My Underground Lair

Not ready yet to machinimate

2008-10-06T14:12:00.005+02:00

Please take a seat and enjoy the view

No desk, no electricity, no internet, not even a chair yet... And yep, that's the place I'm living in since one week now. So there might be a little moment before I can machinimate anything, I was supposed to start working in this appartment in august but things went wrong with banks and insurances and I had the keys just a few days ago. Today, I'm back to work so I can blog this little post to let you know. I hope to be back online very soon !

And The winner is...

2008-09-09T10:29:00.014+02:00

Pinkhair !
with :
The Robber Baron of Warsong Gulch

And there are 3 reason why that makes me very happy. First one is that it was a movie that I really enjoyed watching, unique, witty and so well done. The second reason is that I know how Pinkhair needed a new computer, his old one almost died in the making of this machinima. I know that the über roXXor PC that he won is now in good hands, hands that will torture it with crazy 3D rendering and other pleasures we will witness with delight in the future.
Third reason is a selfish one, there is a small part of Olibith in this movie, and that's SO sweeeeeet !
Congratulations Pink, you deserved this big time.

Here you'll find the complete results of the contest.
"Le Terroriste" got an honorable mention, the last one of the 12 winners list to get promotional t-shirt and stickers. Maybe the jury was not the pothead type needed for my nonsenses.
Maybe next time.

Happy self centered Gnome !

2008-09-01T16:34:00.007+02:00

The Wegame Machinima Contest entries period is now over and results will be announced on friday. 120 entries !!!
Can you believe that ? I guess now having a machinima contest without a +3000$ first price will be impossible.
This week end came 3 splendid new movies, Martin Falch's Divided Soul, Fireboltproductions "Way of Life" and Pinkhair's "The Robber Baron of Warsong Gulch".
Pinkhair told me there was a reference to me in his movie, wich made me feel really honored even before I saw this :

Why nobody ever eats turbans ?

Oh my god, I've been chewed to death ! hehe. Thanks a lot for this Pink ^^. And by the way, Pinkhair made a fantastic wallpaper from "Busted" I always wanted to blog here, I think it's time to ! :

Let's kick some ice !!!

Anyway, this is gonna be a tough competition. I think next time there should be categories because you cannot seriously compare a South Park episode with Return of the King, even if both were machinimas. My only chance would be that the jury smokes too much pot before choosing, and I don't think Oxhorn smokes anything green, God only knows ^^
But, hey ! a Wegame T shirt would be cool since this year was already a very generous one for the Gnome !

Talking about gifts, Baron sent me this screenshot of Awilo Long'Omba, Grand Master Cooking Trainer in Dalaran :

Something tells me Long'Omba is just about to hurt me...

He also sent me this link to an amazing work in progress. Do you remember the GnoViBrator ?

Well, Kilh is making a real GnoViBrator, you absolutely got to see his sculpture blog

Giving head, that's a nice post title !!

I'll be back here with the results of the Wegame contest !

Terrorist !

2008-08-29T09:56:00.005+02:00

Here's my entry to the Wegame August Machinima Contest

Watch more WoW Videos

I hope you'll like it !

-----> DOWNLOAD 720p DIVX (130Mo)

OMG I'm OVER EXCITED !!!!!

2008-08-25T22:55:00.014+02:00

There in Dalaran is a place that is now my favorite one of all videogames

There's a reference
to Never Stay Tuned in
Wrath of the Lich King !!!
please don't wake me no don't shake me !

I never thought seeing a NPC could make my heart beat so fast...

I can't believe it yet, just saw that in the forums a few hours ago and I'm totally nuts since.
Yes, the gnome eater, the Cook, teh Troll IS an actual NPC in Dalaran city (horde side) and he's nothing less than the Grand Master Cooking Trainer. And if that wasn't enough, he's named after a great african musician Awilo Longomba, if you saw the machinimas you sure know why.
I've been told that Oxhorn also got one of his character in WOTLK and there are rumors about the Baron also having his own reference in Valgarde, wich I really hope.
For several reasons I cannot see the NPC in the beta and get a closer screenshot yet, be sure I'll upload it asap.

Tribute to teh Troll

Be sure I'll be a pain for those around me for at least a week !
I'm over-excited !!!

Time, space, matter and a gnome

2008-08-14T00:01:00.005+02:00

The device has been modified

I'm about half way through this video, now called "Le Terroriste" !
There will be a lot of talking and yep, still in French. For those having problems reading subtitles and watching at the same time, I will this time, and this time only, let you watch the movie as many time as you want. I just found the music in Wrath of the Lich King's beta datas, this one is very different from any other WoW music, very creepy. Almost every sounds comes from Mass Effect and WoW but the noise of the spaceship is homemade by recording nothing and playing with the sound till it sounds good... Well I hope so.

Man, the camera operator was very very small...

With this Dragon laptop, I'm able to watch a live preview of the movie while editing it. I don't have time to smoke anything that aint already rolled, what was taking me 10 minutes to render now takes me one. I can render several effects and layers of all kinds at the same time and you know what ? It works !!! I can finally work with uncompressed videos so this will be the first time I'll have to encode this kind of monster... I'll ask my technical guru about that.
Editing has changed 100% compare to what it was with my old piece of junk. WoW's framerate is 12fps no more and is now indecent. I've been a little into After Effects during this quiet summer at work, it's a very rich tool that is not noob friendly at all. I will just use it for the credits and wait to know a little more about it before "thinking AE" from the begining.
I also tried a very popular software that moves lips and it's not Singstar, there's will be some of my first tries in Le Terroriste. Should be done in time for the Wegame august contest I'll be able this time to show the movie instantly after it's done.

Space, the final frontier...

2008-08-05T20:33:00.005+02:00

Is this a gnome hand ? Looks like.

Yep, I know.
I was not supposed to have any time to machinimate this summer.
But things were not exactly what I wanted them to be and I got to wait until the end of the month to get in my new appartment and begin to work.
So, as I needed to think about something else, I began a new project.
It will be in french since I wanted to have the soundtrack as soon as possible. So I recorded the voices myself. There will be english subtitles that the wonderful Vilaeryn already translated for me.
I asked Phil Rice to show me the Mass Effect door, I'm so thankful he shared his precious knowledge with me. The characters will come from World of Warcraft though, but the story will take place in space.
Don't want to tell you anything about it yet, might be a drama, maybe a very very sad one that will make you cry...
Haha, no way.
If I can edit it before the end of the month, it will be my entry to the Wegame august machinima contest.

Wow... that's scary.

Machinima is dead

2008-07-29T10:12:00.007+02:00

Baron Soosdon and Pinkhair just did what is now my favorite machinima ever !
Olibith is part of it as a character but believe me, this doesn't have anything to do with my love for this movie. It totally explodes everything I saw before.
This movie is called "BUSTED" and is part of the WarcraftMovies.com Synergy contest.
Ok I always love Soosdon's work, but this time it's really haunting me... Almost too perfect to be true. So much knowledge of the tools, so much ideas...This also is a wonderful tribute to machinima with too many references to be listed. And, best of all, it's damn funny and witty.

In my humble opinion, hm hm... Machinima just jumped from Voyage dans la Lune to Minority Report with this movie !!!

Poor Snacky already saw earth getting smaller and smaller before...

Pinkhair is now doing pure magic with his 3D skills and Caruu did an unbelievable job with the sound design. Respect and my best congatulations to everyone who worked on Busted...

As I told the Baron, after this movie there's only 2 options :
- Wow machinima is dead and no one will ever dare being compare to this.
- Machinima will get so much better in the coming months that cinema will soon dissapear...

So, I don't need to tell you that you
HAVE TO VOTE
for this diamond.

VOTE !
or get rickrolled 24/7 for the rest of your miserable life

Nothing virtual this summer

2008-07-13T21:55:00.005+02:00

As I told you, there comes the time for me to fix, rearrange and decorate my new appartment, so there won't be any machinimas until it's done, I've moved in, my internet works fine, the fridge is full and I took a bath. Might be september, might be later.
It's tough because I really wanted so badly to really test this new computer, I already tried a few things to check if everything was working. It works like magic.
But, life is sweet, it will be a good thing to cool down the gnome a few month, there are things that are truly heating the turban those days.
I wish you all a perfect summer and hope to blog here soon.
(I'll still be around if you need)

Summer loves never last, some venarial diseases do.

One More Award !!!!

2008-07-10T22:39:00.006+02:00

Another award today !!! that's embarrassing, people may thing I cheat...

One day after release, I'm getting better things are slowing down. Excellent feedback from everywhere especially France, my kinky country.
But strangely, more people than the usual are not happy with The Bountiful Chest at Warcraftmovies.com.
I can't guess why.
Anyway, when people are rating my movie and not the fact that it won awards, they mostly like it.

Game-TV made a very nice header !!

I'll sure be back if I get new feedback or another award.
Ohhh and by the way !!

Results of the

I was so certain that Baron Soosdon would won the machinima award with the best machinima music video ever in my opinion : I'm So Sick.
That's a very different kind of machinima that won the award. I hope that Soos had a great time there, Hamburg people from the Bitfilm are just great.

Surrounded by World of Warcraft craps, poor Robert

The Bountiful Chest LIVE !!!!!

2008-07-09T19:19:00.006+02:00

stream in english with french subtitles. For english subtitles -> here

It's been an uploading marathon !
And tonight I wanted to edit a french subtitled version (divx720p/130Mo).
All the link and versions are available at WCM. They let me a large place to promote the movie !!!

OMG that's seksy !!!

I'll let you know if there's any special feedbacks !
It feels great to finaly see this movie uploaded and viewed !!!
Hope you'll like it !

Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.

2008-07-09T10:29:00.002+02:00

There is the 15 seconds trailer Blizzard needed for the machinima contest.
The WWI Machinima contest page should be up soon. Don't know when.

May the dragon full of win only roast my hot-dogs & never burn my buns.

2008-07-06T19:15:00.008+02:00

I got teh HDX Dragon !

This 14 pounds "laptop", WWI Best Movie award price, made it to my appartment, that's an amazing machine and I'm SO happy.
Man, what a monster ! I never saw WoW running so good, even Shattrath does not lag at all !!!
So before being totally relax, I had to install WoW, wowmodelviewer and wowmapviewer and see if Vista was not too difficult with them.
And everything works fine !
I now have no more excuses not to learn After Effect and I'll be able to edit several layer at the same time in Vegas or even capture video ingame with more than 10 fps !!!!!
Can't tell you how glad the gnome is.
This machinima PC comes just when I'll have to move to the new place and I'll have to wait until at least september before I can edit anything again. But with this laptop, even in the worst mess I'll still be able to learn some AE tutorials.
Add to this PC a Nokia cellphone price of the fake commercial award, a roxxor quadcore Intel processor price for Best Editing Award and 3 years of WoW !!!, one year for each award.
Gonna do all I can to be fair with my co-workers on this project.

There be no braver dwarf than Dave

Still waiting for Blizzard to upload the videos (trailer/movie/commercial), I hope it will be up soon.

Olibith's Blizzard WWI illustrated

2008-06-30T21:16:00.011+02:00

Good good good good Vibrations

Well now time for the answers, going back to Paris was as weird as I thought. Feeling like home but at the same time so many thing changed since I used to live there. I arrived at 2pm on saturday an missed the Diablo 3 presentation and the opening ceremony. :(
I was like two tramway stations away from the WWI when I saw people wearing a Blizzard T-shirts with a pass on the chest. And as I was getting closer to the event, there was more and more of them !
This saturday afternoon was a total madness, so many people queuing hours for everything the WWI had to offer. I did not queue because I was supposed to meet Daghorn and Romain from Blizzard France at the costume contest booth. I can tell you that everyone at Blizzard was under pressure, working very hard for this event.
Daghorn and Romain were both totally cool making me feel confortable instantly.
The first quest they gave me at 3 pm was to be right here at 6 pm to get instructions about the award ceremony because I was one of the machinima contest winner... ! That sure was a good thing to hear.

Did not knew Peter Tosh had a daughter with Diablo.

So I decided to take a walk inside the crowd but after a few meters, I realize that it was maybe not the best time of the week end to enjoy the place and I've been in a bar.
Yeah, I told you before, the question was will I be able to understand people speaking english to me if I am drunk enough to talk to them ?
But the true question was : How many beers do I need to feel fine with the idea of talking to 5000 gamers dressed as an ogre ?
No impossible, I lost my thong in the train while showing my costume.
I wont tell you how many liters it took but I remember this magic glass of beer that made everything look so easy. I don't drink usually, like never, and I can't figure out why because it's damn fun cheap and legal.
At 6pm I was at the rendez vous point, surrounded by people in costumes looking all so great. There was so many ideas and time in each of those costumes that I felt pretty sad that only 3 of them would win the contest.
Beer you know.
And there was Daghorn ! telling me that my next quest would be to make a hardcore porn machinima with motion capture. No he did not told me that, he told me to make sure to be right here at 7pm, that was my new quest.

I believe in light, please confess me.

I started thinking about this magic beer nostalgicaly, so I decided to have a last one before the show. Yep, I was feeling quite anguished by all this, focusing on this enormous crowd more than anything else.

Come and run in the wind with me Sylvanas

Came the time of the dance and costume contests. Man, this is great, really and the audience really enjoy that. Costumes were great and dancers were very fun to see. And Bang ! was time to run to the backstage, fan art and machinima winners. My beer shield was working just fine, not enough to change the way I walked but enough to forget about the crowd for good.

Joeyray Hall gave me the Best Editing Award !!! I also knew that he was the president of the machinima jury for this contest. To keep it short, I was really honored. I received this glass cube with a 3d murloc curved inside... Legendary loot !

I'll never stop buying you on Facebook Joeyray !

I had to say something in the microphone, just in front of me was Mike Morhaime, I said something like :
"Thanks Blizzard for letting us having fun and play your game the way we like to and, thanks to leave many doors opened in your future games so we can get in to make movies."
I don't think I need beer to sound cheesy you already know that.
Handshakes then backstages with a wide wide smile on my face.

Next thing I know, a crew member grabed me and told me to go back on stage, he also told me this : This was a good idea he had walking through the wood... Wich you'll understand once you The Bountiful Chest is released. That was a very funny and cheering thing to say !^^
And then again, on stage !!
A bit stunned, winning this time the Best Movie Award...man... Another glass murloc this time twice bigger than the first !
A legendary loot in each hand !!! From there it was kinda blurry with light and happiness.

And who was waiting for me outside ? The Baron, Dopefish, Gedan and Uzbeki from WCM !!!
That's when I had to speak english :) We decided fist, to check if there was any T8 epic private party we can join then the guys asked me for a cool place to eat something with bars around.
I decided that Bastille would be a nice place to go. That's about when my headache started.
They wanted to eat french, we ended in a mexican bar because we refused to wait 90 minutes for snails and frogs boiled in red wine.
Dopefish and the Baron are both crazy with a true personnal touch, I guess that's our connection.
We had a great time but you'll not see any photos of them here, I do it for readers to stay as long as possible on this page. But I'm sure the masochist in you will look every blogs of the community.^^
Gedan and Uzbeki are very cool guys, it was a real pleasure to meet them all.
I had to leave them at midnight. Very long day, very heavy trophies, my feet were starting to glow red and I wanted to catch last subway.

I spent last day with them, doing what people are supposed to do in such an event : have fun and hang around, drink sodas. It maybe was a good thing that my pay wasn't wired yet to my account, lots of tentations there.

This first price HP Dragon laptop is amazing, I saw it in the HP booth and I've been reading about it whenever I had 5 minutes to today. Every tests says that the only problem with this laptop would be the price :) I can't wait to check this monster ! Maybe next week !
It will take me a few day more to realize, the release of the movie will soon help.
The Gnome is very very very happy.

What can I say but.... WoW...

2008-06-29T23:32:00.009+02:00

Arglgrglgrgrgrrrrglgrrrgrll !!!!

I'm home !
I'm happy !!
It took me ages to take a half decent picture of those 2 beauties ^^
It was epic and I got to do some thinking to realize.
Real blog post about this huge moment in 24 hours with photos.

Beware the last of the Sunstrider dynasty !!

Vilaeryn and Shockdingo,
I love you both so much and
I'll write you something tomorrow about my love. ;)

Worldwide Invitationaaaaaaaal !

2008-06-24T21:57:00.007+02:00

Man, that's a goody bag !

It's been years since I did not saw Paris, going back there for Blizzard WWI is quite special.
And I've never been to any nerd meeting in my life, I don't even have any video game soundtrack in my mp3 player ! Will there be places where you can buy beers inside ?
Will I understand people talking to me in english if I'm drunk enough to talk to them ? How long can I play to a video game in a non smoking area ? What's inside the goody bag ? Is the beta-key for Diablo 3 ? World of Starcraft ?? World of Lost Vikings ??? How many succubus will I see ???? What about the machinima contest ?????
All the answers and maybe some pictures next week !

Excuse me but I'm a bit lost... am I at the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational ?

Ventured into the spores...

2008-06-18T00:23:00.009+02:00

The worst company ever, the Venture trading Company

Made it just in time, once again thank so much to Vilaeryn and Shockdingo for helping me so much !! Now just have to wait, I uploaded, trailer, movie and fake ad to the contest.

But I guess I'm not tired yet... Don't have the time to machinimate another movie but, hey : got time for little tests !

I downloaded Spore Creature Creator demo tonight... Not to play it, have fun, chill and waste my time ohh no no no ! I did it with total devotion to art and machinima.

I don't want any pothead comments here, my god, drugs make you see drugs everywhere...

This game looks great, creating a living thing is a great fun and the possibilities are amazing. With just a bit of changes, it could be a very good machinima tool.
There is a video capture feature ingame but there's not much you can do with it, definition is just good enough for youtube. You can't hide the interface to capture with fraps, the camera is locked centered on the creature,you can just turn around, zoom in/out
Sporemodelviewer could be great.

Oh ! and BTW ! Never Stay Tuned 3 PlatiniumZ @ WCM !!!

OMG screenshoted too soon

Dave of Azeroth

2008-06-09T21:13:00.005+02:00

Looks like a light comin' from yon shrubbery !

Job is done !
Vilaeryn and Shockdingo both worked so fast and so good that they made it possible !!

I don't know when Blizzard is gonna show the choosen machinimas and so give the right to publish every submitted ones. This time I can guaranty a "Teen" rating, compare to this video, Titanic is non stop porn.

I swear on wowdelviewer that this orc is not in the movie !!

I'm not sure there will be another machinima soon, I'm about to have a pretty busy life during this summer, like renovating and moving in an new but old appartment (1980 grandma's style) or drawings 20 pages for a technical book about plants. And my graphic designer contract ends after 8 month the 11th of July, so there's a chance I have to find a new job too.

Subliminal image, too late, you'll think about it during years...

More than a Million Sex Junkies !

2008-05-22T14:06:00.005+02:00

Choosing a title with the word sex in it is the key to succes.

More than a million pervy viewers saw The Ballad of the Sex Junkie on Youtube !

My first million viewers !

So if I have to thank someone for this, it would be Richard Gotainer and his fabulous song !
As there's no official video for this ballad, here's one of my favorite Gotainer music video :

The machinima for the Blizzard WWI contest is on it's way, Vilaeryn wrote an amazing text that totally changed the way I imagined this video, Shockdingo just sent me his lines and it really sound excellent as always. So, I'm pretty motivated for this contest, I just hope I'll have enough time and not too much technical issues.

Anyway, THANKS for WATCHING !

Beautiful contest

2008-05-15T15:46:00.002+02:00

Blizzard just hit the european machinima community with a damn good contest !
A bit less than a month to make a 4 minute movie, what is really great is that there's total freedom, could be a comedy, a drama.. Anything we want except copyrighted material other than Blizzard property. That leaves a wide choice we're not use to in such contest.

A second contest is about making a 40 seconds max machinima TV advertisement about any WoW item. This also is a great idea giving a lot of freedom to machinimakers.

I'm sure the competition will be very hard, there'll be a lot of us wanting this wonderful laptop PC that is pretty much what anyone would need to make great machinimas.
So I took Vilaeryn and Shockdingo by my side and now comes the time to machinimate again.

I'll not post here any screens or infos about this video, I'll just make sure that, for once, It can be rated T for Teen... That could be the hardest part. The script is already written, Vil will have to rewrite the lines and make a few voice acting, Shock will have to perform the rest of the lines.
Then, I should be ok to begin editing.

All I can tell you is that it's gonna be a comedy.

It takes 46 muscles to frown but only 1 to vote !

2008-05-06T10:35:00.007+02:00

It is now time to vote for your favorite machinima at the Bitfilm Festival !
10 movies are nominated for the machinima award 2008, 3 of them are made with WoW :

Malus and Dopefish's
Among Fables and Men

Baron Soosdon's
I'm So Sick

And my
Ballad of the Sex Junkie

There are prizes to be won for anyone that takes part in the voting!
You'll have to register in order to vote.

I just found a little film about last year Bitfilm Festival :

LET'S VOTE !

Sick my duck

2008-05-01T20:10:00.007+02:00

That's my beach !

Looking like some people are offended by some subliminal images that are inside "Tunasushi".
I was almost sure to have issues with the use of random japanese words and cliche.
And nope, 0.001% of this video created a lot of reactions.
On youtube, most of the comments are about them and people don't really get the point or at least find this funny.

WoW Insider was the place where shocked people decided to meet.
http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/04/30/wow-moviewatch-tunasushi/

I suggest you have a look to the comments, but there's a chance it could be locked/erase sooner or later, so... Let me give you here my "very best of" :

So Thanks a lot to those who tried to explain things to them (Yeng, Matthew Rossi, Voldamir, Michel, Gadai, jten11 and the others).

As I said right there,
I was just trying to add more jokes to this video.

If I ever felt like making those images subliminals, they'd never saw them and they'd be eating sushis naked in a schoolyard right now.

Tunasushi

2008-04-28T23:23:00.005+02:00

I kept silent about this one, let's say that after so many random movies and toilet humor I'd like to apologize for, here comes a meditative tale of love and humanity that explores traditional Japanese cultural values. A highly stylized story, with vibrant colors, with crazy sets, with an exciting and thrilling plot, with images that will burn into your brain. As says the japanese proverb :
"Bukkake Tamagoshi Aïbo Subaru"/"The reverse side also has a reverse side."

Here it is :

Now I go for a vacation in Liberty City, as planned since 4 long years.
I mean, if I have a chance too.

GTA won't make you a serial killer more than Tetris made you a bricklayer.

Shameless Self GG Quality Time

2008-04-17T21:15:00.005+02:00

Tamagoshi wasabi subaru ?

Never Stay Tuned 3 gets a lot of love and I'd like to thank again those who are a huge part of this succes ; Ian Beckman, Dopefish and the Baron and all those who helped a lot. A whole lot of admiring comments everywhere talking about the amazing guest videos (Youtube, WCM...)

Blizzard France and Daghorn did another great news on the frontpage :

It says something I can badly translates with my friend the english translator as :
"Olibith comes back to us after an extended vacation, and delivers the so expected next part of his channel surfing : Never Stay tuned 3 ! Once again, our film director enriches his recipe by ideas which alone the mind of a gnome can find, the whole was made more dynamic by a nervous editing. And as our film director is exported, he does not hesitate to spread a bit of typically French provocation"

Youtube's stats are also sweet

Oh and Olibith's machinimas have been seen more than a million time at Warcraftmovies.com !!

The gnome is quite honored that 6 days after NST3 release, the cornerbox ad is still there and the video featured. A big thanks to WCM for giving such a large audience to this video !

So now that I did something that needed a lot of thinking (hahaha.. Hmmm) let's do something twice as dumb without any sense !! If I edit it fast and release it right after NST3, people might forgive me who knows ?

I've been trying to machinimate inside an Unreal3 map. But the framerate, even with low settings, was too low to capture a video. So I just did a lot of good quality screenshots of the place that I'll use as backgrounds. I have to do that a lot, sometimes even with WoW.

So it's gonna be a japanese movie.

Mitsubishi sapporo pokemon !!!

The story of a young boy who saw his family sadistically killed and who decides to get revenge 8 years later. More about it soon !

Anyway :

THANKS FOR WATCHING !!!

NEVER STAY TUNED 3 !

2008-04-11T00:33:00.012+02:00

>>> DOWNLOAD IT HERE <<<