I caught an amazing article on Metaversed, talking about a new technology which I find fascinating, and one which has interesting implications for machinima: video streaming from 3D environments.

The tools at play are Skype and an as yet unnamed tool being developed by a company called MellaniuM. The tools can, used together, stream video from 3d graphics engines. In the article, the author says he saw it working in both Second Life and in a custom Unreal 2 environment; video streamed from inside those worlds to Skype’s video chat.

Could it be that, at last, a working method will actually exist where one could broadcast some kinds of machinima… LIVE? Two types of environments where this would be possible are:

1. Engines with scripted playback capabilities, like Unreal’s for example (even Halo 3 perhaps?), and
2. Virtual worlds like Second Life, WoW, and so on… where one could conceivably have a streaming broadcast of a live virtual performance. Machinima theater, in other words.

I know of at least one instance of machinima theater having already taken place, though it was not recorded. And live performances go on all the time in Second Life, where people have already been able to do some kinds of streaming from that world. This unnamed MellaniuM tool can, apparently, do that from any 3d environment.

Oh, the possibilties…

(Thanks, Shattered Keyboard.)