Ross Scott

Srake: I generally don't touch MMOs or any game with a subscription fee. While I appreciate the idea of an enormous RPG world to do things in, it feels hollow to me without some sort of cohesive story to it. You don't really "beat" WoW, Everquest, Guild Wars, etc. thedude190: Give me a break, there are way more complicated RTSs out there. That's one of the reason I haven't been able to get too far into Homeworld. As for micromanagement, I definitely disagree. Considering the scale you're dealing with, the micromanagement is great. Your units will fire while moving, attack on their own, you can give them coordinated attack orders, you can tell unit buildings to "loop" so can forget about them. I've found the micromanagement on that game more forgiving than most RTSs I've played. The only thing I thought it needed there was an "autofix" for the engineer units. Axeldeath: I played Gothic before I played Morrowind and later Oblivion, which maybe spoiled me. It's difficult to put my finger on it, but the whole world felt kind of hollow. They use the same few voice actors for everyone, no one sounded especially emotive or like your presence there really made much of a difference, cities felt kind of deserted, there were too many copy-paste areas, I didn't get a distinct feel for characters or places. I think the game didn't really engage me on any intellectual level and the art direction didn't feel interesting enough for me to get into. Fallout 3 was better, but it started feeling hollow the longer I played it for similar reasons. In general their games to me feel like sandbox games with 1000 small quests you can take rather than a cohesive storyline and RPG experience. Their games are technical marvels though, an immense amount of work has gone into these.

I've been a junkie about antialiasing ever since the feature first emerged in videocards. I love how it cleans up the image and try to enable it in every 3D thing I do. A lot of more modern games however either don't support antialiasing at ALL or else have really spotty coverage so you have what's called "shader aliasing", where some edges look perfectly clean, but others with special light shader effects look pixellated and ignore AA settings. In these cases, sometimes supersampling antialiasing (SSAA) is the only way to clean up an image, even if it takes a massive performance hit. Both AMD and Nvidia offer different SSAA settings, but I've only seen a minimal amount written on the topic and poor documentation on it in general. I'd like to get more information on which cards are more compatible, look better, and run faster for SSAA. Some cards make be more compatible, but cause blurring, others may take a massive speed hit, who knows. If you have a Geforce 400 / 500 series card, or a Radeon 5000 / 6000 series card, you can help out. You can do this in one of the following ways: Method 1: Find an area in a game you have where "normal" multisampling or MSAA/SSAA combo AA doesn't work well and you can still see a CLEAR "stairstep" look to some edges. Most games based off the Unreal 3 engine are like this. Take a screenshot of that, then enable pure SSAA and take another screenshot, to show the difference. Please don't post stand-alone screenshots here if you don't have anything to compare them to. Method 2: Make a benchmark of one of your games in the following modes: A. No AA being used B. "normal" 4x AA being used C. 4x4 SSAA being used Be sure to state what videocard you have along with how much memory it has (the rest of your specs isn't super important, since I'm interested in the difference between the modes, not overall performance). Be sure to keep other detail settings the same for each benchmark. Also a warning that 4x4 SSAA can be EXTREMELY slow. You may change your mind about how fast your computer is once you try this out. If the game is suddenly massively slower, don't worry, that means it's working. Method 3: List any games you have where antialiasing simply will NOT work for you. Or list games where SSAA works, but it causes the image to be very blurry (Half-Life 2 Episode 2 is an example of this). The more information I get, the better. It will probably influence the next videocard I buy. Thanks in advance to anyone who contributes information. - - - HOW TO ENABLE SUPERSAMPLING For Nvidia users: Download the program "Nvidia Inspector" then change the following settings for the game: If you see any settings related to "rotated grid" definitely mention them here. I currently have a Geforce 9800 GTX, so I may not have as many options as you. For ATI/AMD users: Go to the Catalyst Control center under AA, and find a slider towards the bottom: Change it to "Super-Sample AA." I recommend doing it in 4x mode instead of 8x since then tends to hit a good balance between picture fidelity and too much blurring. Also to the best of my knowledge, ATI's SSAA only works in DirectX 9 mode or lower (not 10 or 11).

I'd love to. They are putting advertisements at the end of their videos now, about some stupid World Of Warcraft Live Stream. Really annoy's the heck out of me. Heck, why not? That almost happened to "The Tunnel" thank god I got lucky and it was posted in between times they were doing. Imagine having those hard-encoded onto the video forever.

Well that's what Craig told me, I guess he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Oh I have no problem with that. You're the one of the few who did it right then. And it's not the fact that it didn't make much of an impact. It's the fact that both of those petitions had a very large percentage of the people who signed them also buying and playing the games as soon as they came out. You couldn't ask for a better example of hypocrisy.

Well I mean it more literally. I'm never going to link to the Rick Astley video or make a variant of it. I still have a couple of ideas to genuinely fool people, but it would take way more preparation.

it called accoutic foam and they use that for hard cases for transporting weapons like pistols and for what i can find they cost like €30 for like 4 sheets of 1m x 1m http://www.thomann.de/gb/the_takustik_noppenschaum_1030_4er_set.htm this site is good because if ross you are in poland this could be delivered to you in 3 days is it's hosted in germany and you using the same currency then all you need is double sided tape and 3 or 4 of this 4 set and you got he whole room covered but if you don't have the money use my idea I really don't have a echo with my mics i use Pretty tempting. And they use ZLOTYS not Euros.

That might definitely be the easiest way. I could use some finishing nails in the corners and I doubt the landlord would notice. The problem with these eggcarton recommendations is I'm not sure of the best way to fasten them. I'm thinking staples wouldn't be very stable when moving it around to install it. The room is kind of small, but the ceiling is maybe 10 feet high, so I'm going to need a lot of egg cartons if I go that route. Yeah that happens pretty much every April Fool's Day. I used to think I'd shed a certain portion of my fanbase each year, but I'm guessing these are the same people that signed the Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare boycotts.

The CPU usage was a combination of a forum bug related to hashing of the WP passwords, bots looking through the forums, and I've been told a misconfiguration on the host's end, who has been too busy to look at it. The latter problem will be solved by me hosting it myself, I just didn't have time to look into it before the AFD videos were done. As for egg cartons I've heard that too. I'd have to find a place that sells them in bulk, then figure out a way to attach them to the wall, it's a high-ish ceiling unfortunately.

Hey everyone, I thought I'd give some commentary on my most involved and most sloppily executed April Fool's Day videos yet. I wanted to try for a "double feature" for about a month or two. It almost didn't happen. In addition to my move setting me back quite a bit, audio editor Otto Beumelberg completely disappeared days before the deadline (turns out his computer had fried) and there simply wasn't enough time for me to do all the editing and recording AND the sound editing on both the videos. For the Halo video, I recorded the footage for that before I left and I just barely was able to coordinate it with enough people I could contact to get it done in time. Even then, there was a very small window of time to record the main scene. Try coordinating something with 7+ people you know and see how stable it is. Even once I had the footage, I left and my computer wasn't reassembled until a while afterwards and I had been very busy without having done much editing. The Zombie Panic video was even more close. I managed to line up good voice actors in time, but had multiple bailouts and some slow responses. On the morning of April 30th, I still had NONE of the lines recorded by the voice actors (except one, whom I needed a redo from), and I still didn't know if the new guy I picked for sound editing (Phai Giron) was going to flake out with everyone else. Thankfully it all came together, but not without a couple all-nighters for me of recording, coordinating and editing. In the middle of all this, I was contacted by the host for the site about the forums causing CPU usage problems again and he was threatening to take the site down immediately unless I paid him for the extra usage. It felt kind of like a ransom payoff. I paid him, but the timing couldn't have been worse for that, so I'll be looking into hosting the site myself in the near future, you're welcome to suggest options. To add to the fun, Machinima.com offered to host these videos (I thought they would be too bizarre for them actually), so that meant I had to get all the videos in at least a day ahead of time. I just barely made the deadline for that. On top of that, they told me it would be released 5pm their time, but then decided to release the Zombie Panic vid 6 hours early without telling me, so I guess they managed to play an April Fool's joke on me! Anyway, I'm happy it all came together. I think the sound editing could have been a little better, but considering how short the notice was on everything, it's amazing it got made at all. I'm especially happy with the Zombie Panic video, I think it's my favorite April Fool's Day one so far. That was recorded in a demo last year (back when I actually had some time for games) where it's the longest killing spree I've ever gotten as a zombie. For those unfamiliar with the game, if you can get two kills as a zombie before you die, you're doing very well. I got EIGHT in this demo, which basically never happens. It was a perfect storm of things going wrong for the survivors and I thought adding the commentary made it even funnier. I was worried I wouldn't fool anybody this year since April Fool's Day is the one deadline I manage to meet each year (so far), but a quick look at Youtube comments show otherwise. Machinima.com decided to put a Freeman's Mind thumbnail for the zombie video to trick more people, which led to all sorts of good will being expressed by the viewers. I don't know what I'll do next year, it's a challenge doing something different each time. The only thing you can count on is that I'll never Rickroll anyone, that's just mean. Since I was so busy on the videos, I didn't have time to look at much on the internet yesterday, so if you saw some especially good AF jokes, go ahead and post them on the forums. All I saw was some stuff from Google and Blizzard. Finally, while not horrid, the new place I've moved to could use some improvement for recording quality. If anyone has suggestions on cheap material I could line the walls with (not permanently, I'm only renting) to absorb more sound and dampen echo, let me know.

I actually have an idea for this and it's probably not what you're thinking at all, but as people have mentioned, the workload for a proper action scene increases exponentially. I need a better process period and probably several engine improvements before I could even attempt what I want to try. As for my ability to do one, you can take a preview from the flashback sequence from "Oil's Well"

Hell yeah, paint those Tories red.

I recognize that super solvers guy from Midnight Rescue and Treasure Mountain. That's how all cool people dressed in the 90s. Puffy jacket with popped collar, cap covering your face, and boxer shorts.

Hey everyone, well I have some good news and bad news. The bad news is I'm getting sued by Valve and can't make any more Freeman's Mind or Civil Protection videos forever. The good news is I have some new series to replace them! The first (which I thought was going to be the second, but Machinima.com decided to post it 6 hours earlier than they said, ha) is Diary of A Zombie. A touching tale about a zombie. Check it out here: 1280×720 WMV (130MB) Also I lied. There's not one, but TWO videos today! Stay tuned for the next one!

This sounds more like a philosophical / religious debate rather than addressing a concrete issue. I'm going to move this to the "General" section. Nice ICP messiah pic btw.

Hey sorry if I'm screwing up the thread for you, but this forum section is for issues that could create really big problems for society. Things like food production, extreme poverty, etc. While it definitely impacts society, whether evolution is taught in schools I don't see it as an issue that's going to directly threaten its stability. I'm moving this to the "General" section. Also while I may piss some people off saying this, the evolution v. creationism thing is kind of black and white to me. Evolution is science. Creationism is not. You can observe evolution in action just from killing cockroaches. With regards to man, we only have a zillion fossils showing a pretty clear transition from ape to human. I think the only real point of "debate" is the actual origin of life on Earth. We haven't proven exactly how that's started yet. But then you can't actually "prove" ANYTHING with science, you can only DISPROVE things. I saw a bumper sticker I liked before that said "Evolution is just a theory. Just like gravity"

Hey sorry if I'm screwing up the thread for you, but this forum section is for issues that could create really big problems for society. Things like food production, extreme poverty, etc. While abortion is a serious issue, it's not a problem on the scale that I'm talking about. I'm moving this to the general section.

Hey sorry if I'm screwing up the thread for you, but this forum section is for issues that could create really big problems for society. Things like food production, extreme poverty, etc. Sexual preference isn't one of those problems, I'm moving this to the general section.

My favorites are the ones that haven't happen yet. A surprising amount of CP comes out exactly how I envision it, and I can imagine way better stuff than what you've seen so far. I think for existing ones Dave ducking JUST in time to hit the beam in "On A Rail" and the ending to "Halloween Safety" are my favorites.

doomplayer: Ah I'll explain everything if I ever get to making a sequel. icthulu: This is my first real attempt at trying to be scary, I think this would have been better if I were to make it all over now, but I just wanted it finished. I have a wide range of ideas. If you hate this one that's fine. I think in the future I'll eventually make one that you might like a lot. shaken_bacon: That's great to hear man. I doubt I'll ever make an episode of CP that everyone will like, but I want to have enough variety that hopefully some people will have a favorite that stands out to them against others. I tend to get sick of lowest common denominator content, so by making something that appeals to a certain niche of people, then making something that appeals to a completely different niche, I think the results end up better. If I'm being influenced by Resident Evil, it's probably on an unconscious level. I was definitely using music from RE1 and 2 for references for the composers, but I never thought that it was influencing my camerawork. That's pretty cool if it is. If I had the resources you describe I would be esctatic and go crazy making videos. Bravetriforcer: That is a problem! At some point I have to cut my losses and explain some things, even if it becomes less scary than what people were imagining. crs: I consulted Craig, who's more up to date on HL lore than I am, and he said HL2 mostly takes place in Bulgaria, so I went with that. Flasheneitor: You're half right. I take the attitude you describe towards episodes, but if I made a direct sequel to this, I would respect the continuity 100% for the previous episode. I don't know if there will be a sequel or not, it's PURELY based on technical issues and limitations. I could definitely write one, but it would much more demanding of the engine than this one was for what I have in mind. Casual Fan: Oh man, I don't like revealing things early or spoiling things. The fact that I don't say what my best ideas are means I still have hopes of getting them made. The only thing I will say is that I want to have more genre-blending in CP. It will all be comedy, but I want more action or adventure for some episodes (don't worry, no drama). I feel like I've only scratched the surface for what I could do with CP. Attilio: Actually the "anomaly" I designed so that it would be difficult to identify, even if people froze the frame. Darthvoorhees: From the game files it's called "vesnice_vzpominka" for 11:00. Now I'll have to watch that video you discussed. At what time does the music appear in there? I'll be surprised if it actually is from The Black Mirror.

Raicuptra: Keep in mind CP episodes aren't necessarily chronological. The next episode might take place at a different time period. Coraje: My atittude for that music there was that this wasn't just some helpless cheerleader wandering the tunnels, it was Civil Protection. They have body armor, training, guns, etc. If there was some danger down there, they were presumably going in ready for it. I'll expand on this more if a sequel ever gets made. DaftMink: Yeah I feel the same way about Machinima.com's logo marking. I leave one on the downloadable copies but tend to scrap the rest. n3o: No, this was all in the Source SDK. People commenting on crackers: That was a joke I threw in the trailer to give people an excuse to watch it in addition to the video. Lovecraft people: This was loosely inspired by "Pickman's Model." I might elaborate more if I was to make a sequel. Also I was originally going to call it the "Arkham Tunnel", but then a batman game came out and I realized people would never get the reference. UnlicensedPro: I normally would agree about not needing a sequel, but I left a LOT of unanswered questions. While I normally like to have some, I think I went overboard on this one and wouldn't mind tying some ends up. Mr. 13: The scene I had to remake in Episode 1 was the car shot and the second half of the outdoors sections in general. There were way too many animation glitches in Episode 2 there. Jay Steinmann: It depends on the technology. What I have in mind can't currently be done for a sequel because of limitations of the Source engine. We can only hope that will change at some point in the future. Darthvoorhees: All the music from the flashback sequence is from "The Black Mirror," I was able to get permission directly from the composer to use it. That's a good super-atmospheric game, if a little slow. Also nice Raziel glyph, I'm more of a Kain man myself.