The Research Roadtrip: Day 4, 17:20 pm.

Hugh "Nomad" Hancock — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 17:18:00 +0100

And so, we have returned. We’re back. We’re bad. He’s bla - no, wait. That’s something else.

I had originally intended to post a conclusion to our trip, a set of lessons learned, a summary of everything we have seen, thought, achieved and studied. A veritable cornucopia of content. But I forgot one very important thing. I’m Captain Jack Spa - no, wait. That’s something else too.

We’re half-dead, is what I missed. It has been a fantastic week, and we’ve seen technology that will likely change the world. We’ve had our view of Machinima and our plans for the next while turned upside down and shaken. It’s been tough and it’s been fantastic. It was the best of times, it was the worst of - er. Wrong thing again.

But now, we’re back, and it doesn’t seem like the right time to end anything. Because this is in no way an end, even of the road trip - that end happens around midnight next Wednesday, when we hand in our final 100 pages for the book, and collapse like two sacks of drugged armadillos. I love the smell of drugged armadillo in the morning. It smells like victory. No, wait, wrong again.

So this isn’t an end piece. It’s just a few thoughts, and some ranting dragged from the depth of my tortured mind. And even once we’ve handed the book in, it’s not the end. What we’ve seen this week shows us that the excitement for Machinima is just beginning. There’s so much new stuff coming up. Machinima is getting to the level where visually it has mass appeal. There’s movement toward Open-Source, Massively-Multiplayer game engines that will provide yet more space for Machinima creation. There’s a package coming out which makes it both entirely legal and substantially easy to use. And behind all that, there are looming shadows of larger things: in-home motion capture, viable business models for independent, online video producers, copyright reform.

“We’re off the edge of the map, mateys. Here there be monsters.” And treasures. And wonders. All starting to loom up out of the fog of time.

Now that was the right quote.

Machinima for Dummies: The Research Roadtrip: Day 4, 17:20 pm.

The Research Roadtrip: Day 4, 17:20 pm.