LP Update/Comment Thread

[IskatuMesk]

Due to a sudden power outage, I have possibly lost over half an hour of DMC4 recordings.

I am also still attempting to recover the now year+ old The Ball recordings. I will know for sure if they can be recovered soon.

/edit

I think The Ball recordings can be recovered.

Currently running the DMC4 segment through a ffmpeg transcode and will see what happens.

/edit 2

I believe I have successfully recovered the first segment of The Ball. This is the only segment that had issues. There will be some special notes for this release.

First of all, about a minute or so is missing from the beginning of segment 1. This is the problem area. It could not be corrected, so I cut it out and went through multiple re-encodes. The resulting file is still extremely large, as is Segment 2. Both are around 3-3.4gb for 1:20 hours of video. The problem is I don't have the source files, and re-encoding these when they are already producing visible articles means I will need to enormously butcher them to get them respectable.

The good news is that I apparently did something about the filesizes in the later segments.

I do not plan to re-encode any of these files, so those first two segments will be adnormally large. Hope you're not Canadian! Like me! Huehuehue. Well, I might try to re-encode them. We'll see. Nothing is for certain until it's released. (Edit - probably not going to re-encode them. The series isn't very long and some of the other videos also aren't properly sized. I'd have to seriously hit the CRF to compensate for psychoartifacting to make a hit on the filesize, and the quality loss would be dramatic. Not worth.)

Due to bsods and power outages, I've not yet been able to complete my experiments with the busted DMC4 segment. However, closer analysis indicates that the segment doesn't contain anything truly critical, just me getting angry and fighting a lot of trash. I plan to skip that minor ultra-grindy portion of the game if the segment doesn't function as apparently my save put me in a good spot. I'll address a plan of action in whole once my current outstanding work, including the total verification of The Ball, is complete.


/edit 3

The Ball verification is progressing smoothly. This will be significantly large compared to the length compared to my previous productions. I feel this is the lesser of the evils, with the other being totally butchering the already low quality.

This LP was recorded in late 2011-2012, so this has been a long time coming for its processing. I hope with this production's completion I can finally get the remainder of the year back on track and start releasing shit again.

/edit 4

Ball verification complete. Will release when I wake up.

/edit 5

the DMC4 segment seems to be working fine. Though it has some older footage tacked onto the end of it for some weird reason... I wonder how fraps managed to achieve that.

[IskatuMesk]

The Ball released! This ultra silly, old LP brings office talk to forefront as I trudge through a horrible indie game largely comprised of somewhat puzzle-like environments and really bad particles.

Remember, this will be listed in front of GoW1 since it is an old recording.

[IskatuMesk]

A new AWP has been released.

Looks like I should be able to recover that mangled DMC4 segment. Once I have verified everything works, recordings will continue as scheduled.

[Jee-Host[gm]]

So... A few words about The Ball. That was definitely... an experience. Game was probably made for kids considering the overall difficulty level. The ball model and behavior were probably outsourced from someone person capable who made it in like 1-2 evenings. Up to the very end I was hoping all of that was made overall by like 3-4 guys while drinking and eating GMO pizza. Oh, boy. Agree with most of your points about quality and yadda-yadda-yadda. Especially the part about not being up against deadline. Good example of such an indie-game would be Antechamber. Though you would probably hate it because of minimalistic design and the puzzle nature (albeit not too difficult , though not at all trivial).

Good thing you have managed to salvage some of previously deemed sorta lost material.

Also about a little BlackSun preview you made. Judging from it and from thing you've mentioned in relevant coffee hour and whatnot - i understand you're trying hard to overcome cinematic issues such as jerky camera and questionable shadows. I wanted to ask about one specific thing that bugged all the way through Salvation - explosions of the ships themselves. 2 things about it. First - scale I understand there is no way ta make the explosion cascading from point to point or to multiple points so it won't look 2-dimensional? Second - the way explosion happen themselves. Whatever it is burning in any case in space it would probably burn out from the center to the edge, maybe imploding after the initial explosion depending on the power source for the illumination (fire it is or whatever).

Also - some sound samples in this preview sounded unfinished and I don't know if that was your intent to put them there in such a state. Don't want to sound unhealthily critical. Keep creating, you may not believe it, but you do inspire certain positive emotions and action, no matter how you yourself view the effect your creative process and/or its outcome has on other people no matter how small amount of those people is.

[IskatuMesk]

Hah, the sounds? You mean the filters I used? Were entirely intentional. Only one other person of around 20 brought up question about those. I'll keep it in mind.

The explosions I can't help. Not in sins. There's no child particles or anything of the sort. Believe me, they bug the fuck out of me, too, and I am CONSTANTLY trying to squeeze every bit of juice out of them. I just can't. Have a look at a vanilla sins of a solar empire video and look at how shit their defaults look.

Since the ships are so large and the power cores, particularly in second to third gen Anahn (that I showed in that video), aren't capable of vaporizing them, they mostly just burn for a long time in canon. This is something that obviously won't be conveyed in the script because it's such a minor detail, but it makes the actual burnout a bit more believable. The two-dimensionalness, however, is entirely unavoidable just because the engine is basically from 1999.

UDK explosions, however, should be a bit more interesting when I get that far.

/edit

For the record, that trailer took about an hour to create start to finish, voice, recording, effects and all. Some of the editing took a lot longer because Vegas will crash literally every second thing I do. It's really, really annoying. But the actual work was absolutely minimal, and I showed only a tiny, tiny fraction of what is done for those two factions.

/edit 2

To elaborate, by this -

the way explosion happen themselves. Whatever it is burning in any case in space it would probably burn out from the center to the edge

Do you mean like a shockwave? Because the only way to do that is a linearinflate and oh god the pixels.

[nu1x]

As far as I understand, Valve is making this Linux incursion entirely because of Windows 8 and new Microsoft licencing.

All in all, Linux will benefit, because at the least it will get new and improved driver infrastructure for AMD cards / CPUs via MANTLE (lower level access to hardware) and more official AMD linux driver developers, it was like ~5 people before now, thus the scarybad quality of official linux drivers (for the record, unofficial drivers are actually more stable and in many instances (old cards) even more feature complete)).

The only negative thing that comes out of this is the delay / absence of Half-Life 3 (or HL 2 ep 3). Even if it fails, the wok is already done for linux platform, it will not disappear.

Also, linux is not that much a niche, half the smartphones and almost everything embedded runs linux nowadays.

It is weak on desktop as it always was.

What is interesting is that PS4 is supposed to run modified FreeBSD, which again means better driver support for AMD on POSIX systems by supposed driver osmosis. The fact that at least 1 system runs *nix pretty much guarantees more attention from AMD, and, as some suspect, better console - PC porting opportunities, which can be a blessing or a curse.

[nu1x]

Also, Valve is by far not the biggest thing to happen to Linux.

IBM pumped 100s of millions into linux to get it where it is today, also, Red Hat (but that's old). I cannot believe you have forgotted Google and Android (which is linux).

Mostly the big money and development time was in server / mainframe / supercomputer / smartphone areas, so I guess it is not that visible, because it is not desktop / gaming related.

But Linux is huge everywhere else, I really do not understand how can you say that Valve (which is comparably small fry) is a big thing to Linux.

Only in gaming department.

[IskatuMesk]

No one uses smartphones for anything but sexting so they don't count as non-niche. Phones are basically entirely irrelevant.

I would say the attention to phones is more destructive to linux than anything because it shifts attention away from things that actually matter.

Also google is a shitty company. I hope they go belly-up sooner than later.

Anyways, I think wibod talks exclusively from the game perspective. I personally don't keep track of anything going on, I go entirely on outside information. Phones don't have any relevance in the gaming market at all, which is typically our focus. I know many servers use linux and all, but that really doesn't change much as far as the topic goes.

[nu1x]

Agreed that Google sucks, and I also hate any phone like device (which were the dirty loins the Casuals sprang from, as far as I am concerned).

Also, if you meant gaming only, then yes, Valve is the first major player in Linux arena. Still, even though many people say that Linux is a desktop no-no, I am a many-years happy Linux user, entirely for personal meddling and tinkering (and the fucking desktop), so any advance, even potential, I am very enthusiastic about, because as far as I am concerned, if Linux gains true gaming capabilities, I am not touching a Windows install ever again.

[IskatuMesk]

Oh, I wouldn't say Linux is a no-no. It's just that, as a highly experienced linux user told me, Linux lacks the things that will ever allow it to actually compete with windows for the average user (at least for now). If you are experienced with it, know where to look and what to do with it, then you can do a fair bit. But the doing of many otherwise trivial things that windows does for everyday use seems to be much more problematic, so people end up dual booting windows (or emulating it) for whatever reason.

Now personally, I've only used Linux once myself, and that was booting my laptop into it to try to recover stuff from that drive. It had a windows-esque GUI and everything. I don't see anything holding it back from that perspective, but I am also an extremely advanced user compared to most people who use computers. And I'd be totally lost on something without a GUI or an easy command line syntax.

I'd have absolutely no qualms about switching to it if good support rolls up for the things I use. I know it performs better, I know it lacks all the bullshit windows tacks on, but I also know that using it in this point and time would render my day to day work either extremely annoying or even impossible without having exceptional skills I lack.

That is why I see Valve's entry into this world as a way bigger deal than phones. Phones are an entirely unrelated market that have absolutely nothing to do with production work, modding, so on so forth. They are a closed environment intended for one thing - talking to people. Companies shoehorn bullshit onto them and bloat their price because retards somehow think $400 for a phone is some kind of deal. The advances made in those closed environments don't really propagate much into the environment we care about. Drivers and such are made for those specific devices/chipsets and probably don't really tackle the massive variety of hardware desktops can have. Valve makes a beachfront and says "we want to support all this hardware AND make it accessible". Yes, I expect their linux build to be very sloppy and barebones, but it's going to bring interest back into making Linux competitive.

I wholly agree that they want to ditch Windows 8 because Windows 8 is basically microsoft sticking their dicks into all kinds of shit they have no business with, and I'd sooner go back to windows XP than use windows 8.

[Jee-Host[gm]]

the actual work was absolutely minimal, and I showed only a tiny, tiny fraction of what is done for those two factions.

As I expected. Wouldn't want to spoil nice things that are to come )))

Do you mean like a shockwave? Because the only way to do that is a linearinflate and oh god the pixels.

Physics of the explosion fire in space is technically different from our usual generic hollywood or even actual explosion. Since there is no (I suppose) additional source to fuel the fire and nothing not much to stop flying bits from spraying everywhere - the intensity of the fire in the middle should probably be lower than normally expected because of the spread (unless there is a specific design 'feature' compromise of which results in exactly the opposite) and burns out faster than the outer fire from the explosion. At least that is how I understand it works. As for shockwave - I suppose the only plausible cause of that could be an explosion of the relatively miniature power source - like a portable nuclear reactor and whatnot. On the plus side - whatever generates artificial gravity is unlikely to cause a spread of bits all over the place nor it would stop that in case of major explosion. However, if the damage is localized to just said system - it wouldn't cause much damage, but would more likely to actually help to keep thing from falling apart regardless unless it's completely gone. Then again - in case of say Undead ships which I imagine don't have such systems, are build from who knows what and are powered by who knows what - I can't plausibly predict the outcome of an explosion, nor the properties of it. So, yeah... )))

Hah, the sounds? You mean the filters I used? Were entirely intentional. Only one other person of around 20 brought up question about those. I'll keep it in mind.

I understand those bits were out of context so I can't really judge how well they fit. I was basically comparing to the stuff in Salvation where overall I think audio was processed and tuned and sounded 'finished' in most cases, unlike in Hymn video. At leas that was how I felt about it. I would Imagine whenever you release the project everything will be checked and re-checked and sounds probably redone or remastered. So yeah, that wasn't really a complaint, and question implied there you already answered when you said that you made Hymn in like an hour timespan. Another thing came into mind while writing it. I think You mentioned that you thought of involving more people into particularly doing the voices for Retribution and I have to say that I think this is the right thing to do. While it might be difficult to get from people exactly what you would like - I think it's much harder to make especially the voices on your own no matter how great of sound engineer and/or voice actor you are. I think you've said once that if a person needs to do too much editing on the voice - then the voice work is probably done wrong. Yet when it comes to multi-character scenario there is always a difficulty in finding that fine edge between compromising on voice work or sound editing. Meaning that either a person has to go out of the way to change recognizable voice features (fach, tempo, timbre, accent) thereby losing something on the acting side because of concentration on features, or some good work has to be sacrificed in the editing process which in its own turn may or may not be consistent with the script and/or characters. And find that your voice has a lot character to it which makes it easier to recognize thus suffering in overall flexibility (or maybe I just got used to your voice and am overthinking things). So, what I wanted to say that if you do in fact plan to bring more people to do the voices - I think this is the right decision.

I'd have absolutely no qualms about switching to it if good support rolls up for the things I use. I know it performs better, I know it lacks all the bullshit windows tacks on, but I also know that using it in this point and time would render my day to day work either extremely annoying or even impossible without having exceptional skills I lack

And a few words about this. In many cases most of the linux's appeal (outside being open source) is a modulability (being able to actually throw out all the stuff you don't need), But performance-wise or even resource-eating-wise most of linux's builds are not much better (if at all) than win7. As far as support goes - there are in fact positive developments in this fields. Outside of server software builds (like Suse Enterprise or Red Hut btw completely unfairly called outdated) which do have great (and expensive) support that actually does solve the problem with compatibility and blah-blah-blah, there are starting to appear companies who provide a desktop build with an actual support (configuration, drivers, compatibility for certain applications, interpreters, proper Wine configuration etc.). One of the is Russian company Linux Wizard. The specific benefit of those guys is that they manged to get to work all the necessary parerwork required for an actual use of Linux anywhere without being randomly harassed by related government services. and around here - that's a first. they have also implemented a compatibility with many applications, most notably - widely used in Russia database system which is of course intended for windows. Long story short - we may yet live to see an actual alternative )))

[wibod]

I'm not sure if I mentioned it in the podcast, but another problem with steamOS is that valve is kind of shit at producing stable products. Steam really only became not complete garbage in like 2008, before then it was just eating your memory, hardlocking windows and crashing. Now Valve has obviously come a long way from that, but they're developing an entire OS and the support needed to make it stable. I'm assuming that the reason they're offering to do a lot of the legwork on porting to linux for companies is because of possible issues that could come up. It's also why I think they decided to produce steamOS as pretty much a console type system as opposed to a true desktop OS.

[IskatuMesk]

The explosions >

Basically, if I wanted to have something more complex like you describe I'd need to build custom explosion particles and textures for every ship but, more importantly, generally spawn 5-6 times the number of particles and the end result would just be what you see now but more of it. Debris is out of the question because they just vanish and don't fade, and the shadows on debris cause extremely large performance loss.

The way the explosions now is a mix of two attempts at forming a bridge between workarounds.

1 - Performance is the biggest concern. I dropped a LOT of Salvation's particles and remastered them not just because of how they look but because of their performance cost. They literally use 1/4 or less particles than they used to compared to Salvation. That is why it is smoother, on top of other stuff, even though Rebellion's shadows are VERY performance costly and the game is still a single-threaded laggy as fuck monolith from the 90's.

2 - Appearances. I don't even really know HOW to make what you describe. So I've been trying to make anime-styled explosions. Thus the way the chain explosions and everything looks, as well as muzzle flashes and others. I go off a number of inspirations, from Gundam to Battlestar Galactica, using many of the same tools they use. Sins, however, has the most limited particle system I have ever seen, and the worst performing engine since Warcraft 3 and diablo 2.

As for Undead, their real explosions would be a huge bright crimson flash with lightning followed by a sea of glassy shards fanning outwards that rip other ships apart. Just like Anahn debris, those shards are impossible simply because of performance (and the game doesn't support collision anyways).

Sounds >

All of the sounds were actually edited in vegas which doesn't have anywhere near the power of Audition much less any of my custom presets. So it doesn't sound as clean.

I'll be voicing probably 99% of the voices honestly. I'm going to look into outsourcing minor roles, but I don't know anyone with the skills to pull off any of the major characters except the female voices. I can't do the female voices, so I'm looking for some people who can. I've got some potential candidates but I'm not asking for takes until the UDK portion is in large part done. At about the same time I might scan for some male voice actors. If you know someone who is a lot older than me (30+) or can pull off older voices and is really good and willing to work for free, let me know. Otherwise I am probably out of luck.

Even Laconius quit voice acting and jumped ship from custom content afaik, he did the Crusader in Salvation and could have probably made convincing Anahn lines. So I don't even have him anymore. There's Lavarinth, but his voice isn't gravelly enough for Anahn. So, I don't know. I know one other guy I can probably outsource some minor roles to (he is inexperienced in English voice acting but he's willing to try, he did one of the minor demon voices at the end of Salvation).

Voice acting is a tough business because the bar for this project will be exceedingly high and I don't know of anyone in any of the communities I have ever been to that can reach it. Not with the specific kind of voices I require. For the Prince of Blood I will probably have to do dozens of takes to find a better solution than I did in Salvation. That's one voice I really wish I had a good alternative actor for.

The main narrator I am sure I can do no problem. Of course, the big bads with the editing are easy for me to do. After that, things get more interesting.

Also,

I finished recording Killzone 3. This turned out sillier than expected.

[Jee-Host[gm]]

Yeah, I was expecting something like this regarding particles and explosion. I am utterly incompetent when it comes to programming computer graphics more sophisticated than simple cubic texturing, so excuse me if I sounded like an idiot. Anyway - thanks for the detailed reply on this subject.

Looking forward to KZ3.

[IskatuMesk]

Killzone 3 released. I have also released a full review for The Ball from after I finished releasing it a few days ago.

Efforts will focus on finishing the last stretch of DMC4, and then my attention will turn to Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.

Elsewhere, the Xy`Kranasha near the finalization of their ship line in Retribution.

/e

Also, youtube is completely broken for me and I can't even type in the channel comment box. This is also the first time that box has actually appeared for me in like the last month. So, I can't reply to any comments there anymore (and I get notices for comments that don't actually appear to even exist).