The latest and best SL machinima coming from the YouTube stream is Robbie Dingo's "Stage", a delicately moving short that conveys the circle of life from the vantage of a grand piano. Excellent lighting and camera work is matched to crisp editing-- pacing is still one of the biggest challenges for most other SL machinima makers-- and a few subtle special effects nicely convey the aging process.
Full movie is here, an ambitious follow-up to Dingo's first (and by my lights, among the very best) attempts at SL machinima, "Better Life".
Update, 1:23AM: About an hour ago I sent an IM to Robbie, asking him to discuss the development of this movie. Dingo just responded with a link to an entire blog that documents the step-by-step process, from avatar creation to lighting affects to storyboard, all of it. No point linking to any single post, especially if you're interested in creating machinima on this level-- just read his whole blog already.
Update, 10:23AM: Link to Dingo's movie fixed. Thanks to Ordinal Malaprop for noticing the original URL was stirred, not shaken.
Thank you for your kind comments Hamelet; you asked if I could post some details on the 'making of..STAGE'; if anyone is interested the whole process was blogged here.
Posted by: Robbie D | Tuesday, June 13, 2006 at 01:11 AM
Thanks Robbie, will update!
Posted by: Hamlet Au | Tuesday, June 13, 2006 at 01:21 AM
If Mr Dingo did indeed produce the trailer for Casino Royale in Second Life, that is an astounding achievement... but otherwise, Hamlet, I believe you need to fix your link :)
Posted by: Ordinal Malaprop | Tuesday, June 13, 2006 at 02:52 AM
OMG, how embarassing. Yes, you caught me, I was watching the *Casino Royale* trailer (and it looks pretty damn good!) before I posted about Robbie's movie. Must have screwed up the copy/paste, though at least the URL embedded in the screen capture was always right. Fixed now, anyway.
Posted by: Hamlet Au | Tuesday, June 13, 2006 at 10:28 AM
Well, I just was thinking "Hey,that new lighting definitely rocks!" when seeing that trailer ;-)
well, it rocks anyway and so does Robbie's movie and blog! Looks like quite a lot of work and effort he put into it. Great work!
Posted by: Tao Takashi | Wednesday, June 14, 2006 at 01:39 AM