April News

[Ross Scott]

CIVIL PROTECTION:

 

Well as some of you may have guessed, yesterday's video was not actually a new game engine. It was the work of Michael Breazzeal, who has done other game-related animations. He contacted me last year about a Freeman's Mind animation he made and offered to help with the videos. I thought this style of animation would be good for an idea that had some sort of time pressure on it, since this is much faster than animating in 3D. All the animation for this was done in under a week, though he was working feverishly on it during that time. Because of the time constraints, he wanted me to emphasize that this is not his best work and is capable of better quality.

 

This was originally meant to be a triple feature, though one of the episode ideas was scrapped to make sure everything came out on time. I have dozens of ideas for CP in my head, these were two I thought work work well with this animated style. "Reception" was just a quick joke one that I thought wouldn't lose anything by not being rendered in 3D. "Lift" was one that due to other projects I have planned would likely have been years before I got around to it. While some of "Lift" would be possible in the Source engine, doing something like that without having the lighting being screwed up would have required a LOT of tricks and may not have been possible in Source.

 

This double feature was also another reminder as to why I try to avoid deadlines. While the animation work was done well ahead of schedule, the sound editing was not and a lot of it ended up being done at the last minute by a backup backup sound editor and myself. I had no less than four people bail on me during the duration of this episode and it was really down the to wire getting it in on time. Also while his name isn't in the credits, "Chuck the 2nd" gets an honorable mention for volume balancing work that just didn't happen in time because the pipeline was so jammed up.

 

Finally, working on this and not having to do ANY of the animation work was kind of intoxicating. I love writing and directing videos, but animation work is usually an exercise is misery for me. While I do appreciate the cinematic feel that 3D graphics can provide, I could see doing more animation projects, so long as I don't have to be the one animating it. Any ideas that I feel like won't massively benefit from being done in 3D or else require too many resources might get transferred to animation projects instead, provided people will be able to animate it. I prefer the look of 3D graphics, however, I would much rather have more of my ideas get out in a different medium than not at all.

 

 

NEW ENGINE / MOVIE PROJECT:

 

Progress on the movie project is going slowly, but is very encouraging. I am definitely seeing benefits of allowing myself more time to write and develop the script, I think the eventual payoff on this will be enormous. I'm taking every effort to make sure this script is extremely fine tuned and is some of the best material I can come up with, a practice I think even Hollywood doesn't exercise most of the time.

 

As for the engine, I actually did research all the engines mentioned in yesterday's post. Based on my research, I've decided to transition to the Unreal 3 engine for multiple reasons:

 

-It appears to be far less buggy since when it was launched, and I think likely has much more functionality than Source at this point.

-I've seen machinima from other games successfully ported over to it

-It seems to have the most overall community support, so I won't be on my own when I have problems

-Despite trends in the industry, it doesn't actually HAVE to have desaturated color, the whole screen in a tinted color, and excessive bloom everywhere. It is capable of very good graphics, so much so that I don't see obvious advantages of other engines like Crytech or Unigine.

 

I am still learning the engine however, which will take me time. If you wish to help with the movie project, the #1 thing I want to focus on at this phase is being able to have a dozen or two rigged human models, capable of lip sync and facial expressions. I think it's unrealistic to do this all from scratch and variations to some sort of template model would be best for this. I've also heard Poser or Daz Studio may be well equipped for this job. If you have experience creating or modifying faces of 3D models and wish to help on this project, please contact me.

 

 

FREEMAN'S MIND:

 

More Freeman's Mind is coming, the next episode is about a quarter done. I actually was planning to have another video done for March, but I ended up moving again (I don't want to be a nomad even though I seem to live that way), which consumed a lot of my time, also I was trying to ensure the April Fool's Day video got done in time. Progress will resume on it very soon.

 

- - -

 

ADHD version: Ross is working on more videos.

[Chuckthe2nd]

Nice update. Good luck with the new engine, hope it works well.

[The Giant Napkin]

Thanks for the update, enjoyed your videos and hope you're doing well. And by that I mean that I hope you're not starving because of a lacking income, or suffering from stress because you're working too hard. I'm looking forward to seeing whatever it is you'll release next and I hope you and the new engine will get along.

 

Also, since you've moved again, does that mean you're no longer living in Poland ? : P

[Alyxx Thorne]

The Unreal 3 engine does seem like the logical choice actually.

[Mr. Mister]

Unresl Engine 3 FTW indeed. Tgough I'm not sure of its community's size in comparition to other popular engines, I am confident that the knowledge level of said community i the most impressive. And gotta say that this is not only dure tío its features, but to actual promotions like the MSUC. You may find almost any imaginable environment on the UT3 community maps, provided you manage to im/ex/whateverport them (I have a very specific one in mind, yet can't remember its name, which I think included "garden/s". Anyone remember a map set up on a very white building on a sea cliff's wall, with breakable glasses, energy bridges, a nigth edition with access to a higher level and something about a licensed "pure" ligthing stuff?)

 

EDIT: Wow so many typographical errors. Hope you fellas don't mind me weiting on my phone.

EDIT 2: "Weiting", of course. One day, touchscreen, you'l wake up with a jorse head ne- GODSAMMIT!

[Arby]

Glad to know you settled on an engine. Hope it all works out. and is it me or are a lot of movies being made around the internet these days? Ross, the AVGN, the Cinema Snob...

[J.C.]

Why is the Donations system "temporarily down"? Problems with PayPal?

[Ross Scott]

Also, since you've moved again, does that mean you're no longer living in Poland ?

I'm in Blacksburg, Virginia right now for people that are wondering.

 

Glad to know you settled on an engine. Hope it all works out. and is it me or are a lot of movies being made around the internet these days? Ross, the AVGN, the Cinema Snob...

I didn't know they were making movies actually. Looks like my budget is about 1/250th of the AVGN's, but I intend to make my movie be the best thing I've ever produced.

 

Why is the Donations system "temporarily down"? Problems with PayPal?

No, just some bureacratic stuff, it should be up in a few days.

[Chuckthe2nd]

I'm in Blacksburg, Virginia right now for people that are wondering.

Oh cool, I used to live only an hour away from Blacksburg.

[J.C.]

No, just some bureacratic stuff, it should be up in a few days.

Ah, ok. I went like this when I first read about the system being down.

 

 

Thought you were considering going back to the no-donations policy.

[Qwx]

Are you planning to port Source assets to Unreal at some time? Have you found people to do that?

[cobacel]

The Unreal engine , especially the UDK release is extremely customisable . I just hope it will still have that old civil protection feel .

 

Your writting is splendid . I for one enjoy good comedy ; for some reason these 2 games always come in my mind when I think of Civil Protection , Armed and Dangerous and Giants Citizen Kabuto mostly because they had machinima-like cutscenes with large quantities of smart humour .

 

Here's the first cutscene and it's hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8uNzVji_7c

 

I always laugh and even tear up when I sometimes remember the dogs scene .

[Alyxx Thorne]

The Unreal engine , especially the UDK release is extremely customisable . I just hope it will still have that old civil protection feel .

 

Your writting is splendid . I for one enjoy good comedy ; for some reason these 2 games always come in my mind when I think of Civil Protection , Armed and Dangerous and Giants Citizen Kabuto mostly because they had machinima-like cutscenes with large quantities of smart humour .

 

Here's the first cutscene and it's hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8uNzVji_7c

 

I always laugh and even tear up when I sometimes remember the dogs scene .

I'm pretty sure that at the core, Civil Protection is about the humor and the characters. If Unreal helps him achieve that sooner and better, then I don't see why it should ruin the feel of the show.

 

And I remember playing a shareware demo of Giants back in '01. It was a pretty fun game.

[Lord Sinister]

New engine stuff sounds good, I believe there's even some programming aspects, what with Unrealscript and so on.

[Xombifier]

Ross, this may sound random or strange but you should do video updates / blogs just so we can see what you've been up to in video form. I know it may get to be a chore if you don't like that kind of stuff but, some video-makers or WhatEverYouWantToCallThem on the Internet who have as many followers as you do actually have a live-stream or video update once in a while.

 

Just a little suggestion

[Chuckthe2nd]

It's been suggested multiple times, and always has the same answer: No.