Ross Scott

[poll id="9"] I was planning on making a news post today, but I just got some last minute news that's changed the tone of everything. A few months back, some fans contacted me about the possibility of making a Freeman's Mind announcer pack for the game DOTA 2. As I've still been scrambling for ways to earn a sustainable income, I thought this sounded like a pretty good idea, as Valve has an infrastructure set up for it to get into the Steam store and I can think up with many, many lines for the game in the same style of Freeman's Mind. I've been working on this off and on for the past few months, making a serious push towards it in the past week or two (this is why the latest Freeman's Mind has been delayed). What I originally was going to post today was to say I was DONE with the first wave of recording for this, all the lines had been edited, and I was going to submit it to Valve this week. The bad news is I just today decided to check Valve's instructions for the voice pack and they've added a LOT of additional instructions and lines that previously were never specified. Their information on this when I first started was awfully spotty, it seems they've approximately quintupled the information provided on what they're looking for since when I first started. This means I'm a lot farther off from being completed than I previously thought and my pack is no longer ready to be submitted. The announcer pack I was planning to submit is currently 634 lines (with 2,074 shortlisted takes I rejected, and 30 sessions worth of recordings), with an ungodly number of hours I've put into doing audio editing on this. I covered all the lines available to announcers (as of a couple months ago), with MANY alternate lines in the Freeman's Mind style of things. Finding out I have a LOT more work ahead of me before this will be complete is a big blow to morale. At this point I'm not sure what to do, so I'd appreciate feedback from people on this. Is this announcer pack something you'll be interested in and willing to help vote on if I can get it submitted? Right now I'm considering finishing off the additional mandatory lines, then saving the new "optional" ones as a promise to add if this gets accepted into the Steam store. If I could get this in the Steam store, I wouldn't think twice about adding thousands of additional lines, but I don't want to pour weeks more work into this if there's a good chance it will just get rejected anyway. If you have any advice along these lines, please let me know. In the meantime, I'll be resuming the next Freeman's Mind and hope to have it up in about a week. More news coming late July and August! ADHD version: Ross has been working on a Freeman's Mind announcer pack for DOTA 2, but it's hit a snag! Vote on the poll! New Freeman's Mind episode in about a week! LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

[poll id="8"] This is a quick post to address what apparently has become a controversial issue. In the last FM episode (#47), sound editor Daniel Sheehan replaced the standard gun sounds used for Half-Life. I didn't ask him to specifically change these sounds, but I encourage sound editors to embellish things for Freeman's Mind as they see fit. I thought the final ones sounded pretty good (aside from some minor sync issues), so I left them in. People seem divided on this decision, so I wanted to see how divided. Go ahead and vote on the poll above if you have an opinion on this, I'll go with whatever the majority decides. The tank sounds are non-negotiable however, those are staying. EDIT: The "majority" vote has swapped several times by now and is currently still on a very close margin. This is about as divisive as it gets, so I'm going to make an executive decision and revert back to the old gunshots. My reasons for this are that it creates less work for the sound editor, and if someone new comes along later, it makes it easier to transition between people. LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

Blip.tv link (this one helps me more) Youtube link (Downloadable copy will be up a later date) Freeman's Mind continues, even in the face of dumping water inside my computer. This episode starts off slow, but picks up towards the end. You'll also find the sound effects to be a little more bombastic in this episode as current sound editor Daniel Sheehan (Otto is still helping on other things) took it upon himself to add many new effects that I think came out pretty well. Volume balancing still haunts me as usual however. Even after Daniel's great work, it still took me about 3.5 hours to balance the volume for this episode. If you think you can do a better job than me at volume balancing, go ahead and email me, and you could maybe help with future episodes. I will try my best to have the next FM episode up in roughly two weeks, however I've been very busy with many different things. Dumping water in my computer amazingly did not seem to help the situation. So it's possible episode 48 will be a little late, however, one of the things I'm spending a lot of time on is the secret Freeman's-Mind-related project I mentioned earlier. So in other words, I may be stalling Freeman a little bit to bring you more Freeman. Freeman. LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

Hey everyone, my computer is now fully functional again, but spilling water into it did delay the next episode of Freeman's Mind. I'm working to get the next one out as soon as possible, in the meantime, I'm putting up an audio interview I've been meaning to post for a few weeks now. Here are the links: Interview web page Direct link to interview This interview was actually recorded in summer of 2012, before the whole Machinima.com fiasco started, so I don't know how much of what I said is still accurate. It was later posted by the group in late April of this year, which I delayed releasing because Freeman's Mind was coming back, then forgot about for a couple weeks. But I have remembered and am posting it now while I stall for time in getting more Freeman's Mind done! Also in this interview it sounds like a robot imposter of myself filled in for me; I have no memory of how this happened. I hope it answered the questions correctly. LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

There have been some, uh, complications with the next episode: Yesterday evening I was recording more lines for Freeman's Mind and in my infinite wisdom, I kept a glass of water nearby to drink in between lines, like I have for dozens of episodes. It turns out this was not the best idea I've ever had. The water spilled and some of it splashed into my system, causing it to malfunction. But good news! I was not electrocuted by this because I ran out of the room to shut off the circuit breaker. I'm uncertain of the damage inflicted, right now I have the system disassembled and drying out thoroughly. I plan to start testing parts later today once everything is completely dried out and assess the damage. FOR COMPUTER HARDWARE PEOPLE: My guess is I've fried the motherboard, but who knows. The circuit breaker did not trip, the fans kept spinning (much faster, like on boot), and I never saw any sparks or smelled any burning. This suggests there's a chance I haven't completely fried everything, but I won't know that until later. I think most of the water touched the CPU heatsink, with only a few drops going elsewhere. Ironically, I've never done system water cooling because I was afraid this exact scenario could occur. I have parts for a secondary system that is missing a power supply; I plan to use that to test the components one by one later. Worst case scenario I also fried my videocard, soundcard, RAM, RAID expansion card, and power supply, but I think that's unlikely for the amount of water that actually got inside. Also, while I spotted one or two drops on the top of the hard drives, I have no reason to suspect there was any permanent damage to them, and even if there was, I have a mirror RAID set up, so it would have to take out both at once. FOR EVERYONE ELSE: Unlike past computer problems I've had, which can mostly be attributed to goblins, this one is just sheer stupidity on my part. I won't know the full extent of the damage until later, there's going to be a lot of testing to do. Despite what you see in the movies, there's no reason to think this caused me to lose all my data. In any event, I know how to fix this, but it will take time, especially if I need to order parts I can't get locally. Best case scenario this won't affect Freeman's Mind from being released next week. Worst case scenario, it will probably delay everything by about a week. Either way, I think I'll use a water bottle with a cap from now on instead of a glass. EDIT: Amazingly, almost everything still works, although my CPU cooler fan did not survive. I've ordered a new one and it should be here sometime this week. ADHD version: Water and computers are not friends. The next Freeman's Mind might be a little late. LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS