Ross Scott

Download 672x384 WMV (98MB) Here's the next episode. Sorry about the delay on this one, I have very limited control over how things get released on Machinima's channel. This episode is pretty typical of the series. I think my voice acting could have been better, but there ended up being a lot of time pressure on this one. I'm also running into a new bug that I'm basically just ignoring. When there's a level transition, the demo recording function for Half Life Source completely ignores all ragdolls that weren't spawned with the level. So if there are any bodies left there previously, they're gone later on. I doubt there's any solution to this, so oh well. I should be done with another episode for Thursday. I believe it will go up then, but I'm hesitant to promise since it's beyond my control after a point. It will be a shorter one, but the length is dictated mostly by the best areas to have a jumping off point in the game so it doesn't feel too abrupt. Also I am far behind on email and plan to respond to most of them, but I may adopt a new policy of not responding to questions that you can find with 5-10 minutes of research as I've been getting a lot of these lately. I can appreciate if you have a specific question about something I did in the Source engine with a Civil Protection episode because I sometimes employ a lot of tricks there, or information that is very difficult to find; but dozens of emails asking me things like how to enable cheat codes in Half-Life I just can't see myself responding to, sorry guys. Nothing I do in Freeman's Mind is terribly exotic, it's just some config file editing. I'm not editing maps, running mods, or changing any code. It's just cheat codes and hotkeys. I should be your LAST resort for finding information, not the first. I'm not trying to be unfriendly, but I think everyone, myself especially, would prefer I just make more videos rather than play tech support to the world. EDIT: Well guys, I had Episode 23 finished and submitted first thing this morning, but it's not up yet, so oh well. It's anyone's guess when it will go online.

Download 672x384 WMV (66MB) Surprise, here's yet another episode. This one's more action-oriented and plays like some of the earlier ones, so I think fans of the series will like this one more. I wasted pretty much an entire night trying to solve the WMV encoding problem that plagued the last episode, but was finally able to crack it, so hopefully this means no more video/audio anomalies in the future. This wasn't made during the gap between the last one. I started working on this one on Saturday and it wasn't finished until yesterday. Believe it or not, I can't do much more than about 3 minutes a day on an episode, and that's under good circumstances and not counting additional sound editing. That may sound ludicrous, but it actually does take me that long, I've tried to do it faster before. It's not because I'm lazy, I just don't know how to move faster and still have the show come out as well. While it's loads faster than Civil Protection, it's basically a process of going through a clip, thinking of a line, recording said line many times as I'm not the greatest voice actor (this can range from 2 - 20+ takes, depending on the line and how important it is), editing through all said takes and arranging it in the episode. If I was a better voice actor and good at improvisation I could probably be done with the game by now. In this reality however, the next episode will probably be out sometime late Monday. In other news, I still want to catch up on subtitles, website improvements, extras, emails, and many other things, but for the moment I'm just focusing on getting the videos out. EDIT: I'm probably going to have to add this to the FAQ. Several of you were asking why the episode was up on Youtube before it was up on here. The answer is I never know when the video is going to be up on Youtube. I have to check it, same as you. It's someone else's job to upload it and they're usually pretty busy to be able to answer my inquests all the time. In this case I was taking a nap when it went up since I've been working night hours so it's quiet enough for me to me record (my old spot got converted to someone else's office). Since I'm in a different room this is also why there's more of an echo in recent episodes. EDIT 2: Well I finished episode 22, but I don't have control over when it gets released. The original schedule was Monday, but things got pretty close to the wire on this one. I guess it's Tuesday now?

Download 672x384 WMV (70MB) Here's another new episode. This one has a new introduction for the titles I made. I originally made this to go with the Machinima.com opening logo to try and better integrate it into the show, but after being told that should be fine, it was shot down (that caused a delay with the last episode actually), so I decided to redo it and integrate it into the regular titles. Even though it's a few seconds long I'm a little hesitant to add something like this since I know many Youtube viewers have extremely short attention spans and this on top of the Machinima.com logo and the titles might be a little more than they want to wait through, but I decided to include it anyway. If people like it, I'll probably leave it in for a few episodes then change it to something new to maybe reflect Freeman's progress in the game. This episode is another wandering episode, there's no enemy conflict in this one. I'm guessing for that reason people won't like it quite as much, but I'm still trying to keep it interesting. The episode after this will have more action and that will be out pretty soon. Making these in a rapid-fire fashion is cutting into my time more than I'd like (I'm working weekends, but not more than about 8 hours a day), but it's sort of interesting to see how fast I can do them since I've never made multiple episodes of Freeman's Mind where that's ALL I was working on before. I think they might come out a little better if they were done more slowly, but not substantially so. Regardless, this is an experiment. I'll be going back to work on Civil Protection by the end of the month. EDIT: Even though the Youtube version will be forever screwed up, I finally fixed the downloadable copy so the intro plays correctly and the sound is in sync.

Download 672x384 WMV (49MB) Well surprise, here's the next episode of Freeman's Mind. This one isn't the best since it's mainly just backtracking through the level, but I thought the ending came out well enough. There should be several more coming out this month. I've stopped working 70-80 hour workweeks because that simply wasn't sustainable and now I'm basically just focusing on FM for the next couple weeks as kind of a break. Unfortunately this means Civil Protection will be getting stalled because the longer hours were the only way it was getting made in light of the other stuff I was doing. I plan to resume work on it during Thanksgiving break. I am by no means dropping it, but I'd say right now it's looking to be more like a December or January release due to everything else that's going on.

Download 672x384 WMV (44MB) Here's the newest episode. I was pretty liberal about using cheat codes this time, though my justification is for the places I use them, I'm simply doing what I personally would do if I was in the same situation Freeman happens to be in (though I doubt I would end up in the same situations myself). I think this one may be one of the better FM episodes in terms of writing, though the voice acting probably isn't as good as it could be in areas since practically everything I've been producing lately has been a bit of a rush job. I still need to upload episode 2 of FM here since the downloadable copy has been deleted by Machinima.com for a little while now. I've misplaced the disc where I've burned a copy of it, but I'll find it and try to take care of the link tonight. As for the downloadable copies, I'm undecided what resolution is best. I'm trying to strike a balance between higher resolution and keeping the filesize low. The series has actually undergone a shrink, though you won't notice it on your end. I recorded old episodes at 800x600, but usually had to encode to 832x624 to avoid encoding errors. For widescreen I've been recording at 848x480 and am currently releasing at 672x384 since that's pretty close to the original aspect ratio and will have a comparable download size to the 640x480 clips. If you have any preference about the resolution, leave it below, just be aware that a larger resolution increases the filesize and time to download. I'm not going any higher than my current resolution for Freeman's Mind, the detail just isn't there for Half-Life 1 to justify it, plus these are just gameplay videos. I'll continue to do Civil Protection at 1280x720. Also I'm still releasing using WMV format only because it keeps hundreds of people from emailing me asking how to play the video. Next to MPG, I think it's probably the most compatible format there is. It's by no means the best though, I might look into releasing higher quality copies in the future. It's not as simple as picking a format, I have to have an understanding of the encoding settings to keep a reasonable balance between size and visual quality. I'm also far behind on responding to email, but that's something else I hope to get caught up with soon. In the meantime, I'll be spending all my time on The Tunnel, though I may let up a bit because the hours I've been putting in lately just aren't sustainable for me.

Machinima.com streaming Download 1280x720 WMV (13MB) Okay, here is the GOOD version of the trailer available to watch or for download. I'm kind of boycotting the old Youtube version simply because it's unfinished. The visuals are the same on both versions, though they made me add a pumpkin graphic to some contest they're conducting, I removed that for the downloadable copy. The real difference between these trailers is in the audio, which can be crucial to setting mood. Thanks goes to Otto Beumelburg (I frequently misspell his name) for the great sound effects and most of the audio mixing and Craig Kesicke for composing great custom music for the trailer; both of whom had extremely short notice on this. You'll be hearing more of Craig Kesicke's music in the future as there are situations that I require custom music for, plus there's some drama going on surrounding my use of game soundtracks, but I'll save that for a separate post. Now about the trailer itself! This is NOT the best trailer I could have made, however it's one of the safest. While it's impossible to make a trailer that's spoiler-free, I took pains to make sure this one didn't reveal too much about the episode. There are major scenes of the episode that aren't shown at all here and there should be plenty of surprises throughout the entire episode once it gets completed. Not only that, but I wasn't really ready to begin filming, so I just dropped the work I was doing and made a lot of snippet shots. There's a high probability almost none of the exact same shots you see here will be in the actual episode. On top of that, I changed a line or two of the dialogue so it would flow better and the joke at the end was made up for the trailer as well, it's not even part of the episode (because most jokes are less funny once you've already heard them). While the plot and theme will remain the same, several lines are delivered in completely different areas or context. My goal here was to give you a reason to watch the actual episode if you've already seen the trailer (and vice-versa once it comes out). So if you want NO spoilers, don't watch the trailer, but if you do, rest assured it doesn't spoil much. When the episode does get completed, it will be both comedy and suspense and will likely be the longest episode of CP made so far, probably at least 15 minutes. While there will be humor throughout the episode, the jokes won't be as constant as some others because there will be more emphasis on developing the story. And while the episode will start out in the same location as "Shadow of a A Doubt" it is not meant as a sequel to it. I honestly don't know when it will be done since I've been so busy with other work, but I can guarantee it won't be rushed out the door.

Things are a mess at the moment, but I should probably give a news update. I was recently asked by Machinima.com to make a trailer for "The Tunnel" since it's not going to come out before Halloween because of everything else I've been doing. I surely agreed, as this is going to be a long episode and I thought I could make a trailer without spoiling much. I ended up having very little notice on this however and ran into some bugs, so I did everything humanely possible to get this out in time (I worked about 32 hours between Monday and Tuesday night). Unfortunately this wasn't fast enough and Machinima wanted it released TODAY, so this comes at a sizeable expense to the quality. I've never rushed anything out the door this fast and I can say right now this is not going to happen again. I compromised because I can live with a trailer being subpar, but I would never allow this for a full episode. Anyway, it is available on Youtube now, but I don't want to link to it, since the audiowork should be finished for it before too long and the final one should create a better impact. The version that's out there now has no sound effects and consists only of Half-Life music that I arranged in about 10 minutes. The "good" one will have sound effects and hopefully some custom music composed for it. It will be available on Machinima.com and here when it is. I'll make a new post when that's done. I don't want to discuss anything about the trailer until the good one is out, so I'm not answering any questions related to it or the episode right now, I'll give the details on everything once it's out (hopefully quite soon). I just wanted to give an update for people wondering what was happening. Watch it now if you really want to, though I recommend waiting a day or two for the better version.

672x384 WMV (71MB) Here's the new Freeman's Mind episode. This is the first one in widescreen format at it was requested by Machinima.com that I film it this way. I originally gave it a 4x3 aspect ratio to accommodate Youtube and since that changed on me, it's not a big deal to switch over to a widescreen ratio. Ironically since all my Civil Protection videos are in widescreen, my early episodes were hard-encoded to be letterboxed in a 4x3 ratio for Youtube by Machinima.com. It feels like I can't win sometimes. Speaking of which, I'm afraid this episode comes at a cost. Between making three Freeman's Mind episodes this month and other side projects I've had to work on, I really don't think the next Civil Protection episode is going to come out before Halloween. If it was up to me, I would have put FM on hold and made sure the next episode of CP came out in time, but Machinima.com has its own priorities. This does disappoint me, but for what it's worth, this won't be strictly a Halloween episode, just a scary one. So while the timing would have been better for this month, it should still be enjoyable for November. Also to be clear, this rate of Freeman's Mind is perfectly sustainable, it's this and other things on top of Civil Protection which is causing the overload. This delay is not due to lack of effort on my part. I've been working about 75 hours a week the past couple weeks where I was trying to get this done on time, but I can only create the episode so fast. I haven't been doing much besides working, exercising, and sleeping. To put it in perspective, I've been told that Machinima.com has only done one show in-house that uses scripted animation like CP and for that they were funded, hired lots of outside help, had a team of 6 internal animators working overtime and even then just barely got it completed in time. I don't have a paid team helping me, just volunteers the same as previous episodes (though I'm not discounting their efforts), so I still have to fill in every missing role that I can. Factor in that this will likely be the longest episode of CP so far and it's becoming a pretty big strain on me. I'm going a little batty with these hours actually, but I'll be happy once the episode is done. Also I fixed most of the broken download links Machinima.com keeps deleting randomly, I'll get more done when I get a chance.

640x480 WMV (68MB) Here's the latest episode of Freeman's Mind. This one was even more difficult to create than the last one believe it or not. A long story short, it's primarily been an issue of me not having a computer, yet having a tight deadline, though I should hopefully be getting a new system soon. The recording situation is not any better, but there are plans to get a small recording booth in a few weeks that should hopefully solve that situation. I'm spending all my free time working on the next Civil Protection episode, though there's still a lot to do. This one is going to be nailbiter for me to see if I can get it done in time, but I'll do everything I can. On top of that, Machinima wants two more Freeman's Mind episodes this month, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that doesn't come at the expense of CP. On that note, I'm weeks behind in replying to email, so I'm not ignoring anyone intentionally, I'm just extremely busy. I will say however, if you're asking me questions that are in the FAQ or ones that could be answered within 5 minutes of searching for the answer on Google, I probably won't send a reply. In other news, I've been trying to convince Machinima that the existence of this website isn't intended as a threat towards theirs as they've been wanting to remove the URL to it from my videos. So far it gets to stay, and they requested I make a public statement saying there's going to be a discussion with them regarding me having a website link on the videos. I'm still not sure myself what this is going to mean, though one goal I don't plan to compromise on is to at least have some avenue where viewers like you can download higher quality copies of the videos if they wish. Speaking of wish, some users have informed me that four more Freeman's Mind download links have been deleted on Machinima's site, so I'll try and get mirrors up to those as soon as I can.

Machinima.com streaming 640x480 WMV (76MB) Well here's the latest episode, one of the most difficult episodes for me to produce to date, due to the recording situation. It looks like that's getting resolved however, so hopefully the pace should pick up sooner on that. It's anyone's guess though as the computer they salvaged for me completely died on Thursday, but rumor has it there's a laptop I can continue working on. Also I apologize in advance if the video looks a little choppy on Youtube. With the exception of FM14 and Morning Patrol, every single video I've submitted to Machinima.com has been uploaded at the incorrect framerate on Youtube. Maybe someday this will get fixed. Progress continues on the next CP episode. I'm determined to release that before Halloween and will likely be working on weekends as well to make sure that happens. EDIT: I've been informed that the Youtube version is far darker than it should be, this does appear to be true. This is bad, since this is already a darker episode in terms of lighting. I don't know why the brightness was reduced, but it wasn't my fault this time. I recommend either watching the streaming version on Machinima.com or downloading the WMV version.

Well I've got some more news on several items: FREEMAN'S MIND: A new episode should be coming out before too long, but progress has been extremely slow. While I was told there would be audio recording accommodations before I accepted the job, they have been very sketchy. I had to record episode 15 sandwiched between 2 offices where other people are working and making noise, much of it carries through the walls, plus there's a smaller echo in the room, and I'm next to a busy hard tile hallway that can pick up noise from halfway across the building. Recording at home is no longer an option, so as a result, I've had to work during off hours at the office in order to record. Even then, the cleaning crew makes a lot of noise, so I can't reliably record anything until after about 9pm when things tend to remain quiet. Machinima has plans to relocate several of the offices soon, so I'm hoping the recording situation gets resolved. CIVIL PROTECTION AND PILOT EPISODE: I'm continuing to work on both of these and hope to have the next CP episode out sometime in October. MISSING DOWNLOADS: Several of the downloadable copies of the videos keep getting deleted at random from the Machinima servers. No one has been able to give me a clear answer as to why this keeps happening and from what I can tell, restoring these only to have them get deleted again is going to be a losing battle. The good news is, the host for this website (AMT Studios) says they have tons of bandwidth, so hosting new videos here shouldn't be a problem. I've since restored the links for Freeman's Mind episodes 5,6, and 8, and Civil Protection: Halloween Safety. I'll replace more links as they become a problem or I get around to it. - - - - Also I've been trying to get this information added for almost 2 weeks, but I think the people working on the website are having problems with it, so I'm just going to post the information here until it's officially part of the site: SUBTITLES: I'm no longer accepting new subtitles at this time. I plan to again at some point in the future, but I'm so far behind on updating the existing ones, piling on more is just going to overwhelm me. I still intend to support as many as I can, but I simply need to catch up on what people have already submitted first. FAQ UPDATE: I've been emailed these particular questions many times now, here are the answers for everyone: Q. How do you do pullups in Freeman's Mind? A. I have cheats enabled and have "noclip" mode assigned to a hotkey. Q. How do you put away your weapon in Freeman's Mind? A. Originally I was switching to another weapon covered with invisible textures, but since then, one viewer has informed me of the command "impulse 200", which can put away the weapon. Q. Can I have your permission to do a new series in the Freeman's Mind format for another game? A. You don't need my permission to do this. I'm not the first person to come up with the idea of putting words in other character's mouths. I don't plan on doing another show in the

Hey everyone, no new videos I'm afraid, but here's a news update. I've successfully relocated to Los Angeles, it's about what I expected. Machinima had several new hires besides me and wasn't fully prepared for everyone, so I haven't really had a computer to work on for the past 2 weeks. My own computer arrived from moving a couple days ago, so I can at least resume working on some things. I still don't have a place to record audio however, so for now this means no new videos that requires me to voice act. In light of that, I'm focusing on the pilot episode I mentioned (where I won't be a voice actor) and a partially completed Civil Protection episode where my dialogue was already recorded a long time ago. I'm sure the audio situation will get resolved eventually, everyone seems interested in me continuing Freeman's Mind especially. In the meantime, here are some things I've learned about LA that I didn't already know: -Cars actually yield the right of way to pedestrians here. This is a very alien concept to me. -I'm honestly amazed Taco Bell can survive out here in light of the competition. -There seems to be an unspoken stigma here against people who ride the bus. Lucky for me, I don't care. -An old Indian name for Los Angeles translates to "the valley of smoke." I consider this more accurate than "the city of angels" -It's easy to see why there were power shortages here a few years ago when many power lines buzz erratically so loud I'm expecting sparks to be shooting out from them. -I'm starting to see why some art directors for videogames consider making everything look brown to be realistic.