I have several small updates and I know some of you get restless:

-I’ve started the next Freeman’s Mind episode and plan to be done in a couple days. I can’t promise when it will be released since I never know how long Machinima.com’s release pipeline takes, but I can’t imagine it will be any later than next week.

-I’ve uploaded the missing download links Machinima.com deleted for FM episodes 1,3,7, and 11. Sorry this took so long.

-Multiple volunteers are now helping me take over managing the subtitles. Right now they’re mostly responding to emails that are months old. If you’ve contacted me about making subtitles for the show before, you can hopefully expect a reply back sometime in the near future. I don’t want to accept new subtitle offers just yet, because they have a lot to sort through, but I think we’ll be able to resume full subtitle production soon.

-I’ve run into a new bug that’s holding up production on “The Tunnel.” I still want to do some more research on this, but this one is pretty bad and potentially affects all future work in the Source engine. If we can’t solve it, I’ll make an official post on it, complete with all the details and files so hopefully someone else can. For those curious, it’s related to NPCs jerking around erratically during demo playback.

-I’m surprised with how many people are interested in donating. I think I may reconsider my stance on this, but only once I get more videos made and more goodies on the website rolled out. While I like money as much as the next person, I plan to continue making videos regardless of user contributions.

-Contrary to how people may have read my last post, my life is not hell, far from it. I’m happy I’m going to be able to make progress working on some of my more ambitious ideas this year. It IS busy however. I wasn’t trying to garner sympathy in the last post, I just wanted to give a bit of a defense as to why more hasn’t been produced lately.

EDIT:

The next episode is done, though I don’t know when it’s going up, your guess is as good as mine. I’ve started on the next one too, so just hold on.

Hey people, I thought I’d give a minor update since several of you seem restless from the comments. Many of you can’t wait for another Freeman’s Mind episode it seems. The biggest reason I haven’t been working on it is because I haven’t had a place to record. At the moment I’m just staying with family. At Machinima.com, I could come into the office in the middle of the night and record it then. Right now everything’s in flux.

I noticed some comments claiming the reason I haven’t released anything lately is because I have a life. That’s incorrect. A lot of what I’ve been up to is hunting for a place to live where I can make noise for recording that I can also afford. You can complain all you want more Freeman’s Mind hasn’t been coming out, but the series isn’t exactly known for Freeman talking in a hushed tone, so I’m not going to make new ones unless I can do them properly. The good news is I just yesterday found a place, though I still need to take care of things like internet hookup, phone service, etc., but I should be getting back on track on soon. Once I’m set up in my new place, my plans are to make a new FM episode as soon as possible, then continue work on The Tunnel, then see where things go from there.

In the meantime, I’m still trying to keep on top of many other things. The website needs work. A new system for managing subtitles is still being established. Machinima.com has deleted more episode download links at random, which I need to put back up. I’m way behind on responding to emails. My files are a mess and very disorganized from working on two different computers for The Tunnel. I still have a ton of animation work to do for The Tunnel. There are some minor map fixes needed for The Tunnel. I’m trying to find time to research new animation techniques and technology that may help things go faster in the future. I need furniture. I’m probably going to need a car again. My headphones are falling apart. At the moment I have no health insurance. I’ll probably die alone. My motherboard chipset fan is making this buzzing sound that makes me want to take an axe to it. The pilot surprise episode is completely on hold at the moment. I’m facing new issues regarding my use of game soundtracks. I’m running into new problems with the Source engine. I’m also busy with stuff that I’m keeping under wraps for various reasons, but I think you’ll be pleased with in the long-term.

I know it’s easy to think that I’m just slacking off and not working on anything, but the best way I can describe things is that I’m retooling everything so that I can start becoming a mini machinima factory. I personally believe I’m going to produce more videos for 2010 than I have for any other year. If you don’t believe me, feel free to count up the most I’ve produced in a year so far and give me hell if I don’t meet that goal by 2011. In the meantime, chill. HL2 Episode 3 is late. Black Mesa mod is late. The Crossing is on hold. They Hunger: Lost Souls hasn’t updated in a year. SiN Episodes died. Many projects associated with the Source engine have a tendency to take for-frigging-ever or die. I’m trying, people.

Youtube

Download 640x480 WMV (11MB)

Well here’s the surprise video I mentioned, I hope I didn’t hype it up too much. This is the first non-machinima video I’ve released. I filmed this back in 2003, but never got around to editing it, so it’s been sitting on my hard drive for years. Since I didn’t have a place to record the past couple weeks and didn’t have a lot of time due to moving, this was the only thing I could think of that I could get out relatively quickly. There are a few video artifacts because I waited longer than I should have before transferring the video from tape, but it’s still watchable.

I’m embarrassed to say I’ve forgotten the names of the actors in this, if anyone recognizes them today, let me know, I’ll remember their names once I hear them again. Also due to various reasons I ended up doing the narration for this myself. I’m sure someone else could have done a better job, but the time restraints were tighter than normal. I’d still like to thank everyone who did send me a sample reel, my apologies that I ended up not using you for the voiceover, I can be a picky bastard sometimes.

As for the video itself, if there’s any confusion, I didn’t make a real show about this, it’s just a fake teaser commercial. After uploading this to Youtube, it looks like I’m not the first with this concept, though when I wrote this I was not aware of any other pigeon hunter videos. And yes, we did end up killing a pigeon in the making of this, but it was by accident. The original script didn’t call for killing pigeons, however, one of the actors ended up stepping on one of the pigeons by accident and broke its neck, so I decided to use that for an extra shot where he held it up as a game trophy.

In other news, I’ll be looking for a new place to live soon, but I plan to focus on finishing The Tunnel. Regardless of how far I get, I’ll probably make another Freeman’s Mind for January just because I get the feeling viewers will be ready to lynch me if I don’t. I plan to have many more FM episodes this year, but I’ll be alternating between them and some of my more ambitious projects.

Well I successfully drove from California to Virginia. Driving in a straight line for days gave me plenty of opportunity to go insane, but here I am.

I have a new problem on my hands however. I

I’m going to be leaving soon and heading back to Virginia, which will be quite a drive. I’ll be driving through a lot of desert, you may want to watch the movie “The Hills Have Eyes” to get an idea of what it should be like. Besides getting ready, I’ve been catching up on a lot of things the past couple weeks, though you probably won’t see the results of it until at least January. I’ll be away for about a week travelling, but I’ll get back to work on the videos as soon as I’m done. I’m going to try and get another video out before Christmas as it’s mostly edited. This will be a surprise one and won’t be very long, but I think there’s a good chance you’ll like it. You won’t see any new machinima videos until at least January, though I’ve got a lot of things brewing, I anticipate releasing more videos for 2010 than I did this year.

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In other news, the subtitle situation is still a mess and I’ve come to the realization that the scope of it is too big for me to handle and work on other things. I have hundreds of emails related to subtitles, most of which I haven’t replied to yet, and I’m unsure how to deal with it all. My latest idea is to see if anyone would be interested in assisting me with organizing and processing the subtitles. I would lay out the guidelines for him or her, and you could email that person instead of me to help get them processed. I would still approve all the English ones myself, as I’m the final authority as to what words are being said, but for all other languages, there’s no reason someone else couldn’t help me with this. I would probably hand off the emails I’ve gotten so far to that person and let them follow up and organize everything. I realize this might seem kind of impersonal for the people who have contacted me, but I feel like it’s the only way I’ll make any progress. This is my fault for not realizing just how much time this was going to take. I’d rather hand the job off to someone else who will do a better job than abandon the goal entirely.

If you are interested in being a “subtitle manager,” please email me. My requirements are that you have good communication and English skills, have a lot of time to devote to this, be familiar with Subtitle Workshop or similar software, have your computer able to read non-English characters, and be more organized than I am. Since I’m going to be gone soon, don’t expect any reply from me until at least a week or so. I can’t afford to pay you, but you would get your name on the site here. Also, it’s probably worth writing a paragraph or two just so I can confirm your grammar and spelling are above that of the average internet user.