Hey people, I came up with a way to show you the status of the next episode without having to make a new post every time. Behold:

This is a rough representation of how completed the episode is. I probably couldn't have made something like this until recently, since there are hundreds of smaller elements involved with mapping, lighting, and animation. While I'll be releasing it as an entire video (can't promise on Youtube though), this one splits up relatively nicely into 3 different parts, so that's how I've marked progress indicators on here.

I plan to update this image every few days until the episode is done. If you notice it moving slowly, that's likely due to those last remaining red bars under "animation." So you can just refresh the image if you're wondering how things are coming along. It won't be updated to the hour or anything, I recommend checking back every couple days if you're dying to know what's happening. I probably won't have any new announcements until I'm much closer to done. Now you can see how close that is!

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Also a rant on the Source engine was linked to me today by one of the animators that I thought was worth pointing to:

http://www.planetphillip.com/posts/valv ... ourselves/

This guy appears on Podcast 17 and reviews all sorts of Half-Life mods. There are good points here. I have a LOT to say on this topic, but I'm going to wait until after the episode is done. While I am struggling with bugs daily, I'm also working with an older version of the SDK offline, so I'm only fighting with the bugs Valve added a couple years ago and never fixed, as opposed to the new ones they've currently added. From what I've gathered, if I had to use the SDK in its current state today, the episode might be impossible to finish. Good thing it's not!

Awesome, that's really helpful. Thanks, Ross!

Nice to get a visual update. But now I can't stop clicking refresh!

yay now I know how much I should be checking back. But is "the tunnel" a freeman epi or civil protection?

Civil Protection. There's even a trailer in the "movies" section.

Ah, progress bars. This should keep those who desperately want to know what progress has been made each day happy.

Wow, nice way to keep us informed. I'm glad you're not only a funny guy but a smart one as well. It's dudes like you that should have fanclubs... Oh wait you do!

I'm liking this picture. It is hard to tell the significance of each block though, when they're all the same size.

Thanks for the new status system! Keep up the work!

You may be the second or third coming. I love this series, first comment tho, been here since I saw the Halloween CP.

I concur! Although I'm sure updating this is like a separate big project itself, it is very interesting and insightful to be able to see it. Thank you for letting us get peak behind the curtains at your work. You're the man!

God dammit Ross,I envy how you can use the old sdk and play HL2 2004 so much.

But I say that with <3

Is the updated HL2 still screwed up? I recall launching it a few weeks ago and it was in fullbright mode for some of the default maps.

Definately. All of my saves have this near-game breaking glitch that saps all the fun out of the battles. I find that the lighting is screwed up quite a few buildings. A few scene change nodes are missing.

This is, of course, speaking "playing-wise". I have no idea what it's like filming-wise.

Very cool Ross. I wish the folks working on the Black Mesa project had something like this.

So even though Youtube increased the vid time to 15 minutes it still won't be able to fit in one video? If not, I thought machinima had a way of uploading longer videos or something.

How do you lower hitpoints on the enemies in Freeman's Mind, Ross? What code do you type in?

Hell yea! its sooooo close

There are many potential codes for this type of thing in Half Life: Source, but I think the one he is using is " sk_plr_dmg_(insert weapon here) (number) " He's increasing the power of his guns, not lowering his enemies health. For specific codes, here are the ones that I think he is using based on how fast his enemies go down, keep in mind the 9mm_bullet weapon upgrades the damage for both the MP5 and Glock 17:

sk_plr_dmg_9mm_bullet 20
sk_plr_dmg_buckshot 15
sk_plr_dmg_crowbar 24

Codes must be re entered at every loading point.

If I was you I wouldn't bother with updates at all, but it's pretty nice. Though looks to me a lot like defragmentation progress

Anyway, gonna read this Source rant now.