2012 Machinima Expo

The 2012 Machinima Expo will take place this weekend
November 16.-18. online and in Second Life.
Detailed Program Schedule and List of Screeners
at the Machinima Expo Website

Second Life Festival site:
Midnight Manhattan Reverie in Second Life 

Machinima Expo livestream: The Machinima Expo

MachinUWA III: Journeys (3rd UWA Machinima Challenge - 2011)

The 3rd Machinima Challenge put forth by the University of Western Australia (UWA) has just been announced.
The theme is simply 'Journeys'. What the journey is, will be left to the Machinimatographer. A journey through Second Life. A journey of self discovery. A journey within. A journey from SL too RL, or vice-versa. A journey through space, through time, a journey of hope, a journey of despair. Your own journey, or a journey by someone else seen through your eyes... or... through Second Life in 80 Days, whatever you can imagine.

More informations on their Blog:
MachinimUWA III: Journeys - It Begins!!

DEADLINE: Submissions are open between NOW (Feb 2011) till 1st May 2011

New Movie: Order in Chaos

Just finished a new Abstract Machinima Movie, which I made for the MachinimUWA II: Art of the Artists challenge in Second Life.
Machinima makers in SL were asked to create a Machinima of between 2 and 5 minutes in length that featured some of the winning artworks from the UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge. They had more than 35 artworks spread across 4 floors, from which to choose.

This movie is featuring December 2009 Winner of the UWA 3D Art & Design Challenge: CHAOS IN ORDER by Igor Ballyhoo
Filmed and edited by Rohan Fermi
Music by Kirsty Hawkshaw
Creative Commons by-nc-sa v1.0
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

MMIF 2010: Avatars starring at global film festival

The build is done, the media is set, 4 sims are prepared for the
MaMachinima International Festival 2010
Saturday Feb. 20 ^th , 2010
MMIF sims (SL™) + PLANETART, Wibautstraat 150 Amsterdam (NL).

Festival organizer Chantal Harvey and her team have done an excellent job creating an amazing venue for the festival, preseting an interesting and inspiring collection of machinima artwork.

From the offical press release:

‘MMIF 2010′ is the second edition of an annual film festival in 3D cyberspace with a screening in physical space (‘RL’). A seven hour movie marathon with a two hour afterparty. MMIF 2010 can also be followed on the web via live stream broadcasts.
The MMIF is a celebration of ‘Machinima’: a new cinematic art form, created with virtual worlds and video games. On 3D Internet platforms like Second Life®, any kind of movie sets can be build for very low costs. The MMIF aims to bring machinima to a wider audience, online – and offline. Machinima artists from all over the world are present in real time at the virtual MMIF Theatre. They present over 50 short films and have talks with other machinimatographers and an international audience

The festivals will show creative work of over 40 artists. For a total of 7 hours the movies are screened in both Second Life and Amsterdam. I'm proud to be part of that event. My recent movie 'the Graveyard' will be screened in the track from 5 pm - 6 pm PST (2 -3 am CET, Sunday) hosted by Phaylen Fairchild. Hope to meet you there.

For more details about the festival and detailed schedule can be found at the festival Website: MMIF 2010
Live media streams and SL Teleport links via http://live.MMIF.org

M.A.G Machinima Award 2009

M.A.G Machinima Award 2009 deadline is coming close (27. Sept 2009). If you haven't already, submit your Second Life machinima now to the festival held by the Machinima Artist Guild (M.A.G) in Second Life. The MACHINIMA AWARD 2009 will be awarding one of the largest Prize Money ever given out in Second Life with Starting Prize Money of 250,000L$
For more infos about the festival:
Official Press Release August, 31 2009

Machiniplex Premiere for "9"

I'm really proud and excited that my new machinima movie "9" will be featured at Machiniplex on Sept 13th (Sunday) at 11AM Pacific Time / 8PM Germany. The Premiere will be held in Second Life at Hathead's Island Lounge.
I'm still a bit scared about the Q&A session, but excited to meet other machinima filmmakers and an interested audience at the event. For more details about the movie and the event check out the Machiniplex Blog.

Animeeple: Free Animation Software

If you are looking for an easy and free tool to create animations.
Animeeple is an easy to use character animation tool.
You can easily import and animate characters, layer and sequence them , edit and modify animations (with booth FK, IK handles ).
It even allows placing a camera and render out your scenes as video. But for most purposes you'll export characters and/or animations using FBX, Collada, BVH and XML.
I sucessfully managed to get my animated character imported into XSI Mod Tool (using FBX) and Blender (using Collada).
And you don't have to start from scratch. Animeeple offers a marketplace where you can download for free or buy additional content (animations and characters). Right now they offer several characters you can animate and over 100 free animations to start with. On their marketplace you can upload your own characters and animations and sell them (they take a 25% comission).
One more highlight is Animeeple's feature to animate your Second Life avatar. You can download your SL avatar into Animeeple and then create your animations with it. Then upload it inside this tool or export as BVH and upload via you SL client. Their site offers a some video tutorials as well.