Civil Protection Episode 2

chilledsanity

chilledsanity

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Hey, I realize it's been like 4 months since the first episode, but I've finally finished the 2nd episode and now I'm allowed to release it for a contest I entered it in. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, Civil Protection is a comedy series I've been making that takes place in the Half-Life 2 world. Check out the 2nd (and 1st) episode here:



http://civil-protection.blogspot.com


Also, the third one is coming soon, as soon as I fix this bug I'm having. Hope you guys like it! Also WARNING, this is a long one, 11 minutes, weight in at 100MB. I WILL have a low quality streaming version up, but I'm still waiting on google video to approve it, so only the high quality one is available right now.

ep2titlesm.jpg
 
haha i was waiting for another episode to come out. these are great.
 
Awesome work man, loved the piece with the vort :)

edit:
Also the voices are damn fine. What kind of setup do you use for this?
 
hahahha that was actually really funny! :D great job
 
Thanks for the positive feedback, it encourages me to keep making more.

And to answer your question, I actually have a pretty crappy setup as I'm using a cheap $10 (maybe less, I can't even remember where it came from) mic and just recording it into my computer. Craig (Dave) has some headset mic he uses. For the CP voices, I run them through a filter to give it some of that helmet radio sound. I didn't use any filtering/effects for the vortigaunt though, that's just me doing my street bum voice as opposed to the Mike voice.

Finally, especially since I'm recording all this in a small room with bad acoustics, I add the reverb/echo to the whole track and add some background city atmosphere noise to help drown it out some.
 
Wow, that was impressive! I guess it'll be awhile to the next one though?
 
Haha, I loved #1. Now I just have to wait a while for #2 to download. Man it's a long download.
 
That was gold. Pure gold.

You got my vote.
 
Thanks for the votes and comments, oh and the low-quality version is up now (I couldn't use Youtube since it's too long) using Google video. While I hate sacrificing the quality on this, I have to admit 100MB is kind of a lot for just a short video.


To answer questions:


kattmat: No, while I've consistently sucked at estimating time in the past, Episode 3 is mostly done. I just need some time to work on it some more. It's pretty draining doing this stuff in addition to a regular job. Watch me eat my words on this, but I'd say it's not out of sight having Episode 3 done within 2 weeks.

Episode 4 is another story however, I have something big planned for that, plus I plan to submit it to another contest, so that's going to take a while. However I'm toying with the idea of simultaneously having Civil Protection "Community Outreach" episodes where viewers can write in questions for Mike and/or Dave and they'll answer some of them (don't worry, I'd make sure it turned out funny). This would be kind of like what the PSA's are for Red v. Blue. I could animate these incredibly faster than my episode ideas, since it would pretty much just be the head-bobbing animations.


GordonFreeman911: The font name is "Dirty Headline" I can't remember where I found it.
 
By the way, the animations are incredibly fluid, except in the few cases where you've merely modified a weapon-holding stance. And they seem to have a little problem turning around. But it's all good!
 
it was genius. pure genius. the way the camera angles went when mike went flying were absolutely amazing too. and mikes scream.. and the way dave said "better"

all in all it was amazing :D
 
Saw the first episode, liked it alot, getting ready to watch the second. Very nice man. I gave you 10 points.

And why is it that most of the videos up for voting are ****ing CS skill videos? Those went out of style 4 years ago.
 
I thjnk "Concearned" is being replaced by now. :D

Very nice. I like simba. :)
 
I loved the first one. Can't wait to watch this one.

I will once someone does the youtubin' thang.

Edit: Eh, I watched it. Pretty funny in some parts, but I liked the first one more. Just the sheer stupid silliness of the first is why I liked the first, as well as all the comments from Mike. "DAAAVE! STOOOOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!". This second one was still good and funny, but it sorta seemed to drone on. The actual machinima work was beautiful, though.
 
By the way, the animations are incredibly fluid, except in the few cases where you've merely modified a weapon-holding stance.
Click to expand...
Heh, you mean half my animations? I think the worst offender though was when Dave points out the pigeon to Mike, that was way jerky and I could have fixed it, just didn't notice it until it was too late.
And they seem to have a little problem turning around.
Click to expand...
Yeah no kidding. I gave up trying to get them to turn smoothly since it seems to happen almost by chance, but mostly not at all. I'm using the method of "face actor" in Faceposer and ramping the scene to do it, the problem is that it will turn their upper torso nice and smooth, but their legs trail behind it like they're lifeless, then pop out again once they twist too far. I've posted about this in the VERC forums for a better method, but never got a response.

Eh, I watched it. Pretty funny in some parts, but I liked the first one more. Just the sheer stupid silliness of the first is why I liked the first, as well as all the comments from Mike. "DAAAVE! STOOOOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!". This second one was still good and funny, but it sorta seemed to drone on.
Click to expand...
This is actually the majority reaction I was expecting. The thing is, I'm basically using this episode to explain the plot of Half-Life 2 for people who haven't played the game. Also I think the first one had more universal appeal. There will be some variety of the episodes due to some ideas being harder to animate than others. While I'll like all of them, the fact that they're going to be different and not formulamatic (I hope) means some will appeal more to some people than others. Don't worry though, I think Episode 4 (when I eventually make it) will be a winner with almost everyone here.
 
I liked the second one way better than the first one. They were both awesome though.
 
The guy who wasn't the straight man seemed slightly more sane in this one. :D
 
I liked the second one way better than the first one. They were both awesome though.
Click to expand...
Well that means a lot coming from you. I'm a fan of Worse Than Life. I think you in particular will like part of the 3rd episode (and to everyone else, no I don't have anybody commit suicide).
 
Oh man, that was funny!

Great job on both episodes!
 
Well for those who are interested, they announced the results of that contest I entered. I came in 4th, losing to frag videos, so oh well. Thanks for all the votes though. You can check out the breakdown here:

http://contest.cdhoom.com/contest2/results.php

And for a bit of an update, the 3rd episode is getting close to done. Expect it this week!
 
i loved the vortigaunt speech, that was my favorite part. He just wanna get some beer man!
 
Mike: "Who has more firearms?"

Dave: "The aliens."

Mike: "Who has more resources?"

Dave: "The aliens."

Mike: "Who has way better technology?"

Dave: "Yeah, I see your point..."

Here's my insertion:

Dave: "But wait a second, who has Gordon Freeman?"

Mike: "Oh yeah, I forgot about that..."
 
I envision that conversation going a little bit differently. I do have plans for an episode to address the Freeman situation (probably Ep. 5) and also plan for 2 separate Freeman encounters on top of that, so you'll get to see their take on him... eventually.
 
Wow how'd I miss this, all videos were really funny, nice job.

I love the end of Episode 2, i think it's my favorite part of all of them :D
 
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