I’m running into some areas on the episode where I’m coming up short on help. I have two small jobs I’m hoping someone can give me a hand with. I generally dislike springing offers like this at the last minute, but I need to keep moving to get this episode done. I’ll give the jobs to the first qualified people who contact me, although if they don’t do a good job, then it will go to the next people in line. Whoever completes the jobs properly will get a spot in the credits. Here’s what I need help with:
 
Photoshop Editor:

I’m creating an animated texture and I’ve done a lot of the work already, but I need small variations for each frame. I have instructions for almost every step involved here. You don’t need to be an artist to do this part, just have time. What this job will require:

-Basic knowledge of Adobe Photoshop
-Knowledge of how to randomize selections borders to a degree
-Lots of patience in doing the same steps dozens of times OR having good scripting knowledge to perhaps automate the process.
-Basic availability over the next 24 hours (or until the job’s done)
-Bonus points if you’re familiar with creating animated VTF textures in the Source engine, but that’s not required.

I want to get this part done as soon as possible because it’s holding me up from filming several scenes. If you’re great with scripting, it might take you 10 minutes. If not, it might take a couple hours, but that’s time I can spend animating something else.
 
Advanced Video Editor:

My video editing skills are generally pretty basic, although most of the time I don’t think more than that’s necessary for Civil Protection. In this case, I have a scene transition where I think a more advanced effect would be appropriate, but my knowledge/software is a bit lacking here. You may want something like After-Effects for what I want to do, but you can use any software you want. Here’s what’s required:

-Sample of previous video editing work (just anything slick-looking you’ve done before)
-Be able to paint footage from one shot onto a moving object from the prior shot (the camera’s just moving towards a rectangle) and have a clean fade-in between the two (I’ll have more details on this).
-Be able to process Huffyuv footage from me and export the end results in some sort of lossless compression that I can convert back to AVI.
-A fast enough internet connection to upload several hundred megs of video

I’m also open to suggestions for the best looking transition between the two shots once you see them. There isn’t too much time pressure on this, but the original person who was going to work on this is MIA, so now it’s up for anyone else.

If you’re interested in helping with either of these jobs, contact me at [email protected].

EDIT: I’ve already received promising responses and I think things will keep moving without any more slowdown. If you want to message me anyway to be the standby person in case the one working on things now gets hit by a meteorite, that’s fine too.

Since I made the last post I’ve received over a dozen offers from different composers, many of which sound very promising. I think the episode is going to turn out great with the current roster of people helping on the music end now. I kind of wish it didn’t have to be a competition for the lead slot of each scene, but maybe I can have some honorary mentions afterwards or something.

Anyway, I wanted to say that while I don’t know who will be composing what yet, based on the past work alone sent to me by composers, I think we’ll be covered for composing help. If you haven’t already contacted me, but are really keen on contributing, you can still email me and I’ll consider your music with the rest of the running, just don’t feel obligated now, I’m sure the episode will end up having great music.

EDIT:

In the interest of getting the episode done on time, I think I’m going to have to close the door for new composers emailing me, because I’m spending too much time on email and not enough getting the footage completed. I believe I’ve replied to everyone offering to compose music, so everything should be underway music-wise.

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EDIT:

Well I feel like an idiot, as one viewer pointed out, looks like Craig Kesicke updated his blog literally an hour before I made this post (his last update being in May), so he is still alive. For now, the offer still stands, since the no-reply thing this close to Halloween really alarmed me.

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ORIGINAL POST:

While work is progressing steadily on “The Tunnel” I have a new problem. Since Machinima.com generally isn’t happy about me using game soundtrack music anymore, composer Craig Kesicke was supposed to be creating music for this episode and has already created some that I plan to use. However, I haven’t heard back from him in a few weeks despite sending some follow-up emails, so I can only assume his rowdy past has caught up with him and he has been arrested by the local authorities.

While this time delay would normally be nothing to be concerned over, I’m trying to do everything in my power to get this episode done before Halloween. This means I want to allocate as much time as possible for composing music for the scenes as I finish filming them. I’m not done with the episode yet, but I have multiple scenes done that I need music for, so I’m opening up the doors for anyone who’s interested in composing music for this episode (and possible future ones). If you compose music and want to give this a shot, go ahead and email me at [email protected]. Some people have offered to compose music in the past. I plan to sift through my old emails and contact some of them, but don’t hesitate to take the initiative and email me again if you’ve contacted me about music before. For everyone else, I will want to hear a sample of your past music, even if it’s not the style I’m after for this episode.

Since I was originally planning to use soundtrack music, I’ll be putting together tracks I was considering as an audio reference for each scene along with a description of the kind of mood I’m after along with any details I can think of. I’ll want samples of music first before I send the footage to score the actual scene as a way of minimizing any unused work. Finally, be prepared for rejection. As a soundtrack freak, I can be picky about the kind of sound I want, also it’s possible someone may have got to me before you did. I generally don’t like creating a competitive atmosphere like this for people, but in this case, I really want to see this episode done in time and I think this might be the best approach. I do give feedback on anything I want revised or changed however, so there’s nothing saying you can’t keep trying again with different samples if I don’t like the initial ones. Also it’s very possible different composers may end up working on different scenes.

Thanks in advance to anyone who contributes. I unfortunately can’t afford to pay people what their music is probably worth, but I will of course give credit to everyone whose music gets used in the episode.

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/valve-you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourselves/

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!

I’ve been meaning to give a minor update as I tackle one problem after another, however I realized that I don’t think I’ve ever given a total update of everything I’m doing when working on an episode. Judging from the comments, some people think they’re missing something when I don’t give an update all the time. You’re really not, but as proof, I’ve documented everything I can remember from yesterday. So here’s a sample for you of everything you missed, just yesterday:

--Finished animating as much as possible of an interior scene. Won’t be able to continue animating the rest the scene until after done filming up to a certain point as I need to see layout of where the physics props end up for continuity. Adjusted several more dynamic props that don’t match up with other scenes unintentionally for continuity purposes. Probably spent about an hour animating an investigation sequence for Dave, ended up scrapping it since it doesn’t look very good and there won’t be a lot of reason to keep the camera off Mike for that scene. Completed difficult sections of Mike investigating. Adding info_targets and syncing up with Faceposer for looking around the room was kind of a pain. Alternated between aiscripted_schedules and scripted_sequences for movement around the room. Ended up using aiscripted_schedules for beginning to navigate through doorway, but scripted_sequences afterwards, except only for movement and orientation, not animations. Still not sure if there’s any logic whatsoever as to what direction an npc will face after completing an aiscripted_schedule. Would be a helpful function that Alex could look into, though I doubt there’s much he can do, plus I already asked him about finding a way to implement custom movement animations into aiscripted_schedules. Not optimistic about that.

--Readjusted some env_physexplosion entities since their usage still looks slightly unnatural + timing is off. If I push the values too high, I risk getting sparks and dust clouds from friction, which doesn’t make sense for the subject matter. Don’t know how to eliminate the dust cloud, maybe the sparks use a .vmt I can hunt down and make transparent. I hate crap like this. May have to come back to tomorrow.

--Ryan deleted the online utility he made for creating soundscripts again. I don’t know why he spends time working on things only to delete everything he’s ever done periodically. Left him a message, but probably no chance of reaching him within the next 72+ hours. Emailed Alex about an offline utility so I don’t have to do it manually. Got lucky and reached him. Utility didn’t work due to runtime dependencies, I’ll look into it later, I’ve already made the soundscripts for the hardest parts remaining.

--Sent Alex some follow-up information on the map database project that could help future episodes go a little faster.

--Did a test shot for a potential slow motion sequence from Ben’s animation. Found out that for reasons unknown the engine is skipping some frames of the animation. Tried it again and it skipped even more frames. This is a major bug, Ben will work on smoothing out the animation and maybe increasing the source framerate, though I don’t know if that will make any difference. I’m somewhat worried about finding a solution to this, I might be able to record multiple shots and splice in individual frames if the location is random in the animation. At at least one point it isn’t. Was almost not bitter and angry about the source engine before this happened.

--Finished an outdoor transition scene, added aiscripted_sequences for citizens walking in background, adjust a lot of dynamic props and pathway of main character to look more natural. Decompiled some other maps to try and pull some good light values for the scene. Found some after about 15 VRAD compiles of the map. Took notably less time than I expected, not nearly as long as the last transition map I worked on. Scene’s a little dark, but it looks good.

--Ben’s animation isn’t done yet, but the end positioning is mostly final enough for me to get started on the next scene. Also need to tackle lighting for early map again since some bug is occurring between the episode 1 and 2 engine again. Can work on this stuff tomorrow and hopefully start filming. Still a little worried about lighting continuity, but I’ll see what happens. Really worried about the bug with Ben’s animation, but if I focus on that I’ll never finish.

--It’s looking more likely I’m going to have to do this animated texture myself afterall.

--Got some more emails, replied to Gareth, nothing else looks that urgent, I’ll catch up at some point, my “to reply” list is about 120 emails long at the moment.
 
So you can see for yourself how exciting working on an episode is and all the fun you’re missing out on when I don’t update. When you don’t get lots of updates, I’m basically sparing you from all this.
 
The short version:

I plan to finish up as many odds and ends as I can today and begin filming by tonight or tomorrow. The animation still isn’t done due to how some of the workflow is playing out, but if at any point I get to a point where I’m waiting on other content, I’ll resume work on Freeman’s Mind.