Before starting this tutorial, you’ll need at least two OS X Tiger Macs that share a network. If you have WiFi, you can follow this tutorial first to create a direct wireless connection, without going through a router. (However you set it up, remember to turn off your firewalls first, or else make sure that they’re not going to interfere.)

Step 1. Find and launch the Audio MIDI Setup utility:

Step 2. Go to the MIDI Devices and open the Network device:

Step 3. To start with, use the following settings:

Step 4. Choose a computer from the list and connect to it:

Step 5. If you’re successful, the computer will now appear in the Participants list. If you can’t connect, your network settings are most likely to blame. (Check to see whether you can do other ordinary network tasks, like copying files from the other computer.)

Note: On some older Macs, closing the Audio MIDI Setup utility appears to break the connection. Try it and see–if you have this problem, you’ll have to keep the utility running to stay connected.

Step 6. If everything has gone smoothly, you’ll have created a new MIDI Port with the name Network (Session 1). Select it from inside a MIDI program and test it out!

Step 1. Find and launch the Audio MIDI Setup utility:

Step 2. Go to MIDI Devices and find the IAC Driver’s icon. If you’ve never used it before, it’ll be grayed out:

Step 3. Turn it on by checking the Device is online box:

Step 4. Now you can go to the MIDI preferences of any program you like and treat the IAC Driver as a MIDI input or output:

For Windows, MIDI Yoke is a free third-party driver that does the same thing.

The program comes with a generic character model and several locations to test out. It can also import assets formatted for Quake 3, or models that you create yourself. You record your action in “takes,” playing your character and up to 31 others simulataneously. (Each player will need their own networked computer; fortunately, Machinimation sets this up for you transparently.) If you have characters who won’t need to interact in real time, they can be recorded in subsequent takes and popped in afterwards, without needing any additional computers.

The included manual needs clarification on a few points:

1. Importing New Assets. The manual makes it seem like adding models and sounds is a straightforward process, but in fact it’s fairly tricky. Machinimation needs all assets dropped into a particular subfolder (which, a bit confusingly, is also named “machinimation”). They then need to be converted into PK3 format. Fortunately, this is nothing but a renamed Zip file–zip your sound or model with WinZip or WinXP’s built-in menu option, and then just change the name. Sounds must be 22khz 16-bit mono; you can convert them with Audacity or a similar program. Models must be MD3 files; you can convert them with Milkshape.

2. Making clean edits with no camera movement. As in most animation programs, when you set two camera keyframes, the computer gamely interpolates between them; the result is a camera that never stays still. There are several ways to stop it; the simplest is to right-click on each new camera keyframe as you create it and toggle “hold.” The camera will then cleanly jump to the new position.

3. Adding background music. If you add a background music track and then begin recording, it will only play to the last keyframe that existed up to that point! In other words, if the new material you’re recording runs longer than your existing project (which it almost certainly will, at least at first), the music just cuts off. There are two ways to fix this. First, you can add a keyframe past the end of your music track. (Machinimation counts by frames at a fixed rate of 30 fps; a 5-minute song will need a keyframe set at frame 9,000.) Second, you can insert the command music “pathname/filename” at the start of your project, which will cause the track to play through regardless of the length of your project. Use the command music, by itself, to stop playback.

Step 1. First, find the Energy Saver panel in your System Preferences.

Step 2. For Panther and earlier, choose Highest Performance to shut off all your sleep settings in one swoop. (Be sure to change it back when the show’s done; no need to keep spinning your hard disk all day during normal use.)

The same setting in Tiger is called Better Performance, and you can set it right from the menu bar:

One more power-management tip–no matter what you set here, your machine will probably be faster if it’s plugged in. When you’re running on the battery, most laptops ratchet down their speed as the charge runs out.