One of the big trends for the coming months looks to be the wider adoption and spread of Machinima as a form of mainstream entertainment. Machinima is the art of making movies in virtual worlds, and as Second Life and World of Warcraft continue their steady rates of growth, machinima has become a whole new entertainment genre and an example of the myriad of impacts spinning out of the rapidly growing metaverse. Look for at least a few machinima feature length movies to be released by the end of the year, and rumor has it that several large studios are looking at greenlighting picture releases to be developed in machinima.

Second Life provides great backdrops for this form of film making, and an increasing number of short films feature machinima styles that come from this world. Other sets include Halo (available on Microsoft Xbox) and World of Warcraft. Last years Internet is for Porn web hit came from WoW. Some see machinima growing as an evolution to cartoon animation and Japanese Anime, but the cultural significance of it may go much deeper - for the first time ever individuals can manipulate and create deep stories without the expense and time associated with live sets and actors. The results, for a genre that is maybe 24 months old at the most, are astounding.

Here are a few examples of recent projects involving machinima from various sources. Another good machinima short film can be found at Silver Bells and Golden Spurs. A range of cream of the crop content is also available at machinima.com.