(Dell is holding a machinima contest, which we'll discuss shortly. They asked me to write a tutorial to help new machinimators get their start.)
Every day, I feature a video by some brave soul that dived in head first into the world of machinima. For those that aren't familiar with the term, it stands for machine and cinema. The literal definition is movies made in a 3D gaming platform. Using this basic guide, as well as the other tutorials and resources available to you, you'll be creating your first project in no time!
Here is what you'll need if you want to make a machinima for free:
Halaa is like a set of jumper cables. Most of the time, you don't care whether it's there or not -- but when you suddenly need access to it, it's the most important thing you can possibly think of. Borings, from the Dark Iron server, was recently forced to take Halaa alone. While waiting for the final cap, he felt moved to climb up the city's flag pole and proclaim his victory. His voidwalker, Tanggrave, seems to be even more excited. Why is his voidwalker called Tanggrave? According to Borings, "he is after all a big blue grave full of tang." Ah, the joys of Blizzard's random demon name generator. At least it's better than Krakho or Nublok..
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more sunsets.
"Look, honey, I'm really happy that you decided to play WoW with me. I wanted us to be able to share the experience of gaming together. And I don't mind that you rolled a blood elf, even though everyone's going to assume that you're a 12-year-old boy. I just ... I'm not going to ride on the zhevra. I don't care how rare it is, I'm not going to be seen on a prettied-up horse. It just isn't tauren of me. It's bad enough that I'm going to be hanging out with a blood elf for fifty-eight levels ..."
"Honey? Oh, don't get mad. Please. See, I'm getting on the zhevra. What? No! Well ... okay. Just one picture. And you have to promise it'll never leave your hands. Are you done now? Good, because I think I broke its pelvis. Can you get on Wowhead and look up veterinarians in Silvermoon City?"
(Thanks to Amradorn of <Foederati> on Aggramar for the pic!)
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more sunsets.
This next machinima came as a surprise to me. It appeared in my inbox and was so well done that I had to check to make sure that none of it was borrowed from a cinematic. It's not every day that the first time you see someone's work, it's of this quality!
Cilo, of Secretfist on Zul'Jin, created this Sunwell trailer for his guild. While not as long as it could be, it covers a lot of ground. The sweeping scenery is breathtaking, while the gameplay footage is filmed in a way that makes it tolerable. If all gameplay videos were made this way, I'd blog them a lot more often!
[Thanks, Andrew!]
If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com. Previously on Moviewatch ...
Beta tester and frequent submitter Landon has sent us yet another great shot of the Storm Peaks area, which has been temporarily closed to beta testers. This particular shot is of the Thunderfall area, where storm giants and some humanoids (dwarves?) are fighting it out through eternity. The big question here is this: what caused a cold snap so severe that it froze the combatants in motion? An ice mage with too much +damage gear? Reverse spontaneous combustion? Until the zone is unfrozen for more beta testing (ha ha, it's a terrible pun), we won't know for sure. All I know is that I suddenly have a strong desire to reread Thud!
This image came to us straight from the Wrath of the Lich King beta -- and we'd love to have your beta screenshots, too! If you have anything our readers might like, beta or not, sharing it is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. And here's a question: how is this one beta shot, one live shot cycle playing for you guys?
Alice Taylor has quite the eye for scoping out awesome gaming crafts, and just recently, she did a nice roundup (and another post) that had two great handmade WoW items in it. First up was this great-looking Sin'dorei (that's Blood Elf, in case you're not up on your Thalassian) tank top -- it was originally a T-shirt that the maker, smarmyclothes, turned into a tank top with some industrious cutting and stiching. Looks great -- at $52, the price is a little steep, but then again, this is a one-of-a-kind handmade item, so you get what you pay for.
And second was this Murky hair bow -- to tell the truth, I have no idea what a hair bow does (it must tie hair back or something, right?), but I am a huge Murky fan, or at least a fan of /punting the little guy, so any article of clothing with him on it, no matter what it's for, gets my approval. The bows are two for $11, and it looks like there's only one in stock, so SugarPopRibbons is probably making them to order. But I'm sure if you're patient, you can get your hands (or hair, I guess) on one.
Seen any other great WoW crafts, on Etsy or anywhere else? Let us know!
Though fairly new to World of Warcraft machinima, bi0man22 took a crack at this music video. Named after the main song, Riot, by Three Days Grace, it's all about the little guy. The troops, led by a wee gnome, take on their king, who had begun to cause problems for them.
What I find interesting about this machinima is that he used Adobe Premiere Elements, the lesser of the Premiere family, which retails for roughly 100 USD, and GIMP, a free image editing program. As evidenced, you don't always need a fancy editor to produce decent results. While he could use work on some of his handmade signs, he didn't do a bad job overall. If you're looking to rock out, check out the music video tag for more videos!
Psynei/Psyjin of Kul Tiras-EU/Spinebreaker-EU was one of those rare players who only played one class. Shamans were his thing, and he stuck to them, through Horde and Alliance. But deep inside, he always yearned to play a paladin. When the blood knights were blessed with the true light by A'dal in patch 2.4, Psynei figured it was a sign to try finding the light on his own new belfadin. Coming out of the blood elf starting area, he saw this sunrise and interpreted it as a good omen for his future as a blood knight. And looking at the lucky so-and-so's Armory, I'd say his premonition of good fortune has come true (possibly with the help of some level 70 friends with a lot of time on their hands.)
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more sunsets.
What happens when a player gets fed up with tactical PvP? Sefearion brings us his interpretation of strategic planning from both sides. While he admits that the portrayals are blown out of proportion, they end up entertaining nonetheless.
The model viewed characters need some work, but the voices and topic matter help make this an instant classic. The Alliance team members are portrayed as whiny and disorganized, while the Horde are prim and proper. He leaves us with a cliffhanger, so we won't know what side wins until later. Given his humorous bias towards the Horde, you can easily figure it out without seeing the battle, though.
Each week, Arcane Brilliance inscribes a glyph into the greater glyph slot of your Saturday afternoon. It's called the Glyph of Mageosity, and it Mageifies the entire rest of your day. A few words of warning, once your day has been Mageified: you may find fire bursting from your fingers at inopportune times. You might discover that certain nearby people who were formerly human may now be sheep. Also, for the rest of the day, you may want to avoid any contact with Rogues or Warlocks.
As you may have noticed, build 8820 has touched down in beta land, and with it we Mages finally have our first real taste of how Inscription will affect us as a class. There are still a great many things we don't know about these glyphs, but just having a list and knowing that Glyph of the Penguin won't be our only reason to track down an Inscriber in the expansion is newsworthy. I mean, I'm as excited to turn a Warlock into a penguin as the next Mage, but I'm glad to finally have some idea what our other glyph options will be.
Now, I'm still not one of the fortunate few who've gotten into the beta, so sadly I have no first-hand information to pass on to you. I'm sure that a goodly number of Mages more blessed than I are logged into the beta, busy testing out damage numbers as we speak, and I look forward to reading their euphoric and/or rage-filled forum posts later on...reading and dreaming and plotting to kill them and steal their beta keys. For now, though, you'll have to make do with my own uninformed and hastily formulated analysis of these forthcoming glyphs. Frankly, I wouldn't offer you anything less.
Join me after the break for the full list of Mage glyphs, and as much hyperbole and bias as you can shake a Chilly Slobberknocker at.
Forget the fantasy world that you're used to. In VoodooRay's eyes, WoW is the wave of the future -- literally. WoW 3K is a futuristic sci-fi look at the game we all know and love. The man that brought us Moonkins in everywayimaginable has supplied us with stormtroopers, bunkers, and plenty of action this time around.
At the end, VoodooRay offers up tidbits about certain scenes. For example, he pushed his computer to the limit by modeling everything except the characters in Adobe After Effects. He actually had to remove some elements in order to function! In another scene, he even had to model it blindly and hope for the best. I think it turned out pretty well given the circumstances.
Elementals rarely herald anything good. They're often a couple levels too high for their areas, are annoyingly immune to certain spells, and trying to farm them for their motes on a PvP server is like hanging a "Camp me for several hours until I throw the keyboard into the wall" sign on your neck. But sometimes elementals can be useful. Susurrus and his counterparts, seen here on top of Wildwind Peak in Azuremyst Isle, give draenei shamans their air totems at level 30. They do nothing else, which begs the question of why the clearly non-draenei Serrea of <Legacy of the Lunatics> on Wildhammer-EU is hanging around taking screenshots. Is she trying to become a draenei? I wouldn't blame her -- they're quite shapely, and their hairstyles are to die for, even if they live in a wrecked airplane.
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more sunsets.
Yesterday, I posted an epic vampire movie, yet most of those commenting were unable to get past the fact that it wasn't lore-accurate. The lack of lore will continue until morale improves! This time, try to think of WoW as the real world and the model viewed characters as actors that star in lots of movies.
The Phantom of WoW is an interpretation of the famous Broadway classic, The Phantom of the Opera. The story centers around a soprano that lacks focus until she is mentored by a mysterious masked man, who terrorizes the Paris Opera House. For only his second machinima, Whistel did a pretty good job!
Was all of Wrath of the Lich King designed while watching Comedy Central and Adult Swim? New death knights need to kill Mayor Quimby, some mobs drop ground gears (a probable Family Guy reference), and now the gnomes in the Borean Tundra are stealing their plans from South Park. The Wrath questlines are beginning to strongly resemble my DVD collection. Anyway, Namus of Korialstrasz noticed this master plan on the wall of an oil derrick in the geyser fields of Northrend. My question is, why do you even need Step 2? Oil rigs are a great way to profit. At least until the mechagnomes come.
This image came to us straight from the Wrath of the Lich King beta -- and we'd love to have your beta screenshots, too! If you have anything our readers might like, beta or not, sharing it is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. And please, no sunsets.
Their answers about the "biggest advancement" in Wrath are interesting though -- Brack says that he thinks the fact that they're introducing a new class to the game for the first time has been the biggest design challenge so far. Chilton is excited about the achievements (as am I) -- they should provide a lot of new ways for players to extend their gameplay and get rewarded for new accomplishments.
They also talk about a few things players don't usually associate with MMOs: social networks and consoles. Brack says that both are possibilities for Blizzard, though consoles wouldn't really work with World of Warcraft as we know it. Any MMO, they say, for consoles would have to be designed from the ground up to work with the hardware, and that's not something (including the next-gen MMO, we assume) that Blizzard is working on at the moment.
Alice Taylor has quite the eye for scoping out awesome gaming crafts, and just recently, she did 
Here's one more interview with the folks at Blizzard from Leipzig today -- play.tm 
Subscribe
