Hey everyone, here’s a link to a group Q&A session I did a week or two ago with people creating “mind” series for other games with mostly silent protagonists, of which there are many. I was invited to it directly after the caboos15 interview and since “The Tunnel” has been completed for a while now, I don’t mind doing PR stuff again. It’s a long discussion session and I don’t remember everything that was said while recording or before/after, but you’re welcome to check it out:
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February 7th: Videochat with fans
All above will be live at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast at 6PM UTC.
This episode is a bit of a milestone in the game. If you haven’t played Half-Life already, you’ll find out why. It’s also one of the shorter episodes. This is because I split them when there’s a good stopping point, and it doesn’t get much more obvious than this one. It’s been proposed before that I switch over to the Black Mesa mod after this episode, but since that’s not out yet, I’ll just continue with regular half-life. You can expect something a little different for the next video as a kind of intermission after this one.
Freeman’s Mind continues with a new episode. I’m mostly happy with this one, though it becomes difficult for me to tell what’s good or not the more of these I do. I’ll continue to update the progress chart, though I may forget some days.
This episode got delayed for release more than most. This is part of the reason I never like to give release dates, I never know them myself. Machinima.com works in mysterious ways. The progress chart on the right will tell you at least what’s been completed.
The brightness / contrast levels seem to be off in this episode on the Youtube version. The downloadable copy will have the original game light levels once it goes up. Also the resolution is being reported at 1280x720 on youtube, which is incorrect. I was told to submit it at 640x360 for Youtube. The original footage is now recorded at 848x480. Going to HD resolution really isn’t worth the slowdown in processing for me for Freeman’s Mind, since this is just Half-Life, there’s not much to show off visually. I plan on releasing copies of all the videos at original resolution and with higher quality codecs/formats in the future, it’s just something I haven’t gotten around to yet. That and some people appreciate smaller copies to download. So the current 672x384 WMV copies are just a temporary compromise between higher quality, lower size, and player compatibility.
You can look forward to more videos coming one way or another.
Well the site has now been set up to accept donations. The link is at the top of the page where you can donate money if you feel so inclined and/or read my thoughts regarding donations in general. I’d like to stress that I added this at the repeated requests of some of the viewers. I’ll continue making videos as long as I’m able to and I’ll never hold them “hostage” in exchange for more money. If you never donate anything, that’s fine, you’ll keep getting videos. I’m happy to have as many people interested in watching the videos as I do.
One thing I would like viewer feedback from is I’d like to do something extra for people who donate if possible, but I’m not sure what sort of things people would like. If you have ideas of little things donators might appreciate, go ahead and post them in the forums.
Here’s the next Freeman’s Mind episode after a delay of me moving, doing April Fool’s Day videos, trying to get the website/forums fixed, and getting a good recording setup. You can expect them to come out at a faster pace now, especially since the series has been neglected for a while. I can’t record at all hours of the day at my new location however, but I should have regular blocks of time when I can get recording done for it. I think this episode came out pretty well and contains a line I thought of before I started doing the first episode. I’ll keep updating the progress on future episodes so you can see how far along things are.
EDIT:
For some reason the video was darkened by Machinima.com on Youtube. I don’t know why this is, but the downloadable copy should have the correct lighting values, it’s as it appears in the game.
