Ross Scott

Well this is kind of late in announcing, but here it is anyway. The second and final guide from me is now out! This one is called Source Machinima Cinematography. The other guide, Choreography, focused almost exclusively on animation. This guide covers pretty much everything else involved with making a machinima film in the Source engine. If you want to know exactly how I process everything after I have it animated, this covers all the steps. It covers recording methods, camerawork, audio/video editing, and even some bits on getting ideas and writing scripts. In my opinion, the most valuable parts of this guide are being able to create custom camerawork (which includes slow motion), recording without any dropped frames, and my secret recipe for motion blur. And like the other guide, I didn't set the price on this, but I did try to make sure it was as thorough as possible. And for everyone waiting on FM, CP, and the pilot episode, I'm working on them; asking daily about it really has no impact on the production time.

Well in working on it, it looks like the commenting system has been completely broken, so I'm taking the site back down again. It looks like the site isn't quite functional enough for launching afterall, so I'll put it on hold again while the people coding try to work it out. Really I've been trying to get this going ever since last summer, but as you can see it's been one problem after another. I'll make an announcement here once it's a little more mature. And yes I saw all the comments and emails about wanting an RSS system, I wasn't aware anyone even used that. I've never really intended for the homepage to be a daily news kind of deal, just something you can check every few weeks or so. Basically I'd rather focus on making more videos than giving constant updates. My primary goal with the site is to make it easy to get to the videos and to support some extra stuff. However since there's such a demand for it, I'll ask the people coding to try and implement that in the new version.

Hey, the new site should be functional now. I'm going to wait and make sure it doesn't choke like last time before I basically turn this blogspot page into a redirecting one. I'll still keep all old entries and comments, but if all goes well, all future news and videos will be at http://accursedfarms.com.

Well I was hoping to get the site up today, and started to, but as soon as I made it public everything froze on the host's computer and the guy running it has no explanation for it. I now have a backup plan, but it probably won't go up again until sometime tomorrow (if nothing goes wrong again). EDIT: I have no idea when this thing is going to go up, I'm not coding, so a lot of this stuff is out of my hands.

Well for those of you who didn't figure it out yet, yesterday was a joke for April Fool's Day. Everything I wrote was bogus. The series is not over, Episode 11 is in progress. While I do think people could get tired of the format, I'm never going to run out of things to say, though some episodes will be better than others. I also have no incentive to have a road trip across the USA. I have enough scars from bicycle accidents as it is without needing to add to the collection with a motorcycle. I think more of you figured out the joke than last year, it was basically the same trick. Since the fanbase is larger, there were a lot more comments this time. Like before, I put all comments mentioning April Fool's or the date on hold, but they're all posted now if you want to look through them. Also like before, I saw some suggestions that I was making up some of the comments. I'm not, these are all you guys. The only comments I made were in my name and were discussing the motorcycle trip. Right now my plans are to finish Episode 11 of FM and the website, then focus soley on the next CP episode without having to divide up my attention on different projects.

640x480 WMV (17MB) I changed my mind, I'm not doing any more Freeman's Mind; it's over. I've realized there's no way I'll be able to think up enough material to get through the rest of the game. Enjoy the last episode; it's kind of short, hence the half mark. EDIT: I think I'm going to buy a motorcycle and ride across the United States.

640x480 74MB WMV Well here's the latest episode of FM, the next one won't be too far behind. This episode will probably upset the Half-Life purists out there. I use some cheats because in my vision of Half-Life, I see Gordon as capable of doing a pull-up. And yes, I know I said the previous episode would be the last one before the new website, but I was wrong. I thought things were going well, but all development pretty much stopped after I made that statement, and I can't do the coding on my own. The good news I now have new help on it and progress has resumed on the site (again). I'm pretty serious about getting the site up, which is why I put the new URL in the credits. It will be called "Accursed Farms", and will be the future homepage for all the videos. Nothing is changing production-wise, it will just be easier for me to manage the videos with the new site and will offer more features than the blogspot address. Right now it's unfinished, so you'll only get a front page, but I think it will be up pretty soon. I'm not giving any time estimates since everything seems to go to hell every time I do that. I'll announce as soon as the new site is up. EDIT: I'm not sure why the latest episode is darker, I thought it was my imagination when editing. I think it might be a mistake I made in the recording. Unfortunately the footage is already done on the next episode, so it will be darker too, but I'll try and make sure the future ones look alright.

I'm working on the next FM episodes and I'll have them as soon as I can, although in the meantime I want to get some feedback on subtitles. Subtitles are going to be a big section of the new website, so I'm trying to standardize what method will be used. I have two options right now. One will have subtitles color-coded to the speaker. I thought this might make it easier for people to distinguish who is talking, since Mike and Dave use identical models for the characters. The other option I've heard of is to make the subtitles all the same color, but use a hyphen to distinguish when two characters are talking in the same time frame. Below are snapshots of each method: Color coded: Hyphenated Let me know what you think in the comments and I may put up a poll. I'm especially interested in international viewers who will benefit from future translations. If you don't care about the subtitles, then just ignore this. Thanks everyone. EDIT: Alright, due to feedback from translators and viewers, I've made my decision. My plans are to make plain white outlined text using hyphenated versions for the hard-encoded Youtube copies, and make both hyphenated and color-coded subtitle files (for ones that get done this way) available for download.

I've found a workaround for the barnacle problem I've been having. For those that care, if you go into noclip mode then clip through a wall while looking at them, it seems to fix the problem for the remainder of the demo. This does add an extra step and may make transitions between load zones even less smooth, but it does seem to be a solution for now. I'm going to try and get two more Freeman's Mind episodes out this month to make up for the delay on the last one. Since there's lagtime between when I'm done and when it actually gets uploaded, I can't promise anything, but that's my goal.

640x480 WMV (87MB) Well here's the latest FM episode after a lot of delays. This one has several bugs that I basically just ignored. There are missing bloodstains, the barnacle problem is back, and one of the signs wasn't glowing like it's supposed to. One viewer has told me it's not even possible to finish HL Source without cheating because of a bug, I guess I'll find out. This is going to be the LAST video release before the new website, we're getting really close now, I hope to have something semi-functional in about a week on that front. After that focus will be on the next CP episode, but I may do another FM first just to make up for the delay on this one.

Well judging from the comments, people really want an update, so here's what happeneing. Steady progress is being made on the next Civil Protection episode, but there's still a ways to go. I'll get started on a new Freeman's Mind episode soon to try and make up for the delay. I lost a couple days to doing some additional contact work, but that's done now, so I'll back to work on everything else. Progress on the website is going very well and I think it will be done quite soon. My plans are to get it up before the next video is released. Finally, some initial work has been started on a "pilot episode" for something new I want to try. Without spoiling anything, it will be in the Source engine, but will not be Half-Life related. You'll definitely see the next CP and FM episodes out before this however.

640x480 WMV (87MB) Well here's the latest episode of Freeman's Mind. I got lucky with this one and demo recording worked without the barnacles going crazy. This is good because I was able to swap out some lines for the scientist at the end, something that wouldn't have been practical with just raw video recording. The barnacle problem is NOT SOLVED however, I simply got lucky with this map. My offer of getting in the credits for anyone who can solve the problem is ongoing. Also, the cattle prod story mentioned in this episode is not even an exaggeration, I knew someone who used to do that. I plan to go back and focus on the next CP episode for now, but if the rest of production ends up taking a long time, I'll get another FM episode out to tide you over. Hopefully the new website will be finished before either one is done!