James McVinnie has been making machinima for years, for the Half-Life modding community, for BioWare as a cinematic director on Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and more recently for himself. His Source Filmmaker short, Practical Problems, was a finalist in the comedy category at the 2012 Saxxy awards.
His latest project is End of the Line, an eight-minute Source Filmmaker short due out early next year. It again stars a cast of Team Fortress 2 characters, but it’s more ambitious than any SFM short I’ve seen before. A minute-long trailer released in August garnered so much attention that Valve have asked McVinnie and his team to explore creating an official community update for Team Fortress 2 to coincide with the film’s release.
I spoke with James about his time with BioWare, and his process for making films within videogame engines. In response to one of my questions, he made an illustrative video.
(more…)
Continue reading...
