G'day, chaps and chapettes. What a crazy month it's been.
So. The video production is coming along nicely. There are a tonne of images, sounds, B-roll videos, interview footage and other miscellaneous stuff required, and sourcing it for a video this long and detailed is taking time. This is no different to other videos I've made, though it is compounded by having to cover a lot more games.
I've also hit an issue I've not had in previous projects. Well, I sort of had, but not to this degree. This video uses 4.6TB of recorded game footage. Terabytes, not a typo. Davinci Resolve, my video editing software, doesn't like loading lots of 2k videos into a project, and it has hung and crashed numerous times. I briefly had this issue with the Marathon and Jedi Knight videos - they're the longest ones on the channel so far - but only when the production timeline approached the 2 hour mark. This project struggles to copy even small clips into the timeline, and it would have been impossible to continue.
The fix? Proxy media. Some of my fellow content creators have discussed this before, but it was all smoke and mirrors to me. Until now. I've been forced to generate proxy media for this project so that I can create the video without crashes, freezing, or long hang-ups. In a nutshell, proxy media is a lower resolution file you can generate for your videos which are then loaded into the timeline instead of the higher resolution 2k videos. You can make them quite compact, though the visual quality obviously takes a hit. The cool part is that when you submit the video for export, it'll automatically use the 2k files to compile the video.
This might sound like an easy fix (and it is*) but the footage was far too large to store on my internal drive, so I had to move much of it to an external drive. Generating the proxy media from the slower external drive can take anywhere from 20-45 minutes per file, and there are a lot of files to convert. It's taken me all month but I just finished converting them all a couple of days ago.
It hasn't impacted video production too much. I was able to get ahead of this process early-ish, so it didn't hold up production work.
The video is currently at 30 minutes and climbing. Because of the focus on historical detail, the video will also function as a look along id's timeline at the Doom and Quake franchises. I had never intended this, but the additional context was necessary, and it now just makes sense to include this stuff. Kind of like my earlier retrospective videos.
On a personal note, this month has been busy with IRL work and family/personal commitments. I've worked around this where possible, but there have been days I just had to eat an L and accept not being able to work on the video. The IRL work busyness is mostly done and the pressure is off now, so I'll be able to make big strides on the video.
What's Blondie playin'?
Gothic Remake released in early June and I've been enjoying it from day 1. Some fantastic changes, and a few I don't like, but largely a very impressive remake that has far surpassed my expectations and will have a place in my regular gaming rotation now.
Personal ambitions
My VO2 Max is now in the 90th percentile (the top 10% for my age and gender). Must be doing something right ;)
Hope you're all holding up out there. What are you playing? Leave a comment, let me know what's hot!
Until next month, pardners.
Compared to the rollercoaster of last month, September was productive and far more chill. I went on a holiday and damn did I need it. I didn't realise how far down the hole I was until being away from home forced me to step back, slow down, and relax. I still did some research and writing for the next video, but when I got home I decided that - while the topic was good - I wasn't feeling it right now. I shelved that project and started a new one.
This next video - unlike previous videos - zooms out for an industry-level look. The target: AAA games, and how the AAA moniker means something different to me now. Unlike other videos which body-slam AAA using player data and sales as weapons, this video will be a personal review of what AAA means to ME. It's a deliberately deeper look into my mindset when I consider AAA games, development studios, and publishers, through the lens of a gamer and paying customer who has become disillusioned with the AAA industry and who explains, in detail, why.
The script for this ...
Hey Folks, the video is finally done. Apologies for the late release, a few things came up near the end of the month which delayed release. I hope you enjoy it!
G'day, chaps and chapettes. July down, progress made.
The Doom/Quake horror video is now at 1hr 36mins. I had hoped to be closer to the 2hr mark by now but stumbled across more supporting material, and viewing/cutting it has taken longer than expected. I'm also making an effort to use footage which supports talking points, and because the script is loaded with talking points (and because the Doom 3 playthrough spans 18 long video files), finding footage to support even a single paragraph of the script has sometimes taken 30mins or longer. There was also another body of work I needed to complete for the Blondefire channel which was delayed by last month's IRL work, so July was very much a catch-up month all around.
The good news is that July was free of IRL distractions so I've made big progress on the video. I normally add the backing track after the footage and voice over is laid, but this time I've added it as I go. This means that the next (and final) pass only requires QA checks and audio ...
