Don't Miss This Must-Watch Virtual World Performance of The Nutcracker's "Waltz Of The Flowers"

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Lovers of art, avatars, dance, music, and machinima, gather 'round and drop everything because boy do I have a treat for you. Loony Columbia's latest machinima, "A Pemberley Nutcracker - Waltz of The Flowers", might be everything you've ever wanted in a virtual world dance performance. While The Nutcracker is a holiday tradition in the world of ballet and beyond, it can be incredibly difficult to pull it off in games and virtual environments. The more dancers there are, the more points of failure you have to contend with. It can be even more troublesome when you have to worry about recording it. But this? This is flawless.

Watch the full performance for yourself after the jump!

 

Now I've gushed about the artist behind this project before: Loony Columbia might be known to NWN readers for her super-cute avatar portraits (often inspired by the "ulzzang" look) but this highly coordinated ballet machinima is on another level altogether. If you have any experience trying to sync the moves of multiple dancers in SL, you know how difficult it can be, and that's what makes this particularly impressive (camera work, costumes, staging and effects aside.) As I mentioned earlier, the more avatars you have in motion, the more chance there is for a couple milliseconds of lag or latency to spoil the entire scene... Not to mention the possibility for human error. 

Anyway, I'd say this is a resounding success for everyone who was involved. If you're eager for more, check out Loony's Flickr gallery for teasers, productions shots, and loads of adorable avatars.

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Timesand has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan andwith pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Loony Columbia]

Hello Iris. Thank you for the kind words. The machinima has a lot of funny errors that were not meant to be in there.

-One of the dancers has her mouth stuck open and looks surprised the entire time

-Someone crashed during the circular formation

-Major clipping problems near the end during an overhead shot

A lot of patience was required from the dancers and I thank them for putting up with me. It was a fun thing to make and I'm currently planning the next project!

[Tracy RedAngel]

I didn't really notice the errors, except the surprised girl, but I thought that was kinda cute lol I absolutely loved it, really wonderful work :D

[Canary Beck]

That is very good work! I know just how difficult it is to get dance in SL looking this good, and the video itself is very well done. Bravo :)