Hugh Hancock Hugh takes a look at the concept of filming with virtual cameras. The interesting question is what practical ramifications that has, and how we can use the comparison to make our films better. Well, it would have to have a lot to do with the fact that very few of us have done work on high-budget film. However, now that the basics of Machinima creation are firming up rapidly, it's about time we started looking to what is our parent medium for ideas on how to imitate its quality. To take just one example, you'll have seen that in both low-budget indie work and Machinima, the lighting on people's faces tends to work in the oddest way.
Shadows appear and disappear unexpectedly.
In Machinima, nasty polygon joins suddenly become very obvious. Overall, the atmosphere and mood of the shot are disrupted by the lighting, which just isn't playing along. By contrast, the same never happens in a high-budget Hollywood movie. I don't know- we've not experimented thoroughly enough yet. But it's worth a go.