February Top of Mind 2023

It’s a new month and the year is already 8% complete.

Resident Evil

Finished a playthrough of the Resident Evil HD Remaster playing as Jill. It’s a much better game than I expected it would be, which I suppose is why Resident Evil is always cited as such an influential game in history. It takes a long time to get used to the control system and disorienting camera changes, but once you do it turns out to be a fun old-school adventure puzzle game with a decent story. (Not even a little bit scary, though.)

Powered through a second playthrough as Chris to see the differences. It’s less intellectually stimulating the second time, but there are some surprising (and annoying) differences.

I started playing Resident Evil Zero, the prequel, instead of the Resident Evil 2, since it’s more of the same style of game as the original. But I’m not sure this Resident Evil binge feeling is going to last through three more games.

Video Production

While recording Resident Evil videos, I wanted to be able to record my notes and map-making as I went (it quickly became a chore to remember which doors required which keys). Initially I added additional sources in OBS to show and hide overlays on top of the game video for my text editor and paint program, which worked, but then I accidentally left a text editor covering the game window for five minutes and remain angry about it to this day.

So I wanted to figure out a way to record separate video streams simultaneously (a “multicam” scenario) and combine them in post-processing while preserving the original game video. You can technically run multiple copies of OBS and record multiple streams that way, and it’s often referenced in Google searches, but it’s a massive pain and impossible to synchronize the videos. I ended up working out a new way of recording in one instance of OBS, using a very large video canvas and tiling source boxes around the screen so they don’t overlap. Like this:

I don’t use 90% of that video in the finished product, but it’s there if I need it.

Not sure yet if it’s worth the effort. Actually I am sure. It’s definitely not worth the effort, because it takes a bare minimum of four hours in post-processing and video editing for each hour of recording, which makes it quite literally a full-time job to play and upload one hour of game video a day. Definitely not viable long-term. But if nothing else I’ve learned a handful of neat new tricks with Davinci Resolve and OBS. I’m starting to get more comfortable with Davinci Resolve as my main video editor, despite all the bugs and quirks.

And Python, because I’ve finally thrown out my old PowerShell ffmpeg scripts and rewritten them from scratch in Python to accommodate this new recording method.

YouTube Channel

Speaking of videos, the channel has been dark for a month, but I think I have enough videos queued up now that I can start a daily upload again in February.

• Lords of the Fallen: 30 episodes
• Resident Evil 7: 18 episodes
• Resident Evil (Jill): 20 episodes
• Resident Evil (Chris): 10 episodes

That should take me into April and give me two months of buffer to record other things.

YouTube Stats

A Discord chat got me curious to map out some statistics of my YouTube channel since I started it in May of 2014.

* These outliers are from one controversial Elden Ring Input Delay video.

Make of that what you will. I invest only in the quality of the videos themselves, and exactly zero time or money into publicity or networking or community-building, which are vastly more important than video quality.

However the ridiculous success of one random video talking about Elden Ring makes me think I might try a handful of video essays this year to see if I can make something I’ll be happy with. It’s a lot of work, though, so I doubt I would do more than three or four a year.

Buying Spree

Went on a bit of a buying spree while I was upgrading my game video recording process. Got a new microphone, a new webcam, some lights, and various other paraphernalia to go with it (USB extension cables, USB power bricks, etc.). All the stuff you need for pointless home video recording. (Except I have yet to buy a green screen of any kind.) Also rearranged my living room gaming/home recording workstation (i.e. desk). I have an inordinate number of articulating arms holding up things attached to this poor writing desk now. One day it’s just going to fall over. Also got some new curtains, room dividers, and at long last, the ultimate luxury item that definitely makes me feel like a rich out-of-touch elite, an electric screwdriver.

Television

I’ve run out of things to watch on UK television, or perhaps run out of interest in watching things. Watching television is usually my absolute last resort when I can’t think of anything else to do with myself. Video projects are taking up my time right now.

The Last Of Us started on HBO, which I find to be a good production, but it wasn’t love at first sight, but the game wasn’t either. It’s not worse than the game, but also not better; it’s like watching a play with different actors.

The new season of Vox Machina is fun, and I think somewhat moderated from the full-on extremes that turned people off from the first season.

Otherwise I’ve started catching up on Critical Role again. I keep wishing for a full TPK but I don’t think it’s ever going to happen. I notice they’ve added some production techniques from Dimension 20 in 2023. :)

Sleep

Poor sleeping habits crept back into my life, resulting in feeling quite poorly for while. The root cause of the problem was trying to stay up too late to get just one more thing done because I didn’t want to interrupt what I was doing with sleep, like a toddler, which is always a terrible mistake for me. If I don’t get a decent night’s sleep for a few days in a row, I’m pretty much worthless. Can’t concentrate, body aches all over, listlessness, etc.

After a week or so I got my sleeping patterns back to normal, but it remains somewhat on the edge.

Eh, these are too long. That’s what happens when you give me two and half weeks to edit a document.