Blender Game Engine Evolution

As you can see in this demo, Blender's Game Engine has come a long way in a short time (the video above was rendered in real-time, not frame-by-frame). Actually, the GE is capable of even more than what this video demonstrates; the latest version (2.49) was recently released and includes a bunch of cool features including video textures and real-time dome rendering as well as improved modifier support, speed, logic and physics.

As the GE gets better and better, more and more people seem to be interested in using Blender to create Machinima and digital puppetry. You can download the latest version of Blender from Blender.org.

The next release of Blender, version 2.5 is a major overhaul of the program's underlying code, some of which dates back to 1994(!). I'm especially excited about the proposed new animation system “Animato” and the new event system, which you can see demonstrated below:



Although I don't think the GE is the focus on the 2.5 release, you can bet that at least a few improvements are on the way. Experimental builds of Blender 2.5 can be downloaded from Graphicall, but they may not be stable and aren't necessarily suitable for production use yet.

Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series

I haven't had time to check out Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series or the feature film from whence it sprung for that matter, but it certainly looks good. The six-part series serves as a prequel to the feature film and features Blair Williams, played in the film by Moon Bloodgood, who voices the character in the Machinima series.

The series was made entirely using in-game assets from the Terminator Salvation video game and was overseen by Terminator Salvation director McG, who's building an innovative little empire for himself in Hollywood these days. This is the first official studio-produced Machinima series and it's such a great example of cross-platform synergy that it's easy to foresee a lot more of these kinds of projects in the future.

Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series is available to download from iTunes and the X-Box Live Marketplace. Free recaps of each episode are available to watch on Machinima.com.

Bryn Oh Second Life Machinima

I love Bryn Oh's trippy, fantastical Second Life Machinima. Read more about her on PuppetVision and watch her latest work, filmed in the Immersiva sim in Second Life.

An Animator Praises Sid the Science Kid

Keith Lango thinks the use of digital puppetry on Sid the Science Kid makes sense and I have to agree (but then you knew that, didn't you?). More and more I can see how puppets and pixels really are coming together. Check out the comments for the above-linked post to read some interesting discussion on puppetry, mo-cap and animation.

BTW, new episodes of Sid The Science Kid start the week of May 4th on PBS.

Creature Shop Open House Recap

Debra Kaufman has written a nice recap of the previously-blogged Siggraph/Visual Effects Society event at the Creature Shop (see previous post). A couple people who were there Tuesday night wrote in to tell me about it yesterday; it sounds like it was a great event.

Digital Puppetry Open House at Jim Henson's Creature Shop

Puppeteers bring characters to life with the Jim Henson Company's patented Henson Digital Performance Studio.

The Visual Effects Society and LA ACM SIGGRAPH are hosting a very cool-sounding open house of sorts at Jim Henson's Creature Shop next week called Innovation in Puppetry: From Animatronics to CGI next Tuesday, January 13th at 6 p.m. The program includes a presentation about the Creature Shop, a live demo of the Henson Digital Performance Studio, an audience Q & A, guided tours of Jim Henson's Creature Shop and self-guided tours of the rest of the Henson lot.

This event is free to LA ACM SIGGRAPH and Visual Effects Society members and $20 for non-members. New members who sign up on site and pay the $40 annual membership fee will be admitted for free. If you live in or near L.A. and have an interest in the Creature Shop's work or have always wanted to see the Henson lot, this sounds like an opportunity you shouldn't miss.

Note: You're supposed to RSVP at the Visual Effects Society web site, but I couldn't figure out how to do it so if you're planning to attend, it's probably best to email them directly to sign up.

Digital Puppetry with Animata

Animata is open source real-time animation software, "designed to create animations, interactive background projections for concerts, theatre and dance performances". The goal of Animata is to make it really easy to create scenes with digital puppets that can be controlled via physical sensors, microphones or cameras.

Animata is another very promising digital puppetry system and it's already been used for a couple of interesting projects. Animata Jazz Pub is an interesting demo that shows how the Animata software can be used to react to live audio input. Reverse Shadow Theatre (seen above) is an installation that was created with Animata, inspired by Wayang Kulit, an Indonesian form of shadow puppet theatre.

If you want to try playing around with the software yourself, the Animata software can be downloaded for free for both the Mac and PC. The source is licensed under the GPL and can also be downloaded from Google Code.

Reverse Shadow Theatre link via Mary Robinette-Kowal.