I spent tonight’s SFM session on animating still. What I really need to do is record some solo voice lines to add to the scene; However due to real life reasons I haven’t had a chance. I’m hoping later this week or the upcoming weekend I’ll be able to do so, among other things. In the meantime I’ve been focusing on trying to improve some animations in other scenes, smoothing things out, additional scene dressing, that kind of thing. I have decided to cut some of the dialogue as it seemed a little too long winded for the situation we’re in, and will attempt to recycle what we cut for future projects.
I have no picture to share this time, so have a melon instead. :melon:
It took us a couple weeks but we finally have Wheatley in the background!
I’ve still been plucking away at this scene… still on the same damned couch. This trip is going to take us awhile methinks, but I am getting a lot done, even though in my head I feel like I could do more. Even after completing this I won’t be releasing it until I finish Part 4. I was hoping to release a video sometime this month, but due to work, other hobbies, etc. I’m anticipating this at least taking a few more weeks to finish up. Animation by hand be it 2D or 3D takes time, though watching over some of my previous scenes you would probably think I just screwed off in SFM for a couple days.
Of course, even if I do finish this video within the same month the chances of me releasing it are highly unlikely. After consistently doing this last year, and starting around the same time, I’ve decided to make certain rules for myself. Firstly, if one livestream is going to span across more than one video, then I won’t release any of them until an entire set is done. I’m also contemplating changing that rule to a minimum of two sets. Say for example I finish up parts 3 and 4 for the current Skyrim “series” and I start to work on two Broforce videos. I won’t release the Skyrim videos until I have both Skyrim and the Broforce videos completed. I’d like to get enough videos canned up for a steady release schedule instead of having a couple ready, then having a long pause in between releases.
I also want to work on a new channel trailer to showcase the new video format. I’ll probably release one once I actively release videos again.
Survived work the last few days, nothing to report. Been getting ore animation done, but also talking over crazy ideas with Yutram over the ending for the video. It keeps getting crazier… I mean look:
There’s more to it, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Here is a work in progress I can finally share. I have a lot of additions to make to it, but felt I should finally post something to show what we’ve been up to.
Nothing to really write about tonight. I’ve been doing some SFM and photoshop work the past week in my spare time, and unfortunately I don’t have anything to really produce visually at this time, however if you’ve seen my real world metal jaw mask you might have a rough idea. :melon: I’m currently working on the ending for the third Skyrim video which is going to take some time.. I’m animating a little over two minutes worth for the ending, and that shit takes awhile when this is only a hobby.
The weather is going to suck again this weekend. I’ll probably have a cozy introverted couple of days… I think I’ve earned it after the last few weekends not quite panning out as planned. I’m thinking of doing something creative tomorrow, but not quite sure what… I think I’ll take a hint from the two accidental naps that I’ve had and get a full night’s sleep before I let my brain think of anything else.
I normally like ending the year with games that I’ve finished; But this year is a little different because we’re not just going into a new year. I wanted to recollect moments that made gaming even cooler for me over the last decade.
Gaming Under Linux
When I first caught wind of Left 4 Dead 2 being able to run under Linux I thought it was pretty cool. I’ve grown up playing with Linux since I was a kid, and at the time I was running (and still am) dedicated servers. The very idea of being able to install a free open source alternative to Windows seemed like a good direction. I was invited to the beta second wave, and I remember installing Ubuntu, figuring out how to install the proprietary AMD drivers and wanting to strangle someone whenever I borked the OS. But I got it all figured out and got Steam to run. The library was really small back then. Only a few GoldSrc titles like Half Life and Counter Strike were available to play. But eventually Left 4 Dead 2 was released to everyone in the beta, and eventually more games were ported over, Wine started improving, OBS became available outside Windows, and now thanks the birth of the Vulkan API and Steam’s version of Wine called “Proton” the gaming library under Linux is much more vast than it was earlier in the decade. I definately use Linux much more than I used to, and I’m happy to say at the end of the decade I’m using Linux more than I use Windows. I earned my TF2 Tux fair and square!
Preordering The Steam Controller
There are rare occasions where I will preorder a game, and in one particular case this controller. I remember reading early announcements about it and looking at prototype models they would tease, and the idea of having a fully programmable controller tickled my brain, and the built in gyroscope immediately sold me on the idea. Like with most of my preorder purchases I made a good gamble. See, when I was growing up I wanted the comfort of playing full PC games on the couch, and not just platformers and sidescrollers, but FPS’s and anything that felt more comfortable with a manual aim that I could never achieve with a Dualshock or XBox type controller. The Steam Controller enabled me to basically use an air mouse with the additional buttons and layout of a controller. It’s unfortunate that Steam is no longer making these versatile controllers, it seems too many people couldn’t grasp the concept of fully modifying their controller. They just wanted the plug and play console experience with a game working perfectly out of the box… sorry but if tweaking a config a bit is too much then you really need to re-evaluate why you bought the controller; You’re probably better suited for a console. I haven’t had any issues with mine, and even ordered another three during their last call to purchase them. I hope we see even cooler controllers in the future, and that possibly Steam will release their 2nd revision of the Steam Controller that was leaked awhile back. One can dream anyway.
The Birth Of Adobe Alternatives
I’ve always liked making and editing videos of one kind or another. I first played with Premiere Pro CS2 during my early years of YouTubing, and later on moved onto CS4, then eventually CS6. When Adobe announced that their newer version would be subscription based I pretty much signed off CS5 as my final Adobe Suite. I wasn’t going to pay a monthly fee for something I don’t have the time to do everyday. One day I ran into an audio issue that couldn’t be taken care of in CS6. After trying a few alternatives I finally settled on Shotcut; an Open Source free alternative that has a lot of cool editing features and is always being updated, and can also run under Linux (meaning all of my video creation can be done under there from start to finish). I’ve been editing with Shotcut for a couple of years now, and now my Adobe suites have collected cobwebs.
Open Source Game Recordings
In the beginning there was only FRAPS for recording your desktop, but over the years there were other pay softwares that cropped up, and eventually NVidia and AMD made their own recording and streaming software for their GPU’s, and then eventually we had OBS and later on OBS Studio. OBS was once recommended to me by a friend on Steam when I was having issues with FRAPS after upgrading to an R9 290. I didn’t use it too much in the beginning other than for recordings. Later on when OBS Studio came out and they added a plugin to record directly from your GPU and stream using the CPU simultaneously I was quite happy with the results. Unlike FRAPS there are a bunch of optional plugins you can install, and if some of them become popular enough they will eventually be introduced into a newer version. I’ve tried AMD’s recorder, and I played a bit with PlayClaw and Shadowplay, and OBS Studio is always there for me. Now if they could add Vulkan support I can die happy.
When Source Filmmaker Was Made Public
I always liked the idea of making my own videos, and have always been interested in animation since an early age. When I heard that Valve was officially releasing their tool, which has been used for every Valve title like Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal 2, the Left 4 Deads etc I was pretty stoked to finally get my hands on professional free software. I’ve dicked with it on and off over the years and finally was inspired to change up my video format a bit and create these abominations, as referenced in the most recent video:
Before Source Filmmaker was officially released back in 2012 I used Garry’s Mod for animating, and while that was fun I wanted something that could produce something semi-serious with a cartoonish edge and better animation tools for a better story telling experience, after all this software was designed by people who used to work at Pixar. I’m still finding surprises in this old software. In the future I can use it to render in 4K plus I found out recently that I can use a command line function to render using more than one thread on my CPU; Meaning I can export even faster. More on that another time though.
Playing With Friends Near And Far
This was a more recent feature to pop up over the decade and I imagine it will get better and better assuming broadband companies don’t gauge people to the point of online gaming being impossible. Sometimes you want to play a game with a friend, but it doesn’t have an online option, or they don’t own the game. Now as long as its supported you can invite a friend from anywhere in the world to play with you, as if they have their controller plugged into your system!
I would list games over the last decade but I think the list is long and wordy to the point that only two or three people may read it before venturing off to the next shiny thing. If anyone would like to share memories of the last decade, be it tech, games or whatever I’d like to see it below.
Happy New Year, and many decades and melons to come. :melon:
This has been a fun year for making game pr0n. There will be more to come in the new year, but I will be taking a hiatus for a bit to get caught up again and take care of a few other projects. I’m aiming at February at the very latest, mid January being the soonest.
When I first woke up yesterday I contemplated getting out of bed, or staying put and playing a little game. The weather has been cold enough here that I’ve been leaving my computer on to act as both a heat source and entertainment, and my kind of entertainment is known to heat up a room or two. My muscles were too tired to do much, so I propped myself up on a couple of pillows and played AudioSurf 2 on my Steam Controller for awhile. I worked on what is turning into a nice config, it still needs some tweaking but it’s more usable than the default controller settings. I have the gyro and right touch pad enabled to act as a mouse, and if I enable the gyro I can drive my controller like a steering wheel. It’s fun, but I still need a bit of practice before I can match my score on my everyday Logitech G502.
I went through a bit of my library yesterday and revisited some other games that I’ve been neglecting, progressing a tiny bit before hitting a stuck point and going off to the next point of interest. Both for pleasure and preemptive pleasure. I went through some of my couch co-op enabled games and tried to optimize them to the best of my ability for if I ever want to invite someone over digitally or physically. I’m looking forward to getting my new Steam Controllers (assuming the orders don’t get cancelled) in the mail, if only to experiment with local co-op config building; see how well two of the same controller work together.
I wanted that fucking hat…
Yutram and I were going to play Trine last night, but that has been proving difficult with Steam Controllers and a regular mouse. I’m thinking the next time we attempt it we’ll try regular controllers (if possible). I was too tired to do any streaming last night (was still overwhelmed from Thanksgiving and Black Friday) and wanted to relax in some Borderlands 2 DLC instead… I think I’ll save that for another post, and maybe a future video.
Today was a little more productive; I did some Cyber Monday shopping, and drank lots of tea as per morning, afternoon, and evening tradition. I’ve been combining fruit teas with regular loose leaf tea to make super tea!
This morning was a Blueberry Watermelon Oolong morning. I have cranberry blood orange black tea lined up for tomorrow, though that one was already pre-mixed. Now I’m sipping just blueberry and jade green tea, both filled with antioxidants.
I’m getting closer to the finish line for this particular project. I worked on it a little bit today, will probably finish it the rest of the way tomorrow. There really isn’t much else to do on it other than some animation cleanup. Hand animating has been an interesting learning curve, and I feel like I get less and less worse with each attempt. After I finish up this project I’ll be putting together something for a New Years Eve video. To celebrate my new-ish video style I’ll be selecting the best animated bits from videos throughout the year. If anyone has a suggestion feel free to throw one my way. :melon:
You can already count on Ronald and Batman… Open Thread!
