Some Neat Fan-Made Creations

So there's some neat stuff I've found, and it's got me thinking about the future of fan-made entertainment.

There's also plenty of game mods I've seen, here's a playlist of some I've seen.

Skywind
Plenty of video games have had mods made by fans (modified versions of the game). Even just browsing the "mod database" website, you'll find countless examples.

But then there's some modding projects that are just epic.

One of my childhood favorite games, Morrowind, has had a large modding community, with some very ambitious projects. In particular, things like "Tamriel Rebuilt".

Now there's a dedicated effort to remake Morrowind entirely, using the newer game engine and graphics and all that, while adding spoken dialogue (rather than text to read, which the original Morrowind had).

It's called "Skywind" (Morrowind made with the game engine used for Skyrim), and it looks gorgeous.

Even featured at a fairly official conference.

This is partly the power of crowdsourcing. Will crowdsourced creations begin to compete side-by-side with traditional game studios?

Video links:
 * 2019 trailer
 * a quest

Blade Runner:  The White Dragon Cut
In the realm of video entertainment, the technology available for home-made special effects just keeps getting better and better.

The White Dragon Cut is a fan edited version of Blade Runner that includes new scenes and CGI based on the movie's original concept art by Syd Mead! It was scheduled to come out November 2019 (the month the movie is set in) but has been pushed back to November 2020. Here's a clip.

Fun with Deepfakes
Another net new technology is "deepfaking", used to swap the faces of actors.

The potential is that maybe we can easily use the likeness of famous celebrities in our own videos.

This got me thinking about what I'd love to see:  more Star Trek The Next Generation. Why not? People love that series. I kinda think it's inevitable over the next few decades.

So I searched on google for this, and it turns out something similar has been tried. Fans have made their own "Star Trek The Original Series" episodes, and someone else has used deepfake technology to make the actors look more like the stars of the real show  (I'll admit I'm not brave enough to try listening to their dialogue). Still not perfect, but this is still new technology, and others have. Give it a decade or so.

Oh, and of course there will be endless permutations that are less faithful to the originals. There will be crossovers and fanfic, and just plain dadaist nonsense. A few rare purely original creations here and there too.

Paying people to create the version that you want, possibly with yourself inserted as a character. Turning games into movies and movies into games, making visual versions of people's favorite books. And some people will go meta I guess. And then who knows what. We'll live in virtual/augmented reality versions of them, a bit like Ready Player One.

Firestorm X and whatever
Efforts to mod Command and Conquer Renegade (or a mod or extension of it?) to feature the units and such found in the game Tiberian Sun.

[Video Link]