Ross Scott

DaveD here posting this on behalf of Ross Scott: This is being displayed hopefully not-post-humously, but my access to internet will be infrequent for a little while, so I typed this in advance. "The Tunnel" is finally released! It feels like some sort of curse being lifted. I have a LOT to say about this episode, so I'll break it down into chunks: THE EPISODE: This is the longest video I've created, coming to 26 minutes total. It's split into two parts on Youtube, I didn't have time to do an encoding of the unsplit version before I left, but that will be put up on the site as soon as I have access to my computer and internet again. The full size of this episode is 120GB uncompressed, so I need to crunch that thing down. In some posts I've stated before that I have some top-level ideas that I think would blow people's minds. This still isn't one of them. I have always wanted to have some variety in the episodes for Civil Protection however, and this is an example of that. This isn't really like any of the previous episodes. I'll warn you that this isn't the funniest one either. I was trying for a balance to make it kind of creepy and develop more of a story versus having some comedy in it. There will be more of a comedy focus in future episodes of CP however. I think the biggest weaknesses in this episode are that it's a little slow to develop and I may have left too many unanswered questions. The episode was written years ago and if I were to do it again today I would have made some more changes. By the time I noticed some script weaknesses in it, I had come too far in production to just change everything. This is actually one episode I could see getting a direct sequel, but there's no way in hell that will happen under current production methods. Also, I noticed after the fact that there are some minor light glitches I might have been able to fix if I realized them sooner, so I recommend not watching this on a screen that's TOO bright. I might fix them before I release a copy of it on the site, I'll see. That's the closest thing I get to a "patch." As for the strengths, this is my first real attempt at trying to create something scary (in "Halloween Safety" the scare was more of a coincidence) and I hope it's succeeded a little bit. I also think this is the most atmospheric of the episodes. When I was working on the editing, it felt a little like Mike and Dave were getting sucked into another reality, I enjoyed that aspect of it. WHY DID THIS TAKE SO DAMN LONG : The length of time this episode has taken has been an embarrassment. To make matters worse, it took a long time for all the wrong reasons. This isn't the most spectacular looking episode and if it were filmed in reality, most of it could be shot very easily. If I had known how much work this deceptively-easier-looking episode would be, I never would have started it in the first place and would have worked on different ideas instead. It went on and on just because I wanted to finish the damn thing rather than throw all my work out. If you're wondering what the reasons for it dragging on, here's quick breakdown: -The Source Engine. This, far and away, trumps every other reason as to why the episode took as long as it did. This episode was filmed mostly in the Episode 2 version of the Source engine and I ran into far more bugs than I've ever faced before. If it wasn't for some coding help, this episode would have never even been finished. I'm not a programmer, so when I face a bug, I have to come up with some elaborate workaround to it with the SDK tools, or else it can put a halt to the whole production. I can forgive a company for bugs, it's inevitable. What makes me bitter though, is I swear Valve breaks as many things as they fix when they make an update. So the engine may receive some lighting update, and then an entity I was using to animate characters no longer functions at all. While I think it's great that tools are released for free, I have a real issue with how Valve will auto-update the SDK, which can often break important functionality of it, and then LEAVE IT broken. I'm sure they just see it as fiddling around, but from an end-user perspective it feels downright mean when it breaks all the work you've been involved with; like someone coming in and stomping on your sand castle. The bug list for this episode was staggering. For future episodes, unless I can solve major, major problems involved with engine for creating machinima, I'm going back to the Episode 1 engine. It really is that bad. -Work on other things. The episode has been dropped and resumed multiple times. I've created 4 other Civil Protection episodes since I first began working on it, started the Freeman's Mind series, launched the website twice, moved various times, etc. While technically it first started in 2007, it hasn't been worked on during that whole time. -People flaking out. I won't name names (except for Ryan McDonald), but at times getting some people to work on a simple task felt like pulling teeth. I see this more as my fault, since this is very common with volunteer help. If I had been more on top of things I could have gotten more "backup" people sooner. If I could afford to actually hire people, especially an animator, I would in a heartbeat. However, if I were to pay everyone what I could afford out of my own pocket, it would just be an insult ("Congratulations, here's your 45 cents!"). Don't get me wrong however. While I did all the work on the older episodes, this episode wouldn't have been possible without help from other people, some of which did an absolute fantastic job. -I kind of hate animating. As much as I love creating movies, I find the animation process to be misery a lot of the time. I hope that some day I won't have to do nearly as much animation work as I currently do. While I did receive some great help in areas , ultimately I think did the majority of the animation work on this episode. This is the last episode where I spend as much time as I do on animating. I'm really getting serious about exploring motion capture and you can expect it to be a cornerstone of future episodes or else I'll just work on something else. -I'm not a great manager. While I think I could be a competent manager by itself, I'm not when I'm also a director, animator, editor, and work on more than one series. With more people helping, most things are managed primarily by email, so keeping track of everything can be a bit daunting for me in addition to everything else. Having something like a better project communication / coordination system, or an actual producer or assistant director could help tremendously. In the future, I expect to address most of these problems and have a complete overhaul of the production process. THE MUSIC: Machinima.com has changed their policy on the use of game soundtracks multiple times. Music was very important to this episode for establishing mood and at one point I was told I wouldn't be able to use ANY game soundtracks. Since then, I managed to get lucky with one or two (and received direct permission from composer Zdeněk Houb), so I at least got to keep the original title theme to the series (for now anyway). Because use of soundtracks is still discouraged, a lot of music was composed for this episode and it really shows. I couldn't be much happier with how the music turned out. I gave the composers a lot of feedback to try and get the right mood I was after. Unfortunately, not everyone who composed music had material that made it into the episode; and I felt really bad having to throw out good music that simply wasn't the right mood I was after for a particular scene. To make up for this, over the next few weeks, I plan to have a "composer showcase" periodically for each person that contributed music to me for the episode, so you'll get to hear music from everyone who tried to help out, not just the people in the credits. THE FUTURE: The immediate future will be involved with me moving and getting a new place set up, but after that, my focus in the shorter-term will be with producing a LOT more Freeman's Mind episodes and with responding to the many, many emails I am woefully behind on. Months behind. I'll have a later post detailing my plans for future videos farther in the future. Hope people enjoy the episode, and if you don't, just remember I plan on making many different videos.

This is an announcement that "The Tunnel" has been uploaded to Machinima.com. As usual, I never know when exactly the videos will post on Youtube. My guess is it will be sometime this week. When the video does post, I'll have lots to say about it, but in the meantime I wanted to hopefully adjust people's expectations to reality. I am quite pleased with how the episode came out and am very happy it's finally done. Since this episode has been mentioned for years now, I think it's inevitable some people will expect this to be the best video ever created. While I do have future ideas that I think will astound people and will be worth it no matter how long they take, this is just an above-average episode that took a long time for many different reasons. I'll go into more detail after the video's released. I think if you just expect a normal Civil Protection episode, you wouldn't be disappointed; but if you see this as the best work I can possibly do, then you might. I generally hate hype and like to let whatever I make stand for itself, but this one dragged on so long hype for it has been kind of inevitable. As for the episode itself, the total length will be about 26 minutes and it will be split up on Youtube as 2 parts. An unsplit version will be released on the website afterwards, but it may be delayed more than usual since I may be traveling when the episode goes up. In other news I unfortunately didn't get to finishing the other Freeman's Mind episode, but I will as soon as I move (and keep making more).

Sorry, I'm going to veto Psychonauts as being obscure enough for this section. It was a released on multiple platforms, had a Zero Punctuation review, has its own lengthy wikipedia entry, was one of Tim Schafer's more famous games, and is still for sale on Steam. I'm moving the thread to the gaming section.

I think one of my favorites is "No, your OTHER hand you idiot!"

I haven't heard of Eradicator, not sure it's something I would play, how was the music in it? Clive Barker's Undying I'm borderline on counting that as obscure. That one's definitely a milestone as far as scary games go. Machinimarium does NOT count, that was on the front page of Steam for a while, it's had plenty of publicity. If you had mentioned Samorost I would have let that slide. This section is more for games that really never had a spotlight or have completely faded from mainstream memory. Lord Sinister: Good job, I've never even heard of this one. The graphics look fine, but if it's weak on story, then I get less interested. You mentioned it had CD audio, was the music especially notable or was it just generic military shooter stuff? I never played the Myth games, but heard a lot about them back in the day.

It's definitely changed since I first started sending videos to them. I'm not sure what the hell they were thinking axing their own forums and all videos hosted on the site. Business is booming for them on Youtube, but now I don't know where new people creating their own machinima would submit content to. I guess I'm lucky enough to be a part of their network (I have at LEAST 4x more views through them than I would on my own), but I think it probably sucks for people just now starting to make machinima videos.

I agree that there's nothing any of us can really do about it, but information on the topic can help you make better decisions about your own life. I'm not sure if the recession can be attributed solely to the oil price hike, though it was probably a contributing factor. In the United States at least, we really did have a clown show going with the housing bubble that probably had more to do with that. I do think that the recession is the only reason that oil prices came back down after the 2008 hike however.

Ha, I haven't heard Bejeweled's music, I'm not much of a fan of casual games (though I don't care where good music comes from). Sands of Time has a great soundtrack, I thought the game was pretty solid too, though if you don't like jumping I can see where that wouldn't be a lot of fun for you.

I haven't gotten to Minecraft partly because usually I'm less drawn in on games without objectives or an end. With Minecraft people can spend a LOT of time building things and I know the more time I spent building something there, the more I would feel guilty for not building something else, like a new episode. I do like how it's wildly popular in spite of the older graphics standard. I'm a believer of a good game being a good game period, regardless of graphics. Oh I know Starcraft is the micromanagement benchmark for good players, but I figure I can handle the single player element. For multiplayer I'll try out Supreme Commander. I've played System Shock 2, I mentioned it as one of my favorites in the PC Gamer interview. It's also the reason Bioshock was a big disappoint for me, I though except for graphics, SS2 was superior in every way. I still need to play the original System Shock. Someone released a mouseaim mod for it, so now I don't have much excuse.

Yeah, this one's on my "To Play" list actually. Another one in the same vein is "The Path" you might want to check out.

UPDATE: Editing is DONE, although rendering, encoding, and uploading is not. Even though it’s watchable on my computer at the moment, realistically it won’t be uploaded to Machinima.com until tomorrow. Okay, I THINK we're good with the forums now, hopefully this version won't implode like the last one did. The link for it is up at the top of the page. I'm quite happy with how this version is looking. It's based on phpBB and is almost all finished. There's a couple minor features not present yet, but it should be quite functional. Really most of what I said a few days ago is still valid, so I won't repeat it all here. Comments on the front page will be locked, but you can reply to all news posts now in the forum. Also I was mistaken, the posts from the last forum incarnation will NOT be preserved, sorry. There were only about half a dozen on there before it got shot down, and none of them were a cure for cancer or anything. Thanks for the forum go to "Jexius Something" for doing most of the work on this and to David Donaldson for helping out as well. I'll be leaving to move in a few days, but I promise I'll have “The Tunnel” finished sometime this weekend. I'll upload it, but I can't promise when it will go up on Youtube. I'll make another announcement when it is uploaded.

The different forum sections were based on viewer suggestions for what they wanted to discuss here. The "Valve Games" section is an example of this, that wasn't one that occurred to me. If there are other topics that enough people want to see that aren't here yet, go ahead and suggest them here.

I was wondering if anyone had played games where they really disliked or didn't enjoy the game, but thought it had a good soundtrack to it. Here are two I can think of off the top of my head: Sinking Island: The game's visuals and atmosphere are great, but the voice acting seemed a little off, plot was so-so, the puzzles felt kind of contrived and I gave up on it after I had to check a walkthrough, only to discover I had managed to do a combination of events that made it impossible for me to finish the game. Has some nice peaceful and mysterious music though. Apocalyptica: Has cool art design, but I found the gameplay tedious and navigation confusing. Has great music though. I haven't been able to extract the audio out of the encrypted files. Somebody released the audio recorded directly from the game, but he did a botched job and has some pops in the audio. I don't really want to play through this game to do one myself, would be nice to have a better quality version of the music.

I'm trying to convert some old game CDs I had to CD images. The problem is in addition to the game data, they contain redbook audio (CD music tracks) in addition to the data. There are lots of programs out that there will copy discs, but CD audio data doesn't have the same kind of headers on the data like computer information does, so there's a higher chance of copying with audio imperfections, like pops or skips. Normally something like Exact Audio Copy is the best method for copying audio, but I don't think it supports data copying like this. Does anyone know of good software for copying the disc AND having extra attention paid to the audio copying to ensure a good rip?

In the event that anyone reads this, here are the general rules for the forum: 1. Try not to be a jerk. Maybe I've been working on Civil Protection too long, but I'd prefer to see some civil discussion here. This is intentionally vague, like most constitutions. It's a nice blanket rule to catch anything not specified. 2. Don't insult people unless it's obviously a joke. While this is a rather radical concept for the internet, I don't see much good coming out personal insults towards anyone here. This doesn't mean you can't attack another person's concepts, statements, and arguments, but if you're reverting to outright insults, it really casts doubt on whatever point it is you're trying to make and is unlikely to contribute anything productive. 3. Don't make child pornography jokes or comments, directly or implied. For reasons I don't understand, some people on the internet talk about child pornography so much they need a damn abbreviation for it. This means every time I say “CP” as an abbreviation for “Civil Protection”, one of the core shows produced here, some creeps come out of the woodwork and start making child pornography jokes. I don't know what the hell is wrong with everyone, but I don't want to see that behavior here. Any use of “CP” here will be assumed to stand for “Civil Protection.” The End. 4. This kind of falls under #1, but don't say overtly racist or sexist things that would probably be classified in a court as hate speech. 5. For the soundtrack section specifically, don't post attachments of music files, find external links if you wish to do so.

I've been asked before in some emails what games I like to play. Here are some general trends for those that are curious: Stuff I usually like: -Action RPGs in general (though I have difficulty getting into Bethesda's stuff) -Graphic adventure games (they're not dead, they're just niche status now) -FPSs where I like the theme (it's hard for me to be much more specific than that) -RTS games that don't require a psychotic level of micromanagement -Scary games -Some science fiction or fantasy / supernatural elements -Games with good writing (I consider this very, VERY rare in the gaming world) -Games with adult themes (I don't mean X-rated or overly gory, I mean ones that are really targeted towards a mature audience mentally. I consider these extremely rare as well) -Racing games with scenic locales (wooded mountains, tropical islands, futuristic cities, etc.) Stuff I usually don't like: -Turn-based anything -Anime-themed games -Games based on movies -Cartoon-ish graphics -Games based on actual wars (WWII, Iraq, etc.) -Shooters without any sort of unreal element to them (mutants, aliens, demons, etc.) -Unemotive voice acting -Games with writing straight out of a bad hollywood movie, or even a saturday morning cartoon; full of clichéd dialogue -Games that get hyped to hell and back -FPSs so old I can't aim with a mouse -Racing games on actual raceways (F1, NASCAR, etc.) -Games with a subscription fee Games I currently have installed: -Midnight Nowhere -Tzar: Burden of The Crown -Hard To Be A God -Penumbra: Black Plague Games I'm looking forward to playing: -Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance -Starcraft 2 -Risen -The Witcher -Gothic 4 -Nehrim mod -The Journeyman Project 2

Here's some examples of some mini-reviews I did on some semi-obscure games if anyone's curious. I encourage people to make posts like this if there are any you want to praise or warn others about. Some of these weren't that obscure at the time, but I think most of these have faded off the radar present day: Quadralien: [Puzzle] Old-school puzzle game, has one PC Speaker music track, but it's pretty cool. The game feels kind of surreal, you're controlling these robots on a space station that's going to hell and you're trying to clean up radiation and dump coolant into the system before everything falls apart. Sort of feels like a Space Chernobyl. This game doesn't hold your hand at all and gets pretty hard towards the end. I had to use a floppy drive emulator at the time so I could save my game. Pretty cool game if you're into this sort of thing. Mage Knight Apocalypse: [Action RPG] I wanted to like this game, but didn't. The storyline isn't very interesting. The gameplay had distinctive classes and some interesting elements, but for an action RPG it felt awfully slow. I ended up using a trainer to make the pace go faster, which helped some. It's definitely a grind and not the most fun of them. Some of the map design was pretty good looking, but the whole game has a psychotic level of bloom which I hate. I ended up giving up on the game maybe about 60-70% into it. I doubt the ending would have blown my mind. Revenant: [Action RPG] This game can be hell to get working properly on a modern OS, especially with 3D acceleration. I've only played the beginning of it, but I like the intro, it has good visuals, okay voice acting, interesting storyline, fantastic music, great atmosphere in general. The gameplay seems to have some novel features, though it may be one of those games that is trying to be "innovative" for its own sake. I plan to come back to this game and finish it eventually, but its compatibility is so poor it may have to be through a virtual machine. Reacts differently to ATI v. Nvidia hardware. Overclocked - A History of Violence: [Graphic Adventure] This game isn't the best, but has a few redeeming features. It creates an incredible sense of anticipation, like things are going to get really really bad, but never delivers on it. The visuals and music are great, animation can be a little clunky. I remember the voice acting being good. What I like most about this game is the protagonist has a lot of personal problems, feels very human, and is kind of dysfunctional in general. He's having spousal problems, financial problems, drinks too much, yells at the help at the hotel he's at, breaks furniture by accident, almost gets in a bar fight, etc. I like seeing characters like that, but I have a dark sense of humor. I found the ending to this game funny.

I saw this lecture on Youtube a little while ago that I thought was pretty interesting. It's by an economist about the current state of our economy, where's it headed, and what our possible options are. It focuses on our current debt levels and ramifications of that especially. Some of this was over my head, but a lot of his logic on different economic issues I was able to follow and found it quite interesting. If anyone has more of an economic background, I wouldn't mind hearing some more opinions on this. It's about an hour long however plus 30 minutes of questions. I watched it in chunks spread out over a few days. *Warning* some people may find this EXTREMELY dry, if you bore easily, don't watch this.

Many people aren't aware of what's meant by "peak oil." I'm using it to refer to the point when our oil production is at its maximum. What happens AFTER that point is a big unknown, but it's probably not good. Here's some general information if you want to know more about it - Good Wikipedia Article This is a little dated and I don't agree with everything that's said here 100% (especially regarding the energy comparisons), but it explains the concepts behind peak oil pretty well. - Civil Protection: Oil's Well the video I created (and the ONLY video with a "message" I ever plan to make) that sums up what peak oil means. It was originally made for an environmental contest where I had to list a solution. In reality I'm not sure there really is a solution to this unless everyone were to lower their standard of living, which I don't see happening voluntarily. - The Oil Drum - Website with a TON of information on this, though it can be hard to sift through a lot of it.

About a year ago on the blog I said that I think we might be facing major oil problems starting by about 2015. If anyone's wondering where I came up with that prediction, here are my sources: Article 1 (The Guardian) Article 2 (MSNBC) So in one article, that's The Guardian giving a report about how the US Joint Forces are saying there's a potential for a big problem by 2015. In the other report, it's MSNBC stating that Kuwaiti scientists applied 47 different models to predict that oil will be peaking by 2014. I don't see either group as having a real agenda to create some sort of oil scare. In the case of Kuwait I think the reverse would be true. But even if you don't believe that, you can always look at the existing data yourself (this graph needs to be updated though): Source is from the IEA from November 2009 I don't put much stock in the future predictions, but you can see from the past data that we've been more or less plateauing since 2005. This hasn't really happened before in global oil production, it's more or less gone up ever since we've started drilling. To me, this says that it's likely to start going down after a while if we're plateauing right now. Also more recently I found this, although this has been suspected for a long time: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/08/saudi-oil-reserves-overstated-wikileaks Anyway, I thought I'd throw this out there so people don't think I'm completely crazy saying we're probably going to be in trouble by 2015. You can interpret the data how you will.

Peak Oil refers to the moment in time where the world produces oil at its maximum rate. After that, it starts to dwindle off, where lots or problems can occur. You can always check out Oil's Wellfor a little more information on what this means. I've seen some counterarguments that we're not really going to face any big problems regarding our usage of oil and I wanted to post some rebuttals to that: Argument: Human ingenuity and technology advancements will find a solution. This is a faith-based argument and I think people who make this argument are either extreme optimists or else are somewhat ignorant as to the scale of the problem. While it's true we have made tremendous technological advances in virtually all fields and overcome many barriers, the scope of this is gargantuan. There's currently no technology or infrastructure plan or combination that can replace our current oil use needs. It would take something out of science-fiction to solve this problem via technology without a massive reduction in population and consumption. I consider this comparable to having faith that human ingenuity will solve cancer, AIDS, and aging by a certain date. If this was really a problem, we would hear about it in the media more. The media generally reports on the most interesting topics that are happening in the present. There are many examples of problems that were predictable and forseeable by a small niche of people researching the matter, but weren't known to the general public until after the fact. Some recent examples of this are the real estate bubble, the Enron scandal, the dot.com bubble, and the threat of Al-Qaeda. In 2008 oil prices hit an all-time high, but then they came back down. If we were starting to run out of oil, the prices wouldn't have come back down. Right now (2011) we're currently plateauing as far as our production. What happened in 2008 is demand outstripped supply, causing the price to go up. Our production did not change substantially afterwards, we essentially hit a ceiling. What did happen is that the high prices caused many people to cut back on their usage, thus lowering the demand. Combine that with the economic recession and that's the main reason oil prices haven't stayed high or kept increasing. We're likely to see a repeat of this cycle a couple times. People have been saying we're running out of oil ever since the 70s, but we keep discovering more and we still have plenty of oil today. The people in the 70s were right actually, from an American perspective. U.S. Production peaked in the early 70s and has been declining since. Since then we've imported most of oil to make up the gap. If we had to rely only on US oil, we would have been in trouble a long time ago. World discovery of oil peaked in the 60s and has been declining since. This time we can't just import more oil because it applies to the whole earth and not just the U.S. Here are some dates to help explain it better: U.S. Discovery peak: 1934 U.S. Production peak: 1970 Global oil discovery peak: 1964 Global oil production peak: (debatable, it's been plateauing since about 2005) We have at least 1.3 trillion barrel reserves of oil, enough for at least 40 more years at our current rate of consumption. Yes, we do have that much in potential reserves. However it's not as simple as that. In the past century, we've already drilled the majority of the easiest-to-extract oil in the best locations. A good portion of the oil we still have left is heavier or sour crude instead of sweet light crude, or is in costly areas to extract, such deepwater offshore drilling. This means that it takes more energy (and money) to extract the same amount of oil. This causes prices to increase and makes it more difficult to keep up with our current demand. We're not going to suddenly run out of oil one day. What is likely to happen though, is that prices keep rising and rising for oil, which in turn has a direct impact on all kinds of things. Modern food production is very dependent on petroleum products for fertilizer and pesticides. Anything that needs to be shipped across the country or from China will be affected. It's likely to cause a real economic meltdown first, which could really turn our society upside-down LONG before 40 years from now. I can't predict how we will react in that situation.