Machinima

Last week I mentioned the production company RoosterTeeth, a company responsible for a number of popular web series over the last several years. One of their most popular and well known series, Red vs. Blue, makes use of a technique known as machinima. Machinima refers to the use of real-time graphic engines to create cinematic productions. Most often, the engines used come from video games, effectively connecting machinima to video gaming culture. Many people consider this kind of production as animation because the creators are essentially using computer graphics. What makes machinima different from more traditional animation is that the animators are controlling each character and acting out the necessary movements in real-time. To get an idea of what that might look like, check this episode of Red vs. Blue that RoosterTeeth made using the game Halo: Reach.  

The Halo series is very popular among machinima makers, given their numerous multiplayer maps and the Forge Mode, a game mode that allows players to create their own structures within maps. Other popular video games for machinima include World of Warcraft, The Sims, as well as Half Life 2 with its numerous third party generated mods. Machinma is a cool way for video game fans to make exciting ideas and bring their fan fiction to life.

A Great Loss for the Animation World

Earlier this week the animation community has suffered a tragic loss. Monty Oum of Rooster Teeth passed away unexpectedly.

Monty Oum was the chief animator at Rooster Teeth, a production company responsible for many popular web series including Red vs. Blue, Achievement Hunter, and RWBY. Monty's animations have appeared in numerous projects, perhaps most notably the last few seasons of Red vs Blue, as well as RWBY, 3D anime style web series that is largely his own creation. Monty created his animation through the use of Smith Micro's Poser Software.

Monty was a huge creative force at Rooster Teeth, and he will surely be missed. If you're a fan of video game culture or anime, I would recommend checking out some of his videos and other series hosted on Rooster Teeth's website.

RWBY "RED" Trailer

RWBY is a new animated web series by Roosterteeth. This is the first trailer promoting the series and has received positive acclaim on the web. The aesthetic at first glance appears to be in the 2D anime style but in reality is rendered in three dimensions giving it a videogame-like quality. Roosterteeth is best known for their decade old machinima series Red vs. Blue and has since then become more and more action oriented in their productions. Also, GUN SCYTHES.

First Post and Interesting Teaser

Hi there everyone,

My name is Greg Wolf and I’m really looking forward to this semester of MG&A. I enjoy video editing a lot, and everyone I have ever talked to has said that a working knowledge of after effects is essential in the job market, so I’m very excited to be able to put that on my resume. I want to be a utility player wherever I end up past college, and so I feel like this class is essential. That being said, I’m also excited to learn more about 3D stuff like Maya, and see if that suits me as well. 

On that note, the video I have today is a trailer for “Red Vs Blue” a fairly popular web series  on youtube and elsewhere. The thing that makes this video interesting is that the camera slides along the outside of the logo for the show itself, done in 3D. As the camera goes along, scenes from the past 10 seasons of the show play on the logo itself with plenty of light bloom/lens flare effects, although you don’t know that the object that the camera is moving along is the logo for the show. Then at the end the camera comes out and shows the logo for the show. This was a couple of years ago, and when I saw this it made me really think about how this sort of thing is done, in particular, how to make this type of consistent 3D space for use in a title. I feel like this effect of the title being used as the trailer itself is pretty effective, and an interesting variation on the usual teaser style trailer.

Red Vs. Blue

So since we are in an animation class I would like to talk about one of my favorite web shows: Red Vs. Blue.  For those who don't know Red Vs. Blue is a show where they record a whole scenario in Halo and have a anonymous viewer act as the camera man.  This type of film is called Machinima.


Red Vs. Blu is hilarious and really creative.  I can only imagine that the production cost is really low.  Instead of a camera alls you need is an xbox.  You don't need props or fake guns because they are all in the game.
Of course just like the video game, Red vs Blue gets better and better graphics and in the case of this scene actually used graphics and stuff like that.  It's amazing how far Rooster Teeth has developed Red vs. Blue.

RoosterTeeth Animated Adventures

This is from a series of videos called "Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures". This is one of many videos that tells a story from a member of the team. This video features one of the members, Gus, as he deals with a rat on the roof of his house.

For those that don't know, RoosterTeeth is a group of people who make videos of members playing video games, doing podcasts and much more. I enjoy these videos as they are funny and that they live pretty interesting lives.

The animations looks very simple, like it could be done in a matter of hours. Flash animation would be my guess. In my opinion, you should check them out. They play games such as Halo, Minecraft, Left 4 Dead, and much more. 

They even played a game called "Farming Simulator 2013", and they made it look hilarious.