RELEASE: Breaking Magical Boundaries (APPOVTALK 3)

Camera manipulation during one of the many spell-challenges found within Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

Trigon: it's a name that has been dropped quite a few times over the past few months. It refers to an upcoming experimental machinima and visual study of the 2002 GameCube port of 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' that is set for a current release in late 2023. It is said to be my first 'console-based' machinima as it was solely created within the Dolphin GameCube/Wii Emulator and with the aid of two of its built-in features: "The Custom-Texture Feature" and the "Free Look Camera". While the former sounds fairly straightforward, the latter allows the user to break loose from the in-game camera with the click of a button and explore their surroundings at their own pace and interest. Furthermore, although limited, the feature allows for deeper control of said camera with simple rotation, position, FOV and speed controls; allowing machinimators to create new point of views and representations of countless videogames whose worlds we thought to know inside and out. Literally, with the click of a button and one single feature built in the emulator, the user is given access to potentially countless machinima-based ideas found within hundreds of Nintendo GameCube and Wii games, right from the get-go.

This, is where Breaking Magical Boundaries comes in. A bridge between the concept of 'console-based' machinima and 'Trigon'.

Camera manipulation inside one of the various interiors found within Diagon Alley

While it all sounds fairly straightforward, it really is not as there are some deeper phenomena at play here. I wanted to grasp an opportunity to go ahead and dive deeper into console-based machinima, camera manipulation, texture manipulation and the various aspects of troubleshooting as one would quickly encounter different issues with machinima-making in console-based games from over 20 years ago (lack of RAM/texture and object popping being one of them). This is why I created 'Breaking Magical Boundaries', the newest installment in the APPOVTALK (A Pixelated Point of View Talk) series. It combines a 100% play through of the game, personal commentary and live camera manipulation in one single video. 

Breaking Magical Boundaries was originally pre-recorded in early April over the course of a week. However, after careful review of the footage, it turned out that I missed a couple of gameplay events and with much dismay I had to conclude I hadn't completed the game for the full 100%.  For the retry I created the idea of a livestream. I felt that this way of doing things was a bit more laidback, more approachable in general and this approach allowed me to implement various live graphics inside of OBS that could be changed on the fly, such as the goal counter on the bottom right of the screenshots that consisted of various 'states' and the information bar on the bottom left (which contained detailed information about the purpose of the stream) alongside the use of plugins and proper 'scenes' for pre-stream and post-stream billboards. While the second attempt backfired as well as the hardware I used was not powerful enough to accompany both gameplay and stream, the third time was indeed the charm as I resorted to using a cloud-based gaming PC to play the game in order to lift the burden from my own personal computer. The actual 'gameplay' was conducted in the cloud, while I streamed and controlled everything from my own computer.

All in all, the livestream approach certainly made the whole experience a bit more laidback and professional. But it drastically increased the amount of pauses, breaks, uhms and ahs as well; drastically increasing the overall runtime of it all. Breaking Magical Boundaries was streamed as a four-part stream between the beginning and halfway mark of May. All streams combined clocked in at a whopping 15 to 16 hours full of gameplay, camera manipulation and deeper exploration within the 2002 rendition of Hogwarts, all cut back to 12 hours. That is why I decided to combine all parts into one, single video. What will be released today is the final version of A Pixelated Point of View Talk 3: Breaking Magical Boundaries. The majority of the loading screens have been removed, alongside redundant commentary, countless uhms/ahs and unnecessary clips. From beginning to end, the entire journey feels much more streamlined and therefore this version of 'Breaking Magical Boundaries' will replace the four separate livestreams in their entirety. Our journey starts with an introduction in the form of a presentation, continues with the actual gameplay, commentary, creative insights and camera manipulation, and ends with a very preliminary conclusion (also in presentation form) towards the question: "From a highly preliminary perspective, can any machinima potential be found in Nintendo GameCube games?"

Camera manipulation within the Room of Reflections

Still taken during the boss fight with Aragog inside of the Forbidden Forest

Still taken during Gnome Tossing: one of the many minigames one can participate in during their stay at Hogwarts.

Breaking Magical Boundaries stands, in hindsight, for the invisible barrier known as the in-game camera. Used and perceived by thousands; an invisible gameplay element simply taken for granted; overlooked and underexposed. Yet it is such an important piece of the puzzle and the key ingredient for a proper introduction to console-based machinima creation. Enjoy this new installment of A Pixelated Point of View Talk while I work on other projects, Trigon included. This piece of content is the longest I have ever created in my entire life, and probably ever will. It was originally even 24 minutes too long as YouTube has a 12-hour video limit in effect. That meant I had to cut some extensive gameplay areas found within one of the spell challenges and Quidditch matches short. Perhaps a bit shorter than I wanted to since it contained some funny moments. I ended up losing three times to Slytherin before I was able to beat them, but due to time constraints I could not put all of the fails in the final video, for example. In addition I had to cut out a camera manipulation session I conducted while I was in Flourish and Blotts. It was not the most exciting session out of the bunch anyway, so there wouldn't be much of a loss.

I hope that this journey, this extensive experience, sheds loads of interesting insights concerning console-based machinima, GameCube/Wii camera manipulation, my personal story behind the game (as I consider this game an irreplaceable piece of 'me') and the various creative insights I shared of moments, interesting perspectives and potential issues I encountered while I was shooting Trigon.

Still taken during the quidditch match: Slytherin vs Gryffindor

Still taken during the quest in the Forbidden Forest

Camera manipulation conducted from underneath the Grand Staircase

Camera manipulation conducted from within the Herbology Greenhouse

Breaking Magical Boundaries (Or known as APPOVTALK 3)

An exhaustive introduction towards the phenomena of console-based machinima by using 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' (GC) as a case-study. This introduction is threefold and combines a 100% playthrough, creative insights and personal commentary with live camera manipulation inside of the Dolphin Emulator.

Runtime: 11 hours, 59 minutes and 36 seconds

Game: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

Platform: Nintendo GameCube

Developer: Eurocom

Publisher: EA UK

Game Score Composer: Jeremy Soule

Initially live-streamed to YouTube with OBS on Wednesday 10/05/2023, Friday 12/05/2023, Saturday 13/05/2023 and Sunday 14/05/2023.

© Jordy Veenstra 2023

© A Pixelated Point of View 2009 - 2023