FREEMAN'S MIND: EPISODE 18

[Guest]

Wow! A new FM episode. Thanks Ross. Downloading it now.

J.C.

P.S. Looking forward to "the Tunnel"

[Guest]

LUVS IT!!!!!!! I LUVS U!!!!!

[Guest]

man machinama seems to be working you like a dog having you pump these out.

It was a good episode. "I am a monkey god!" really made me laugh and the climbing down the rope.

[Guest]

Great part!!!!!

Good job! Let's hope you can have a rest now

[Guest]

For resolution I am cool with whatever just as long as it doesn't take too long to download. I'm not too picky about how good it looks. Also good episode.

[Guest]

You can have all the time in the world. Just as long as you keep up the great work! Thanks for the new episode!

[Guest]

I think Gordon's getting hysterical. Great episode as always and I cant wait to see his reaction to the Gargantua.

[Guest]

The last few episodes have been fairly good in terms of resolution. If you don't want to increase the resolution, that's perfectly fine. Just please don't lower it anymore. Some of the older videos (Ep. 9) were a little too blurry to make out details. Excellent job and try to take it easy on yourself!

[Ross Scott]

 

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.

[Guest]

The day always gets better when I see another Ross Scott release. I know you are busting ass over at Machinima, but don't over do it eh? Good things take time, and not a lot of people understand that.

[Guest]

http://www.wuala.com/Freemans Mind/Episodes/Ep 02/freeman_s_mind_episode_2.wmv/

[Guest]

Honestly i wish you would just let the quality go as high as it can and use what ever format you can and post how to play it once, or just let ppl figure it out on their own, as for download times those are pretty mush one minute right now and if that is too long then you tube is always an option. honestly something like 720 vertical looks awesome if memory serves and i'd love to see the vids at that slick level of quality, though i doubt I'll get it.

[Guest]

Awesome! New FM! I think you're doing a great job, Ross. FM is as good as ever and I will never get tired of it. One time I watched this guy play Fallout 3 for 2000 minutes on Youtube. (200 10-minute long videos)

 

I think FM is a great success.

[Guest]

# 12..... cool

[Guest]

This has to be one of my favorite episodes you have made by-far. It really taps into my own personality. I would totally be the one constantly pressing the button for the moving platform, and saying "Wheeee!" as I made it go back and forth.

 

Great job on this episode, seriously.

 

~Brianna

[Guest]

"for download times those are pretty mush one minute right now and if that is too long then you tube is always an option" youtube pretty much destroys video quality and doesn't provide mirrors for downloads.

The only good video sharing site i know that does is veoh, that allows people to both stream and download the original file, i've downloaded loads of hd videos from there in different formats.

 

Anyway, as for resolution, you're currently in a good place for freeman's mind, 720p would be nice but since it's hl1 it's hardly necessary

 

awesome episode, freeman is becoming more and more insane with each release

[Guest]

I liked that one Ross. The Black Mesa/Half Life joke was the peak for me.

Well done getting the distances right with the whole hanging onto a pipe part.

 

Take care of yourself-

 

-Tom

[Guest]

Great work. Epic Win!

 

As far as the downloadable versions goes, the higher the quality, the better I say. Sure, that means longer download times, but so what? If you're really in a hurry, watch the youtube versions.

 

-SparcMan

[Guest]

i love how Gordon is getting Crazier in each episode.

shows how as he descending into insanity the deeper he gets in the bowels black mesa.

[Guest]

Yeah, I understand about compatibility. Personally, I'd love to see the videos in H.264; it's probably one of the most efficient formats out there (with a good encoder, of course), and it's a standard and not an M$ proprietary format. You'll also note that YouTube uses it now.

 

But of course, consistent with M$'s track record with standards, Windows doesn't come with H.264 support. (Though maybe that's changed recently; I don't know.) So yeah, you have to get the codecs yourself, and that's a barrier for a lot of people.

 

As for MPG, sure it's quite compatible, but MPEG-1/2 is rather old and much less efficient than modern formats. I think I'd only use it as a last resort, or if encoding for a DVD of course.