Feb 14, 2011: MachinimaMondays special guest speaker: Goat Firethorn

I am happy to post the Q & A session with Goat Firethorn, on MachinimaMondays.

http://slurl.com/secondlife//81/84/41

Ever wondered about PC hardware? Which graphic card, processor, soundcard, memory, harddrives, ram ..... should you get to run SL smoothly?
How to spend your money wisely?
Please take note that Goat is not a machinimatographer, but his excellent knowledge about hardware has made quite an impression.


Here is the chat:

Chantal Harvey: this MachinimaMonday meeting will be in chat, not in voice
Kayden Oconnell: ok, thought it was pretty quiet.
Graycon Sonata: It feels so clinical...
Almo Schumann: We're just shy.
Chantal Harvey: i want to let you all know that this meeting is in chat, as it will be logged for the ones that cannot come today - so pls ask many questions, this entire session will be done as Q & A.

Goat Firethorn, the lovely fox avatar here, has agreed to share some of his excellent knowledge.




Goat: LOL everyone thinks it's a fox!
Ironically, it's a husky, but I get called a fox all the time.

Anyways - where should we start?
Chantal Harvey: could you introduce yourself?
Goat: I'm Goat, I've been working with computers for about 13 years, but I got into hardware around 4 years ago.
Actually I learned most from my father, who has been working with computers since the age of punchcards doing hardware work.

Graycon Sonata: so you actually assemble computers?
Goat: yes, I do - I have ... quite a few and some parts laying around

Kayden Oconnell: was hoping for some information on what to look for when buying a new system, processor, memory, graphics.
Goat: I'm going to have to say that I can't come up with PC's right now, and here's my explanation:
Right now, the motherboard and CPU industry is at a standstill, due to the release cycle, and Intel having a recall on the P67 chipsets, which essentially makes buying ANY new motherboard a rip-off.
In april, the new chipsets come in, then P67 comes, but until then, all you can do is buy things that are soon to be outdated.

Graycon Sonata: so just to open the field up to you was wondering if you which hd would you recommend for storage as an external?

Starshine (ormand.lionheart): why does SLI not work anymore?

Graycon Sonata: and are you a fan of a single taro or duel taro?

Goat: actually, if you don't mind I'll answer the second first
SLI does work, but it requires code to be written for it in the application. SL, had SLI support at the start, but it got phased out as the code progressed , it's actually still on the Nvidia webpage as SLI compatable

Goat: I like the HD question lol
Actually, I myself don't own any SSD's, and their quite pricy, so what I did buy was an awesome hdd that I reccomend 100%
Graycon Sonata: which one?
Goat: It was actually really really cheap, $ 40.00, and it outpaces some of the $ 130+ Velociraptors, as well as ALL of the Caviar blacks. It's a Samsung F4 320GB, note that the F4 2TB is NOT near as fast, and is actually extemely slow.
Graycon Sonata: I have 320 GB and find with recording I am filling it up fast due to files size,
and existing fies so therefore I was wondering about externals and your views on single vs duel gig storage.
Goat: yes, I'd say for recording in HD, I'd go with a drive assigned to just that.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): well u definitely need 7200 rpm to capture .
Goat: yes, but actually RPM on an HDD has a lot less impact than you think. For example, the velociraptor is 10,000 RPM, yet it gets beat by my drive @ 7200.





Goat: that's a link to a comparison I ran across drives.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): yes but I cant capture with a gren drive, wont keep up
LaPiscean Liberty: bus speed probley plays into that
Goat: yes, of course, they're all factors, I'd reccomend probably a Samsung F3 1TB, or a caviar Black 1TB if you like Western Digital, they both do extremely well - around 115 mb/s read
Ken Alphaville: i agree
Talia Sunsong (taliasunsong): Do people find the 1 TB break faster?
Jewle Rae: every single terrabyte drive I have purchased for video has failed. I personally won't recommend them to anyone for that reason. Also fragmentation comes faster when using terrabyte drives.
Chantal Harvey: i have 4 drives, 2 terrabit each, and they work fab
LaPiscean Liberty: an array of smaller drives seems like it would save more data if a drive went down
Graycon Sonata: then you prefer half taro to full on and piny them?
Goat: I personally haven't had any issues with them, but since you are doing heavy video editing, I'd probably go western digital, if anything happens, you have a 5 year waranty to back you up.
Ken Alphaville: same happened to me till i stuck with western D.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): SEAGET had issues last year
Graycon Sonata: nice ans we have that here.
Jewle Rae: So happy for you Chantal. Believe me if I had any luck with them I would have stuck with them. OTOH copying takes so much longer.
Petlove Petshop: i just returned a seagate - wasn't working properly
Ken Alphaville: oh man seagate ...
Ken Alphaville: runnnnn ....
Jewle Rae: II've had both Seagate and WD.
Goat: I personally haven't used seagate in awhile, I stick with Samsung and WD usually

Chantal Harvey: could there be a difference between European and American hardware?
Goat: usually no, european is about the same
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Seagate 7200.11's - over 30% failure apparently.
Inquisitive Loon: Ive got an OLD Pentium 4, works fabulously with all my editing/filming software.
Inquisitive Loon: CPU cost 10.00 keyboar 1.00, mouse fift cents and the 20 inch monitor was free.
Inquisitive Loon: Id rather have Spielberg hired to work on my Pentium 4 than someone less talented with a 5,000,000 computer.

LaPiscean Liberty: large resolutions like full HD are very hard on graphic cards

Goat: Actually, let me recommend a really awesome company, and the only reason I reccomend them is because their support is something it sounds like you need.
I actually just recently purchased my first EVGA product, and it was amazing.
The reason I recommend this brand is really the quality of support
I've NEVER waited more than two minutes on a phone, and they are open 24/7
Chantal Harvey: evga, yes!!! i agree
Goat: so if you kill video cards like you say, and you plan going NVidia, that'd be an awesome company to go with, not to mention they support overvolting and overclocking. Best company I've ever seen.
That and NZXT, who also has great support program.

Starshine (ormand.lionheart): the problem is that is Mac only? - and from what I have heard Macs do not run Sl very well compared to PC
Goat: actually, on the contrary, Macs actually do a bit better
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): whose PC are you comparing too?
Jewle Rae: Macs handle SL better goat?
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): there is such an issue with tweaking it's hard to compare
Goat: ): nono - I wouldn't make that bold of a statement
Mac is generally not going to have as good quality parts, as with any prebuilt system, but yes, the OS itself handles OpenGL better
The reason is, Windows uses DirectX as it's main 3D API, Linux and Mac actually have a cleaner and more complete OpenGL API
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): also a musicion with Protools not happen with his Mac since the changeover to Intel chips - Protools Hardware now basically obsolete

Goat: If you've ever run SL on Linux, you KNOW you get a nice FPS boost
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): so the issue with Mac is not hardware but the viewer?
Goat: not really, It's the Operating system itself
Anything OpenGL based usually runs as good on OSX and Linux, if not better, than on windows
al Peretz: do you think linux is a good OS for machinima in SL?
Goat: Actually, it depends
linux is very complex when you get into it, but if you know linux, then yes, it'd be ideal since it has very low hardware requirements, and better threading
LaPiscean Liberty: I wish Windows had broadcaster like MAC does
LaPiscean Liberty: for live feed
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): so if I run a linux partition you suggest I will get hifgher fps?
al Peretz: I will try linux
al Peretz: whch version you recommend?
al Peretz: suse is good for that?
Goat: eh, yes, depending on the viewer, usually (You would need to install your proprietary drivers)
Like I said, linux isn't as easy as it sounds, but it's gotten much more friendly in recent years
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): is there a Linux "for Dummies"?
Goat: actually, there are several distributions made for converts from windows, but again, you have to see what your needs are
For example, Linux will not support as many programs, so that's something to look into
al Peretz: I used linux some years...Its easy to do a partition and hace 2 OS in one computer
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): well just a partition for filming and that 's it
Goat: Just be careful!
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): would be a nice option if there is a performance boost
al Peretz: I think film in linux and edit in windows
Petlove Petshop: can you do that al?
Goat yes you can, and actually that probably would work best, but like I said, things aren't so ideal as of right now
I run Mint Debian Linux, and there are a few things you have to do to get good FPS, etc

Jewle Rae: What about RAM and chip speed? what's your recommendation goat?
Goat: yeah, let's steer away from software, I don't want you to convert unless you wish to, I really beleive all OS's have their place
Jewle Rae: Anybody else finding their system running hotter after this last round of viewer updateas?
Goat: actually that would be an odd thing, but a good thing.

Actually, I'll try and stick to hardware here, but one last note on software is that it can affect performance a lot, especially drivers. As for the question on clock speeds, that's one thing that is very misleading, as are all numbers with computers. What I find is that a lot of people tend to compare numbers with computers readily, and in actuality, it isn't so easy. For example, really cool fact:
Ever wondered why your harddrive shows less space than it says on the box?
Petlove Petshop: isn't because of its own operating system needs?
Goat: it's actually because manufacturers round using MiB, instead of real MB, MiB = Mebibytes, MB = Megabytes
Matthew Kidomen: Isn't part used in formating as well.
Goat: yes, part is formatting, but a small part.
Matthew Kidomen: how much effect does the hard drive have on video capture
Goat: basically, what happened is that the hardware industry decided to go on 1000 = increment
Goat: and software says 1024
for example 1024kb = 1Mb
hardware makers rounded, saying 1000 instead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte
Goat: that's why a drive shows quite a bit less
Chantal Harvey: i liked matthews question a lot
( how much effect does the hard drive have on video capture )
Goat: actually a lot
from what I understand video capture records to the harddrive, so having a good write speed is important
Jewle Rae: Hard drive speed and fragmentation have major impact on video capture.

Matthew Kidomen: I think some one was talking about SSD drives not long ago?
Chantal Harvey: ssd is a good idea?
Goat: I would think any fast 7200 would do good, and actually SSD migt not be so good
Chantal Harvey: oh why not?
Goat: the reason I say it may not is size, and issues with writing. SSD's are expensive for their size, and from what i understand, video eats size.
Matthew Kidomen: but ususally I record in short burst, no extended video
Goat: as well, SSD's use a LOT more maintenence than you think, and they have limits
LaPiscean Liberty: and pricey
Matthew Kidomen: so could I get a smaller SSD and shoot then transfer it to my sata drive
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): an SSD apparently more apppriate for program nstalls and OS
Goat: actually one of the very important things a lot of people don't get about SSD's is they require things that harddrives do not first off
SSD's require you to turn off indexing, Paging, and anything that reads and writes a ton
The reason is that SSD's wear faster
They actually wear, just like RAM. They are made of RAM chips, by wear I mean, they begin giving errors
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): you can only write to a specic place a number of times and then it's done
Goat: yup, which is why it isn't good for a lot of reads and writes
Matthew Kidomen: the paper runs thin
LaPiscean Liberty: more like flashing a bios chip seems like
Goat: eh, not really - Flashing a BIOS is just dangerous
RAM actually is essentially what an SSD is made of Flash chips, NAND that is lined in rows
LaPiscean Liberty: yes but arnt you burning to chip rather then optic ewriting
Matthew Kidomen: yes, but are we talking months or years of use?
Goat: years - definitely.
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): not if u start capturing to it
Goat: but where a harddrive keeps spinning for awhile, an SSD will die eventually
Matthew Kidomen: well 3 years on an SSD would be enough. Tech changes so fast
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): since an OS loads in RAm it's not using the SSd much
Goat: and yes, the reason they tell you to turn off Paging on it
If you paged to an SSD, you'd eat it alive, paging is basically where you use part of a harddrive as slow RAM
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Q anyone else using a Ramdisk?
Goat: for example if you use a lot of system RAM, you begin paging things to your hdd, which in the case of an SSD would literally mean tons of reads and writes per second, which eats it alive
LaPiscean Liberty: Q how much cache on a drive is good and should it be used
Goat: cache, as in the cache on a drive does have an impact on drive speed, but it really depends, and it's always used, you can't turn it off
But on high performance drives it can be different
It's also relative to size, it's basically like a buffer - when you go to write to the hdd, it sends it to the HDD, and a stack builds in cache
LaPiscean Liberty: so that it may read and write at same time
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Q- hardware to optimise particle performance re" fps
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): a 580 GTX and overclocked cpu?
That's a bit overkill, I do fine with my 460
Matthew Kidomen: haha, never too much power. Give me power, power, POWER!!!

Chantal Harvey: yea but if you were to buy, today, wouldnt you buy a nvidia 580?
Goat: if I had the money, No. - the reason is kinda complex
Basically when they make a GPU, they make it using silicon on three layers
What they do to make it, is take a sliver of silicon, with SiO2, an insulator, on top of it, and use a laser to write the actual transistors to it
The reason things keep getting smaller is that they keep shortening the wavelength of the light
Currently, the 500 and 400 series are at 40nm = 40 nanometers
But later this year, a new GPU comes out from Nvidia at 28nm, with a new design
which is what I'd save up for - Kepler = 28nm, quarter 4 of 2011
Chantal Harvey: ahhhh - omg ty for that
Chantal Harvey: on the new nvidia: HERE

Matthew Kidomen: what about video ram
Matthew Kidomen: any suggestions for how much is over kill
Matthew Kidomen: or is it the more the better?
LaPiscean Liberty: water cooled fuel injected
Goat: SL actually can't use more than 512, but really it'd use...around 700 with everything in the background, etc. Yes, usually the more the better, but again it's not as important as you'd think
SL can only access 512mb of VRAM, at the most
Matthew Kidomen: (taking notes)
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): Nividia not ATi from what I have seen in forums
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): apparently ATI sues system memory n OpenGL games
Starshine (ormand.lionheart): at least it did
Goat: I actually prefer Nvidia in SL, simply because ATI has issues with OpenGL coding in the drivers, but they are getting better
Heh, I'm actually using 608mb VRAM right now
Matthew Kidomen: some folks love them which is ok, but I have had big battles with them.





Goat: really, I want to hit on something someone said earlier - and I almost missed it:
If you ever build a computer
Something I REALLY REALLY say to look at is Power supply
Matthew Kidomen: does it effect video capture speed and "smoothness" if you run two monitors?
Chantal Harvey: how much power supply?
Goat: well i depends on what you're doing
Jewle Rae: Now you're talking -- power supply is critical
Goat: and actually like I said, you can't really rely on the numbers they post
For example, yes, you can get cheap 1000w power supplies
Yet I've seen one shoot 3" flames which wasn't good
Brand is REALLY something to pay attention to with power supplies, as well as model.

There's actually a good list on several places, a forum I use regularly, go to this link

Really great thread, tells you a lot about power supplies.
Matthew Kidomen: video cards can draw a lot of juice
Goat: yes, and with a bad power supply, you can fry things.
You have got to keep in mind, power supply gives everything voltage.
So if you go cheap, anything else you buy can be fried instantly!



I actually got mine on sale, it's a corsair TX850, which really has been awesome.

Seasonic, Corsair, Silverstone, they all make great power supplies.
Matthew Kidomen: don't power supplies list the number of watts per rail at a certain voltage?
Goat: yes, as tested by them, which means they may have tested at 20C, and reported those, which is very misleading.
Matthew Kidomen: they wouldn't lie woult they?
Goat: no, but they sure are good at getting around it
Matthew Kidomen: hummm
Goat: that list really, anything tier 3 or above is fine, anything above would be for overclockers...
Which need a REALLY stable voltage

Anyways sorry I didn't get to answer everyone's questions
You guys are an awesome group

Chantal Harvey: we will have to have you back here, Goat

And he will be back in April, hopefully to talk about Kepler and other new developments in PC hardware.

Mr Firethorn, you rock!

MachinimaMondays Feb. 7, 2011

Our weekly machinima meetings are always different, it often depends on the people that come and the subjects they bring with them.

There are 2 meetings every monday: 2 pm and 7 pm. (SL-time, pacific time)

Often we show each other our new work, and sometimes even ask for feedback. We had guest speakers, machinima classes, a Q & A about lag, nifty discussions about copyright issues, we talked about branding and where to post films, we talked about edit, music and voice over talent, acting, animations, foley - and it seems like every week there are more and new subjects to discuss.

I think it is time to create some MM-blogs, as people are forever asking what we discussed at last weeks meeting.

Both MM meetings had one subject in common; the "wish-list" for a machinima viewer.

A few days before the meeting, Toxic Menges and myself had a meeting with Kim and Rhett Linden. Amongst many things we discussed the difference between the current Lindenlab and 3rd Party viewers.

We use different viewers now for different purposes, forever switching between viewers - (I use 7 viewers!!!) cluttering our precious desktop space with icons, and wishing that all features a machinimatographer needs would be available in just one viewer.

I now use Kirstens viewer for depth of field, Firestorm for shadows, Dale's for anaglyph, Phoenix for windlights, V2 for media on a prim, the meshviewer for ...uhh mesh, Imprudence cos I just like it.

Our suggestion for a machinima-viewer was welcomed as a good idea, but not likely to happen. Rhett Linden asked us what our thoughts were on features we would need, and we agreed to do a survey amongst the MM members.

Here are suggestions that ppl came up with:

* Good shadows

* Good dof (*Depth of Field) - concurs with this point: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/CTS-437?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=234791#comment-234791

* Auto screen size - in the pull down menu in Preferences>Graphics, the sizes are not really useful to machinima makers - 1280x720 would be a good option, as would 1080 x 1920, so we can film in HD easily. Full Screen was a great option in v1.23, but that has been removed in v2.xx and now you have to manually resize in order to be able to film at 1080

* Easy controls to hide things such as avas/clouds instead of being hidden in a massive hierarchy.

* Graphics properties button = accessible from the front pane of the viewer - without having to drill down into the menus

* Working AA when using shadows

* Easy windlight access

* Ability to derender all avas except your own/ones you specify

* Record camera moves to perform multiple passes of same scene - this is an experimental option in the viewer at the moment, or at least it was, and can be very useful for filming from multiple POV.

* Machinima tab - Kirsten viewer has a machinima tab http://www.kirstensviewer.com/Blog/134.html this is an xml tab that includes commonly used features. We did speak at the Machinima Mondays meeting about the ability to include things like zoomtime form the debug menu on that drop down - but it appears that that would involve delving under the hood of the viewer a bit more. Zoomtime is a GREAT tool for filmers and it's hidden deep in debug menu.

* More than one parcel media stream, not reliant on the shared media tech (I did point out that sub dividing media was a possibility here, and also that's more of a server point that viewer)

* Default animation improvements/different speeds - There was a call from Linden Lab to hire one of the inworld animation developers to get them to make a new default walk, any idea what happened with that? It would be great if we could control walking speed of not only our own but other avatars.

* Slow motion avatars for all not just your own - there is an option in the advanced menu that allows slow motion animation, but this only works for the avatar being controlled - it would be good if all avatars could be viewed in slow motion when that option was activated.

* Animation Editor in world similar to Unity 3D's Unity calls their editor a cutscene editor. Think of it like scripting out the scene and pressing play to run through it - I am not familiar with this myself, but it sounds not unlike the puppeteering system that was being looked at by the Lab a few years ago.

* It used to be a feature of the viewer that you could record vid directly from the client. I was on a Mac for my first two years in SL, and this feature never worked on mac clients, but some did use it successfully. Would be GREAT to have this back.

* What about having functions based on genre (like have option for film noir)?

* Making use of more than 3 meg bandwidth

* Bespoke viewer which would use cloud computers - negating lag (hopeful!)

* Sound aspect in the viewer that gave us more control? Broader range of Equalization as well as volume?

* Ability to change infinity view to sand or other terrain so that things dont always look like you are on an island.

* Proper asset sharing for windlight

* Full moon and phases of the moon - the Lab used to replace the moon texture for special occasions - this would be a huge crowd pleaser aside form machinima!

* Nimble for Windlight - would love to see Nimble implemented to give depth and extra weather effects to windlight.

In addition to the above which are more viewer specific, these also came up:

** An infohub for machinima

** Case studies for machinima in commercial projects - in the Enterprise/Commercial info part of the sl.com website.

** Inventory accessible to alts




The suggestions/wishes on the above list are a good showcase of what our machinima community is about. Toxic and I welcome Rhett - who joined MachinimaMondays group - to take ideas from that list and implement them in LL viewer 2. Lets make this world a better place for machinima....







Next meeting - February 14, 2011 - will have a guest speaker at the 7 pm session: Goat Firethorn will do a session on computer hardware.

Ever wondered what to buy for your money? Which graphic card, processor, how much ram, is there a difference in harddrives, - ---- please come to SL and join the MachinimaMondays group, or contact Toxic Menges, Phaylen Fairchild or Chantal Harvey for an invite.

Women in machinima

I think the best way to talk about the evolvement of women in machinima, is to tell you a little bit about how I started myself. And, about where I am today.

Machinima is shooting film in a realtime 3D virtual environment or game, using what I lovingly call PPP; Pro/Pre- and Post production.

Originally machinima started from game-reporting; battles were recorded and then shared amongst the users of these games, without any editing at all.
I believe the first machinima came from a game called Doom, and the first storytelling machinima was made in the demo function of Quake – but I am not a historian, far from that. I am a self made machinimatographer.
To this day, I created close to 200 productions, in every possible genre.

I started machinima in 2007, in Second Life, the virtual 3D World in which I create most of my work.
Second Life/SL, like most online platforms, provides many things for many people. You can make it your own - and just like with anything you encounter – you can grab the opportunities that cross your path.
Unlike videogames, SL does not provide you with a purpose .. just like life itself –and it is you that makes it work.

My background lays in artschool and television (I am a goldsmith, a painter, an editor, a camera-woman).
This, has certainly provided the basics for what I do today.
In the Netherlands we quote this famous national football legend (Johan Cruijff) who once said: “ ieder nadeel heb z’n voordeel “ – meaning: any and all disadvantage has its own advantage.
Not knowing the history and the rules of machinima production, it certainly did not hold me back. Learning things the hard way, step by step, made me to what I am today. And I had fun while i took those steps.

A visual production benefits from traditional rules for film and edit.
I will never forget the first sentence in filmschool, my teacher sat us down and after a profound silence announced: film is a close medium.

Machinima is a close medium.

Now, machinima is a new medium, and it needs a new language.
Like Piet Mondriaan, who did traditional paintings before he developed his famous abstract style, I think it is important to master basics, while experimenting too. And when you are learning, you are trying new things too, and so will develop your own style.

I have seen machinima advance in a mayor way, it has grown from gaming reports to art and storytelling. What strikes me is the fun that machinimatographers have when creating their work, and the important role that women have taken.
The fact that women directors are invisuable in the film industry (oh they are there, but not seen), is overcome in virtual reality.
In virtual worlds, opportunities are truely equal – it does not matter where you come from, what color, gender, looks or age, we choose an avatar that represents us and thus overcome many prejudices.
We are our mind, our actions, our art.

I have a strong hunch that this is why women do so well in machinima. Most of us focus on the emotion rather then on the carchases and gunfights.
Also, the gaming world for a long time has been a boys thing, even though girls are catching up fast.
I find that my 14 year old daughter will play Sims3 and Mario Games, opposed to boys her age who's favorite game is Call of Duty.

Machinima is a unique storytelling platform, and I certainly know some men that do very well – but amongst the true talents I find the larger part is female.
Estetics, beauty, emotional EQ, overview – the urge to tell a personal story involving these characteristics, it is a traditional female thing.
Of course, men can do this, and yes – women do create exciting action machinima too.
It is a dangerous path to take, deviding male and female as if they were categories.
Are there dominant themes in female machinima? I see women taking a stand in digital media.
My opinion is based on what i see around me. Not on science.
I run several well attended machinima groups, i founded and produce the Mamachinima International Festival, and produce the 48 Hour Film Project for machinima.
I teach (workshops machinima) at highschools, I speak at congresses. I meet many people that are involved passionately in machinima.

Some of the work that springs to my mind, by female leading machinimatographers:

Phaylen Fairchild: Harbinger



This mixed reality machinima has it all! Phaylen mixed not only reality, but found a perfect balance between storytelling and art, and deep personal emotions (fear) and fast action.


Rose Borchovski: Lost in counting, Susa Bubble



A striking visual machinima, deeply sensitive and mysterious, it sets of your imagination in a way that most conventional films can not… Rose writes art machinima. Check out the Big Bang....

Lainy Voom: Push



An experimental machinima, presenting how humans are tied to the mechanics of time. A moving, close to perfection, open for your imagination – a dream.


Toxic Menges: Little Red Riding Hood



The not-so-classic re telling of a fairy tale. Funny and a perfect example of a womans point of view.
She deals with the woolf herself… “well done, Red, I knew you had it in ya”…


What I consider to be my best machinima so far: A Woman's Trial



Based on a short story by Louisa May Alcott, called Happy Woman. A story of a strong woman, caught in her own little World, walking the chosen path right till the end.


There are many - many more…. to mention only a few is insane – and not doing justice to the talented machinimatographers I meet.

My journey is one of passion and vision, and I made it my motto: I want to bring machinima to the world, show what it is and can do. Passion is the source of our finest moments. Without passion, all would be grim and grey.
What women in machinima have in common, is this passion, it is a fire that burns, and not one great machinima has been created without that passion. A film has never been great because of its tecnical aspects, but because of the way it made you feel.

I would like to finish with a quote by Laura Ziskin, a female producer whom I admire deeply.
Laura Ziskin talks about movies, the same way as i see machinima - as the medium of the future…

“Men have built the cities, made and defined the culture, interpreted the world. At no time in recorded history have women been culture-makers.
“Movies are arguably the most influential, important medium in the world. Because women are now making movies, then women’s ideas, philosophy, point of view will seep into that culture. And that’s never happened in history. We can’t even see the impact of that yet.”

MachinimaMondays about LAG - 29 Nov. 2010, with Miro Collas

MachinimaMondays on November 29 (2010) - sim full, eye-opening meeting !!!


Recently I invited Miro Collas to share his knowledge about lag - and the myths and facts around it.


Rather then listen to a presentation or speech about something that affects our machinima's so profoundly, Miro and I had decided to do a Q and A for everybody present.

I cleaned up the chat a bit, to keep it read-able, and here it goes:

Miro Collas: There are 2 blogs about lag
Miro Collas: one in particular is VERY well written and is in fact cited by LL in their wiki.

http://analutetia.com/2009/06/22/anatomy-of-lag/

http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2008/02/16/lag-myths-dispelled/

This transcript is sent to MachinimaMondays group in Second Life too, if you want to attend our weekly meetings, join the group - or contact Toxic Menges, Phaylen Fairchild or Chantal Harvey inworld.

MachinimaMondays meeting, November 29, 2010:

Chantal Harvey: what is lag?
Miro Collas: ooohhh.... you start with a huge question.
Penumbra Carter: slows down and makes the camera jerk
Miro Collas: lag is not one thing, but 3 things, that are partly connected
first is client side, then network lag, and lastly, server lag.
Easiest to explain maybe is the second, network lag. That is essentially a measure of how good/bad your network connection is.
If you have a slow or poor network connection, you will lag.
Client-side lag involves ... well, things being drawn (rendered) on your computer screen.

Kit Guardian: can location have something to with that on any given day? Or hou much is being used around you?
Miro Collas: location matters yes. For client side, if there is a lot around you, then there is a lot to render, so more work for your computer to do
Kit Guardian: No I mean in RL
Miro Collas: Ah... it might, perhaps. Not so much distance as quality of connection, and speed of connection

Chantal Harvey: The distance to the Linden Lab servers, does that matter at all?
Miro Collas: there's a way to check your connection: visit http://speedtest.net/ and measure your bandwidth. Ideally, check it against Dallas
Georgianna Blackburn: why Dallas?
Miro Collas: Because a good part of LL's servers are now in Dallas
Georgianna Blackburn: ah, why?
Miro Collas: why there? That I don't know for sure, but it appears to be home to large datacenters
Dacob Paine: It's a co-location for redundancy and it is probably cheaper for their server farms.
Miro Collas: I'm afraid I don't have specifics on what is where, re: servers. But it is a good place to check against - better than a near-by city anyway
Chantal Harvey: Q even if u are in europe, as i am?
Miro Collas: yes. SL has no servers outside the US
Anyway, once you have checked your bandwidth, then you can determine an ideal bandwidth to set in your viewer
Chantal Harvey: ah i always wondered what my ideal bandwidht setting is

Inquisitive Loon: Dallas is not an option for the speed test?
Miro Collas: there is a star there for dallas, tho it is a tad hard to locate.
NicoleX Moonwall: i use a hughes net satlite so it floats
Miro Collas: Chantal: ideal is about 80% of the value that speedtest gives you
Miro Collas: 80%
Emmo Wei: Q is that 80% of the up or down?
Miro Collas: download
Miro Collas: upload is almost always far less
Dacob Paine: Q why is that?
Miro Collas: because generally, we download MUCH more than we upload, and 'net companies know this and allocate the bandwidth accordingly

Chantal Harvey: the burning question for machinima: what can we do to improve our framerate....?
Miro Collas: ok frame rate... that depends on many factors and so isn't easy to answer.
Most importantly, it depends on your hardware.
If you have a quad core PC with a high end vid card, you will get MUCH better frames rates than with say a dual core and a mid-range vid card.
(all else being equal of course) - a quad core will give better results than a dual core. And a faster processor better than a slow one
why is quad-core preferable?
Miro Collas: because then the work can be shared among the cores - which are essentially processors
If you enable it, it splits rendering off into another thread

Kit Guardian: Does our choice of software to film also effect the lag factor?
Miro Collas: it can yes. That's an external program which has to run at the same time as the viewer; it will use processor power.

is SL a multi-threaded app?
Miro Collas: multi-threading is enabled certianly in sl 1.23, snowglobe viewers; I cannot speak for Viewer 2
Miro Collas: or rather, *can* be enabled
Chantal Harvey: oh pls explain?

Apollo Manga: How many cores can SL multithreading use?
Penumbra Carter: Q what is multi threading :)
Miro Collas: multi-threading means that a single program can run several tasks at the same time (kinda); it boosts performance

Kit Guardian: which viewer is the best then?
Miro Collas: I have heard that Kirsten's is geared to machinima. Some I know use it for that specifically, and then revert to... whatever else for normal use.
Chantal Harvey: The LL 2.3 has a preset in graphics for 1920x1080, KirstenLee has shadows... each viewer has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Kayden Oconnell: -- Yes, would like a guideline for a new system, if we're looking to replace what we have -- not top of the line, but affordable?
Miro Collas: as for an ideal system: the more money you can throw at one, the better. It is that simple and brutal
Dacob Paine: lol so true
Chantal Harvey: think of it like this: a hollywood studio will cost a million, a perfect pc for machinima will cost 10,000 dollars
Miro Collas: it you want priorities for a system, then in order: CPU, video card, RAM, hard drive

Chantal Harvey: what will setting your bandwidth-slider too high do? does it influence?
Miro Collas: Chantal, yes it will - set it too low and you' you're throttling data
basicaly, slowing yourself down
Chantal Harvey: and setting it too high?
Kit Guardian: Crash perhaps
Miro Collas: that seems to also have negative effects, tho I confess to not fully understanding that part of it
Empirically, it has been worked out that 80% f your true bandwith is ideal for SL

Dacob Paine: can you give us an idea of the minimum computer someone needs for machinima?
Miro Collas: I lack the experience in that I'm afraid, it isn't something I have done. But let me give you an example....
I have a 3.2GHz quad core PC, 8GB RAM, and a GT240 vid card with 1GB RAM.
With that, I can have all my settings at ultra and a draw distance of 256m and not have issues
(well not usually)

Chantal Harvey: i have invited Ricky Grove to come and talk about computers, for machinima
Chantal Harvey: stay tuned... for that one, as he has agreed to do that for MachinimaMondays.


Apollo Manga: with a 64-bit system, is there a maximum RAM that can effectively be utilized? uhm... 32GB perhaps... not sure now.
Dacob Paine: That depends on the flavor of windows Apollo, it's up to 192 gigs at the most.
Dacob Paine: Some flavors are limited to 16 though
Miro Collas: btw, I'm on linux myself
Apollo Manga: Q but is there a limit on what can effectively be used? I'm building a 12gb system now but wondering whether to expand to 24gb
Miro Collas: that depends on the viewer you're using. All windows viewers (that I know of) are compiled in 32-bits
Note: go to: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ram-memory-upgrade,review-32053.html

Apollo Manga: Windows 7 Resource Monitor says I'm not using the 8gb I have now
Miro Collas: some of those include versions that can make use of extra RAM ... those are the LAA versions
Otherwise, a 32-bit app will use 2GB, no more
Apollo Manga: LAA?
Miro Collas: Large Address Aware

Chantal Harvey: i am on windows 7, 64 bits, do you know if sl will be compatible soon?
Miro Collas: Chantal: no clue on LL's plans for a 64-bit viewer

Kayden Oconnell: -- There seems to be disagreement about ARC -- Does that affect our computer? Or the sim where you're filming?
Miro Collas: Anyway, ARC... it stands for Avatar Rendering Cost. The "rendering" tells you it is about client-side effects, the number is a measure of hwo much work your computer has to do to draw an avatar
Miro Collas: ARC has NO effect on a region
Miro Collas: so.. if someone says, "you have high ARC and are lagging the SIM", they are misinformed
Chantal Harvey: wow listen to that, folks
Kayden Oconnell: Yep, the ARC police will tell you otherwise
Chantal Harvey: avatar rendering costs, are not causing lag
Graycon Sonata: omg
Miro Collas: similarly, if someone says that you're wearing too many prims and are lagging the sim, they are misinformed
Chantal Harvey: are u sure about that, Miro, and what arguments can we use
Miro Collas: I am quite sure
Miro Collas: however...
Miro Collas: if you are wearing too many scripts, then yes, you are lagging the sim
Miro Collas: people often wear a ton of scripts without realizing it - and those DO lag a region
Miles Eleventhauer: i've shot video moving next to a heavly scripted av and you can see the frame rate going down in the video
Kayden Oconnell: Q So, if you're at a region with terrible lag, and many avs -- the main lag is on YOUR computer? trying to rez everything?
Miro Collas: but here it is important to distinguish between client-side and server-side lag
Nave Fall: Q: How do we measure how many scripts we have on us?
Miro Collas: Kayden: it is both...
Ok, let me explain in brief what a SIM does... (and this will therefore be incomplete)...
Miro Collas: among other things, a SIM keeps track of where everyone is... as well as running scripts that are on the SIM, delivering textures to you, and so on.
These things are prioritized. Keeping track of avatars has highest priority
So when a SIM is full of people, the SIM is going to spend most if the time, tracking people
When it has done that, it will then deal with scripts and then it will deliver textures
Miro Collas: so... if you go to hair fair for example.... ;-) you'll be familiar with it being gray for a LONG time... because the SIM is too busy dealing with all the people
Chantal Harvey: Q is there a way to improve this.... at all
Miro Collas: but of course you can cut back some by removing as many worn scripts as possible before you go
If you are holding the event, then keep scripts to a minimum
Miro Collas: also, a neat trick: provide seating
Chantal Harvey: oh?
Miles Eleventhauer: people sitting relieves a laggy sim?
Kayden Oconnell: one script for all the seats?
Graycon Sonata: who knew
Miro Collas: backing up... if you're sitting, from the point of view of the server, you become linked to the object you're sitting on - therefore, the SIM no longer needs to track your movements
Kayden Oconnell: ohhh, ok
Miro Collas: you also become phantom.
Bryn Oh: thats interesting
Miro Collas: meaning you can go through walls
Miles Eleventhauer: do that would include dance pose balls at a club
Miro Collas: yes
Nave Fall sits right down.........

Chantal Harvey: how can you see these scripts?
Miro Collas: some viewers, like Phoenix, have a built-in way of counting scripts on avatars
Miro Collas: right-click your avatar, and select S.Count from the menu
Counting scripts. Please wait.
Counted scripts from 13 attachments on Chantal Harvey: 42
Miro Collas: that show how many scripts you're wearing - except for HUDs
Miro Collas: 42 is a very good script count - nice and low
Ideally, you want to keep your script count under 100

Kayden Oconnell: aos?
Miro Collas: Aos no.
Kayden Oconnell: thanks, Miro -- never had it explained like that before

Bryn Oh: so miro i have just begun to get jerky filming where i didnt before. If i wanted to get it smooth again for my spacenav what are some things to do... for example lowering screen resolution etc?
Miro Collas: let me address another myth.
Miro Collas: Bryn: first I'd shut down any other apps that you do not need, like browers, etc
Miro Collas: that way your computer has less to do
Chantal Harvey: yea i find skype and youtube lower my performance
Apollo Manga: Firefox with multple windows can really slow down performance too
Bryn Oh: ok
Bryn Oh: i get a spike every 5 seconds or so and not sure what it is
Miro Collas: then I think much will depend on where you are in SL. If a place is graphics-intense, your frame rate will be lower
Miro Collas: also, just the sky takes a lot of effort to be drawn
Bryn Oh: oh but i love the sky
Miro Collas: basically: adapt to the location and situation
Bryn Oh: sigh
Chantal Harvey: but switch off the clouds in (advanced) rendering helps
Bryn Oh: ok
Miro Collas: example: do you need water reflerctions? If not, turn them off
Bryn Oh: and minimal draw distance?

Kit Guardian: So sky boxes are not necessarily less laggy?
Miro Collas: No Kit not necessarily. Again, it depends on what you can see
Penumbra Carter: sky boxes, if open to the air will get sky flicker, I found
Miro Collas: the more you have on your screen, the more work yoru computer is doing... ergo, the more client lag
Miro Collas: and a specific case of course is particles
Penumbra Carter: especially if they are above 300 m
Miro Collas: particles are like ARC: they are totally client side, and do NOT lag a region

Chantal Harvey: what is post process quality, there is a slider for that?
Miro Collas: Chantal: I think that's "empty" - meaning there's a slider but no code behind it. ;-)

Miro Collas: what questions did I miss?
Kayden Oconnell: the lottery numbers for the next drawing?
Miro Collas: LOL!

Penumbra Carter: do you then lower your fraps to match the area?
Does changing the fraps to match the region help, sometimes it does, but then I was told not to match it to close to go up? does that make sense?
Miro Collas: you're presuming i know what frpas is. :-
Bryn Oh: how do you change fraps to do that pen?
Penumbra Carter: I change the fraps in my frap settings to match the fraps I see being shown on the sim Bryn let me tell you specifically, one sec
Bryn Oh: ok thanks.. i have not tried that
Chantal Harvey: yea bryn that is hugely important
Bryn Oh: oh good
Penumbra Carter: in the movie tab of fraps:)
Chantal Harvey: set it to reality (the actual framerate of your location), or fraps will double frames to match what you have told it to do...and thus create jerkly images.
If you set your fraps FPS at 30, while your actual framerate is only 15 when recording, makes fraps double all the images you shoot till it is 30fps….and that, is jerky film.
Penumbra Carter: but the sim can be jumpy, so do you go up from what you think is the highest fraps of the sim?
Chantal Harvey: I would suggest go as close as you can, and try to stay a bit under.

NicoleX Moonwall: how best to shoot in dark place with out a flash light?
Miro Collas: play with the sky settings to increase ambient light
Miro Collas: in there, go to Lighting and you'll see Ambient - you can raise the intensity to make the scene brighter
Miro Collas: assuming you're on a V1.x viewer, go to World -> Environment -> Sky settings.
Chantal Harvey: Q is there a setting that creates lag??? or less lag???
Miro Collas: you get a window where you can select preset skies
Chantal Harvey: are the presets less laggy?
Miro Collas: sky presets? not especially more or less... no. Ones with more clouds might be a tiny bit more laggy
Chantal Harvey: so resume... what is your ultimate tip to reduce lag....
Miro Collas: When it comes to lag, overall, it is important to understand the difference between the various forms. From there, you can understand how to deal with them.
Miro Collas: If you're at a public place, busy, then reduce draw distance, or de-render stuff and people. ;-)

NicoleX Moonwall: is it true the higher you go up the less lag?
Miro Collas: Nicole: not that I know of - except that there tends to be less stuff high up, so less to draw

Chantal Harvey: lots of movement will cause lag too? animations?
Miro Collas: scripts run on the server - which affects the entire region, regardless of height
Penumbra Carter: scripts = animation?
Miro Collas: movement will cause server lag *if* the avatars are not sitting
Miro Collas: animations, interesting, are played client side

Penumbra Carter: we will have alot of seated machinimas:)

Chantal Harvey: kk - so, scripts are the worst regarding lag monsters?
Miro Collas: naturally if you need movement then you must have it. You can try to compensate elsewhere, like by cutting back on scripts

Kit Guardian: Does it matter what the Machinima person is wearing? or just the actors?
Miro Collas: Kit: script-wise it matters yes
Kit Guardian: like shouldmwe not wear any AOS or Huds when filming?
Chantal Harvey: avatar rendering doesnt matter, but scripts running does, i think
Miro Collas: AOs are not so bad actually. The worst offenders are resize scripts in hair and Shoes
Penumbra Carter: scripts = animation?
Miro Collas: movement will cause server lag *if* the avatars are not sitting
Animations, interesting, are played client side

Kit Guardian: Does it matter what the Michinima person is wearing? or just the actors?
Miro Collas: Kit: script-wise it matters yes
Kit Guardian: like shouldmwe not wear any AOS or Huds when filming?
Chantal Harvey: avatar rendering doesnt matter, but scripts running does, i think
Miro Collas: AOs are not so bad actually. The worst offenders are resize scripts in hair and Shoes
Chantal Harvey: Miro, this is an eye opener, thank you very much.



Picture made by Kit Guardian

SECOND LIFE “NATIONAL ANTHEM” CONTEST

GRAMMY-AWARD WINNING SONGWRITERS SPONSOR SECOND LIFE “NATIONAL ANTHEM” CONTEST





http://slanthem.com/


DECEMBER 1, 2010 - After hearing Philip Rosedale declare that, with Second Life, “I’m not building a game; I’m building a country,” Grammy Award-winning songwriter Richard Gilbert [Second Life name: Griffith Parx ]was inspired to create a contest to compose a “national anthem” for the popular virtual platform. To help make the project a reality Gilbert enlisted the aid of his songwriting partner, and fellow Grammy Award-winner, Doug Cotler [Second Life name: Gambe Citron].

Cotler and Gilbert comprised the songwriting team that composed “Manhunt,” which was featured in the movie “Flashdance,” earning the duo a Grammy in 1984. Cotler, who wrote “The Golem” which was performed by the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra, performs more than 100 concerts a year. He tours and performs in a full range of music venues, and has appeared with such recognizable artists such as John Denver, Jerry Jeff Walker and Mason Williams.

Gilbert, who co-wrote “Manhunt” with Cotler while on sabbatical from his career in academia, is a professor of psychology and head of the P.R.O.S.E. Project (Psychological Research on Synthetic Environments) at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Bringing his work at the university into Second Life in 2008, Gilbert has been published for his works on personality, identity, and relationships developed in virtual platforms.

Over the last several years, Gilbert has been instrumental in bringing other LMU departments into Second Life. Four university departments now form what is known as LMVU, or Loyola Marymount Virtual University, within Second Life. Utilizing resources at their personal disposal, Gilbert and Cotler will award prizes for the contest that include Linden “cash” ranging from L$50,000 to L$10,000. More importantly, the Grand Prize winning song will be recorded at a studio in Los Angeles and posted on iTunes. The winning song will also be performed at a live Second Life event on July 4, 2011, with a full HD machinima production being created and posted on YouTube.com.

The only rule for the contest is that entries for consideration must use the fully copyrighted lyrics created by Gilbert, which are posted on the contest website. A panel of judges will select 10 finalists and public voting through the contest website will determine the Grand Prize, Second and Third Place winners.

Gilbert and Cotler are the primary sponsors of the contest. Co-sponsors are Pulse Point Marketing, LLC, Mamachinima, Pixel Labs and Perpetual Studios, while all companies and venues that conduct business within Second Life and participate are also considered co-sponsors through their efforts. Linden Lab was fully informed about the contest before it began and offered its consent and encouragement to initiate the project. While Linden Lab opted not to officially participate in the contest at the time of inception, Gilbert is hopeful that attention to the project will garner formal interest over time.

Questions may be directed to Griffith Parx in-world or via e-mail at griffithparx@gmail.com

And, of course, the performance machinima of the winner will be made by me.

MachinimaMondays feat. LAG !!! in Second Life.

We jokingly tell each other that lag = love, but any serious machinimatographer knows that lag is a killer. We all have seen the jerky machinima's, and most of us have encountered this low framerate while filming. It ruines any chance on producing a good machinima.



Next week, the 7pm (PAC/SL time) MachinimaMondays meeting will be about lag, how it is caused, what we can do to beat it and get a reasonable framerate to improve our filming. I, for one, wont film if I cannot at least get a minimum of 25 frames per second.
But what to do when you are asked to film a busy event in Second Life, is there a way to improve your fps? Of course we all know about changing our settings, bringing down your draw distance, particle count, for example. Resizing your window helps too - but what if you still want to use that full monitorsize and work in HD...? Relog and reboot?
Miro Collas has agreed to come and share his knowledge with us on this subject - so grab your chance and come over to next weeks meeting.
The meeting will be in text. For those that cannot attend, there will be a follow up blog with transscript of this meeting.

To attend in Second Life, use this SLurl.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/RastaOpen4/79/87/41
To get notices for our weekly machinima meetings, join the inworld group called: MachinimaMondays.

Two blogs by Gwyneth Llewelyn that are recommended if you want to learn about lag:

http://analutetia.com/2009/06/22/anatomy-of-lag/
http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2008/02/16/lag-myths-dispelled/

The Flush Portal - a machinima sitcom

Tonight we had the first official meeting, and the kickoff of the Flush Portal.




The Flush Portal is a brand new machinima sitcom, created for mainstream television in the USA. Director is Pamala Clift, and I will be doing the filming and editing - and as the teammembers are signed up, I will be telling you about them on this blog. Maybe you recognise some on these pics?






The format is written, a script is being created, a website has been started, and a teaser has been made. Composer and sound designers are working, and the actors are getting very excited.

Shooting will start in January 2011!




Once upon a time in a pixelated existence...
observable thru the connectivity of the internet, the Roadside Philosopher was sitting...contemplating the universe in her underwater Think Tank....when a cat came in.

Through out all of space time... universes have spun into existence...and popped out.
With the creation of the internet, the beginnings of a new universe has become observable.
The weaving of the fingers of the black hole of this new dimension is pulling from other universes on a quark level the components for the next... (coughing fit, sputters and then gasps)... ah hell.. Just FLUSH IT!

Welcome to The FLUSH Portal
The infant dimension of virtual reality