As a student at IMVFX (Interactive Media and Visual FX) departement of the Dutch Film Academy, John and his study friend Roy came to the workshop with a scenario in mind. They are working together on a Japanese manga themed animation movie. John’s primary interest in machinima is for the production of pre-visualizations (previs) of movie scenes. John: “Traditional 3D animation software like 3D StudioMAX or Maya can’t easily make a motion preview of how a scene will look like and rendering it for a test is much too time-consuming. Machinima on the contrary is real-time and can easily make a full motion previs."
Looking back at the workshop John thinks that machinima are indeed a good tool for the purpose of previsualisation. John: “The graphical quality might not be as good as traditional 3D animation, but it still is a powerful tool for quickly producing a rough version of your movie and using it to decide key questions like lighting, camera position and actor behaviour, before making the final production."