The Mind Of OverlordTomala
Hobbies

Shotcut now has Keyframes!

I’ve mentioned a few times in passing that for the most part I do my video editing with Shotcut, an open source alternative to Premiere or Vegas. I still keep Premiere installed on the off chance I need to keyframe something (like the THX logo in last weeks MGR video), but now it seems that miiiiight change considering they have officially added the ability to add keyframes to your projects!

Perhaps the most requested feature is the ability to move or smooth pan-and-zoom images or digital photos. We chose to address that in a more general manner by allowing filter parameters to be key-framed and animated rather than build something specific. Well, after long wait and much work, this has been introduced with a new Keyframes panel. It has an icon on the main toolbar to open the panel. There is much to say about this new feature and be sure to watch the videos as they become available. Keep in mind that this is new, incomplete, and a little unstable. Here are more caveats:

  • No support for undo/redo (pending filter support for this)
  • No keyboard shortcuts yet
  • Not yet available for transitions or generators
  • Only the following filters support keyframes at this time:
    • Gain / Volume
    • Brightness*
    • Circular Frame (HTML proof-of-concept)
    • Color Grading* (no simple)
    • Opacity*
    • Size and Position* (simple only, no curve UI)

It’s new, so I expect it to not in perfect working order, but a great start nevertheless. If they keep it up and get it at a point where it’s on par with other non-linear editors I’ll have a reason to retire premiere completely. :happy:

Technology1

Upgrades!

By the powers that be I have a new graphics card coming in the mail. I’ve managed to score a RX Vega64 to surpass my current R9 Fury. It was a toss up for me to either completely switch to Ryzen or upgrade graphics. For now I can still get by on my Xeon, and throughout the year I’ll just scout for parts individually as they get cheaper. I have a goal to completely go pure AMD on my desktop by next year. I’ve read and seen enough about Ryzen processors, with threadripper continuing to make me drool.

I wonder how many Bungholio Marks I’ll be able to score? :v:

Gaming1

There is a fan patch for the PC version of Metal Gear Solid 2

Otacon thinks my resolution is hilarious.

I’ve been experimenting with an all in one patch for the PC version of MGS2 that I stumbled upon whilst browsing the Steam forums. This was an oddly timed find as I was considering getting my hands on the HD collection for the PS3 version and play it that way. But after experimenting with this fan patch it has been smooth sailing. I can play it at any resolution I want, I can choose between an XBox Layout or a PS2 one. I can’t seem to get the game to run through Steam properly, making it more of an annoyance to try running it with the Steam Controller. Not too big of an issue, after all I have plenty of other controllers to subject it to. For the test I used my old reliable standby: The Logitech G510. It performed quite nicely using the PS2 layout (the G510 is basically a hybrid of the XBox and Dualshock controllers). Got rumble support and everything. I’ll have to install it on the HTPC for a nice big screen experience. Now if I could find a patch for the MGS1 PC version, it wouldn’t need much other than the ability to run it in resolutions above 1024×768 and not corrupted cutscenes. I do have the PS1 version, so it’s not too big of a deal though. :melon:

Sadly OBS doesn’t let me record or stream MGS2 unless I have it record the entire desktop. Fortunately I have my laptop setup to do remote capture over the network, gotta love plugins. :v: I figure if I’m playing MGSV, MGS4 and MGR I should go as whole hog as I can. After all I can definitely see MGS2 being worthy of recording. :trollface: I could hear the gears inside my head turning, they were metal… or was that mental? :melon:

Are you fucking serious? / Fashion1

To wear or not to wear?

https://twitter.com/daumkeziah/status/988115815068139520

I do find it funny that taking this to a prom is bad, but cosplaying in this stuff is totally ok. As someone who collects a bunch of things relating to the orient and enjoys wearing other worldly clothes I took an interest in this article about this girls prom dress.

Like many other teenagers preparing for prom, Utah senior Keziah Daum wanted to find a dress that would stand out, “something that would be more unique and bold and had some sort of meaning to it,” she said in an interview with The Washington Post.

I always find it rather amusing how people can get bent out of shape over articles of clothing. I collect Kimonos (and even bought one recently), Cheongsam’s, Hanfu’s, etc. To me if you’re not supposed to wear a particular garment due to your heritage then why are these items being sold worldwide? You never really hear about people complaining about the origins of the T Shirt, and how people around the world wear them. They originally started as undergarments and eventually evolved to a point of everyday wear. We should learn and embrace other cultures and what they bring us… like good food. 😛

Blogospheric Naval Gazing1

I don’t know if I would be able to kill this spider…

He looks like a happy old man. :happy: Why would I want to rob a happy old man of his 8 legged life? He looks like he’d be happy scurrying across a Monopoly board with a top hat on.

Entertainment / Gaming / Movies1

The new Doom movie is Doomed before it even started (according to certain fans)

Not an ideal Doom protagonist.

The latest thing in the gaming world for people to be really pissy about is the new upcoming Doom movie. My memories of the original Doom movie were never really that great, but like when most movies are announced or coming out I take all information with a grain of salt. It already sounded a bit off that it was going to be a straight to DVD/Blu-Ray movie… but that’s not what the big focus seems to be. There have been arguments in the fanbase over one detail… the protagonist is a woman. Oooh! How horrible! These same people have even been posing the question: What would happen if Hollywood cast a male to play Lara Croft? Considering Tomb Raider is actually heavily inspired by Indiana Jones, who last I checked was a dude… that argument is invalid. Plus there is a male Lara Croft out there, his name is Nathan Drake and he’s part of the Uncharted series… Not that it matters to these people, these extremely manly men need their safespaces unlike the rest of us. :zorak:

Throughout the Doom lore (yes, there is actual lore believe it or not, even more than I realized) there are female characters. Maybe not directly involved with the original game, but in the novels there was Arlene Sanders, and one even existed in Quake III Arena by the name of Crash (not the bandicoot). Of course that still isn’t enough for these so called manly men. I personally could care less if it were a male or female leading in a movie, hell I still don’t understand the anger around last years Ghostbusters being all female.

Back to the argument about gender flipping and how we should all totally be outraged about it. I could name a few movies ideas of my own. What about Pretty Woman, Driving Mr Daisy, Marvin Poppins, or lets really get crazy and make a male version of Juno where the guy gets pregnant, and maybe Legally Blonde where the guy is a bleach blonde surfer dude trying to become a lawyer, or my personal favorite The Brotherhood Of The Traveling Pants! The point I’m trying to make is that like many things this can go both ways, so why not have fun with it? :v:

Gaming

Open Thread

I’ve been mentally gearing up for my return to work tomorrow. I have all of my clothes laid out, tea has been brewed and the laptop and tablet are charged and ready to go.

I played a bit of Doom Snapmap today which turned out to be more entertaining than expected. Snapmap is a built in map editor/community version of the 2016 Doom you could say; people make their own maps and share them with the community. Some of them ranged from awesome, to what drugs were these wanks on when they made this? At some point I’d like to go into CoOp in these maps and have a good time.

Then I did another stream of MGR, nothing noteworthy there… Or at least I’ll be the judge of the footage I captured. As short as the game is I somehow manage to have fun with it still. I think it’s because there are multiple ways to attack people, like distracting them with 3D porn and running into them with a barrel and then finishing with some epic poledancing. I have to say, playing this after playing DMC1 and DMC3 feels more like a cakewalk, an extremely fabulous cakewalk, and Dante is fabulous to begin with… or at least he was until they Justin Biebertized him.

Gaming

Old games catch me off guard to this day

I wasn’t aware there were dedicated flying levels in Spyro. I’ve been having fun trying to get all of the treasure. I’m not sure yet if there is a dragon to free in this level, but it has been amusing trying to grab all of the rings and other stuff. It also looks like everything is made of giant gems. :happy: Of course up in the top right is a counter, you have a limited time to collect everything and everything you can collect time for each item you destroy/fly into. That I have yet to properly time. :zorak:

It’s kind of a weird transition if you think about it. For most of the game you can’t really fly, glide yes but never fly… Now all of a sudden for this level you can fly? I wasn’t aware there was a Spyro that could put the entire Superman64 game to shame. :v:

Gaming

Devil May Cry 2 lives up to the not hype

I always heard that Devil May Cry 2 (unless you count the reboot with a Justin Bieber’d Dante) was the worst game in the entire series, and after playing it today I can see where people are coming from.

The Devil May Cry series is notoriously known for stylish hack n slash, and encourages you not to use the same moves over and over again to defeat your enemies. In Devil May Cry 2 however it seems the best way to defeat enemies is to do just that… So far all of the boss fights I have encountered have been rather simplistic, a chop here and gunshot there, definitely seems off-putting compared to the other games. I mean I knew something was amiss when I realized I wasn’t getting my ass handed to me on a silver platter. :v:

I can’t say it’s a terrible game, but at the same time I have to say it comes off really lackluster. I still have a bit of a hard time with the other games, but when I finally defeat a difficult boss it feels much more satisfying than anything I’ve encountered thus far. The last boss I fought was an infected helicopter, which was basically a helicopter possessed by a demon. To get through that boss battle I mainly just kept shooting the shotgun over and over again. Another boss was a giant gorilla orangutan hybrid demon. The game seems to have a thing with monkeying around as I’ve also found small monkey looking demons, as well as other animals and abominations.

Dante’s personality also seems too serious to me. In all of the other games he has a laid back personality, even tries to eat pizza while being stabbed at by a bunch of monsters, but in DMC2 he’s all serious all the time, and has the whit and charm of a wooden plank. No sarcastic lines, no comical retorts, no terrible puns that make me want to throw a shoe at my computer screens. It’s no wonder they made DMC3 similar to DMC1.

I guess now my remaining question is which is really worse? DMC2 or DMC: Devil May Cry (The Reboot)?