kingkolton9

I've listened to a few tests and the sm57 sounds more natural for vocals than the sm58. I looked up a video on it for someone who could explain it better than me and this guy goes into a lot of detail: Edit: I just watched the rest of that video. With the windscreen on, the SM57 sounds a bit worse than the 58.

I'm definitely interested.

Yeah, I have to agree on the anti-yeti recommendation that both you and IRAMightyPirate have voiced. While it's a nice mic for the price, this thing picks up everything, especially if you don't have a shock mount. I just did a test in audition, and with the gain at 25% and the mic set to the cardioid pattern (The one that picks up the least amount of sound), it sounds like I was speaking directly into it. It's an arm and a half away from me, and sitting right next to my home server, but it's not picking up too much from that. Edit: A mic I think you may like is the Shure SM57. It's a $100 dynamic microphone that is supposedly awesome for the price. It's a cardioid pattern mic and is used a lot with high-pitched and loud instruments. I've used one a few times, however, that was a while back and I don't have any recording samples I can give you. It only picks up things in the 40-15000 hz range, though.

Always glad to see a new video, Ross. For the RGB>YV12 question, I do remember a problem I saw really similar to this. I'm only saying this because I've heard you mention that you've used Sony Vegas before; I'm probably completely off, though. Sony Vegas outputs videos two ways: "Studio RGB" and "Computer RGB." The colors look fine in Vegas, but when being uploaded somewhere they look like shit. For the mic question, that depends on how much you're willing to spend. Are you going for something like a studio microphone, a shock mount and a pop filter, or do you just want the best bang for your buck on the lower end? As for your other projects: I await them gleefully. This movie sounds awesome, and I'm always happy for more game dungeon. Perhaps our One Free Man's time will come again.

Not that I... wish to imply you have been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a rest Rise and shine, Mr. Scott. Rise and shine! *His computer is shown in the background. Premiere pro is on the screen.* I imagine that would elicit a Freeman-like response.

Clearly, Battletoads. What are you on about? Ross was obviously playing Galerians! Clearly he was playing Garry's Mod.

Ross said mid-January (IIRC), so I'm guessing 10 more days, give or take.

That's a bit of a slap in the face, don't you think? Er, I'm aware of the origin of the term G-man. All I was saying is that the reason we, as a community, call him G-man is because that's what his files were called, not because that's his "canon name". Hasn't Laidlaw referred to Gman as Gman?

We should probably take Totally Serious Half-Life Story talk to another thread, but AFAIK, I think Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and Decay are only considered by Valve to be semi or selectively canon. As in, they're considered non-canon except for anything explicitly mentioned in HL or HL2(+episodes). The reason we call him G-man is because that's what his file names were called. You realize G-man is not his official name right? It's a common abbreviation for Government man, they dubbed him that because he has the appearance of a stereotypical government official He's called Gman by the fans because that's what his model and audio files are titled. Yopu can check for yourself at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Half-Life\valve\sound\Gman and C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Half-Life\valve\models Edit: just saw your reply: Yes, it is. If it wasn't important, the combine wouldn't even have tried. Why is it nice to have? Because it's important. I think I proved it satisfactorily, and seeing as how they're the only parts of the combine that are actually protected, I'm going to assume they're the master race. What? What does humanity's reproduction have to do with the planet? Nothing. If anything, they're stopping humanity from reporducing so less resources are used. I could ask the same for everything you've said so far, but you've pulled more things out of your ass than myself. Given the amount of soldiers we've seen in the small area in BFE in Eastern Europe, it's safe to assume that there's at least a few million human units on the entirety of the planet, given the rewards of extra rations, "manual stimulation," and better housing. Yes, and that's one of the only things pointing towards resource plundering left in. There were going to be more things originally, like the air exchange, and less water along the coast. No, it's because they couldn't. The portals were not big enough to allow the maximum amount of troups through. The resistance is post 7 hour war, too, so you're mixing up timelines. Retcon: A few shots from an AT4 rocket launcher, first manufactured in 1987 (Albeit one with laser guiding) are able to take out some of the combine's best machinery. They wouldn't guard the Advisors with a bunch of soldiers and some of their worst. Also, the rocket launcher in Half Life 1 is NOT the same as the one in Half Life 2. The one in half life is an Armbrust, which has a smaller rocket and is less powerful than an AT4. Beyond that, the resistance has the Tau cannons, which could take out those tanks in 1 hit from pretty much any range. In addition, the Bradleys (relatively light armour) and the Abrams (relatively heavy armour) take the same amount of hits to take down, 2, which is less than a helicopter used by the HECU. The helicopter is about as tough as a strider. Hell, the Striders have really long, weak legs, can be hit from practically any angle and do damage and move slowly. What an advantage! No, they don't. Either they're able to take teleportation technology from the resistance, who have figured out and factored in "the dark energy equations," or they have better teleportation technology. Choose one. We were doing that at Black Mesa for a good while before 2000. That's a bit of a contradiction. For all we know, they took a place like South America and make the food there. At the beginning of the game people are getting rations. We explored only a part of it. Most of the enemies throughout episode 2 were soldiers and not zombies. Think about it: The food is where the cities are, so why would zombies be in the middle of nowhere? It's amazing that the zombies in Ravenholm haven't drowned. A. It's not far off if they're occupying the place, and b. As freeman kills more soldiers and does more things he gets a higher anticitzen level. For example: Getting more and more serious until: Level one is the farthest he gets, though he is sometimes referred to as "Anti-citizen Freeman." Anti-citizen means the same thing as "Public enemy," or a person who the state finds dangerous to society. Public enemy number one is the person the state finds most dangerous. Yes, it does. Freeman (the player) is praised as the "Combines reckoning," "The One Free Man," and goes around kicking ass with no time to take names. If that's not Are we going to keep going over this point? If you keep trying to drive a bent nail into the wood, you're going to break the board. ...Where they occupy? Uh, no. Freeman was the only person who had ever done that (as far as we know) and was only able to do it because he took down an un-shielded reactor. Against a weakly armed resistance. The militaries of the world were not weakly armed, but they were caught off guard. Which is probably longer than most planets. Prove that it's a small force. You keep making this claim and not providing any evidence but "I'm right, you're wrong." It just makes strategic sense to do that. Besides the fact that a lot of references to that were dropped, there's still a hell of a lot of ocean left. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb, apply directly to the population. Wait a few years, go in and loot whatever the hell you want. ...That we know of. That's still "the technology of the early 2000s ," my dear. We're talking about a fictional setting. Your point being? You seem to be doing this a lot. Super soldiers, Striders, Hunters, CPs, dropships and stalkers are all military. Against the weak resistance. Beyond that, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas. Rock launchers, guns, grenades. Take a few. Says who? They're a multiversal empire. For how you build them up, it should be longer than 7 hours. I've addressed this. Other people addressed this. Again, they are not. They are not that far ahead. Sauce.

That's literally what it means, dude. How do you not? The Advisors handle all relations between Earth and the Combine. Their babies are transported with armed guards and some of their best technology. A handful in the tiny, tiny part of the planet we've seen. A number fled after the citadel exploded, and if that was one citadel in one city there's bound to be many more. If they cared they wouldn't do anything at all. The 7 hour war wouldn't have happened because they wouldn't give a damn in the first place. Tiny? They are literally crawling everywhere. There's millions of them. Also, the "resource draining" isn't ever directly mentioned, and almost all hints towards it were dropped pre-Half-Life 2. We've seen a city, a deserted mining town, a prison and the outlands. All but the mining town had their soldiers everywhere. City 17 had CPs at every corner, even at peace. The Advisors *fled* the planet, did they not? One, it wasn't because they didn't care. It's because they couldn't. Two, there was way more people fighting the seven hour war and they were armed better. A few RPGs are enough to take on almost all synths. The Combine knew about the resistance, and the resistance kicked their ass in the uprising, from what we've seen. "Ridiculously high-tech, can't even develop proper teleportation that a few 50 year old scientists are doing, despite having entire universes of technology." Yep, makes sense. They're either not that far ahead of us technology-wise (A few hundred to a thousand years, I'd say), or they're morons. There is no other excuse. Wrong again. Not mostly drained, not thinly populated (where the hell are you getting that?) apparently not that primitive husk that they're starting to fail to control. You do realize what "Anticitizen One" means, right? That means that Freeman is the number one threat to their entire empire. So does Half Life. Did you miss Gordon? . They just went through all that effort to occupy the planet. It should have been way shorter than 7 hours the way you're talking about them. Citadels everywhere means nothing, then. Just nuke it, then. So advanced they didn't even have some of the technology of the 2000s yet. Oh, and they continue to keep people alive and, ya' know, fighting people. The game is only possible because (insert plot of game). They can travel universes....But they can't travel universes?

He's not evil. Hell, he's shown to be sympathetic. The combine had entire millitaries to do that and clearly had a bit of trouble. Gordon is one man who did it after being awake for 4 days, suffering wounds of all kinds, head truama, exhaustion and hunger. In the process of doing all of that, he exterminated 4 fucking races That one man has also sliced through countless people in their army, combine dropships, gunships, hunters, striders and their trans-human forces like swiss cheese. Not to mention the fact that he destroyed one of the citadels used to take over the planet in those 7 hours. I disagree on most points. As for the "being impressed by freeman," see above. The combine store their young on earth, grow their babies, and take its resources. The control of Earth is clearly important to them. If they didn't see earth as a threat, they wouldn't have even the slightest military presence there, nor would they make trans-human forces. The fact that the combine is trying so damned hard to control the people of earth says something. Hell, it's entirely possible that the people of Earth lasted longer than almost all other planets. The combine could take over a universe like Xen in an hour, maybe less. What I'm saying is: The combine are doing all of this *because* Earth is a genuine threat.

Gman most certainly has control over Gordon still--- He's just temporarily lost total grip. If you recall correctly, it was not "normal" Vortigaunts that prevented gman from doing things, nor have they shown to have total control over the Gman. At best, they can weaken his grip.

Constant shock and duress does that to a person. At the least, it was 2 days. At the most, it was 4 days, if I recall correctly. Mere minutes of shock have had years-long effects on people.

Here's something I'm confused about, but I'm sure it's going to be one of the first things you address in January, considering I'm likely a drop in a bucket of water: Are you going to continue Freeman's Mind to Freeman's Mind 2? Either way, I'll be happy to watch your videos, but I'm curious if there's an announcement from you I missed as everyone is speaking like it's the end.

I just finished it. That was glorious. Especially the "behind the scenes" stuff and the comments. Some of those I distinctly remember. I love one burn in particular: "ATTENTION, VIEWERS! I come from the year 2015 and this series is still gong -Intelus" Whatever happens to Freeman's Mind, this is a wonderful way to go out regardless. I can only assume the first thing you're doing after this is sleeping?

Well, Ross, congratulations. You've done an amazing job on something I hope continues. Happy belated Birthday and happy New Year. Congratulations on the bet.

I thought Poland was UTC +1?

Thanks for the updates Ross, they're appreciated. May I ask if this is going to be a super long episode (Over 20 minutes?)

Are you sure you didn't steal my idea? Also I looked at that site and it is scary so I left. The site's full of people from 8chan and Reddit watching videos and making fun of SJWs. I like going there when I'm bored and there's nothing else to do. Also, I think it'd be pretty cool to watch Freeman's Mind in a cy.tube chat with you people. I'm up for that. I agree that it would be awesome to do.

There will always be some loser that isn't happy. It's a rule. I'm just curious if there is any thought into a Freeman's mind for half life 2? I was playing it this week and thinking about parts that would be interesting with a Ross twist on it. Parts like the commanding of the ant lions and meeting dog. I know I'm asking for a lot from a person that might just say fuck it and choose to not work with gman and get the bad ending for half life, but it was interesting in my mind. One of the glorious things about Half Life's ending is that, even if Ross chooses the bad ending/or no ending and decides to wait, it can always be explained by Gman's one line: "...Rather than offer you the illusion of free choice, I will take the liberty of choosing for you, if, and when your time comes around again."

Wonderful as always, Ross. I loved the cameo and Freeman's reaction to the Nihilanth. Now, was it me, or was there a bit of frame skipping happening in things far away from "the camera?" I'm assuming this is the Source Engine's fault.

That's probably because they're never found in the same level in-game. Kind of like how (I think) Metrocops and Antlions have no AI for eachother.

Yep, that's the one I was thinking of. Thank you.

I concur. That's definitely a favorite. "I have a ship that's a carrot." "Did you know that even though this game came out in 1993 this car is still really fast?" Or, in this episode: "RAAAAAARG!" Anyway, Ross, great episode as always. Again, you jumped through a hoop and a half to entertain us. I kind of can't believe you used a hex editor to modify the game, and consulted a programmer and someone who knows about game compatibility.

Hah! That was pretty good one! I like poems like that Isn't there a Christmas Carol that you've mentioned that Ross loves before.