A quick exploration of some of my old builds which may not be there much longer! Using the Space Navigator and running Windlight in Day cycle mode (the sun and moon take a minute or two to do a full rotation)  to produce lots of moving shadows across the landscapes, people and builds. Rather than just show shadows I was keen to tie some ‘psych trance’ music into fast moving space navigator footage hence the constant movement – all shots took into account the timing with the shadows too.

The whole process was about 1 hour of capture, 1.5 hour edit and 2 hours on music track. Music was composed on Logic Pro mostly using Spectrasonics Omnisphere plug-in software ‘processor-eating’ synth.

I had access to a top end NVidia GTX280 high spec graphics card and quad processor machin so I put all SL graphics settings at max for once! The video was captured at PAL resolution using Fraps and the raw files edited using Adobe Premiere.

To have a go at this yourself make sure you have a top flight graphics card from NVidia or ATI and then download the Shadow Viewer client from Kirsten here or I believe a more recent one (that I used) from Boy Lane here. I am not sure of the widespread use of shadows given the grunt your computer needs to handle this, windlight, voice on top of all the usual networking issues – but for those with computer horsepower it definitely brings the place to life.

Published & created under creative commons – attribution, non-commercial, non-derivative, 23 May 2009 in Sydney, Australia

My Second Life sim builds included: Esperance (AFTRS), ABC Island, Melbourne Laneways, Thursdays Fictions, Deakin, The Pond and others. (I would have loved to show some more commercial & arty builds but non-disclosure and all that!)

Song ‘Speeding Cars’ by IMOGEN HEAP (used with permission of the artist)

Medium rez 48MB MP4 download here

Special thanks to

• Song: IMOGEN HEAP
• Animations: Sinewave & Abramination
• Dance consultant: Richard James-Allen Physical.tv
• Nevada timelapse footage by Gary Hayes & Nadia Warner

Machinimatography, editing, avatanimation & concept by
Gary Hayes

LYRICS by Imogen Heap

Here’s the day you hoped would never come
Don’t feed me violins
just run with me through rows of speeding cars.
The papercuts the cheating lovers
The coffee’s never strong enough
i know you think it’s more than just bad luck

There there baby
it’s just text book stuff
it’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
oh don’t lose your head
cause none of us were angels
and you know I love you yeah

Sleeping pills know sleeping dogs lie
never far enough away
Glistening in the cold sweat of guilt
I’ve watched you slowly winding down for years
You can’t keep on like this…
now’s a bad a time as any

There there baby
it’s just text book stuff
it’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
oh don’t kill yourself
cause none of us were angels
and you know I love you yeah

it’s ok by me..

it’s ok by me..

it’s ok by me..it was a long time ago

it’s ok by me..

it’s ok by me..

it’s ok by me..it was a long time ago

There there baby
it’s just text book stuff
it’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
oh don’t lose your head
cause none of us were angels
and you know I love you yeah

There there baby
it’s just text book stuff
it’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
oh don’t kill yourself
cause none of us were angels
and you know I love you yeah

I put together this little mash-up of cool sims, avatars and very nice animations. I may use these concepts in collaborations with dancers coming up too.

“Nataraja is both the destroyer and the creator of the universe. He dances away the destruction of a world of illusion followed by the creation of a world of enlightenment.”

I recommend you also go to the YouTube site and see the high def version – it is worth it!

Second Life – THE GREAT DANCE “Myth of Creation through Avatar Dance” A FILM BY GARY HAZLITT (all choreography and avatars played by Gary Hazlitt)

Machinimatography, Music & Editing © GARY HAYES 2008.

If you want even better quality and hear the ‘cool’ music in stereo then download (medium rez) 64MB MP4 from here

SPECIAL THANKS TO:

• Bettina Tizzy’s NPRIL npirl.blogspot.com & Alpha Auer for locations inspiration
• Animations (some): Sine Wave & Abramination
• Avatars (some): Grendel’s Children, June Dion
• Music: Spectrasonic’s Omnisphere & Logic. Specially composed GARY HAYES

UPDATE: This video also premiered at Moves09, one of the leading Dance/Film festivals in UK in April and featured for 3 months in the Second Life, Linden Lab Machinima Showcase site.

OH AND MACBETH

Also threw together this nice video of a sim creation I was involved with very early on but was since developed by the folk in the credits after the video.

A ‘Space Navigator’ Machinima and Music by Gary Hayes. Filmed and edited by Gary Hayes.

(Note: This film does not demonstrate the many interactive elements, social intentions or literary integration. Please visit the island to see those first ‘virtual’ hand.)

A medium resolution (98MB MP4) download is available here.

Macbeth in Second Life Credits. Guide & credits here

SLURL – http://slurl.com/secondlife/Macbeth/44/54/54

A collaboration by Angela Thomas, Kate Richards and Kerreen Ely-Harper, from an original idea by Kerreen Ely-Harper.

• Producer: Kate RIchards (Nini Dubrovna)
• Director: Kereen Ely-Harper (Dorothy Porta)
• Virtual World Content Designer: Angela Thomas (Anya Ixchel)
• SL Design Consultant: Adam Nash (Adam Ramona)

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Initial stages of this project were mentored and developed through the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production (LAMP) at Australian Film TV and Radio School (AFTRS).

This project has been funded and built by the New Media Consortium

NMC Team:
Larry Johnson (Larry Pixel)
Alan Levine (CDB Barkley)
Rachel Smith (Ninmah Ash)
NMC Second Life Building Team:
Chris Holden (CJ Carnot)
Beth Satchjen (Stella Costello)

Voiceover Actors:
Maggie Blinco
Boris Brkic
Christopher Morris
Ophelia Of The Spirits
Alice Parkinson
Evelyn Parsonage
Recorded at Megaphone Studios
Engineer: Shane Fahey

Additional thanks to:
Larry Johnson
Therese Fingelton
Gary Hayes
Jeff Wegener
Ian Waddely
Nick Noakes

My build and design of the Deakin University Arts Island almost a year ago in January of 2008. Special thanks to Deakin staff Jenny Grenfell, Fiona Phillips, Jo Raphael and Stephen Seagrave for their guidance. The general brief for this was based around a couple of escher and dali paintings alongside some basic teaching space and gallery areas. The video captures the organic growth of the design ideas – it is still growing as all good builds should do! The island has been in regular use by staff and students but closed to the general public.

Medium rez 105MB MP4 available here. Music composed and performed by Gary Hayes. These images with comments can be seen here.

Video, music & 447 Images © Gary Hayes and Deakin University

Below is the flickr slideshow embedded as an alternative

What to do on Easter Saturday afternoon? Why not create a quick “Cyborg questioning existance, looking for something and some meaning in her life” machinima. This idea came about from playing with one of the default characters in CT5 (Crazy Talk 5) and using various imported songs. I quickly made a spaceship so the ‘cyborg’ can be seen in full body, and in which I (the Golem Robot character on the right seat) can sit and drive around various sims. The lip sync character is a CT5 ‘auto lip-sync’ take against one of my long time ago ex students (now a fully fledged pop diva) Imogen Heap’s wonderful track “Hide and Seek” (I wanted something vocoderised, slightly robotic) although this goes a lot deeper thanks to Immi’s great words. Also the subtle head movements and eye positions were recorded in separate live takes withing CT5.

I needed three appropriate sims for the three phases of the song. Ones that had a sense of dawning, evolving and evolved – also that were off the ground, so the spaceship could move around, inside, under, over etc: Three sprang immediately to mind. Planet Mongo a space city (evolved – spelt wrong on video, not Mondo! sorry rush job ;-(), Svarga (dawning) and Deakin (that I built – evolving). The main process was a quick 5 hours but editing took about an hour longer than normal because of rendering, all those green screen shots (the head shots against the reversed Space Navigator backgrounds).

————————————-
A medium rez, stereo MP4 52MB version can be downloaded here
————————————

Anyways hope you like this quick ‘sketch’ – the following info is mostly duped from the YouTube description.

A machinima by Gary Hazlitt completed on easter Saturday afternoon 2008. The song ‘Hide and Seek’ is by Imogen Heap from the album ‘Speak for Yourself’.

Special thanks to the creators of Second Life sims Planet Mongo built by Lumiere Noir (spelt wrong on video sorry, rushed, not Mondo!) and Svarga built by Svarog Laukosargas. Deakin sim and spaceship for this video built/designed by Gary Hayes.

Lip sync animation created using Crazy Talk 5, green screened in Final Cut. The spaceship shots were filmed live in Second Life.

Avatanimation, machinimatography and editing (in the usual 5 hours total!) by Gary Hazlitt

A JustVirtual Production
© Gary Hazlitt 2008

A well known track from the album was wisely left off by Director Debbie Trilling due to it’s popularity but while I was putting together this ‘mash-up’ compilation I tried a recording of the reunion performance of the Comfortably Numb at Live 8 a few years ago and was entranced by the synergy of visual and song. Hope you do too. Credits after the embed of my film below.

Medium quality (90MB MP4) download available here. Worth playing full screen with the volume up and the lights down

SECOND LIFE – THE WALL V-2 FILM

A special long form promo edit of the Live Virtual Show…Machinimatography & Editing: GARY HAZLITT

SECOND LIFE – THE WALL V-2
Creative Director: DEBBIE TRILLING Producer: VELAZQUEZ BONETTO

Special thanks for valuable contributions from: Haven Colville, Scio Kamanchi, Gypsy Paz, Lyddyn Tzara, Celeste Moonlight, DJ Jenns, windyy Lane, NMC Campus and George W Bush and, of course, Pink Floyd’s incredible album ‘The Wall’

Song selected for this compilation by Gary Hazlitt, The ‘Live 8′ Version COMFORTABLY NUMB (please note: not featured in the live show)

Creative Director: DEBBIE TRILLING
Producer: VELAZQUEZ BONETTO
Wall Design and Build: ELFOD NEMETH
Animated Puppets: DUGGY BING
Animations: CARAVAGGIO BONETTO
Original Music: JUNIVERS STOCKHOLM & JOSINA BURGESS
Stills Photography: ADEC ALEXANDRIA
Dancing & Joyfulness: KLUTE CUPPLOA & SOUTHERN RIPTID

Filmed & Edited: GARY HAZLITT © JustVirtual.com 2008

SECOND LIFE – THE WALL V-2 FILM “Mother Should I  Trust the Government” Full 43 Minute Version Available Soon

A two world machinima I did this week exploring the themes of a cross-world quest for love, mixed-reality and online game relationships. The song ‘The Soul of Icarus” was composed and sung by Gary Hayes © Cubrisound 2004 and a special thanks to my co-star, SilkCharm for her patience and WoW’ness. There are some nice Flickr film stills here too! and I am really spoiling you now a selection of video sites with the film on here – YouTube, Metacafe, Google and Blip.tv

“Come to the edge. We can’t. We’re afraid. Come to the edge. We can’t. We will fall! Come to the edge. And they came. And he pushed them. And they flew”. – Guillaume Appollinaire

Credits:

• Filmed in World of Warcraft and Second Life sims:
• CityScape from NBC and Marni created by Gary Hazlitt.
• Medium rez download (85MB MP4) available here.
• Machinimatography and editing by Gary Hazlitt © JustVirtual 2008

“And once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return…” – Leonardo Da Vinci

Now I have had some time back in Second Life nice to visit a very special build, hat tip to Bettina over at NPIRL. As well as being inspired to pop over to this wonderfully rich sim designed and built by Baron Grayson I joined in the challenge of photographing it in stills (flickr set here) and video. Some of these are below and of course the video is a quicky mostly single long shot using the space navigator – of course, what else

So video, then description followed by some more nice stills

A Space Navigator Machinima by  GARY HAZLITT. Second Life Island Creation by  BARON GRAYSON. Steinway Grand Piano and Martin Backpacker Guitar One Take Improvisation by  GARY HAYES © 2008. Medium quality (69.5MB mp4 available here

“filmed in one take, then re-edited, vignette and desaturate filters added in places. Most of the playback made twice speed to improve smoothness as sim had quite low frame rates during capture. Enjoy” The wonderful Second Life 3rd generation sim, Templum ex Obscurum by Baron Grayson, machinima by Gary Hazlitt in one three hour session.

I was asked by Debbie Trilling, the creative director of this show, to be the machinimatographer on the last two performances of Pink Floyd’s The Wall in Second Life recently. It was great listening to music I remember growing up with being performed by a passionate group of people from all over the world who recreated elements of the film, animated sequences and live show in one of Second Life’s most spectacular displays of creative coordination. It was created by The Cybernetic Art Research Project CARP.

There were audiences of 60+ crammed into the NMC sim which slowed things down a touch, but not noticeably (I was still getting 15 fps or so ). I have a lot of footage to edit into a short 10 minute and the longer full 90 minute film but for now I selectively scanned the footage for interesting frames and created 107 medium resolution photographs which capture a little of the atmosphere and thought put into this.

The performances have  received rave reviews over the past few weeks and over 2000 avatars have now seen the show…

• “Amazing. Not so much viewed as it is experienced” ~ Metaverse Messenger
• “All I can say is WOW. GREAT show” ~ Second Arts
• “Nothing short of spectacular. A complete immersion” ~ Looking Glass
• “Impressive, touching and thoughtful. Second Life at its best” ~ MixedRealities
• “Never seen anything like it.20A perfect amalgamation of creativity” ~ sl-newspaper
• “Cutting edge art and performance” ~ NMC Observer

Stills (on this page and on flickr link here) – Taken from Gary Hazlitt’s Machinima of CARP’s “The Wall in Second Life” – video available soon. Stills medium ‘video’ resolution.

Production Credits

The CARP Wall Team:

• Creative Director: Debbie Trilling (UK)
• Producer: Velazquez Bonetto (Germany)
• Wall Design: Elfod Nemeth (UK)
• Animated Puppets: Duggy Bing (US)
• Animations: Caravaggio Bonetto (Austria)
• Original Music: Junivers Stockholm (Sweden) & Josina Burgess (Holland)
• Stills Photography: Adec Alexandria (UK)
• Dancing & Joyfulness: Klute Copploa (France), Southern Riptide (US)

with valuable contributions from:

• Scio Kamanchi (US)
• Gypsy Paz (US)
• Lyddyn Tzara (US)
• Celeste Moonlight (US)
• DJ Jenns (UK)
• George W B ush (US)

and a reminder of what it was like in its opening glory