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February 28, 2007
Machinima Friday (Flashback Edition)
We're a little late, but imagine with me now that we have traveled to the past. We have journeyed all the way back to the exotic yesteryear of February 23rd, in the year 2007. Spooky.
Okay. Now that we're all in the right mind-set, we can appreciate our Friday Machinima. It's non-narrative. While most machinima tell a story, or at least include characters engaged in some sort of situation, this one is environmental.
In fact, it's architectural. While game engines are great for rendering characters, they're also good at representing world-spaces.
This machinima is a fly-through of one of Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpieces, Fallingwater (more properly known as the Edgar Kaufmann House). Located in Bear Run, Pennsylvania (that's between Mill Run and Ohiopyle, in Southwestern Pennsylvania), it's a house built on top of, and around, a waterfall. Hence the name Fallingwater.
The house is built directly on the waterfall, and there is a staircase leading down to one of the waterfall's pools from the living room. It also, famously, is built as a series of canterlevered planes, each jutting out in a different direction.
It's a beautiful house, and the time and care that went into recreating the house in the Half-Life 2 engine is incredible.
Enjoy.
(X-posted to Lives Online)
Posted by reparent at February 28, 2007 10:24 AM
Comments
I enjoyed parts of this, but not all.
Having visited Fallingwater on several occasions, I was intrigued by the artist's assumption that you can hear the waterfall from anywhere in the house, which I honestly don't think you can, although perhaps this is merely poetic license.
Many of the interior scenes were too dark to be appreciated. And the "tour" seemed unplanned and haphazard to the point where we, the cyborg intruder, occasionally couldn't decide which direction to go or which orifice to enter.
I got a kick out of the grand finale, in which we fly about the exterior, sometimes at great altitude, exposing Fallingwater as a fictitious fairytale villa floating on a cloud.
Posted by: coeurlion at March 3, 2007 3:53 PM