Talk to people involved in Second Life machinima... or art in virtual worlds in general... and ask them who they take inspiration from in-world. A few names will commonly come up. In my experience, no name gets as much mention, or as much respect surrounding its mention, as Chantal Harvey. And with good reason.
She runs her own film festival, which includes a real world Amsterdam counterpart. She now curates the 48 Hour Film Project: Machinima event.
This is certainly closer to the kind of trailer that I think does justice to the Mass Effect (2) story - though obviously I can't make a fully educated judgement call on that until I've experienced the story.
Seriously, can you help me find some? My schedule isn't allowing me to partake of the game / toolset just yet, but I'd love to see what people are doing with the tools.
In a year not heralded for big leaps forward in gaming technology, we've seen a sizable forward movement in the quality of the best machinima movies of 2009 versus prior years. The filmmakers are getting better, and all of us are getting to better know our tools.
Stick with me, here. This does have a point.
My wife and I occasionally enjoy a good jigsaw puzzle together. Okay, realistically, I enjoy them a bit more than she does, and I have since I was very young. My son has a dozen or so of them, too, and shares the same affinity.
There's something therapeutic about the task of assembling one of these puzzles.
Those more in the loop with the Source machinima community are probably already wise to this, but it's news to me. Apparently the tool demonstrated here was (perhaps accidentally?) included with a beta version of Team Fortress 2 made available last year, or something. But the consensus out there seems to be that this is going to find its way into an official release from Valve at some point.
"Even you can make a feature film soundtrack with the tools that are available today." -Frank Serafine
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Mass Effect (the first one) is one of... okay, it's the only game that completely drew me in and hypnotized me with its story and gameplay in the past 2-3 years.