Status update

Well I’ve been getting a few requests for an update, so here’s what’s going on. I didn’t make the contest deadline, I ran into too many delays. I’m still working every day on getting the next episode out, but it’s just much more involving in terms of what I’m doing. Without spoiling anything, here was my original plan for the next two episodes:

-Episode 4: Should completely rock, I won’t be able to top this one for a long time
-Episode 5: Still pretty damn cool (I think)

That’s changed since then, since I’ve mainly been developing episode 5, so that will be the new episode 4. As for the original (confused yet?) episode 4 idea, I still plan to do it, but I’m thinking about postponing it, just because it’s going to take forever and a day to animate. I have no shortage of episode ideas, so I may work on something I can produce a little faster first. On top of this, I’ve been approached by a couple people about different projects that sound promising (I won’t reveal who, they’re all hush-hush), so that may steal more of my time away.

On top of this, I’m going to be moving soon, which means I’ll have to start job-hunting again so I can hopefully find something better than flipping burgers. So, I’m going to be pretty busy, but getting the next episode out is still my top priority outside of reality. I have NOT stopped working on it, and will finish it as soon as I can, even if that may be another couple weeks. If you really want these things to come out faster, try and harass somebody you know who really understands Source (the engine for Half-Life 2) so I can get some help with the animating. Again, thanks for watching!
General News

CIVIL PROTECTION: SHADOW OF A DOUBT

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Here’s the third episode that I originally intended to have done before the 2nd, but here it is anyway. I meant for this one to have slick motion blur, but I would have taken my computer an eternity to do it right, so I just shot it and released it as it is. WARNING: This episode is not suitable for all audiences, it contains singing. It’s over with pretty quickly though, and I promise that this will be the first and last time Mike sings. As for Dave, well, I’ll keep it to a bare minimum in the future. Unfortunately it’s going to be a while before Episode 4 because I have something big planned for that, so imagine I’m dead or something so you won’t expect it too soon. Enjoy!
Civil Protection Post page

CIVIL PROTECTION: ALIENS

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Well at long last, here is Episode 2 of Civil Protection. This one is the most ambitious video projects I’ve done yet, having more dialogue and action than Episode 1 and weighing in at 11 minutes. Also, this one deals a lot more with the world from Half-Life 2, but I tried to write this episode so that people who know nothing about the game can still follow it without any trouble. Since this one is fairly huge (100MB), I’m offering a low quality version of it as well, although you’re going to miss out on some stuff if you watch that one as you won’t get stereo sound, nor be able to tell what’s happening in the background. The download links are up on the right.
Civil Protection Post page

bugs, delays, madness

Well I’ve hit yet another delay because I’m running into some serious bugs with the Source SDK (the software used to make these episodes). I was originally intending to have episode 3 out about now since it’s all but done, but I ran into a MAJOR bug that’s preventing me from doing so. Until I find a fix or workaround, episode 3 is indefinitely on hold. I’ll be finishing up episode 2 in the meantime since the bug won’t affect any content in that episode (I had an entirely DIFFERENT bug for that episode, which I found a workaround for). Anyway, this is a showstopping bug for now, and will impact which scripts I’ll use in the future if it doesn’t get resolved. For people who know something about the Source SDK, check out my post on it here . For everyone else, it’s boring technical crap.
General News

Good/Bad News

Good news: I’m getting pretty close to done on the next episode + I found out about another contest it would qualify for

Bad news: The contest has an exclusiveness rule which means that I can’t publish the episode until after the contest is over, which would be at the start of March.

I’m kind of torn here, because I really want to show you guys the next episode, since it’s going to be awesome in comparison to the first. However, I’d also like to enter this contest; the last one proved to be a really good move on my part. I’ll probably enter the contest, even though I feel like you guys are getting robbed by it. Time is a resource for me, but once I finish Episode 2, I’ll do my damndest to try and get episode 3 out before they allow me to release Episode 2 (The order on these doesn’t really matter anyway). In the meantime here’s a link to the contest. Feel free to let them know how you feel about this exclusiveness rule.

Also, if you have experience using Faceposer, I might be interested in someone reliable who would want to help with the animations (this will help the episodes come out faster). I can’t pay you anything, since I don’t have any money, but your name would be in the credits, in big blocky letters.
General News
Contact

The best way to contact me is via email. I only sometimes see Youtube and forum comments and I only use Twitter for quick announcements.

I'm happy for email from people and will try to answer questions, however I can often get overwhelmed by the volume of email I have and I often neglect it in favor of spending more time making videos. I DO read all email sent to me, but replies can often take a while. Please don't get offended by slow replies, even if it can sometimes take months. It's the only way I can have enough time to keep making more videos. If it's something time-sensitive, it may help to put that in the title. Alternately, if it's been a LONG time and you're waiting on a reply, it's okay to send me another message to remind me.

I probably won't reply to emails that are only reports of news or requests for Ross's Game Dungeon due to limited time. There is about 0.1% chance your email will be considered spam by Gmail and I'll miss it. As flawed as the process is for me, email is still the best way to ensure I'll see what you have to say. Also, be sure to check the FAQ!

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