The Machinima approach to creating movies promises to revolutionize the computer animation industry and this book will serve as the industry bible for emerging filmmakers. It expertly covers the very latest technology in filmmaking, from the history of Machinima, who the major players are, and where the Machinima movement is going. Conventional filmmakers are quickly adopting this medium as a much easier and economical way to produce animation films. This book contains a wealth of tips, tricks, and solid techniques to creating your own Machinima films from some of the best creative minds in the industry. Numerous hands-on projects are provided to show readers how to expertly create, edit, and view their own films. Some of the hot topics covered include developing actors, preparing sets, incorporating audio, adding special audio and visual effects, using the best post production techniques, using the best game engines, and much more.

The first critical overview of an emerging field, with contributions from both scholars and artist-practitioners. Over the last decade, machinima—the use of computer game engines to create movies—has emerged as a vibrant area in digital culture. Machinima as a filmmaking tool grew from the bottom up, driven by enthusiasts who taught themselves to deploy technologies from computer games to create animated films quickly and cheaply. The Machinima Reader is the first critical overview of this rapidly developing field. The contributors include both academics and artist-practitioners. They explore machinima from multiple perspectives, ranging from technical aspects of machinima, from real-time production to machinima as a performative and cinematic medium, while paying close attention to the legal, cultural, and pedagogical contexts for machinima. The Machinima Reader extends critical debates originating within the machinima community to a wider audience and provides a foundation for scholarly work from a variety of disciplines. This is the first book to chart the emergence of machinima as a game-based cultural production that spans technologies and media, forming new communities of practice on its way to a history, an aesthetic, and a market.

This book of 21 chapters shares endeavors associated to the human trait of creative expression within, across, and between digital media in wide-ranging contexts making the contents perfect as a course study book uptake within related educations. Globally located chapter authors share their comprehensive artisan perspectives from works associated with regional cultures, diversities of interpretations, and widespread scopes of meanings. Contents illustrate contemporary works reflecting thought-provoking comprehensions, functions, and purposes, posit as contributing toward shifting of boundaries within the field. Original to this approach is the reflective offerings on creating digitally beyond typical psychological analysis/rapportage. The book's general scope and key uses are thus to contribute to scholarly discussions toward informing future projects by having an intended wide readership including from within educations, to artisans, and wider interested public. Chapter 7 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

A continuation of 1994’s groundbreaking Cartoons, Giannalberto Bendazzi’s Animation: A World History is the largest, deepest, most comprehensive text of its kind, based on the idea that animation is an art form that deserves its own place in scholarship. Bendazzi delves beyond just Disney, offering readers glimpses into the animation of Russia, Africa, Latin America, and other often-neglected areas and introducing over fifty previously undiscovered artists. Full of first-hand, never before investigated, and elsewhere unavailable information, Animation: A World History encompasses the history of animation production on every continent over the span of three centuries. Volume III catches you up to speed on the state of animation from 1991 to present. Although characterized by such trends as economic globalization, the expansion of television series, emerging markets in countries like China and India, and the consolidation of elitist auteur animation, the story of contemporary animation is still open to interpretation. With an abundance of first-hand research and topics ranging from Nickelodeon and Pixar to modern Estonian animation, this book is the most complete record of modern animation on the market and is essential reading for all serious students of animation history. Key Features: Over 200 high quality head shots and film stills to add visual reference to your research Detailed information on hundreds of never-before researched animators and films Coverage of animation from more than 90 countries and every major region of the world Chronological and geographical organization for quick access to the information you’re looking for

Given that institutions of higher education have a predisposition to compartmentalize and delineate areas of study, creative technology may seem oxymoronic. On the contrary, the very basis of western thought is found in the idea of transcendent knowledge. The marriage of opposing disciplines therefore acts as a more holistic approach to education. Creative Technologies for Multidisciplinary Applications acts as an inspiration to educators and researchers who wish to participate in the future of such multidisciplinary disciplines. Because creative technology encompasses many applications with the realm of art, gaming, the humanities, and digitization, this book features a diverse collection of relevant research for the modern world. It is a pivotal reference publication for educators, students, and researchers in fields related to sociology, technology, and the humanities.

The papers in this volume reflect the debates that progressed during the 4th Global conference on Cybercultures: Exploring Critical Issues, held as a part of Cyber Hub activity in Salzburg, Austria in March 2009. The edited draft papers make up a snapshot for the actual publishing.

This important new work focuses on the pioneers in machinima, considered to be the grassroots and beginnings of virtual production. Machinima’s impacts are identified by the community, supplemented by Harwood and Grussi’s research and experience over a period of 25 years – from game, film and filmmaking to digital arts practice, creative technologies developments and related research and theory. Machinima is the first digital cultural practice to have emerged from the internet into a mainstream creative genre. Its latest transformation is evident through the increasing convergence of games and film where real-time virtual production as a professional creative practice is resulting in new forms of machine-generated interactive experiences. Using the most culturally significant machinima works (machine-cinema) as lenses to trace its history and impacts, ‘Pioneers in Machinima: The Grassroots of Virtual Production’ provides in-depth testimony by filmmakers and others involved in its emergence. The extensive reference to source materials and interviews bring the story of its impacts up to date through the critical reflections of the early pioneers. This book will be of interest to machinima researchers and practitioners, including game culture, media theorists, students of film studies and game studies, digital artists and those interested in how creative technologies have influenced communities of practice over time.

The explosion of digital information and communication technologies has influenced almost every aspect of contemporary life. Diasporas in the New Media Age is the first book-length examination of the social use of these technologies by emigrants and diasporas around the world. The eighteen original essays in the book explore the personal, familial, and social impact of modern communication technology on populations of European, Asian, African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and Latin American emigrants. It also looks at the role and transformation of such concepts as identity, nation, culture, and community in the era of information technology and economic globalization. The contributors, who represent a number of disciplines and national origins, also take a range of approaches—empirical, theoretical, and rhetorical—and combine case studies with thoughtful analysis. Diasporas in the New Media Age is both a discussion of the use of communication technologies by various emigrant groups and an engaging account of the immigrant experience in the contemporary world. It offers important insights into the ways that dispersed populations are using digital media to maintain ties with their families and homeland, and to create new communities that preserve their culture and reinforce their sense of identity. In addition, the book is a significant contribution to our understanding of the impact of technology on society in general.

A research study was conducted to discover if leveraging content creators of Let's Play videos is an effective investment of marketing dollars for influencing purchasing decision. Before this study was conducted, it remained unknown in the scholarly literature if employing this marketing activity was truly an effective investment of marketing dollars by brands for positively influencing purchasing decisions. A mixed methods research study that applied the descriptive research design was able to ascertain if leveraging content creators of Let's Play videos is an effective investment of marketing dollars for influencing purchasing decision. This research study used an online survey questionnaire as the primary data collection instrument to garner responses from a sample group of 22 college students aged 19-22. To ensure the reliability of the survey instrument, the test-retest reliability was applied twice to the study. Additionally, the research study employed an online interview questionnaire as the secondary data collection instrument to garner responses from video game industry experts which further validated the study's findings with additional evidence-based research findings. The usage of triangulation methodology strengthened the validity of the research findings and allowed the researcher to investigate the phenomenon in much greater depth. The findings of the study ultimately showed that content creators of Let's Play videos positively influence the video game purchasing decisions of college students. The study was able to show how leveraging Let's Play videos as an emerging vehicle for influencer marketing and social media marketing can be a worthwhile investment of marketing dollars.

This book explains how designing, playing and modifying computer games, and understanding the theory behind them, can strengthen the area of digital humanities. This book aims to help digital humanities scholars understand both the issues and also advantages of game design, as well as encouraging them to extend the field of computer game studies, particularly in their teaching and research in the field of virtual heritage. By looking at re-occurring issues in the design, playtesting and interface of serious games and game-based learning for cultural heritage and interactive history, this book highlights the importance of visualisation and self-learning in game studies and how this can intersect with digital humanities. It also asks whether such theoretical concepts can be applied to practical learning situations. It will be of particular interest to those who wish to investigate how games and virtual environments can be used in teaching and research to critique issues and topics in the humanities, particularly in virtual heritage and interactive history.