Ross Scott

I can't really pinpoint what's going wrong from your description. You might want to consider making a fraps video of you going through the process and I could probably identify it then.

This dialogue is really similar to part of a future CP episode. Most of the dialogue is recorded, but I never got around to animating it, since that's always about 95% of the work in an episode. Before you despair about having no free will, atoms don't work that way. If you try to measure their exact positions, their speeds change. If you try to measure their speeds, their positions change. It's not even a matter of being able to plot it all out conceptually, it changes just by even trying to plot it all out.

This looks more like it's for identifying the composition of a media file. It doesn't seem support stuff I would expect from tagging software like batch processing or being able to search through the files. As for the registry, it's not so much that it can't be in the registry, it's that I need a method of backing up the info so I can transfer it to a clean install if I need to.

I'd say not directly. It's more that the RIAA or some other similar organizations is all but writing the legislation for this, then trying to get it through congress. I mean while piracy is a big problem for various industries, last time I checked, the music, movie, and game industry isn't in danger of collapsing and disappearing. I mean let's not forget the kind of people who are behind this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/223431/riaa_thinks_limewire_owes_75_trillion_in_damages.html These are not demands from reasonable people. Even if piracy magically dropped 90%, we might still see similar efforts trying to be passed. I'm not saying pirates are in the right and piracy isn't a problem, but the RIAA alone has spent over 90 million on lobbyists over the past 10 years. That kind of money is kind of insane and lends towards congress being a mix of plutocracy along with the democratic process. My guess is if that kind of money wasn't being spent on representatives, this bill wouldn't even exist. An analogy to what this bill is like would be the Postal Service wanting the power to shut down any email address that they deem related to spam, even if there is zero evidence. I think piracy is a lot like spam mail. Yes, it is an ongoing problem, yes you can fight it, but you're never going to eliminate it and trying to do so by killing people's email addresses would do almost nothing to stop it and hurt legitimate email users more than spammers. If you want to look at the root of it, I'd say this legislation is ultimately the result of the entertainment industry wanting business practices to return to how they were before the internet or even cassette / VHS tapes. Congress is only overreacting because they're largely being paid to do so.

Does anyone know of good software to use metadata to tag different files? I'm fine for audio files, but I don't know what to use for video files (like WMV, FLV, etc.) or archive files (ZIP, RAR, etc.). I don't have a preference as to whether it changes the source file or not, however I would like something that could: 1. Be able to identify a moved or relocated file (MD5 information maybe?). 2. Still be functional if I did a clean format of windows and backed up any files relevant to the tagging software (in other words, nothing stored in the registry) Does anyone know of software like this?

I don't think grittiness even comes into it. For example, I think you could say Silent Hill 2 is a gritty game: Yet it does that through textures and lighting, not by eliminating all color from a scene and smearing a tint all over it. If it was up to some art directors, this image wouldn't be "gritty" enough and would give the entire thing an extra grey tint and desaturate the textures more to really bring the grey out.

I'd say it's different for a couple reasons. Quake can and does have some color, it's more the choice of environment that keeps things brown and grey. In other words, you can have a gritty environment without mucking up the vision. Here's a screenshot as an example: Looks like vibrant color to me, just not the most colorful environment. Same for Doom. Quake 2 I'll give you, that did some weird stuff with blowing out the gamma so the colors definitely got drowned out. Regardless, to me there's a big difference between having an environment that doesn't have a lot of color, and going out of your way to purposefully desaturate / tint the player's view, desaturate / tint all your texture images, and have most of your lighting use similar shades as everything you're already tinting. To me the new CS is a step backwards in this regard. I mean take a look: Maybe you could let de_dust slide since parts of the middle east do look like they're completely blasted by sand. But the inside of a warehouse? Compare that to CS 1.6: That's why I was wondering if anyone actually prefers the new kind of lighting / desaturating / tinting. If not, I don't have an explanation as to why they're doing it.

Out of curiousity, who actually LIKES the desaturated color look in lots of games and now apparently CS:GO? I'm not criticizing since it's purely a taste thing, but from my perspective I feel like the new graphics are actually worse than CS:S for some of the footage I've seen due to some of the art design choices. Also I haven't played CS in a long time, but I am kind of disappointed the new one doesn't seem to sport any vehicles for maps the way beta CS did.

Two things: 1. Eliminate having all the subtitles in one place since that's less intuitive and will result in a gigantic page given long enough. Instead they'll all get moved to the episode pages of the relevant episode. 2. This will probably take longer to implement, but have a system where community made subtitles that have been reviewed by enough viewers or trusted ones can be moved to the episode pages automatically or by moderators or someone with more time than me. So if you created a new subtitles, then a few people reviewed it for spelling or timing errors, etc., it could then get automatically linked to the according episode page by a moderator or admin and be a more visible download than just in the forum. This would get more community made subtitles up faster. The number one reason I haven't reviewed more subtitles is many of them that I've looked at before (I haven't checked any in a while though) will have enough minor errors for me to correct, that by the time I'm done fixing all the minor things (especially any timing or format problems), I've spent 45 minutes on it for a 5 minute episode. Still, I'd rather have subtitles up and available that are 90-99% correct than for everyone to have to wait on me to get it 100%.

Back before Machinima.com nuked their forums, it used to be any thread requesting voice actors got responses immediately. I'm wondering where the best forum for that sort of thing now is.

Gigabyte made the motherboard I had where the heatsink fell off on me several months back and caused me no shortage of problems until I figured out what happened. This is just anecdotal evidence of course, but I haven't had any problems since I switched to an Asus board.

Well I can only answer some things due to contract reasons, but I'd say it's unlikely I'll break from Machinima.com for several reasons: 1. I get a lot more views through them than I would on my own. I have a direct comparison of this. When I was working at Machinima.com I had to rush out the trailer to The Tunnel before it was ready, so it doesn't have sound effects, uses stock Half-Life music, etc. I ended up getting sound effects and custom music a couple hours later and released the modified one the next day and still link to that one from the site here. You can see for yourself the view difference: Machinima.com version (as of time of post, 242k views): Fixed version (as of time of post, 42k views): Machinima.com is almost certainly the reason I have as many viewers as I do today, so they would have to do something really bad for me to want to split from them. 2. I do receive some money from them. I can't disclose how much, but if you earn minimum wage, you likely face similar economic restraints as I do. If my viewcount was reduced some 80% by being independent, I would have to work full time at some hell job again, which would mean less time for the videos. My main motivation isn't financial however, there are some movies I want to make regardless of what's happening. If things ever got really bad, I might put out an SOS to viewers to see if anyone wanted me to continue making videos in exchange for room and board. 3. In my entire experience with Machinima.com, I haven't seen anyone act outright malicious about anything. While I disagree with them on some things (like cancelling ), I see them mostly as just being very business driven and continually experimenting to earn more money. I think this is a common scenario with many studios. Production companies are typically interested foremost in what earns the most amount of money. Directors (or me anyway) are interested in what creates the best possible experience for the viewer. So it's a clashing value system at work, but I have about as much creative control with them as I would on my own anyway. 4. Machinima as a medium is a bastard child of copyright law and would merrily be sued into oblivion by some companies (or legislative acts) given the chance. Machinima.com has a lot of business relationships with game companies and Youtube, so they're the 800 pound gorilla to hide behind any potential legal problems, whereas taking down an independent's video is unfortunately not very hard these days. Anyway, I'm not trying to discourage any discussion on this, just giving some more food for thought on it.

Well except for one or two exceptions, to me the acting didn't feel like B movie acting so much as how real people actually act. Co-workers making lame jokes at work with a shoddy delivery? That's what REAL co-workers do!

Well for me, to call a game the greatest is what leaves a bigger impact on you than any other game you've played. If I had to pick one, I'd probably go with Silent Hill 2. It may be only average or above average in terms of gameplay, but in terms of atmosphere, writing, themes, and thought-provoking content, I think it's incredible and makes it one of the most memorable games I've played. Here's the other 4 I'd have: System Shock 2 Deus Ex Sanitarium Puzzle Agent (may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I found its content fantastic) Runner-ups: First half of Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy Phantasmagoria 2 (people tend to have polarized views on this one) Still Life Legacy of Kain series

Hey everyone, I've had a bit of a setback as I lost power for a few days because my landlord decided it would be cool to not pay the power bills even though I give him cash on time every month. I'm convinced he has a mistress in Copenhagen, so maybe he needed the money in advance for that. Anyway, I have power back now and will continue working on stuff. I'll be working on Freeman's Mind this month and making more (but slow) progress on the movie project. I'm thinking it may be unrealistic that the movie will be finished this year, but I hope to get a lot of it done regardless. I tend to be perpetually behind on the things I'm working on, but I thought I might add some democracy to the process. While I will be continuing to work on videos, I wanted to see if people had a clear preference for other things I can be working on. I've put up a poll above, let me know what you would like to see happen next (besides more videos of course). [poll id=5]

I can't look at any episode without seeing stuff I think should have been omitted or done better, in some cases it's painful. It's probably just as well that I've made them though, because I hope to avoid any and all shortcomings that CP has when I do the movie project. Here's some ratings I would give them (when only competing against themselves): Best Directed: The Tunnel Best Action: On A Rail Best Ending: Halloween Safety Best General Audience Episode: Morning Patrol Best Dialogue Sequence: Shadow of A Doubt

I thought the video was funny and showed a nice contrast, I'm championing Michael Jackson's music. Good and bad music can make or break a movie. In general no music means having a more serious tone than having it.

Let's say I resent all taxes, and I feel like if I save the Earth I will still be taxed and I don't want to bother with separating everyone that I think will fleece me or not. Let's also assume I could use the tractor beam to transfer all of my possessions onto the station with me and come back to earth after a few years after the ecosystem recovered and humanity was dead. What I'm hearing is that it wouldn't be immoral to let the entire human race die (except for the select few thousand picked in your sci-fi solution, which I consider a valid option for this scenario) because I disagree with the policies of society that does take away SOME of my property, regardless of how little or much that actually is. I would consider this extremely immoral and argue no one's degree of wealth or extent of property should be placed higher than the lives of billions of people. You see property and life as inseparable, but I think this scenario shows that they're clearly not. In one scenario, people steal my tractor beam and deflect the asteroid. I am deprived of my tractor beam, I have to keep paying taxes, my rights are violated, but I get to keep everything else, and billions of people live. In another scenario, NONE of my rights are violated and I get to keep ALL of my property, and billions of people die. How can you say the two are inseparable when the outcome is so drastically different? Even if I fire the beam, I would have to keep paying taxes. If property and life are so connected, by your logic shouldn't the outcomes be the same? Anyway, I am curious about your answer, but I don't think it's worth debating much past this, I've concluded our views are too radically different. You see rights in absolutes and consider property rights one of the most important ones there is. This allows for no compromise on your end. The message I'm getting from you over and over is that the outcome of a situation is irrelevant if people's rights are being violated on any level, no matter how small. I generally don't see rights and morals as absolutes and think they're highly dependent on the situation. I don't see property rights as the most important value to uphold, but rather maximizing adequate living conditions and quality of life for the greatest number of people (within limits) in a way that's not completely unsustainable and still allows for greater material success (also within limits) for people who work and / or contribute to society than those who don't. I think the only common ground we have for OWS is neither of us like crony capitalism, which is one of the protest points. Anyway, if you think I'm missing something here, feel free to let me know.

Yes, demo smoother is partially broken, however your particular problem sounds like you're doing something incorrectly. Here's a quick test off the top of my head: 1. Type in the number of ticks in the fields (from 1 or 0 to whatever number the demo it ends at) 2. Hit reload / revert some combination of these a couple times until it loads 3. In Drive mode, float around somewhere you want the to be 4. Go to to a low number tick, like 5 in demo smoother (not in the demo itself, that won't matter) 5. Make a keyframe 6. float somewhere else you want to be in drive mode, say tick 500, it doesn't matter, just a few seconds away at least 7. Make another keyframe 8. Press Process / Splines origin, then Process / splines angles all (I think, this is from memory) 9. Turn drive mode off and play the sequence back in demosmoother. If it looks like it remotely works, press SAVE and try playing back the new demo. Your description sounds like you might be getting your tick numbers wrong or doing something wrong on #8, but it's hard to tell.

Thanks, I'll take a look at this sometime. It might be a taste of things to come in the United States.

Bill: I was hoping for thumbnails instead of the spoiler thing, but wasn't sure how to do that. I've changed it to spoilers, but if any moderators want to edit my post to make thumbnails, go ahead. Rarity: It's from Fortress Forever, which came out literally a week before TF2. It's modeled much more after Team Fortress Classic than TF2. I enjoyed TFC / FF a lot more than TF2; TF2 always felt to me like the pacing and action was way tamer. Anyway, the 1.0 release of FF was utterly fantastic and I recorded a bunch of demos from it. Later a bunch of the original devs quit and the some new ones stepped in that I think were either power tripping and/or incompetent. They changed the mechanics which left the game balance in a completely broken state for about 3 years (despite many protests from players). Today, it's been fixed again, but not before driving away 90-95% of their playerbase. I consider it a once great game that got turned into a mess because of awful leadership decisions from people who didn't even create the original game.

Here's some I have lying around

Gold which would also be from Earth. I think the only exportable resource you would have on the moon that wouldn't be something sent BACK to Earth would be moon rock.

Well I can't say this soundtrack is my kind of preference, but music does have a big impact on videos: y-0oabmQueQ