At least it's legal in Amsterdam!

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:50:08 -0500

One last thing remains. Theft of a machinimators intellectual property or even material! While not the worst thing that can happen to anyone, it's still annoying as hell.

What I'm talking about is people taking other peoples machinima or characters and use them for their own use. There were things like people taking scenes from Illegal Danish and re-using it for their own machinima. Of course people instantly notice that and flame the idiot like crazy. I almost feel petty for him. Almost. There were even some extreme occasions where a whole machinima has been stolen and published as someones else work. Even I had this happen to me with Darkness II and I'm far from being famous or great!

So remember, no matter how small the "borrowing" is or for what purpose it's used, always ask the original author. The least you can get from it is an official endorsement from the owner. And it's always fun to watch cross-promotion, cameos or even parodies on other machinima.

And next week (hopefully): Money and machinima. Two words that you don't see together that ofter.

PencilCraft, Episode 2; Forgetting something

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:55:45 -0500

Erunno's Machinima Gaga (blog update)

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:09:59 -0500

I like photoshoping. I fact, I like it so much that I am now offering my services to you. Everything regarding machinima; posters, textures, still models, etc., I will do for free. Send a mail to erunnon@gmail.com or contact me in any other way for further details.

As a reference, my DevianArt page (which I'm bringing up to date veeeery slowly).

Hand in Hand into a Brighter Future

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:39:12 -0500

... (or roughly translated into English; "Grain after grain, bread, stone on stone, a palace"). Everyone starts of small. I've seen a lot of people who started small and weren't accepted by the community but now they're big and win contests. This stuff still happens and that is why we should support new comers as well as the community as a whole. Stop thinking for your own ass and help. In the end, you were one of them a few years back.

Killing your own Creation

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:23:11 -0500

Cutting content. Not as dramatic as canceling the whole thing but its still a difficult task. Especially when you put in some serious time into editing to then realize that the whole concept of story development is not good enough.

This happened to me just recently. I got into quite a dilemma since I suddenly got 12 minutes of the White Drake done and had it stretched out way too much. Now I can either bore the viewers to death or make a hard decision and cut 70% of the stuff I did in the last few months to keep the movie in a enjoyable format.

I'd guess that many people have the same problem from time to time but to make something great you sometimes have to remove something that's very dear to you. So called pet projects sound cool and great but in the end almost all of them end with comments like "Wtf was that?". Unless you have a big fan-base of stalkers.

For the end, remember how many awesome projects have been canceled or delayed in the past few years. While they sounded great there's a big possibility that the longer it takes a project to be finished that more disappointed you might get from the end result (again, Escape from Orgrimmar detonated a tidal wave of whinning machinima viewers).

Pee Ess: Since I forgot an article last week, you can expect an extra one the following week!

PencilCraft... You're Screwed

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 15:01:20 -0500

Machinima, movies, games, geek stuff in general, everything cowered by the strange duo known as Erunno and Illinor. There's no really date on when updates will come... but don't expect them too often. At least, until I don't find a more faster and enjoyable process of making these.

Contests, the Force for Improvement

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:26:05 -0500

We all know that Blizzard is holding its IPs with sharp, long claws and won't let them go just like that. If ever. So I guess that during the years, Blizzard started to refuse approving contests by other companies, unless the company is huge, has loads of money or is in partnership with Blizzard... Hellooouuuu, Alienware! I've even heard and seen cases where Blizzard didn't approve contests and events that would bring no real money or income to the organizers at all. But that's for some other day perhaps. When I get really pissed off or am about to die.

Back to contests. While machinima is slowly reaching its full potential (where can we go from Hybrid-machinima? Live action-something-machinima?), contests still are important to the community. Some people do machinima only for contests. Did you see the slow downfall of quality machinima recently? The lack of interesting contests surely is related to this in a way.

Maybe the lack of "events" is also related to the abysmal quality that Wrath of the Lich King brought to WoW. Maybe Cataclysm will bring back old and new players, make them stay longer and make Warcraft more attractive for contests and such. Only time will tell.

Erunno's Thoughts; Christmas Eve Edition

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:38:51 -0500

Yeah, I'm blogging on the 24th. I'm horrible. Thought for the past three hours or so I've been having an epic fight with the Christmas decoration. First, the Christmas tree almost fell on me due to a weak table (why we insist on putting a tree on a table, I don't know...), then I got caught up in Christmas lights, twice (outdoor and tree lights) and ended the battle with re-wiring the whole living room... so much wires... Seems like a server farm blew up in there.

Where was I? Oh right, Christmas.

If you're still reading this, then its time to turn your damn PC off. Its Christmas Eve! Decorate the Christmas tree, grab a table-top game or, if you're one of those techy families, insert a Wii party game or Rock out in Rock Band with your family. Basically, ignore your gaming/machinima personality for an evening and go be with your loved ones.

So, Merry Christmas and have some great holidays! Now if you'd excuse me, I have to kick my brothers behind in Knights of Cydonia on expert.

Oh yeah, almost forgot... The picture up there. I might redo an ancient comedy machinima series of mine which was made only for the Slovenian audience long ago, called Mug of Ale.

PS: Don't forget about the cookies and milk for that fat guy in red... Comercial Claus or... something. Santa Claus, that's him!

Twelve Days of Machinima

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:00:57 -0500

And what did I do instead of the song, you might ask? Well... I did do something. I've submitted a short to the Model Viewer X-mas contest (I have a strange feeling that I screwed something up and end up disqualified), a short Christmas comedy to be more exact. Yep, that's why Hell froze over yesterday.

If anyone is crazy enough to try and record this and then send it to me, I'll make sure that it will get turned into a machinima before the Christmas of 2010... Hey, I never said I'd do things fast.

12 Days of Machinina

On the first day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
A whining Lore junkie,

On the second day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the third day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the fourth day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Four lousy contests,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the fifth day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Five Mary Sues,
Four lousy contests,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the sixth day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Six Blood Elf rappers,
Five Mary Sues,
Four lousy contests,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the seventh day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Seven flaming trolls,
Six Blood Elf rappers,
Five Mary Sues,
Four lousy contests,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the eight day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Eight fanboys stalking,
Seven flaming trolls,
Six Blood Elf rappers,
Five Mary Sues,
Four lousy contests,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the ninth day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Nine hour rendering,
Eight fanboys stalking,
Seven flaming trolls,
Six Blood Elf rappers,
Five Mary Sues,
Four lousy contests,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the tenth day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Ten thousand views,
Nine hour rendering,
Eight fanboys stalking,
Seven flaming trolls,
Six Blood Elf rappers,
Five Mary Sues,
Four lousy contests,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Eleven new Likes,
Ten thousand views,
Nine hour rendering,
Eight fanboys stalking,
Seven flaming trolls,
Six Blood Elf rappers,
Five Mary Sues,
Four lousy contests,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, machinima gave to me,
Twelve wasted months,
Eleven new Likes,
Ten thousand viewers,
Nine hour rendering,
Eight fanboys stalking,
Seven flaming trolls,
Six Blood Elf rappers,
Five Mary Sues,
Four lousy contests,
Three hyped up movies,
Two Night Elf critics,
And a whining Lore junkie.

The Future Machinima is not Machinima

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 10:20:19 -0500

Machinima is an interesting stepping stone to various "career" possibilities. Today people might look strange at us when we say we do machinima. But in a few years that knowledge might be very useful for something bigger and more profitable.

Christmas Contests exsist!

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:04:20 -0500
For all of you crying about the lack of Christmas Contests this year, theres some happy news for you. The people over at WoWmodelviewer.org are hosting a Christmas machinima contest. The rules are pretty much classic, heres a quote from their site:

So, what are you waiting for? Grap your fraps, pop up WoW Model Viewer and let the Holiday spirit give you some inspiration! I know I will try to join the fun!

For more information regarding the WoW Model Viewer machinima contest, visit WoWmodelviewer.org or contact the lovely ZimTower at: zimtower@gmail.com!

Happy-happy, Joy-joy Month!

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:29:50 -0500
December... Cold weather, snow, light pollution and the last month of the current year. But December has some other quite "unique" things that most of the world doesn't know at all. Because in December, magic happens. A fat guy in red and with a beard squeezes himself trough chimneys and hides things warped in paper under plants. Prefferably a Fir or Pine. People are not aware of this phenomenom at all and no company dares to take this holy event and turn it into a marketing stunt to sell more useless stuff to the mass...

Putting away my wannabe sarcasm, its December! I love this month and all its charms. Like freezing my ass off in public transportation which does not grasp the purpose of heating. Another awesome thing about this month is the thousands of Christmas oriented shows, movies and machinima we get delivered each year. Oh wait, I getting sarcastic again, aren't I?

The Twelve Days of Blogging

I'm sorry, okay? Actually, I wonder if anyone even noticed that I didn't post any new entry for the past month or so. But do not fear, the three readers that actually read this! I'll try being more active in December. I actually have some topics up my sleeve that I wanted to write quite some time ago. And, its December! The month where everything gets a "Best of the year" list and/or article. And since blog journalism is so professional, respected and easy to do (whats up with me and all this sarcasm today...) I'll join the masses and perhaps release a "Best of 2009 in machinma". Or I'll leave that to Whowho because my "reviewing skills" might get me some enemies.

Another quick thing regarding this blog; a comic. To be more specific, you people might remember the two infamous comics I've posted some time ago... well, I'm thinking of maybe making something more broad. Instead of a machinima only comic, I'd perhaps go more towards geekness in general? And instead of photoshoping I might actually draw something, huh? Theres a ton of comics on the internet, most of them being pretty much the same thing; repetitive and kind of wierd or in a bad quality. So, comment about this. Should I even try? Would you read it?

. This brings me to the question of the day; Why again do we need this?

To be honest, I'm not really that much into the holiday movies. I can get into the Christmas mood just with some Cinamon tea and "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" by Bing Crosby. But people keep on releasing this kind of stuff like theres no tommorow. And then theres the Christmas contests. Why the hell should people waste their holiday time to do a machinima about the holiday they're missing out? Shouldn't we rather spend the free time to be with the family and friends instead of pasting short films together?

However on the other side I understand the dedication put into such work. The machinima communities live on the internet. And whats better that the inter-tubes to bring a message trough... A message of peace, love and sharing. Theres no better gift than giving someone a reason to smile or laugh. Except a new Xbox game perhaps... Or loads of candy. And to be one of the "cool machinima kids", I'll try something this year. I'll try to make a Christmas machinima. A comedy Christmas machinima, to be more specific... Yeah, I know. Lord protect us.

An Undiscovered Genre?

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:01:13 -0400
No pictures and links until the Gameriot blog system is fixed!

There is a lot of talk about drama, action, music and comedy machinima. Then there are some minor genres like experimental, hybrid and silent machinima and mixed genres. But even after several years of WoW machinima there still seems like no one went with the idea I'm about to present. Sounds crazy, looks crazy and it is crazy but people watch it anyway!

Sorry for last weeks missing article but I rather skip a week than keep on throwing out horrible unthought rants that have no meaning or "message" at all.

Okay, so what has big eyes, gets you seizures and carries a 30ft long swords? Anime! Yes, I'm crazy. But stop for a moment and remove all that is wrong with Anime. Wierd cosplayers, Naruto (sorry, but I want you to die in hell), the horible dubs and cheap "repeat scenes". Well, the last thing is kinda a part of machinima.

PS: I'm not all-knowing when it comes to anime but I enjoy a good series from time to time.

So, why is there no such thing? There kinda is... AFK players use some of the "anime tricks" in their machinima. But there hasn't been any machinima that copied anime and not just took it as an inspiration. We see the occasional sweat tear or an "angry" vein on a characters head but I still wait for someone to use the classic anime expressions (most of them also used in smileys... ^ ^, >_< , -__-, °_°, :3, etc.) on the characters faces instead of leaving the generic face on.

As you might have guessed the most viable genre merge would be comedy and anime since the classic anime "events" are mostly comedic. Everything more serious would actually look like a completely normal machinima.

But why should we actually do it? To be honest, why not? We already every genre or style of filming turned into machinima version, so why not butcher cartoons too?

A Plethora of... Nothing

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:14:10 -0400

Some of you might have read it, Whowho is making a pause in blogging. I knew this would happen since he seemed like he was on speed when talking about articles. But now with Whowho gone we have no one to write machinima reviews with a spoon of grammar errors... I hope Farinar can cover that, or I will be forced to write that... And I'm a bastad when it comes to reviewing other peoples stuff. Anyway, hope you get back soon Whowho.

Statistics! That's a fun thing (and a subject I have to learn. Woooo... *sigh*). This blog is connected to Google Analytics and its really fun to watch stuff like where my readers come from. This way I know that I can't make any Croatia jokes and that I have Ozzies reading my blog (Ozzy, ozzy, ozzy! Oy, oy, oy!). And France is slacking. Guess I can compensate the Croatian jokes with jokes about French then.

Also, if you for some reason like this rants, feel free to subsrcibe or maybe even donate a few cents for encouragement via. Paypal to verya_atan@msn.com. Sounds like a cheap way to get money, and it is. But I'd like to see if blogging (and machinimating) can actually help me fund my study to some extend. Or I'll be forced to alphabetically arrange papers for a company. And this means less Erunno for the internetz.

There is no unmute button!

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:54:44 -0400

Back to hearing impairment. The biggest issue currently is the lack of subtitles. But this is one of the easiest things that we could master.

Not only that we can make machinima more attractive to deaf people, we can also create subtitles for the non-English audience with ease. Sites like WarcraftMovies, Machinima.com or perhaps even Myndflame could add a subtitle archive open to contributions and additions like real movies have. People could easily access or add subtitles for various languages (why only have English subtitles if fans would be eager to add Danish, German, Russian, Chinese... ). Then a viewer would just need to download the subtitles he wishes to have and open it together with the movie in RealPlayer or VLC Player. Perhaps the streaming sites could even add youtubes annotation system, but to use it for subtitles.

Yes, theres not a lot of talk about such disabilities in this community... which doesn't mean they do not exsist.

Thanks to Bigglesworth Production, JustMK, Beegless, Peter and Miky for helping me with the article!

Illinor: The White Drake preview

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:15:35 -0400
*sigh*

I was thinking about doing this for a long time but I felt like it's a bad idea since personally I hate the "look at my awesome project" from some wannabes (not pointed at anyone of you) showing the worst pictures and ideas in a douchebagish way.

So lets just get over with it...

Lot's of pictures after the break.

Of course there are issues that come with such an idea. The obvious ones like Will it look good? and Will animations actually blend in with the "official" emotes? I'll do all I can to make it as seemingless as possible. If I fail, I can still give a nudge to X-Cross, Soul, Pinkhair or any other machinimator. Since everyone and his mother did this!

However a way more bigger issue is actually the character himself. Will he end up as a Mary Sue character? He has all the attributes that Mary Sues have; he is unique in the look, powers and stuff he does...

I really hope not. I created Illinor around the idea that his uniqueness is also his weakness, curse. He never lived a normal dragons life, he was raised to kill by the Dragonflights, he is being rejected by the other dragons because of his colour... He is (literally) a mutation. A freak. On the outside he is a cold killer who has the ability to transform into a dragonoid (besides a mortal disguise and his true drake form) but in the inside he is a crushed soul. He seeks his own identity, he just wants to be... loved.

Release date: Definitely not in 2009. 2010 is highly possible (unless I cancel the project)

Monotonous Entertainment?

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 05:18:09 -0400

Machinima in general is described as "A method of delivering fast and simple entertainment to a specific audience, mostly people playing the same game or sharing the same interests". So in general monotomy is expected at the very start. We do not waste millions of dollars to get the message trough. All it needs is a "talking" character head and some voice acting and streaming it on youtube. I mean, if things like 300 remix have such a huge fanatic audience, why can't talking heads?

What I would like to point out is the word speed. Machinima is (in general) seen as a fast method of making entertainment. It is also speed that is guility for some of the monotomy. The faster something you can make, the easier it is, the more people do it and more you have to entertain yourself. Comparing WoW machinima with another game like Call of Duty or Halo makes us look the least monotonous and slowest machinima community.

We will always stay monotonous in a way, since it is in the nature of machinima. But damn, we're trying not to be!

#Machinima: Niche Memes

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:58:05 -0400
Oh well, #Machinima at Quakenet has some funny moments but it seemed like I missed the most entertaining stuff. And I wasn't really able to log on up there for the past week or so.

Blame the internet for the idea.

I'm not dead yet!

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:24:27 -0400

Just coughing blood here. No worries.
Or perhaps I am? Perhaps I'm writing this from the Ethernal plane? Anyway... Yes, there was no rant yesterday. I also had to pass the "Talk like a Pirate Day" saturday (damn it. Need to wait a year until I can make a blog in pirate gibberish and yelling at the machinima involving sea robbers) but there have been some health issues lately... Darth Vader like issues... Asthma.

I would like to apologize to everyone who needed some fast responses (seriously, I got more PM's and mails n the past five days than n the whole past month!), I will catch up with the world in the following days.

Since there was not article and I had five painful and boring days to stare at the ceeling and think (my brain has more potential that I thought) I'll let you people know what my bloging plans are for the last days in September and October;

There will be a delayed Sunday rant and perhaps two new #machinima comics, since you people seem to like more than my rantings. Bastards. I'm also planning on doing some more in-depth ranting regarding Money in machinima, Machinima and people with disabilities (excuse me if I'm being "politically incorrect"), Why & how are there grouped machinima projects, Cameos in machinima and more... Possibly recycled stuff from my old blog since I have no freakin' idea what I've ranted already.

Oh, and expect some new news regarding the White Drake. I actually have something interesting to show this time and not just words.

Also, for the end. Look on your upper right and there you'll see a green button. It says Subscribe To This Blog. Do what the button tells you. You won't regret it if you find my rants digestible.

Awarding Achievements and Great Works of Art

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:39:30 -0400

Instead of motivating people sedning entries, the "academy" would pick them theirself and notify the author and asking for permission to add it to the poll. There would be the classic categories; Drama, Comedy, Action but apart from that there would also be some more "technical" categories like Best Picture, Best Voice Acting, Best Original Score, Best Storyline and perhaps some small "in between" mocking categories like Most Overhyped Movie or Best costume/equipment. Like your ordinary Academy Awards.

We are an online community, so why not making an online event? Yes, real-life based festivals are more fun and thrilling but they also cost a lot of money for both the organizer and the visitor.
Think of a semi-live event running trough a video stream. No, not a video cast showing our lovely gamer neckbeards but rather a puppet show of sorts. A show host or two leading the show trough their virtual avatars (like in my instance, a Night Elf... Mohawk!). But to not make it boring as hell by just having two puppets talking crap, there would be some dynamic. Showing short sniplets of the finalists, perhaps playing a short "thank you" speech of the winner after recieving the prize. In audio only or perhaps as a short machinima if the author is up for it. The realization sounds difficult but there is software to ease this process. Or we can just release the results as a machinima-ish thing. Theres room for innovation and ideas, and I think we should use it.

The last but not least thing on the list, the prizes. Isn't the acknowledgement that you did something good enough? Yes, there wouldn't really be any "real" prizes and thats the point. The goal would not be sending bronze statues to but to highlight the bright sides of the community.

But at the end, this is just ranting. I would love it if our community would be able to organize something like that though.

Rate the article writing monkeys!

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:04:04 -0400
I'll be short... It's Saturday and I'd rather be sleeping, going to town or geek out with some friends over the intertubes or on LAN. But no, today is one of those crappy Saturdays. With sunshine, birds and me having no motivation to do anything. Except

We're all in the same boat, buddy

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:52:22 -0400
Communities. In sociology a group of people living in a common location. The internet changed the meaning to a group of people sharing the same interests. We belong to the sub comminuty of machinima, the WoW machinima community. But how much of a community do we actually are?

Ah yes, delicious drama. Always a good source for inspiration. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about go read up a recent article of Whowho's Machinima Gaga.

Backing up from the flame wars, let's talk about ourselfs a bit. No, not about our puberty experiences but how we work as a community as a whole... And if it actually works.

(The following rant is completely from my own point of view, my interaction and following of the community for the past four years. And kind of copies a very popular book. With god and stuff... And imba shamans)

At the beggining there was the great dark. Then some people came up with an idea to create a site where all movies related to WoW would be in one place. And Warcraftmovies was born. And it was good. For many machinimators the first place where they would show their work, their story and love to the game. People who have never seen this outlandish concept of using game footage to create stories instead of frag movies started to band together. A new community arose and, what I like to call, the Bronze Age of Machinima began.

People shared ideas, excanged techniques, taught others in the art of video editing. Everything seemed to work with each other, everything looked great. But was it?

Deep in the underbelly of WoW machinima lived creatures. Evil, fiends, a plague to mans sane mind. The trolls. They dared to call themselves professionals in this new art, discussed that which was not to discuss, spreading lies... and in general just beng douchebags.

Few started to fight off this corruption, telling their brothers to resist the baits that the evil has set, to not listen to their mindless critiques and foolish attempts to make them cry and abandon the new hobby they've discovered. At the end the healthy human mind prevailed but a scar remained. People were aware of their weaknesses. They began to question the community they loved.

It is the year of 2009 and the community has expanded tenfold. But the scars remain. New people are still joining the community. But their brothers do not accept them with a warm welcome. Still fearing the past they look cautiously, mostly reject the newly arrived members with the words "Omfg, how do you dare to call yourself a machinimator? Vegas sucks! And so does your movie!"

Angered, the new members defend themself by cursing the old order of WoW machinima, calling them retards, elitist jerks (no phun intended) and noliffers. At the end, the trolls have won, and the machinima community still wears the burden of the past.

To all the Christians: I'm sorry if I offended anyone but know that I am a Christian myself.

*cough, cough* *turns off the God voice changer*

Lets bring some more structure to this failure that I call a blog article.

Is our machinima open to newcommers? To a certain degree it is. However many people still do not realize how words can hurt people. People who have potential. I remember a certain individual who at first wasn't "loved" by the machinima community. But I wanted to see more from him. I've written some constructive criticism (which 90% of todays youth doesn't seem to understand. Curse you, internet anonymity) and followed his work. And now look where he got... Johan Vagstedt (yeah sorry. South European keyboard) sweeps the floor with you retards. I never was a "friend" of Johan but I've also never spammed him with "Omg, I've scored better on the contest than you, lol!"

Some of the oldies in this community are elitist (I dare to call myself both. Even though 80% of the community doesn't know who the hell I am) but at the same time they're not god like figures (Except Soosdon, perhaps... Now stop with the "In the mountains" crap). The community has split. Into the so-called "Elitists" and/or "Machinima Gods" and the "Noones".

How did we manage to do this?

One factor was the development of new skills and the investments some people started to add to the hobby. Theres nothing wrong with it but at the same time the very love to this "entertainment" causes the community to go apart. The "passive" members of the community, the mere viewers of machinima (which are the majority in the community), see the new technological/visual additions as a must have standart for every other machinima. A newcommer mostly fails at adding this to his first projects and he gets slammed to the ground by the community that is actually only a spectator. Some people who see true potentian in movies try to encourage the person but in most cases the mass flushes away the encouragement.

Of course this phenomenom can go the the other way too. A movie with shine and no heart can sometimes be proclaimed as a Divine gift (I'm sorry but sadly Tales of the Past III also fall into the category. Overhyped and sometimes missunderstood) by the masses and dissected by the people who actually do stuff in the community apart from running their mouth (why does this sound like I'm describing myself... Damn). But let's leave the details for a futher rant.

The other factor is the meeting point of the community. There is NO real meeting point anymore. In the starts of Warcraft machinima everything seemed to be together on Warcraftmovies. Now different parts of the community reside on different sites. The professionals and people who actually have a more in-depth "relation" to machinima can be either found here on Myndfalme or Machinima.com, the viewers and newcommers can be mostly found on Warcraftmovies.com, YouTube and partially on WeGame and other smaller sites. Do you see the picture?

Internet communities are based on the ability to communicate over long distances and have no geographic obstacles. But how can a community work properly without a core, without a Rome that every road leads to?

Personally, I've been heavily affected by this missing point.

I've desprately tried to bring some sense to the community residing at WarcraftMovies alone and failed. I've seen myself as an unworthy member of the community, not allowed to join the "elite" meeting grounds like Myndflame and #machinima channel at quakenet. And who "forbid" me that? A group of faceless wannabes and douches who do not gasp the point of machinima. They've pretty much managed to control my "career" for the past four years.

It has been only recently that you have started to see me at Myndflame.com and #machinima. And now, I'm really experiencing the true community that I should have many years ago. With all the spam included.

If you, dear reader (if you read till this point, congratulations and thank you for the time) are a newcommer to WoW machinima, I beg you to not listen to the faceless mass. Join Myndflame, #machinima and other sites that contain real machinimators. Don't fall into the troll traps that so many did before you.

And subscribe to this blog. *wink, wink*

Now new info on my projects today. I will make a special post for it.

#Machinima: Don't mock the curse

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:29:34 -0400
#Machinima at Quakenet... Oh the horror. Whowho should just listen to the IRC people, shouldn't he?

If you people actually like this I might reconsider making this a weekly addition to my blog.

Higher resolution can be found here.

It's bigger than Christmas

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:48:53 -0400
One word; Cataclysm. A word that means much to some people. Hope, inovation, change, total destruction, kick-ass sweetness, Worgen yiff and Goblin prostitutes (the Lore people know what I'm talking about).

But for machinimators, that word has only one meaning...

An extended playground!

Todays article is a bit more colourful... Pictures!

Now that all the BlizzCon hype is over and the machinima contest news slowly stop pouring out (By the way, congratulations to the winners) I can go back to my ranting. Hey, timing is everything. Bloging in between "newsflashes" was never a good thing, people just skip it. Now choke on my rants while you wait for something more worth wasting your time!

Where was I? Oh right, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

For many people it is a new "time waster". A new story embeded into Azeroth, tons of new equipment, areas, challenges and a new Porsche for Michael Morhaime, Chris Metzen and co. But for us machinimators it's way more. It's a big addition to the already exsisting repertoire of models, enviroments, sound, music and official story (if you of course give a damn about WoW Lore... *cough* Soosdon *cough*).

It's like getting a box of Lego bricks for Christmas but at least five times better.

(It's the Legoclysm!)

No matter if the game mechanics change, epics get trown at casuals like snowballs or Hogger gets to become the new expansions main antagonist, we machinmators always recive a lot of useful stuff to work with. There are always good and bad sides of an expansion for us.

Pro:
+Tons of new models
+New areas and "scenes"
+Graphical improvements (besides bigger textures, we're also getting upgraded waters! What's next? Havok physics? Deformable terrain?)
+More epic music scores
+More audio effects
+More storylines and ideas for future projects

Con:
-Breaks every single piece of machinima software
-Can set some machinima projects on hold or postpone
-

Besides the mentioned pros and cons theres also one pro/con that is kind of unique for this expansion. We are going to loose the Azeroth we use to know due to Phasing.

Is this good or bad?

From a graphical stand point, we get a better looking zone, a more detailed zone. But we loose the complete visual look of a zone. I'm not talking about changes like an extra tree here a fish pond less there but changes like half of Ashenvale cut down and the Barrens getting a huge lava scar... for which I'd actually blame Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick and not Deathwing. Blizzard is trying to cower it! It's a Catagate (Watergate + Cataclysm... eh, eh, EH? Okay, horrible pun). On one side we might actually loose some areas that we could still need in a later project. But on the other side we might require a changed world. A more living world.

Some tasty pesonal updates for the end.

Heres something I like to call a dream;
(Illinor, the White Drake - bigger images on WeGame)

Some of you might have seen a small test film I called The White Drake. Some of you might also know that I've decided to make a more serious "prequel" talking about that mysterious assassin. To tell you the truth, I've also sent a short 3 minute part of the movie to BlizzCon. It didn't win, obviously, since I was trying to squeeze a, at least, 20 minutes long movie into three minutes. But I will not show you my attempt at fame and glory like everyone else did. You will have to wait a bit longer.

The main reason I've brought up this "conversation" is because of my goal. The image I've posted (and drawn... yeah, I'm not horrible only at machinima but many other things too!) is actually some kind of concept art. Which I've sent to a friend (of sorts) who will, hopefully, manage to create a WoW-ish looking 3D model of the character by meshing together several exsisting WoW models into a moprhed one. The idea is still just on paper and theres a high possibility I'll end up doing a more traditional looking assassin like you've seen in the short.
But if he manages to create a working model with bones, I'll send him a keg of beer trough the mail!

The movie will be silent as I've promissed and I will try to release it before I die of age... by the current tempo expect it somewhere in 2020... I must stop being so lazy.

Also, some of you first heard of me trough Darkness I and Darkness II. Well, I've decided to end the trilogy like it was ment to! Darkness III will go into production right after the White Drake!

Super Mega Awesome BlizzCon Edition Rant-a-thon! Not

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:07:16 -0400
BlizzCon is at our doorsteps and if you're reading this, you're quite possibly not taking part in the event. But fear not! I am here to bring you enlightenment and a cookie jar... Without cookies.

I was hungry, okay!?

Lame jokes aside,

Blog Posts from "Erunno's Thoughts"

Placeholders

The Rise to Power fiasco

Rise to Power - Results, Awesumsauce and Lulz

The Legend of Earning Money

PencilCraft, Episode 3; Where in the world is Whowho

At least it's legal in Amsterdam!

PencilCraft, Episode 2; Forgetting something

Erunno's Machinima Gaga (blog update)

Hand in Hand into a Brighter Future

Killing your own Creation

PencilCraft... You're Screwed

Contests, the Force for Improvement

Erunno's Thoughts; Christmas Eve Edition

Twelve Days of Machinima

The Future Machinima is not Machinima

Christmas Contests exsist!

Happy-happy, Joy-joy Month!

The Twelve Days of Blogging

An Undiscovered Genre?

A Plethora of... Nothing

There is no unmute button!

Illinor: The White Drake preview

Monotonous Entertainment?

#Machinima: Niche Memes

I'm not dead yet!

Awarding Achievements and Great Works of Art

Rate the article writing monkeys!

We're all in the same boat, buddy

#Machinima: Don't mock the curse

It's bigger than Christmas

Super Mega Awesome BlizzCon Edition Rant-a-thon! Not