Home to Civil Protection and Freeman's Mind
Hey everyone, just a quick update if you’re wondering why not much seems to be happening. It’s mostly been being busy with getting re-situated since my move and more lately, taxes. Taxes are always an enormous pain for me due to how I get paid and where I’ve lived. I will be turning in no less than SEVEN forms to the IRS and State this year and it’s been taking me days to try and figure it all out. I’m tempted to just mail a check for about how much money I think I owe along with a note that says “I DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND HOW TO DO ALL OF THIS AND I CAN’T AFFORD A PERSONAL ACCOUNTANT” but I think think that would just lead to me going to jail; but it wouldn’t if EVERYONE did that. The whole experience has been leaving me bitter, but I’ve tried to stay positive by imagining the people who designed these forms and/or process them as doing a Pee Wee Herman laugh the entire time. The way the language is worded on these forms seems fitting for that kind of individual.
Fun Fact: Your donations for 2011 (before taxes) come to a total of ,639.69. I’ve tried to thank every donator individually for that, but a big thanks again if you’ve been missed. This sum will go towards the movie project once I’m finally done filling out forms. I’m still open to suggestions of extra things I can do for donators that won’t eat too much into my time. The webmaster for the site has suggested adding recognition labels next to people’s names in the forum, which may not be a bad idea.
Fun Fact: Your donations for 2011 (before taxes) come to a total of ,639.69. I’ve tried to thank every donator individually for that, but a big thanks again if you’ve been missed. This sum will go towards the movie project once I’m finally done filling out forms. I’m still open to suggestions of extra things I can do for donators that won’t eat too much into my time. The webmaster for the site has suggested adding recognition labels next to people’s names in the forum, which may not be a bad idea.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z02gvQhVouY
Youtube
Download 640x480 MKV (11MB)
Hey everyone, I have not one, but TWO new Civil Protection episodes! For those just tuning in, the last Civil Protection episode left me so frustrated with the Source engine that I said I wasn’t going to make another episode on it. Well I meant it! I looked at the Unreal 3 Engine, Crytech 3 engine, Unigine, iClone, but finally decided on the Smackdown Engine by Funkdoobiest Software. All future videos here will be made using it.
The Smackdown engine has been nothing short of incredible, as I’m sure you’ll see in the videos. I’ve been able to do work on it that may not have even been possible on the Source engine due to how it handles lighting and object manipulation. With this engine, episodes have been produced in days that would have taken me months in the past. Because of my switch to it, I’m so far ahead of schedule on my movie project that I had time to make some shorter CP episodes. Enjoy!
Youtube
Download 640x480 MKV (11MB)
Hey everyone, I have not one, but TWO new Civil Protection episodes! For those just tuning in, the last Civil Protection episode left me so frustrated with the Source engine that I said I wasn’t going to make another episode on it. Well I meant it! I looked at the Unreal 3 Engine, Crytech 3 engine, Unigine, iClone, but finally decided on the Smackdown Engine by Funkdoobiest Software. All future videos here will be made using it.
The Smackdown engine has been nothing short of incredible, as I’m sure you’ll see in the videos. I’ve been able to do work on it that may not have even been possible on the Source engine due to how it handles lighting and object manipulation. With this engine, episodes have been produced in days that would have taken me months in the past. Because of my switch to it, I’m so far ahead of schedule on my movie project that I had time to make some shorter CP episodes. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/fRiL-IAJcoc
Youtube
Download 848x480 MKV (93MB)
At long last, here’s the next episode of Freeman’s Mind. This episode got delayed for dozens of reasons, none of them especially interesting. It mostly has to do with me attempting too many things at once. I’ll try and get more FM episodes out as soon as I can.
People who are very familiar with Half-Life may notice this episode doesn’t play out how the game normally does. Normally, there’s a sequence you have to initiate before the game will progress, but here, it’s already happening by the time Freeman shows up to it. You can blame this on Half-Life: Source. All I did was load a saved game I had, and the events played out as you see them, every time I tried. I wasn’t able to find a workaround for this, but I don’t think it really matters in this case anyway.
Youtube
Download 848x480 MKV (93MB)
At long last, here’s the next episode of Freeman’s Mind. This episode got delayed for dozens of reasons, none of them especially interesting. It mostly has to do with me attempting too many things at once. I’ll try and get more FM episodes out as soon as I can.
People who are very familiar with Half-Life may notice this episode doesn’t play out how the game normally does. Normally, there’s a sequence you have to initiate before the game will progress, but here, it’s already happening by the time Freeman shows up to it. You can blame this on Half-Life: Source. All I did was load a saved game I had, and the events played out as you see them, every time I tried. I wasn’t able to find a workaround for this, but I don’t think it really matters in this case anyway.
Youtube
Download 1280x720 MKV (148MB)
Merry Valve-Time Christmas! This episode is obviously late for a lot of reasons, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. This episode ended up taking massively longer than it was supposed to and was meant to be an “easy” episode. It was actually supposed to be the second part of a sub-series idea I had for Civil Protection, called “Community Outreach” episodes. The idea was that I would take viewer questions pretending to be City 17 citizens, pick ones I liked, then have Mike and Dave answer them on-camera. I thought this would be a fast way to get episodes out, but too many things in the Source engine ended up slowing me down. I still think the idea has potential at some point in the future however.
This is also the first episode where the majority of the animation (maybe 90%) is done via motion capture. While both “Morning Patrol” and “The Tunnel” used a few motion capture animations, this is the first one where I acted out the major parts myself. I think the results are mixed. The raw animations are quite jittery, so I had to smooth them out substantially. This leads to some slightly awkward movements in places, but I think the technology has a lot of potential and can save a bunch of time, depending on how dynamic the animation is.
Finally, this is likely going to be the last Civil Protection episode done on the Source engine. While I have almost no problems with the general look of the engine, the behind-the-scenes work involved with creating the episodes is just too massive for what I’m trying to do. While I plan to eventually make future CP episodes with Half-Life content ported over, it’s going to be a long time, as I’m going to be focusing on trying to create an actual full-length movie this year (and more Freeman’s Mind). I still don’t know what software I’ll be using in the future, though my first priority is to be able to easily create lots of characters capable of facial expressions and lip-sync and then see what’s compatible with that.
Download 1280x720 MKV (148MB)
Merry Valve-Time Christmas! This episode is obviously late for a lot of reasons, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. This episode ended up taking massively longer than it was supposed to and was meant to be an “easy” episode. It was actually supposed to be the second part of a sub-series idea I had for Civil Protection, called “Community Outreach” episodes. The idea was that I would take viewer questions pretending to be City 17 citizens, pick ones I liked, then have Mike and Dave answer them on-camera. I thought this would be a fast way to get episodes out, but too many things in the Source engine ended up slowing me down. I still think the idea has potential at some point in the future however.
This is also the first episode where the majority of the animation (maybe 90%) is done via motion capture. While both “Morning Patrol” and “The Tunnel” used a few motion capture animations, this is the first one where I acted out the major parts myself. I think the results are mixed. The raw animations are quite jittery, so I had to smooth them out substantially. This leads to some slightly awkward movements in places, but I think the technology has a lot of potential and can save a bunch of time, depending on how dynamic the animation is.
Finally, this is likely going to be the last Civil Protection episode done on the Source engine. While I have almost no problems with the general look of the engine, the behind-the-scenes work involved with creating the episodes is just too massive for what I’m trying to do. While I plan to eventually make future CP episodes with Half-Life content ported over, it’s going to be a long time, as I’m going to be focusing on trying to create an actual full-length movie this year (and more Freeman’s Mind). I still don’t know what software I’ll be using in the future, though my first priority is to be able to easily create lots of characters capable of facial expressions and lip-sync and then see what’s compatible with that.
Here’s an update of what’s going on:
VIDEO RELEASES FOR JANUARY:
Civil Protection: The Christmas episode is practically done, it’s primarily just sound editing left. While I could delay until December of this year, I’d rather just release it as soon as possible, even though it’s late.
Freeman’s Mind: You can expect at least 2, maybe 3 episodes this month.
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION:
While I’ll be continuing Freeman’s Mind, my goal for this year is to create a really great movie. I have an idea for one I’ve been interested in doing for a long time. I’m still writing the script to it, but I have a pretty solid idea of what I want it to be. It’s going to be a feature-length movie and take place in a medieval fantasy environment. It will be a comedy / adventure / mystery movie. I was originally going to attempt this in the Source engine, but after my experience on the last CP episode, I’m going to use something else now. It’s my hope to finish this movie sometime this year, though I can’t promise anything. It depends on how long it will take for me to learn new software, animate everything, and get all the assets I need. The help I’ll need will depend a lot on what software I use. Right now the only position I know 100% that I’ll need help with is a creature modeler / animator.
NEW SOFTWARE / ENGINE:
Due to my frustration with the upcoming CP episode, I’m about ready to abandon the Source engine for anything more complicated than Freeman’s Mind. Unfortunately, I still don’t know what software I’ll be using instead. I was originally leaning towards the program iClone, though someone has recently made some compelling arguments for the Unreal 3 engine. If I want to port over the many assets available for Source (one of the areas it really shines in) I’ll likely need an array of programs. I’m still open to suggestions, but please don’t recommend software if you haven’t used it yourself. In my experience, there’s a world of difference between what software is theoretically capable of, and what a non-programmer can actually do with it; kind of like Linux. I’ve made a list of features I’m looking for to help clarify things:
Ross’s wishlist of features for animation software / engine:
-Support for importing motion capture .BVH data*
-Support for lip sync and facial expressions (preferably finding a facial expression capture solution)*
-Ability to create new humanoid characters with facial flexes and be able to modify things like proportions and clothing without it being an enormous undertaking*
-Ability to export footage frame-by-frame (as opposed to real-time)
-Ability to export with motion blur OR at very high framerates
-Some sort of physics engine
-lighting quality at least as good as Source’s
-ability to keyframe object / character movements
-some system that can automate standard movements of characters, like walking and running, including on non-level terrain
-some procedure for importing models and textures from the Source engine
-some procedure for converting Source engine map architecture + textures to compatible format OR robust mapping community for new engine / software
-decent camera controls
-Reasonably low bugs
*very important category, it’s not even worth me considering an engine without some solution for this first
So that’s what I’ll be up to in case you’re wondering what’s taking so long. Check back later this month for more videos!
VIDEO RELEASES FOR JANUARY:
Civil Protection: The Christmas episode is practically done, it’s primarily just sound editing left. While I could delay until December of this year, I’d rather just release it as soon as possible, even though it’s late.
Freeman’s Mind: You can expect at least 2, maybe 3 episodes this month.
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION:
While I’ll be continuing Freeman’s Mind, my goal for this year is to create a really great movie. I have an idea for one I’ve been interested in doing for a long time. I’m still writing the script to it, but I have a pretty solid idea of what I want it to be. It’s going to be a feature-length movie and take place in a medieval fantasy environment. It will be a comedy / adventure / mystery movie. I was originally going to attempt this in the Source engine, but after my experience on the last CP episode, I’m going to use something else now. It’s my hope to finish this movie sometime this year, though I can’t promise anything. It depends on how long it will take for me to learn new software, animate everything, and get all the assets I need. The help I’ll need will depend a lot on what software I use. Right now the only position I know 100% that I’ll need help with is a creature modeler / animator.
NEW SOFTWARE / ENGINE:
Due to my frustration with the upcoming CP episode, I’m about ready to abandon the Source engine for anything more complicated than Freeman’s Mind. Unfortunately, I still don’t know what software I’ll be using instead. I was originally leaning towards the program iClone, though someone has recently made some compelling arguments for the Unreal 3 engine. If I want to port over the many assets available for Source (one of the areas it really shines in) I’ll likely need an array of programs. I’m still open to suggestions, but please don’t recommend software if you haven’t used it yourself. In my experience, there’s a world of difference between what software is theoretically capable of, and what a non-programmer can actually do with it; kind of like Linux. I’ve made a list of features I’m looking for to help clarify things:
Ross’s wishlist of features for animation software / engine:
-Support for importing motion capture .BVH data*
-Support for lip sync and facial expressions (preferably finding a facial expression capture solution)*
-Ability to create new humanoid characters with facial flexes and be able to modify things like proportions and clothing without it being an enormous undertaking*
-Ability to export footage frame-by-frame (as opposed to real-time)
-Ability to export with motion blur OR at very high framerates
-Some sort of physics engine
-lighting quality at least as good as Source’s
-ability to keyframe object / character movements
-some system that can automate standard movements of characters, like walking and running, including on non-level terrain
-some procedure for importing models and textures from the Source engine
-some procedure for converting Source engine map architecture + textures to compatible format OR robust mapping community for new engine / software
-decent camera controls
-Reasonably low bugs
*very important category, it’s not even worth me considering an engine without some solution for this first
So that’s what I’ll be up to in case you’re wondering what’s taking so long. Check back later this month for more videos!
