News update: interjecting our normal weekly service for a short special - Damien discusses the latest Kitbash contest. Links in the show notes.

Credits -
Speaker/Producer/Editor: Damien Valentine
Music: Animo Domini Beats

We have another packed news update ep this week, check out the show notes for links to our discussion points -
1:14 iClone 8 update discussion, and Phil picks the discussion up again at 34:38 on broken grass

6:30 Baldur’s Gate 3 modding tools release discussion

8:20 Starfield expansion pack discussion

10:00 Documentary machinima: focus on TF2

10:45 Hollywood is broken: enter machinima? (Andreasson Horowitz seem to have had their eyes and ears closed for a few years!)

12:27 Game Sprout’s article about gameplay becoming performance

12:50 Denuvo’s release of Unbotify and discussion

25:00 YouTube app update discussion

27:30 Nice projects to take a look at, genAI and Metropius, an example of a deiselpunk world-based story with numerous creative treatments – worth taking a look at for its interesting monetisation strategy

32:00 Kane Pixel’s Backrooms, more ‘found footage’ fun!

37:36 Sketchfab and Epic’s Unreal Marketplace merge into FAB

45:15 YouTube AI disclosure rules – how are we complicit in a new citizen science project? We extend the discussion reflecting on the algorithm detection processes and what impact this may have on AI generated music and AI cloned voices.

1:06:50 Biggs Trek’s Forbidden Planet: Children of Krell (which we review in our ep next week) magazine article

1:07:47 Shameless plug: Phil and Damien’s channel livestreams, respectively on Sunday and Monday

Credits
Speakers: Damien Valentine, Phil Rice, Tracy Harwood
Producer: Damien Valentine
Editor: Phil Rice

This week, we take a deep dive into a film from one of the original machinima creator studios, Dead on Cue. This comprised the duo Mike Holochwost and Brian Mayberry. The film, Fake Science, had a couple more iterations, including one that allowed it to be played in the game itself, which was Half Life. It was released some 3 years before YouTube, and is another great example of how games could be used to produce artworks. Its wide recognition led to careers in games dev and production for both Mike and Brian, the former working on RoosterTeeth's RWBY series and the latter on cinematics for games like the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic and Defiance. Brian is still active in the games dev industry and is working on his first game, called Gone Camping. Check out the discussion and memories we share.

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