In this episode of our Machinima history series, Ben reviews notable films from the archives created with Quake III, a version of id Software's Quake series that did not favour machinima.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
quake, constraints, game, film, technology, visual, flower, story, deals, video, people, fountainhead, shows, several awards, characters, 3d studio max, music, realise, capturing, entitled
Credits:
Speaker: Ben Grussi
Producer/Editor: Ricky Grove
Music: Quake 3 Arena Soundtrack - Fuel My Game
Show Notes
In this episode of our Machinima history series, Ben reviews notable films from the archives created with Quake III, a version of id Software's Quake series that did not favour machinima.
Time stamps
1.11 Quad God by Tritin Films (Quake III), parts 1-4
5.52
In the Waiting Line by Zero 7 in collaboration with Fountainhead Entertainment (Quake III)
7.55
Anna by Fountainhead Entertainment’s Anna Kang (Quake III)
What is And Now For Something Completely Machinima?
Machinima, real-time filmmaking, virtual production and VR. Four veteran machinimators share news, new films & filmmakers, and discuss the past, present and future of machinima.
Ben Grussi 00:12
All right, we're back to the third and final section of the Quake engine movies. Unfortunately, this section is going to be very short. As you probably know or don't know, the Quake III Arena section is short because it was trying very hard to make Quake III Arena a true multiplayer eSports contenders that they locked down the game, and you weren't able to make bonds with it that might have paid the demos or any of the constraints that are will allow you to do what you used to be able to do in Quake one and Quake two engines. So that really put a stranglehold on new content, whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, as the technology was evolving, I'll leave other people to judge that. But at this point, it's one of the reasons why we only have three films to cover in this section. But here we go.
Ben Grussi 01:11
So the first one is entitled Quad God. It premiered as actually one of the very first films that Hugh promoted or the release in opening of machinima.com. It was done originally for a Quake contest that wanted to be used to promote quake three arena. And it actually did pretty well. It didn't tell us a story of a soldier looking for this particular baddie, entitled the Quad God as a mythical a mythical figure. And he's going after him through these different portals in different sections of the various maps that the game provides for deathmatches and stuff like that. And he just reads a story of, you know, having a personal vendetta against this individual, and meeting several characters along the way, and showing his rebellious nature and so forth. The music and the ambience, using some of the effects in the game really put you in the mood of where they are in the world. The voice acting is quite good in terms of the character personalities and use of different effects. He was able to use, I believe Adobe's After Effects to add a picture to picture graphics to the visuals and overlay, so you can look at his was in his helmet cam, and so forth to make it seem like he's in real time communication with different characters. And basically a very solid film that runs I believe, for about a half hour, I believe it could be shorter than that longer than that. But again, a really strong story, considering the constraints. And one of the perks that he did. That was very unusual at the time that has become commonplace now is that he used video capturing because he couldn't use the demos as we use previously, because of again, the security constraints put on for, you know, game integrity for keeping cheats, and hacks out. He committed the scenes to video. The aesthetic that the video provides, because there's no HD version of it. Because it was captured with rudimentary technology back in 2000, or 1999. It really actually helps with it. Its visual aesthetic, because it shows you the pixelation shows you that things are not clean, they're not pristine. It definitely gives you the people that love nostalgia to show a different time and place in technology where video capturing technology was still in infancy. That was very expensive. It really had limitations, but it still enabled people to like we did with with software packages like Fraps and game camera to capture content. So people who didn't have the game could still enjoy the video. Unlike, you know, Quake one and two, you needed to have the game to be able to play this stuff back but with at least Quake three arena because of the constraints that was put on it that it forced people to put it on video, which enabled it to become part be introduced to a larger audience because they didn't have to rely on technical expertise. They didn't have to worry about having a computer they didn't have to worry about having a game. You know, it's pretty straightforward. And that was its biggest boost is the fact is that we were Now entering the era of video capturing so that you didn't have the same hardware software constraints as you did before. I mean, there are some downsides to that, because you're still at this time early in the internet's evolution, that bandwidth was a problem. And you couldn't get high quality footage and stuff like that to people because the file sizes were too big. So that was one of the perks of at least having the game and whatnot is you could watch it in real time. You can make adjustments to it. And you could, you know, there was no lag or anything, it just really just think of it as the regular game version was the HD version. And the video version was this is your acceptable version. But at least it's more universal at that time, because again, technology was rudimentary. So that was a solid, as I said a foothold for that.
Ben Grussi 05:52
The second film that definitely get another knotch in the veins of hardly working Fountainhead Entertainment's feature piece. This is actually did a music video that was chronicled on MTV's video mouths, like I mentioned, with Paul Marino's Still Seeing Breen is the did a music video In the Waiting line with Zero 7. Zero 7 did a collaboration with Fountainhead Entertainment where they created a music video for their title track, which was in the waiting line, which deals with a robot that doesn't realise that all of his people that he's supposed to be serving are all dead, or they're cardboard pieces. And it just deals with that narrative of just going through the process of just how is a robot just going through his motions, you know, in this setting that shows that you know, what is a robot to do when he has no masters in so far. It's definitely the visual quality is top notch, you would think it was done in 3d Studio Max or Maya or whatnot, which is possible the character models were created. But at least the playback was still being done under the quake three engine. So again, like with Hardly Workin', you can't tell that it came from a different game, or a game at all, it was done in a 3d Studio Max environment or whatnot, like commercial computer generated rendering technology. And that leads to several awards including the Machinima Film Festival for its its accolades in that department, as well.
Ben Grussi 07:55
Continuing that the third and final film is actually a piece by in house by Fountainhead entertainment. It's entitled Anna. And it was a very popular film, when it was released, won several awards as well, deals with a story of a flower that blooms in a forest, nature around it, the sound of sound design is very atmospheric. And there's no voiceovers, it's just a story with a soundtrack of visual and sound. Actually just musical tones actually denoting happy, sad, fear and horror. And it basically shows the lifecycle of a flower as the seed of a flower, you know, gets into the ground and grows into a flower. And then has to deal with predators, such as weeds, and then humans. And then you see his see the fate of the flower. It's a It's trauma as it's being, you know, as humans admire it, but also want to take it home. In the event of it being pulled out of the ground, is where the sound really shines because it is really giving off the the fear and the fear and the horror of the pain of being ripped away from the ground of where you you, your life began. And you just want to stay there but getting away from it. And then finding your fate to be you know, with other flowers in your life cycle, you know, continue to end of your life. This is my life, you know, beginning middle and end. But again, people you know really praised it for its story. It's visual. Again, people didn't realise it was being done under the quake three engine. And definitely, you know, even though you couldn't do a lot in Quake three, they did try very hard to at least with the constraints and several, you know, people did try and manage to make really good films, even with those constraints