Abstract
Machinima as user-created content has gained an increasing amount of attention from videogame developers over the past few years. Many videogames include machinimation modules or some form of support for amateur machinima productions.
This chapter explores three selected tools for machinima authoring in the context of creativity. Building on Bardzell's methodology for the semiotic analysis of multimedia authoring platforms and the identified principles of digital creativity, this chapter analyses how the features of machinima platforms influence creativity and user community building.
The focus here is on a machinima tool based on the videogame platform Half Life 2, its modification Garry's Mod (2004), and two dedicated machinima production applications: Moviestorm (2008) and Antics3D (2008).