Last week I had the pleasure of being invited to be Guest Critic at MIT/Parsons The New School for Design‘s Machinima Collab course.

From Machinima Collab:

Game engines and virtual environments such as Second Life allows rapid-prototyping form of 3D animation and real-time puppetry of characters.

In this research project, we investigate the design and production issues related to making machinima. We chose to work with Second Life for its capacity in customization and ease of use. Utilizing its limited built-in features, including primitive modeling and rigged avatar, designers are able to prototype characters with essential geometries and experiment with modular design method.

Characters created become a living being in the cyberspace and a fictional identity of their creators and users.

Machinima Collab is an initiative to join media theories with design research methods and practices. The project Boba Fett’s Day Off is led by director Beth Coleman, an assistant professor of MIT Comparative Media Studies and lead designer Jenny Mu, an adjunct faculty of Parsons Design and Technology.

Current members of Parsons Machinima Group are Ananya, Brian, Bruce, Esteban, Fengyu, Lawrence, In-Bum, Ingrid, Jason, Rishi, and Valeria. Previous members of MIT Machinima Group include Katherine, Mikail, Raymond, and Stephanie.

I enjoyed immensely all the students’ presentations and hope that I was able to contribute to their knowledge of creating and filmmaking in virtual worlds. I look forward to seeing how the entire group applies their unique skills towards their finished collaborative endeavor. Thanks to Jenny Mu and Beth Coleman for inviting me to be part of such a special project.

Machinima Collab in Second Life with their avatar works in progress: