My copy of Machinimation Pro (1.0) arrived today, and I promptly installed it and looked it over. I am tremendously impressed at first glance. First of all, the interface is greatly improved from the demo, just like they said it would be. Also, the scripting system looks extensive and very powerful, and it’s very well documented. Scripting power extends into model animations, special effects, and other areas. They also included a copy of Radiant, pre-configured to work with Machinimation.

What I love most about Machinimation is one of the simpler things: the recording method, allowing one person to assemble a scene one actor at a time if he/she desires. This is something we’ve only been able to accomplish in Quake2 by piecing together separate demos using Demented2, but the problem was always that you wouldn’t see your other recordings while making new ones.

I’ll give a more thorough review of the product once I’ve got some hands on, but out of the box I’m extremely pleased.