Videocard update
Hey, an update on the videocard situation:
My cooler came in, only for me to discover that my old videocard was already fried, it started giving me graphics corruption right after POST. The good news is viewer Collin Campbell has sent me an 8400 GS to tide me over. This card has all the same graphics capabilities of my old card, it’s just way, way slower. However, I’m able to keep working with this card, and I’ve been doing so. I won’t be doing any gaming with a card like this, but that’s probably just as well since I’m so far behind. I’ve also had offers for donating more midrange cards from viewers John Stokes and Joshua Nicholson which I’ll be happy to accept. I’ve been wanting to build a secondary system for a while in case my main one gets hosed like this, so the old cards will go into that once I upgrade. I probably will buy a new card at some point, but I want to wait until I’ve finished all the animation work for the next Civil Protection episode as an extra incentive.
On that topic, progress is moving steadily, but very slow. I feel bad too because this one isn’t going to be the most impressive visually, you’ll probably watch it and wonder why it took so long to make. This once again, comes down to the Source engine. If you saw a scene where the metrocops walk down a tunnel, stop, look around, then keep walking, making turns all the while, how long do you think that would take? Maybe 30 minutes right? No. With the long trial-and-error testing process and the downright mystical bugs I have to fight, it takes days. And this is when I already have the map files, custom animations, and models that I already need. Some scenes move more quickly than others, others are more visually impressive for the time involved, but a lot of what’s done is very simple visually, with it being a nightmare behind the scenes.
I’m absolutely going to finish this episode, though I may make another sacrificial FM episode in the meantime to tide people over. Once I finish this episode however, I think this is the last big CP episode I’ll do under the Source engine. I have ideas for much simpler ones after this, plus I have no plans to discontinue the series, but it’s possible down the line I may try and port the content over to a more animation-friendly engine down the line. Although this is probably good news for the majority of you, since I can just keep making Freeman’s Mind episodes after this until the technology or resources catches up for me to work on something more ambitious.
