Further Links
Main sites:
http://www.machinima.com/ popular generic machinima site
http://secondlife.com/community/media.php Second Life community videos
http://www.selectparks.net/ A blog dedicated art/performance/experimental uses of 3d game engines
Popular Culture
Here is a selection of machinima and other popular or emergent computer game inspired art
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXLbgkOiYxw An example of the popular and speedy machinima-making, using screenshots rather than video capture to create stop motion effects to music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u6jy_Qfw9I&eurl Proto-Dancing machinima. Many dancing machinima have been created using World of Warcraft and Second Life also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u6jy_Qfw9I&eurl Southpark episode "Make Love not Warcraft" showing gamer/gaming culture in the mainstream media, and based in part on the internet phenomenon of "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeroy_Jenkins Leroy Jenkins]"
Research
http://www.cric.ac.uk/cric/staff/Jason_Rutter/papers/Spectacle.pdf "Spectacle of the Deathmatch: Character and Narrative in First Person Shooters" on the links between video games and cinema.
http://www.digra.org/dl/db/07311.06195.pdf "Situating Gaming as a Sonic Experience: The acoustic ecology of First-Person Shooters" one of precious few papers on sound in computer game engines.
http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/interact/papers/pdfs/Playing%20and%20Learning/intouch-multi-player/DIGRA.pdf "From text to talk: multiplayer games and voiceover IP" - on the impact of voice enabled games.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=children's+narrative+development+through+computer+game+authoring google scholar link to various publications on use and benefits of game authoring (as opposed to game playing) in children's education
http://www.pret-a-voir.com/UCGAMESARTN.pdf "The Future of Video Games as an Art: On the Art of Playing with Shadows" on the role of the photograph as a way of documenting video game and associated cultures.
Artists, Groups, People
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodi Jodi.org - historic net.artists who have recently taken to deconstructing popular games.
http://www.wonderlandblog.com/wonderland/2007/03/sxsw_will_wrigh.html Will Wright, game designer, talk on interactive, chaotic narratives in games.
Tutorials
http://gamesdevelopmentb.wikispaces.com/ Good starting point with Unreal Engine Runtime (the free version which we are using in the workshop)
http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/MyFirstCode.html An initial tutorial on how to get unreal engine to show characters and enable multiplayer(so that more than one person can join the space).
Technologies
Game Engines used in demos/workshops:
[http://www.secondlife.com/ Second Life] free to download, Linden Dollars required to buy things in-world, but there are [http://shop.onrez.com/search/?SearchString=freebie&SearchIn=items_all_items&x=0&y=0 cheaper shops] (or search in-world for "freebie") as well as open source/creative commons objects, animations, clothes, sounds and scripts.
[http://www.garrysmod.com/ Garry's Mod] in-game construction environment/playground for the Half Life 2 game engine, Source. Allows extensive machinima possibilities, using software such as http://www.ventrilo.com/ for voice and support for the more powerful Lua scripting language for in-game animations of avatars and NPCs. $10.
[http://www.crystalspace3d.org/ Crystalspace] open source game engine.
- Unreal Tournament 2004 (As part of Unreal Anthology).
Other game software of interest
OpenSim: http://opensimulator.org A distributed, open source counterpart to second life that allows anyone to run a game server that other people can connect to over the internet using the standard second life client. Currently a best-kept secret of a lot of businesses such as IBM or CG (Central Grid) who plan closed or competing alternatives to SL. Due to be stable/usable by end of 2008.
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/01/25/opensim-worlds-lure-second-lifes-outcasts/ - article showing industry allure and potential, as well as current shortcomings of the original second life grid (see article comments).
Second life scripts:
http://www.troymcconaghy.com/blog/2007/9/12/open-source-holo-emitter-for-sl.html Holographic emitter GPL linden script - this provides functionality to quickly create a set - a virtual environment within secondlife!
http://swik.net/SecondLife+Scripting Scripting on second life in LSL
http://www.multiverse.net/ Open source massively multiplayer online environment engine
Machinima & scripts:
Electric Sheep http://www.electricsheepcompany.com/ who started off doing ill clan improvised machinima, and now work for hollywood among others.
Endgame, by Samuel Beckett: http://www.samuel-beckett.net/endgame.html