm. So, before a machinima artist has even been involved, a wealth of technology has already been developed. More o en than not, these tools are not designed for commercial use and can be fraught with bugs and other technical limitations that make the art of machinima hard work. "Each engine usually has its hurdles, and you discover ways to overcome them in order produce your vision," explains Marino. "However, sometimes those limitations are the things that bring about the most cre- ative parts of the work." Marino's fi rst project was a comedy short titled "Apartment Huntin'." Working within a group called the ILL Clan, the artists used the Quake engine to create their movie. The project had its share of diffi culty. "We wanted to do simple things, like a hard edit between two cameras, which at the time with Quake wasn't supported." Machinima creators would also have to tell their stories using whatever assets were available to do so. This o en meant stringing together ge- neric sets of animation in order to push the story forward. It was also diffi cult to add new tools and Gaming . Cinemas to these game editors – functions such as lip-sync support to help connect voice to the characters on screen. Yet, what becomes noticeable through all these hurdles is the passion and will of the artists to pursue their art in defi ance of the technology. "We managed to solve [lip-syncing] in a variety of ways, including intercepting the OpenGL stream and altering it in real time," says Hancock. Of course, this was the past. Now, in part due to the ever- advancing nature of technology, the future looks bright for mak- ers of machinima. Thanks to fi lms such as Avatar, the tools that machinima artists have used are now being integrated into the Hollywood fi lmmaking process. James Cameron has announced that in the next se- ries of Avatar sequels, he will be integrating digital assets within their live on-set production so that his crew can shoot and see the fi nal digital scenery as if the imagery were there. "We're already seeing movies like Avatar using essentially machinima techniques for large parts of their production," says Hancock, "and the rise in VR has resulted in renewed inter- est in machinima as a produc- tion technique." B R I D G I N G T H E G A P Margo's "Construct" is an eff ort to prove the concept works and to push the industry forward – to democratize the technology. "The idea and con- tent of the fi lm was engineered anticipating real-time path trac- ing. My goal was to get this live in the motion-capture room." In the fi lm preview, the audi- ence bears witness to a robot mafi a-like burial of a human corpse into the foundation of a new building. One innocent robot witnesses the activity and soon becomes the focus of the robot thugs that then turn on him. "My goal was to fi nd ways to make it present itself fast enough," says Margo. "If we can make things look pretty good and the same algorithm can be used for fi nal production – then that's the Holy Grail." Working at Blur Studios as VFX/CG supervisor, Margo under stands the process from the interactive side. Blur is a dig- ital production house renowned for making high-quality cinemat- ics for interactive game projects. The studio counts League of Legends, Batman: Arkham Origins, The Elder Scrolls Online, and Halo 4: Scanned as some of its better-known projects. As is typical with game development related work, the assets come straight from the game team and are made for the real-time engine. Then, the cinematics studio has to convert all them so they can be rendered using more traditional methods. This one step alone factors heavily into the timelines for studios when producing high-end cinematics. "I feel like the lines between fi lm and interactive are going to blur heavily," states Margo. "The idea is we are enabling the same algorithms to be used in real-time and off -line solutions." In the case of "Construct," Margo had a lot of helping hands in the mix. Since he had no budget and was work- ing nights and weekends to make this project a reality, he received interest and dona- tions from Nvidia, Boxx, and OptiTrack, which donated considerable hardware to the process. Nvidia gave several Quadro K6000 cards, while Boxx provided the computers. The linchpin in all this was Cha- os Group – creators of V-Ray, a real-time path-tracing renderer. This collective hardware and so ware, along with Opti- Track's Insight Virtual Camera System (VCS), allowed Margo's team to visualize its set design and characters in real time during the mocap session. "The fi nal frames were rendered on the GPU and took four to 15 minutes with minimal grain. But that wasn't interactive," says Margo. "The thing I did with 'Construct' was real-time path tracing in a motion-capture context. That was the real-time portion." Margo has heard of machin- ima and sees how the tech- nology he used for his project connects to the goals of both fi lm and interactive for viewing content faster. But, his real aim is to get this technology out of the hands of the high-end studios and into those of the independent developers, and to "WE'RE ALREADY SEEING MOVIES LIKE AVATAR USING ESSENTIALLY MACHINIMA TECHNIQUES FOR LARGE PARTS OF THEIR PRODUCTION. AND THE RISE IN VR HAS RESULTED IN RENEWED INTEREST IN MACHINIMA AS A PRODUCTION TECHNIQUE."