As I’m sure you know, this website has needed help for a long time, the guy who created it has basically had to abandon it and I don’t know about web programming. Somebody took over to make a mockup, but that’s been in limbo as well. Crap like this sets me back so I have less time to put into the episode. How about emailing me about what can be done to fix up the site? As far as your cred goes, hacking this site is the equivalent of beating up a homeless guy in the alley. I’m sure there’s better and more deserving targets.

TO VIEWERS:

I’m not deleting the hacker’s posts, because I think it would be an unwise move to act like this didn’t happen and would provoke further action from him. Also I don’t know how to disable the music, I’ll try and have that fixed when I can.

In the meantime, the website revamp has now taken full priority for obvious reasons. I’ll keep working on the episodes since I’m not the one who will be doing the actual programming, but there’s a lot to coordinate, so this will eat into my time.

EDIT:

Thanks to those who sent me the old news posts. Work is underway getting the site revised and hopefully non-hackable in the future.

Hey, an update on the videocard situation:

My cooler came in, only for me to discover that my old videocard was already fried, it started giving me graphics corruption right after POST. The good news is viewer Collin Campbell has sent me an 8400 GS to tide me over. This card has all the same graphics capabilities of my old card, it’s just way, way slower. However, I’m able to keep working with this card, and I’ve been doing so. I won’t be doing any gaming with a card like this, but that’s probably just as well since I’m so far behind. I’ve also had offers for donating more midrange cards from viewers John Stokes and Joshua Nicholson which I’ll be happy to accept. I’ve been wanting to build a secondary system for a while in case my main one gets hosed like this, so the old cards will go into that once I upgrade. I probably will buy a new card at some point, but I want to wait until I’ve finished all the animation work for the next Civil Protection episode as an extra incentive.

On that topic, progress is moving steadily, but very slow. I feel bad too because this one isn’t going to be the most impressive visually, you’ll probably watch it and wonder why it took so long to make. This once again, comes down to the Source engine. If you saw a scene where the metrocops walk down a tunnel, stop, look around, then keep walking, making turns all the while, how long do you think that would take? Maybe 30 minutes right? No. With the long trial-and-error testing process and the downright mystical bugs I have to fight, it takes days. And this is when I already have the map files, custom animations, and models that I already need. Some scenes move more quickly than others, others are more visually impressive for the time involved, but a lot of what’s done is very simple visually, with it being a nightmare behind the scenes.

I’m absolutely going to finish this episode, though I may make another sacrificial FM episode in the meantime to tide people over. Once I finish this episode however, I think this is the last big CP episode I’ll do under the Source engine. I have ideas for much simpler ones after this, plus I have no plans to discontinue the series, but it’s possible down the line I may try and port the content over to a more animation-friendly engine down the line. Although this is probably good news for the majority of you, since I can just keep making Freeman’s Mind episodes after this until the technology or resources catches up for me to work on something more ambitious.

Hey people, some bad news. My videocard (Geforce 8800 GTS) is pretty consistently overheating. I tried to borrow a cheap one so I could keep working (Radeon X300 SE), but then THAT keeps overheating as well (to be fair that one doesn’t even have a fan, just a heatsink). Even though my case air flow is pretty good and I have an air conditioner running keeping the room in the mid 70s, this is definitely a heat problem. Besides video artifacts and system freezing in 3d applications, the heatsink on the Geforce has been getting so hot it can burn me.

I plan to order a custom cooler for the card since I don’t have a lot of extra cash to be blowing on a new videocard, but what this means is for the time being I can’t work on much of anything video-related because I risk the computer freezing up in 3D applications. So this means no animation work on Civil Protection, and no in-game footage for Freeman’s Mind. I’ll try and catch up on replying to emails and managing subtitles in the meantime.

EDIT:

Many people are offering to donate me money. That would be great, but I’m not doing that at this time for two reasons:

1. Having some sort of donate button requires modifications to the site, I don’t know web programming and right now the person helping me modify the site has been very busy to get everything underway (there’s a lot of behind the scenes stuff that needs fixing). I plan to follow up some emails from people who have contacted me about website before to hopefully get some stuff underway.

2. If you guys are donating, I want to have a little more to show for it. Basically get a bunch of minor improvements here working. Being able to browse old posts, a better commenting system, more subtitles, putting scripts up, alternate shots, having episodes available in more formats besides WMV, maybe director’s commentary stuff, etc.

Youtube

Download 672x384 WMV (86MB)

Well after a short period of me being completely unaware the video had already been posted, here’s the next episode of Freeman’s Mind. Again, this is just kind of a stopgap material to tide you guys over while I keep working on Civil Protection. This is exactly the sort of situation Freeman’s Mind was created for in the first place. It’s sort of a mutation that’s it’s become as popular as it has. Once I finish the next CP episode, I promise to make a large batch of FM episodes to make up for all the time I’ve been spending on CP.

This episode did take more audio editing than usual. Audio editor Otto Beumelburg sent me a screenshot of all the volume balancing work he did for the episode. I thought that was interesting, so I’m posting that below. While I originally did everything myself, nowadays he does about 95% or more of volume mixing and extra sound effects for the series. I’ve been pretty happy with his work and it definitely saves me some time.

At some point I hope to make a giant chart illustrating all the steps that go into Freeman’s Mind and Civil Protection, but that can wait until I finish the next episode. I’ll start on FM 29 as soon as I’m done with the animation work for CP. I’m still behind on replying to emails, getting more subtitles up, and getting revisions done to the website, but I haven’t forgotten about any of that.

Personal Notes:

It’s likely I may be moving again in a couple weeks to a location with even cheaper rent, so that may disrupt things for a little bit. I’m also starting to relate to Freeman in that sense that I’m growing increasingly paranoid about the peak oil crisis that I believe is coming (see Civil Protection: Oil’s Well for more info on that). Even though I’ve previously considered people like this a little crazy, I’m leaning towards joining some survivalist community for when everything goes to hell. I probably won’t get to it for at least another year and even then, I’ll keep making more videos as long as civilization exists. Nobody really knows what will happen, but based on information I’ve been reading, I think we’ll start seeing big trouble around 2015. I think a zombie apocalypse would be easier to prepare for than what I think is actually coming. Enjoy!

This is again for the people who get upset about not enough updates. The next Freeman’s Mind episode is fully voiced, but it’s going to take longer than usual as far as the audio editing. I won’t be working on most of that, so I’ll be going back to Civil Protection in the meantime. I promise to release the next FM episode as soon as it’s done, though it’s looking that may be next week afterall. On the plus side, it’s one of the longer episodes, around 10 minutes.