This special holiday edition takes you on a sixty minute journey through 2006, highlighting memorable moments and music from both Machinima Live and the overcast, including all of the most popular spoofs and skits from this exciting first year of machinima podcasting.

If you’ve never experienced the overcast, this is a great chance to get a “best of” sampler to see what it’s all about. If you’re already a listener, I think you’ll enjoy the ride as well… and I’ll bet you hear something you missed the first time around.

2007 promises to be another entertaining year, there are already some very interesting things planned for “Season 2.”

All Machinima Live podcast episodes are now available at theovercast.com. Simply click on the archives tab at the top of any page to access them. Feel free to download any / all of them if they interest you.

Thank you so much for your listening, and for your feedback - which both powers and shapes this show. Keep it coming! Happy New Year!

“the overcast”
a machinima podcast
http://theovercast.com/

I’ve been thinking very seriously about putting together a series of short articles covering one of the universal machinima topics (i.e. it doesn’t really matter which engine you use): video encoding. The thought was to cover all the major encoding methods - Windows Media, DivX, xVid, QuickTime, perhaps others? One at a time, I’d go through a detailed how-to, explain what each of the settings mean, and give some “best practices” recommendations for what settings seem to yield the best results.

In order to pull that off, I’d need some input from you, as I get the feeling that no single one of us is a 100% expert on the subject, but we all have some knowledge of what has worked well for us. I’d be glad to handle the actual writing / illustration of the final articles themselves, would just need some of you who know your stuff to contribute some knowledge.

So, are you interested in some informal collaboration on this topic? If so, let me know by way of a comment here or by e-mail. I could set up a section of my forum specifically for discussion on the project. NOTE: The forum section has been created (link). All are welcome to participate to whatever degree you are able.

In other news, I’d *like* to be able to make some progress on The Overcast, but if you’ve tried visiting the site you’re already aware that there’s some kind of technical problem with the server. The host is working on it; in spite of what the message states, they tell me it is not my site having the CPU trouble. Either way, it should be resolved in the next day or so.

I had the pleasure of a Skype interview last night with Lars from Machinima.org (AMAS) for a podcast series he is doing as part of their official post-festival coverage. Lars is a great interviewer, had lots of very good questions. The podcast, one among many such interviews with machinima folks, should be available soon, I’ll get you a link when I know it.

It’s been a quiet few weeks since the festival ended. Quiet on the blogs, quiet on the boards, and relatively quiet on the release front. I think, by and large, it’s just the reality of the holiday season, it’s a busy time of year for all. Some might be post-festival exhaustion, for those who attended. Or the unique fatigue that can wash over you after completing an enormous project. (more…)

Want higher quality? Watch it here.

(This is part of The ZS Classics series, a set of four unique recams from 1999, brought to video for the first time in 2006)

BloodSpell Episode 14 (and the series) is officially completed sound-wise, as of about 1:30 AM this morning. Strange Company are now prepping renders to be ready for a release tomorrow (which will happen over here).

I’m having a bit of a Inigo Montoya moment today, wondering what I’ll do with the rest of my life now that this quest is over. Actually, there is plenty to do…

TODO List for December:

• Catch up on the last few BloodSpell “Did You Know” sound articles.
• Release The Overcast Episode 11B.
• Release Quake2 Done Quick2 to video, which will complete the ZS Classics series of four recams from the “old” days.
• Release two more pieces which are currently late in post; one new and one last classic brought to video for the first time.
• Compose an original musical work for The Fixer Episode 4.
• Release The Overcast Episode 12.

Believe it or not, this is the cushiest task list I’ve faced machinima-wise all year long! 2007 should be a slightly more relaxed pace, which I admit I’m looking forward to.