Pineapple studios adopts Opensimulator and OSGrid as a new vehicle for experimenting with machinima. We ask them what Opensim means to them & what benefits it could bring other machinimators
In an unexpected dramatic twist, open source virtual worlds come
from nowhere to unleash the creativity of this small machinima
operation. Well known in Second Life®
machinima circles, Pineapple Studios have decided to free
themselves from restrictions imposed by commercial grids and adopt
Opensimulator as their filmmaking platform.
Even though Opensim still lacks some of functionality that its
ancestor has, the removal of creative barriers such as prim
restrictions and space is a compelling reason to adopt - will other
machinimators follow suit?
After a few false starts getting their regions running (and
we've all been there, right?) the team decided to abandon the
management of their own region in favour of a hosted option. This
has many benefits for creative types, the main one being that they
can focus on being creative rather than endlessly messing around
maintaining the technology side - leaving that aspect to somebody
who a) knows what they are doing and b) enjoys doing it.
They selected the excellent hosted service provided by James
Beejay of the slightly misleadingly named SL-Estates.
James has been providing these services for some time and is active
on the forums and a contributor to various open source projects.
Pineapple have been very impressed with the level of service and
commitment thus far. Of course SL-Estates is not the only hosted
service provider out there, and we will be covering service
providers in detail in a future article.
We decided to speak to Kate Fosk one of the founders of
Pineapple:
1. How did you find out about OSGrid and the
Opensimulator Projects?
My partner Mike and I have been searching around for potential
machinima movie environments for the last two years. We weren't
satisfied with using games to make movies, as the game companies
give limited rights to machinimators. Mike found the realXtend
project when it launched, but we found that in the first stages we
didn't have the technical knowledge, or time, to make our sims work
properly. Originally we had been renting a corner of an island in
Second Life. But we continually butt up against not enough land and
not enough prims to build with. Like in the live film industry, we
have been throwing money at the problem. But unfortunately in
Second Life the money never goes far enough. What we needed was
more land and room to build
2. How do you think that access to near unlimited
resources such as prims and free texture uploads will be a creative
boost to your projects?
I think the great thing is that we don't know yet. We do know we
were always hitting the prim limit on our SL property, and that 10L
upload charge sure was a barrier to free experimentation. Our
greatest incentive for our current project was to find an easier
way to create large desert landscape sets, without using
miniatures, or lots of compositing (greenscreen work).
3. There's been alot of talk about Machimina being used
to storyboard and generate funding for RL movie projects - how
realistic is this?
Professional pre-vis companies have used machinima as part of
their tool kit for years. However, for an individual film maker
wishing to make live film, machinima is maybe not that practical
for pre-vis work. It takes as long to make a polished Mach film as
it does to organise a live shoot, and whilst it is reasonably to
easy to create basic scenes, it takes much more time , effort and
skill to re-create scenes which might be quite straightforward
using live actors. With the advent of cheaper, high quality
digital cameras I think the relative cost levels are less of a
factor also. On the other hand, some storylines are much easier to
make using machinima tools, and could only be recreated using
pre-credit crunch Hollywood budgets.Most machinimators are making
their films as an end product in themselves, not as a route into
live film.
4. What stuff have you got in the pipeline for
Pineapple?
We are working on a story based in the Suspicion
Mountains of Arizona (see our Vlog for
more detail) The working title is 'Lust For Gold', and like
many of our films is something of a surreal drama with comedic
elements. The main thrust of the storyline is a treasure hunt for
the Lost Dutchman's gold, an almost mythic lost hoard of gold which
has captured the imagination of ten of thousands of real life
treasure hunters.
5. You chose the hosted region option rather than the
DIY approach can you explain a bit more about your
reasioning
We realised we wanted to spend more time film making, rather
than learning about database management, and dealing with servers.
Our manager is extremely helpful and responsive.
6. Is there still a place for machimina projects in
Second Life itself or do you envisage other producers moving onto
alternative platforms?
Second life is currently unparalleled in the availability of
tools and quality custom content, and it is easy for film
makers to find each other and collaborate. We love
the ease of building, and the space in our opensim, but we
miss SL's lip synching ability and certain tools such as
vehicle scripts.
However, I do know that many of our friends are watching with
interest to see what we can do with our new environment.
The greatest incentive for many would be the quality of
work that can potentially be produced, teamed with the lower cost
of operating. However, film makers (and others)
often follow content producers, and the opengrid market is
still in a stage of early development. I believe once this takes
off, then the film community will grow much more rapidly.
Conclusion
One of the great things about the open source environment is
it's propensity to change. After the recent announcement that voice
can now be enabled in opensims, it is only a matter of time before
somebody decides to add functionality like lip-synch. Scripting
improvements are coming along all the time
Opensim is a great environment for machinimators because the
optential to experiemnt and create are endless - complete control
over their 3D working environment must surely be a dream come true
for frustrated artists.
About Pineapple
Pineapple Pictures is a co-founded by Michael R. Joyce and Kate
Fosk. Kate is an independent film maker working in the North-East
of England. Mike worked in various positions in the Hollywood film
industry for over thirty years. Mike became interested in making
animation once he left the live film industry due to disability.
Together they make Machinima films, which are animated movies made
using the same technology that drives video games. Living half a
planet apart, they use webcams, virtual reality and conventional
internet resources to communicate and work with each other.
Pineapple have started a group
for people interested in opensim-based machinima and Lowe Runo has
kindly hosted a group on his Machinimator's Guild site, for
Second Life filmmakers who are also interested in opensim projects
join that here.
You can also visit the Pinapple Blog here.
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