oxcjae

[oxcjae]

Alas, a new Half-Life machinima (my first one in 4K) and a companion for "Dream Mesa", too!

For years now, I've considered delving more into green-screen production but barely had a spark of passion to get me going. As usual, the motivation hit me in a random moment.

While exploring house classics for another Purple Waves volume that I've just released, I came across Miss Kittin & The Hacker's gem of a track, "1982", in a random compilation album. It didn't make the cut for screwing, but its ear-worm beat made a home in my mind for the next couple of weeks. Didn't take long for me to boot up the ol' Gmod during a March weeknight and clear most of the production based off of a hazy vision. Using Half-Life's alpha models helped make it feel more interesting and abstract for me. Recording retro visuals straight from Windows Media Player sealed the 1998 vibe, and they synthesized perfectly with The Hacker's electroclash sound.

Almost seems like a challenge nowadays to produce on a whim and not overthink the creative process. Albeit, the needed finishing-touches were beginning to feel like a drag towards the end, but I've learned that "good enough" is a trustworthy standard if you're already an involuntary perfectionist. Overall, this project reassured me that green-screening isn't that tedious at all. Time will tell if this production process influences my future ventures.

[oxcjae]

A Conundrum - February 2024 Update

So, yeah, I've been pretty quiet for the past year or so.

Last November, when I streamed Half-Life for its 25th anniversary, a reoccurring question from viewers was: "What you've been up to?" Well, it's about time to answer more fully:

I've been going on other ventures to follow my current interests.

While I still hold the Half-Life series near and dear to my heart, I've lost most of my interest in it and its mods/derivatives. The few times I've attempted to materialize an idea on Half-Life or (even) Gmod, the projects quickly fell short because of that.

Outside of two sketches, the few videos that I have finished in the past year are simple gameplay highlights that I share with close friends. While I thought about sharing them publicly, most outside viewers wouldn't care for them, and the content would harm my main channel more than grow it. Perhaps I'll release some future ones on my 2nd YouTube channel.

On the creative side, I'm still mainly "screwing" music and have released four volumes so far, and I'm currently working on another one to be released in the coming months. As simplistic as it is, something about creating a new vibe with pre-existing material (especially songs that I grew up with) currently has me obsessed. During this journey, I've unlocked memories of songs I haven't heard in 20+ years and exposed myself to classics that I've never heard before.

Speaking of current inspirations, not much related to the gaming world has inspired me. I momentarily ranted about this last year. The truth is that this is likely related to me simply losing interest in most gaming (especially Valve-related) content, since there (admittedly) has been good material around by other content creators. (Some of it can be seen in the "Likes" section of my Twitter account.) So, I've been shifting my attention to popular movies, shows, and even music videos for the meantime instead.

At this point, I've accepted that this may (finally) be the beginning of the end to my interest in Valve-related content after 20+ years. The next logical step would be to broaden my horizons by shifting my output towards variety content and maybe compensating by expressing my personality more in my videos. I could also eventually remaster my Half-Life 1 videos in 4K with my new PC. Whatever the future holds, I'm still alive for it.

[oxcjae]

Half-Life: 25 Years Later

Given that today marks the 25th anniversary of Half-Life's official release, it's only right that I finally deep dive into how the series majorly changed the course of my life. As I touched upon in a previous entry into my roots, my father incidentally blessed me with Half-Life in 1999 by fault of his own interest. Though I was merely five years old, I endured its nightmare fuel for the immersive story-telling and interactive cinematics... and also the hilarious friendly-fire feature.

Admittedly, I wouldn't actually finish the game for years, but I didn't need to: It's impressions on me were very immediate. Every time I played with my maternal grandparents' sets of wooden blocks and toy soldiers, I recreated the hallways and labs of Black Mesa and reenacted the events, even destroyed parts of the layouts to mimic the resonance cascade. I also mocked the FPS-style of weapon-holding when I played finger-guns with siblings and friends. On the other hand, the scarier aspects of the game would creep into my childhood nightmares (usually those damn headcrabs.) By 2005, I was drawing comics with similar disaster stories and writing fan fiction told in the eyes of my own self-inserted character.

Yet, the most impressive impact about the first Half-Life wasn't the game itself but rather the mods that followed. While I briefly investigated the up-and-coming Counter-Strike while it was still in beta, it was Team Fortress Classic that stuck with me and kept my interest alive. By 2002, I was spending a lot of my free time on fun community servers with server-side mods. "Wild's Wild Server" is the oldest one that I can recall, followed by "Axl's TFC" in 2003, then "The Yaypit", "The Monastery" and the official "AdminOP" server in 2004. Their fun game modes, additional class abilities, and (most-importantly) building features all kept me captivated.

Of course, Half-Life 2 was its own story, inspiring me enough to fake sickness to stay home on the day of its release in 2004. (My dad probably knew what was up, and I'm sure he understood.) I couldn't had been happier with the sequel. The immersive graphics amplified the whole cinematic experience, and the extra dynamic of real-time physics was a whole new dimension. Ravenholm made me straight-up say "nope" and skip the entire chapter. My impressions with Half-Life 2 served as a seamless transition into Garry's Mod in 2005, when the creative potential with building scenes and posing ragdolls with Half-Life 2's assets felt infinite. By 2006, I was frequently submitting pictures for Planet Half-Life's ongoing "picture of the day" contest, even catching a few spotlight features on their homepage.

Still, I bounced between Gmod and the Monastery community, who then had their own popular building mod on Half-Life 2 Deathmatch. Because I mainly only used Gmod on singleplayer, most of my fondest memories were made with the HL2DM community, and I went on to actively play with them for over a decade, creating seemingly-endless memories from the thousands of hours spent. And I'd be wrong to not mention the Fortress Forever community, since their friendly players endured my abrasive teenage self yet still welcomed me to produce content with them (2007-2011).

Speaking of producing content, the greatest gift from the Half-Life series was being inspired to begin producing machinimas by mid-2006, when I was merely twelve years old. One video led to another, and once I was gaining traction on YouTube by 2008, I was ultimately inspired to create content as an adult.

Basically, it's truly a wonder where I'd be today if I hadn't played Half-Life in its heyday. I'm blessed to have touched millions of lives at this point with my videos, and it's heartwarming to know how many lives have played a part of mine over the years, whether we were messing around in-game or interacting in a comment section.

Thank you, Valve. And a HUGE thanks to the online friends and fans that I've met along the way while playing the series and its derivatives. Although I stay mostly to myself these days, you've all made an impact on me in some way or another, and that'll never be forgotten.

[oxcjae]

Overcoming Creative Barriers

My creative presence online has been a journey since those days in the mid 2000s. In some ways, I've come so far as a person. Other ways, well, I've come full circle-- in a good way, in this case. That full circle has been my creative inhibition-- or lack thereof.

All the times that I've gone radio silent online over the years were for a good reason: stepping out of the limelight in an attempt to flatten the creative box known as others' expectations. Unfortunately, I was often unsuccessful. The difference between now and then is that I've finally found how to avoid that box.

Before, I would:

...believe everything that I produced video-wise needed to be shared publicly.

...avoid materializing whatever didn't match outside expectations (e.g. my YouTube content).

...fear incomplete/failed projects and assume that they're a waste of time.

...subsequently avoid materializing projects that didn't have a complete vision yet instead of taking it one step at a time.

So how have I come full circle? Well, when I first started churning out Google/YouTube videos as an excited preteen in 2006, none of these mental bottlenecks existed. I had all the time in the world to explore my imagination, and there was virtually no pressure to deliver or conform to my merely-dozens of fans. Now that I've finally become aware of all these bottlenecks, I've been able to overcome them.

Basically, I have been busy this year creatively, but most of those ventures are incomplete or personal projects that'll stay mainly to myself. Truthfully, that's finally okay with me. Not every project is meant to be shared, and not every project will be completed. (In fact, most won't be completed.) Most importantly: not every vision will conform to another's expectations, and that's what the creative journey is all about.

Either way, after all these years, I'm just glad that I'm still here to share whatever I find to be presentable to those who've stuck around. Whenever I revisit a YouTuber and find them to be no longer active online, I'm saddened but hope they're still at least making content offline for themselves. I think everyone should tend to their creative side, whether or not it finds its way out into the world, because there's always something personal to gain from an adventure.

[oxcjae]

In recent months, I've been reflecting my past and longing to return to my uninhibited creative expression. In February, while finally exploring newer music artists, I happened to be listening to Playboi Carti's Die Lit album while unwinding with some good ol' cheesy Team Fortress 2 gameplay. When "Long Time" began playing, everything clicked. 

Those who remember my earlier years on YouTube (pre-2017) know that I used to produce content from a variety of other Valve-related games, such as Gmod, HL2DM, TF2, and even Fortress Forever. When I started producing more Half-Life 1 videos years ago (out of self-interest), I unintentionally shaped my YouTube channel around that content in the process. 

The result?: I put my creativity in a box by materializing only whatever could be done in GoldSource and ignoring everything else. While this proved to be a healthy challenge for any artist, the problem now is that I'm gradually finding myself no longer interested in pursuing just HL1 videos. Still, the pressure to feed those expectations remained for a long while, which put me at a creative standstill (to no fault but my own, of course). Simply put, for a while, I was making the same mistake as when I produced mostly Gmod videos from 2012 to 2016 (long after I had lost interest in Gmod), and a few HL projects failed because of that, including the continuation of “Halve Life”. 

Basically, this video is a step towards getting back to being myself, and not just creatively. Sure, this video will turn people off from my channel for not being Half-Life-related, but that doesn't matter. At the end of the day, machinimas and parodic gameplays are still a hobby and an expressive medium for me, not a business. My YouTube channels are for expressing myself, no matter what I'm currently into or what any subscribers expect.

[oxcjae]

UnKnown Moments: 10 Years Later

Ten years ago, on this day, I released the final episode to my (relatively) famous series, UnKnown Moments. Personally, I consider its release a milestone in several ways. Not only did it coincide with the end of my high school years, but in hindsight, it also represented the beginning to the end of my Gmod videos. With that said, I think this is a good point to pause and reflect on the past 10 years of my creative and personal ventures.

  Shift of Focus (2012 - 2013)

After working on it for 2 years, releasing “UnKnown Moments 5″ was a huge relief for me, and not just because of how long it took. At that point, after 6 years, I lost most of my interest for Gmod and couldn’t see myself producing with it in the foreseeable future.

So what was I interested in? TF2, Minecraft and reality... but mostly reality.

See, I finished high school a semester early and recently turned 18, and with college still half a year away, I was ready to dip my toes into the real world. So, like most 18-year-olds, I spent most of my time working, socializing, and partying above all else. Gaming basically became irrelevant for me, and whenever I occasionally did, it was a joke.

Once fall arrived, college only shifted that focus further, especially since I lived relatively far from home. During that first year, whenever I wasn’t occupied with schoolwork or socializing, I was self-reflecting or using Minecraft as a creative outlet on my school laptop. In fact, if I weren’t so preoccupied, I probably would’ve materialized a satire LP that I frequently fantasized.

Looking back to those ages between 18-22, this shift was absolutely necessary for new inspirations and personal growth. In fact, those years built the foundation of the person I am today. My advice to anyone in that age range: get out of your comfort zone, else you will regret it.

  “Alien Days”: Gmod & Creative Futility (2013 - 2016)

After my first year of college, I transferred to a school closer to home to pursue a different degree. When I returned to my home city that summer, my open mind still sought to expand its experiences. To compensate, for the rest of the year, I delved into new... creative inspirations. And inspired I was, especially when I was accompanied by MGMT’s self-titled album and it’s first track “Alien Days”, which still brings me plenty of awe and joy to this day.

Naturally, after returning to my home city and being creatively revamped, I began playing with video ideas again while attending the fall semester at my new school, fantasizing of a potential new Gmod video like “UnKnown Moments”.

Once 2014 had arrived with its spring vibes, I was hit with inspiration on a perfect, sunny day and typed out most of what became the first script of “Alien Days”, a project that started off as a nostalgic revisit to the UnKnown Moments universe but with a linear story. In the following months, “The Dealer”, “The Terrorists”, and “The Diagnosis” were produced from this script, along with other (unreleased) sequences, and were meant to be eventually accompanied by the full video.

But, alas, the beginning of a new lesson was on the horizon: perfectionism and its futility. The script kept evolving to the point where I halted production to let it play out, expecting a personal masterpiece at the end of it. Problem is: it never fully grew, rather only kept changing form, its abstracts always stuck between versions to where the sequences never fully aligned into a comprehensive script.

By 2015, between schooling and my social life, my occasional Gmod sessions had me wandering through it aimlessly, hoping that some interest or comedic inspiration would spark. Instead, I found myself in a creative wasteland, forcing my uninterested mind into producing empty videos. At that point, most of my momentum for “Alien Days” evaporated.

With these empty Gmod productions came the obvious realization that my creativity was longing for a new genre. Naturally, I followed my interests and began pursuing for more abstract and psychedelic videos, letting comedy take the backseat through easygoing parodic playthroughs, before ditching “Alien Days", which had mutated into an abstract project of personal self-reflection with an incomplete script after 2 years. Its last breath was in the form of a short video (produced March 2016):

In hindsight, “[]” is the perfect representation of the creative emptiness and futility that I felt when attempting to produce funny Gmod videos, which I had started doing 10 years ago at that point. What I took away from this creative crisis is to accept when your heart is no longer into something. Else, you’ll never evolve.

  GoldSource Transition (2016 onward)

The fact that I graduated from college in the same season that I basically moved on from Gmod is almost poetic, personally. My only regret is not listening to my creative intuition sooner. 

As spring 2016 arrived, I was already longing for a new creative medium to escape the emptiness that I felt with Gmod. I had recently played around in GoldSource for giggles with “Blew Shift”, so I decided to goof around some more, which resulted in the OG version of “A Posing Farce”, the foundation to the version that’ll become my highest-viewed video ever. The project also led me to a glitch that inspired “Dream Mesa” (2017), which only solidified my interest in pursuing GoldSource machinimas.

To say Half-Life was refreshing for me would be a massive understatement. Not only were Half-Life machinimas barely explored at that time, but the engine also served as an interesting creative challenge, given that its physics and NPC manipulations are relatively limited.

Yet, the creative potential for GoldSource doesn’t just stop at just comedy, as its features are more customizable than they appear. By playing with numerous in-game video settings, as demonstrated in my cinematography guide, I’ve been able to push Half-Life productions into psychedelic-levels of abstract, from changing the field of view to map lighting. Furthermore, NPCs’ voice lines can easily be changed with a simple file replacement, and map entities can be added or modified on the fly with a third-party program like BSPEdit, allowing you to insert NPCs, animations, dialogue, and entire sequences at will. And I learned all of this just by following my creative interests, project by project, and there’s still so much more for me to learn with GoldSource, from DemoEdit to the production-focused mod HLAE.

What I’ve taken away from producing HL1 videos is that growing is really just one step at a time, motivated through tangible challenges that you give yourself. To think I’ve learned as much as I have with HL1 just from occasionally playing with it over the years says a lot. Oh, and sometimes learning and growing comes in the form of failures.

  In summary, since the end of my UnKnown Moments series, these past 10 years have been a great journey of personal and creative growth, and I’m looking forward to what the future holds. A big thank you to everyone who has followed and grown with me since then. Since I’ve been relatively distant from my audience since 2013, I hope this piece will enlighten those who wish to understand my personal journey behind the scenes.

[oxcjae]

Behold, a return to form. Introducing the Halve Life series, something I’ve been cooking up for the past half year. I aimed to achieve the same expectations of “A Posing Farce“ and managed to shatter the ceiling, in my personal opinion.

But the real personal achievement is how I’ve finally evolved into tweaking GoldSource maps, specifically entities, which has really opened up the world of possibilities (as well as my imagination). By using a simple tool called BSPEdit, I’ve been able to implement NPCs, sequences, animations, and dialogues through what’s essentially a TXT format. I couldn’t have done it without the help of The Whole Half-Life’s very-useful entity guides, so huge thanks to those authors! Now, I’m able to parodize Half-Life 1 potentially better than ever and make my Half-Serious videos look like child’s play.

On the topic of audio, editing/mixing for Half-Life is a piece of work. For example, since the engine only supports 8-bit/11025-Hz sounds in-game, I have to insert 16-bit vocals in editing (for the sake of quality), which requires video-capturing a recorded demo at least twice to isolate and replace the vocals (by manually muting files). Basically, audio will take the majority of my time with this series, even with my amateur mixing skills, but the end quality makes it worthwhile.

Since this first part took about six months on/off to write and fully materialize, I imagine the next part will take at least as long as well. This is a video series that I see myself being thorough with since it could very well be my last parodic playthrough of the OG Half-Life. I hope you enjoy it!

[oxcjae]

“Traversal.” I couldn’t find a better word to title this video due to the several parallel meanings that surround this term.

For one, this project was inspired from a dream that I experienced about a week ago. While lucid, I was browsing video projects on “my” computer and was rewarded with vivid imagery of Half-Life productions of mine that don’t exist in reality. Although the visual details are impossible to recall now, I do know that most of them portrayed levels of avant-garde with a bohemian-like flow of production. Knowing time was short, I indulged as much as I could, feeling as though I was given the golden opportunity to traverse in a multiverse and pick my own alternate brain.

After this dream, what really stuck with me the most was the immense feeling of infinite potential that washed over me. I was also struck with the realization of how much of my imagination that I was letting slip by. In the past 15 years, how many abstracts have I let slip by without materializing them? How many projects have I started, trashed, and completely forgotten about? I can only imagine how much more material there would be to look back at if I had given my ideas more of the time and attention that they needed.

Anyway, I felt as though this project would be a great way to recreate that alternate, “multiverse” feeling because: this video was edited entirely with unused shots from “Grave Shift” (2020) and “Cinerarium” (2021). I had a good bit of production left over from both projects and immediately pondered on merging them.

To my next point, this video serves as a crossover between both aforementioned projects-- a traverse, if you will. It wasn’t my intention when producing the first two projects, but all three fit nicely in the same universe, and “Traverse” serves as the conclusion.

Surprisingly enough, it took me about only a day in total to conceptualize, edit, and luma-correct everything. I forgot how time-consuming the production stage can be, especially when perfectionism loves to haunt me. In the future, it’ll definitely remind me to record scenes with the best lighting possible...

To top it all off, this video is basically about traversing between reality and the realm of unknown, a very parallel theme to the feelings that I experienced from my dream last week. I hope you feel it too!

[oxcjae]

“Here we are...”

Presenting an inspirational machinima I had been working on since the very beginning of last summer.

As usual, this project began with a little experimentation. One night, I had returned from my shift feeling a bit melancholic, so I submerged into the nighttime vibes with some ambient music, playing anything from vaporwave to my eventual inspiration, Burial. Eventually, the vibes inspired me to play with Half-Life’s brightness settings again on its 2013 (Steampipe) version.

I had been listening to Burial’s music for a while at that point, especially his Untrue album, but I was still exploring his entire catalog when I was gifted with “Come Down To Us” as I slowly mastered the best proportions for the game’s three main lighting commands: gamma, lightgamma, and brightness. 

While each lighting scenario varied (and sometimes greatly), gamma was usually best set between the values of “0.35″ and “0.50″ (the lower, the more contrast), lightgamma between “1.5″ and “3.0″ (higher = more contrast), and brightness subsequently anywhere between “1.5″ to “7.5″ (higher = brighter). I found the most trustworthy gamma:lightgamma ratio to be 0.35:1.5, with brightness’ value more dependent on the map.

If you’re interested in playing with these settings with the goldsource engine, I highly recommend the 2013 version of the game (using SourceRuns’ “GoldSrc Package”), since said version allows for an unlimited range of values.

So, after a year’s worth of on/off dedication to location-scouting and perfecting each shot in the name of cinematography, I gave this project one final push during this past week to have it out on time for America’s mental health awareness month. I hope you enjoy it and find inspiration from it like I have!

[oxcjae]

Comforts me to know that I’m still able to amuse myself with Half-Life enough to release a new project. This time around, I tapped back into my creative side.

Basically, Grave Shift came about when I (recently) learned how customizable the game’s gamma and brightness settings are, as well as how dramatically they can change a map’s lighting. In some versions of Half-Life, the values are more restricted, but I found the 2013 (Steampipe) version allowed the widest range of values for both settings.

What I currently find the most interesting, aesthetically, is lowering the gamma to near-zero (ex: “0.25″) and keeping the brightness low, if not at zero. Visually, the singleplayer maps will appear mostly pitch-black, but their light sources will often give a colorful, high-keyed composition. Plus, adjusting these settings while on a map will affect only NPCs until the map is reloaded or changed, so that’s convenient if any NPCs appear too dark or bright.

I kept my OCD to a minimum with this project, and the results were refreshing. I simply recorded temporary DEMs and MP4s at the same time and collected the ones I wanted to keep and throw into the editor. Didn’t even label and organize the files (and don’t need to when there’s metadata). I also didn’t go through the trouble of recording lossless footage because that can wait until I’m able to remaster my HL1 videos in 4K. (Not sure how YouTube transcoded my upload so terribly, though.)

Overall, just a simple, abstract project. Most of the moving shots were simple to execute, too. It only felt right to spice up the atmosphere with some surreal vaporwave, a pleasant inspiration while I was scouting for abstract shots at 3am (repeatedly). I hope you can vibe with it!

[oxcjae]

HALF-LIEF: A Learning Experience

Since around the beginning of this year, on and off, I’ve been trying to wrap up the third part to my HALF-LIEF series...

And it’s safe to say that I’m over it in many ways.

After drafting and recording each scene, I realized that I bit off more than I’m willing to chew. It’s been evident for a while now, but I’m finally putting the project aside for my own reasons.

Recording all the footage was its own beast. Being a perfectionist, many scenes each took hours to achieve the movement/events that I wanted. When I was converting the demos (replays) to videos, much of the in-game audio needed to be muted or isolated for editing, and the game had to be restarted each time I applied a change to any of the sound files. Plus, I had to ensure that the EAX sound effects were still on, since the feature often didn’t work if I alt-tabbed out the game or simply did not cross an acoustics trigger within the map. These issues were just a few of the main hurdles that I had to fight through for the series to retain its quality, at least.

Once I recorded all the footage and headed into the editing stage, I quickly discovered that there was still a whole lot more work to do in many areas, mainly the flow. Some shots didn’t flow into each other very well, some audio needed to be rerecorded, and some video files had visual artifacts (a glitch with NVIDIA’s ShadowPlay that happens a bit too often). That’s just the main issues.

Overall, though, something about the project’s results feels off, as if something is missing, and I still haven’t figured it out. (Fun, maybe?) It’s just doesn’t carry the same immersive vibe as the other two parts.

Still, as weary as I already was, I tried to work through it. Re-edited entire sequences, rerecorded videos, isolated more audio for whatever reasons... But it came to a point where I couldn’t bring myself to open up the editor for it. Being restricted with free time due to real life responsibilities doesn’t help, either.

And when I found myself completely drained and unmotivated to continue (months ago), I tried recouping and finding inspiration/motivation by browsing Half-Life-related content, such as the Half-Life subreddit and Twitter accounts... to no avail. Hell, I couldn’t even find myself interested in the Half-Life series for the most part.

It’s funny how counterproductive forcing yourself onto a project can be. Not only did it make me neglect and nearly resent the project, but it also shut down my creativity nearly all together. I haven’t played with photography or photo-editing in a long while now, nor have I been writing any ideas down like I usually do. Every time I drift off into other ideas, I’m reminded of this mess of a project and feel guilty for taking so long to complete it for my followers. To put it simply, this project is holding me back from adventuring into other ideas.

With all that said, I'm shelving part 3 of HALF-LIEF for now, potentially permanently. I understand if this comes as a disappointment.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned from this drag of an experience, it’s to never bring pressure to yourself by announcing a project to your followers waaay ahead of time. Looks like extrinsic motivation has failed me again (lol). I can only hope that I’ll grow from this learning experience from here on out and return to an open imagination.

[oxcjae]

2019

Miss me? In regards to my online productivity, I’m feeling relatively confident about the new year.

Recently, thanks to software and hardware upgrades, producing and editing content has become much easier for me. NVIDIA’s ShadowPlay couldn’t feel any more essential!

My new “HALF-LIEF” series probably wouldn’t exist otherwise. It was originally conceived as a 20-minute project (in ode to Half-Life’s 20th anniversary), but it sprouted pretty fast. I'm sure as hell not complaining!

As for other potential projects, spontaneity is possible again. Instantaneously capture high quality, compressed video at 60 fps? And the footage is edit-friendly? Yes, please.

I’m also currently editing outsourced videos for a couple fellow content creators, such as PR0baddie. An upkept portfolio of these videos is available on my YouTube channel.

So yeah, I have a good feeling about this year. Cheers!

[oxcjae]

To explain it short and sweet, this project arrives just barely over a year after playing around and experimenting in Half-Life one day, around the time I was being heavily inspired by cLOUDDEAD’s abstract, self-titled album. I noticed how many solid black, key-able holes that were in a lot of the maps and discovered the opportunity to create a scrolling effect by using a consistent speed in each scene.

Gradually, over the year, I figured out how I wanted to stitch the scenes together and, in the process, learned more about keying and masking in Adobe After Effects, which I spent most of the project’s development time doing.

Although I wish there were more scenes I was able to utilize in Half-Life for this project, I’m (overall) very satisfied with the outcome.

[oxcjae]

My Creative Process

I don’t upload videos onto my YouTube channel very often. Because of this, new followers often feel left in the dark. Allow me to explain, for example, how my videos come into existence.

"Only make moves when your heart’s in it.”  -The Notorious B.I.G.

My creativity usually flourishes through inspiration, self-interest, self-amusement, and other intrinsic values. I let my creative process unfold naturally and uninhibited, purely led by curiosity and amusement. Since my YouTube currently remains a hobby, its no different, and any forced attempts result in incomplete products.

Speaking of “forced”, although I deeply appreciate the love my fans give, their demands are still no match against my own interests. If I’m not intrigued in my own project, then I find no joy in pursuing it, defeating the purpose of a hobby.

But when I’m finally in pursuit of a vision, I sacrifice time for quality, spending hours juggling abstracts and letting them grow, aiming for the perfect take, consistently writing down detailed production notes... When editing, I shape my timeline and its flow precisely by the critique of my intuition. Sometimes, this results in me biting off more than I can chew.

Obviously, because my channel still currently a hobby, my upload frequency is inefficient and basically unpredictable. Often, I find myself feeling imaginative but lack the time, energy, or both (thanks to adulthood). Because of that, producing and editing usually aren’t my “go-to”s for a creative pastime nowadays, since they are both heavily demanding.

Of course, in situations when I’m producing or editing for another person or company, I approach the process very differently for time efficiency. When satisfying their vision, I make sure to inject my own “flair” or style into the project somewhere acceptable to ensure that I remain interested and subsequently motivated-- a middle ground, if you will.

So for those newcomers who would like to know why I haven’t uploaded a video in a while, please take these main factors into account. A part of me is in the same boat as you: looking forward to more. In the meantime, follow this Tumblr and my Twitter for intermittent updates.

[Last revised on the 4th of October, 2021.]

[oxcjae]

Update: October 2017

The sudden tsunami of support on my YouTube last month was reinvigorating, to say the least. To those whom continue to support me, thank you. This past month, I’ve been jugging multiple abstracts in my limited spare time, plotting my next moves.

Recently, I finished a guide for cinematography in the GoldSrc engine. There’s some really useful information in there for those looking to pursue a GoldSrc machinima, so give it a skim that kind of stuff gets you off.

My main interest now is: What kind of off-the-wall shit can I record during a “playthrough” of the original Half-Life? I’m getting creative with it; that’s for sure. Got a collection of ideas already brewing, so I’m excited to see which direction this project may take me.

Another seed potentially growing is the concept of another little Dr Disrespect edit. I already know the concept, which will be amazing, but executing it is very unlikely at the moment. Maybe it’ll be next in line once my main priority is out of the way.

It was all about ideas this month. Hopefully the time for harvesting them will be soon.

[oxcjae]

Update: September 2017

At this point in time, the possibility of producing machinimas on modern engines is in the trash, including Source. My 8-year-old computer is showing its age. It can no longer handle recording losslessly at 30 FPS, nor can it efficiently precache more than a few lossless files when editing. A new computer is not an option at this time, since I’m always tight on money, so I’ll be stuck in this situation for a long while.

What am I left with for potential material in the meantime?: good ol’ GoldSrc, of course. Surprisingly, I’m okay with that. The engine has aged well after two decades. (Can’t say the same for Source, hah.) I still see a lot of potential content with the engine and its games. For the most part, it’s vastly unexplored thanks to Source-based machinimas overshadowing the older engine in 2005, when machinimas began blowing up on YouTube. So, if I’m ever in the mood to produce, GoldSrc will be my go-to. I may even write a tutorial on how to capture quality footage sometime in the future.

Oh, and good news: I'm able to remaster my GoldSrc videos. I managed to acquire the 2013 version of Half-Life (thanks to the SourceRuns community) and an older version of HLAE (v2.34.5) that supports it. Since HLAE doesn’t support the latest version of Half-Life on Steam, this is encouraging. Whenever I finally have a new setup, I’ll be able to remaster Blew Shift, A Posing Farce, Astral, Dream Mesa, and any other (possible) future GoldSrc videos in 4K resolution and 60+ FPS.

Aside from the possibility of more GoldSrc-based machinimas, I have opened up a second YouTube account (oxcjae2) to edit third-party content whenever I please. I have no intentions of risking my primary account by using unauthorized, copyrighted videos, so proxying these edits through a second account is the best way to go. My first upload involves the two-time champion, Dr DisRespect. This account is just a place to dump my fun edits, so don’t expect consistency... or anything, really.

[oxcjae]

An Evergrowing Void

As time approaches 10 years since the last release of a Half-Life title from Valve, there is an evergrowing void that I can no longer deny.

You see, for the most part, I grew up on Valve’s games when I was introduced to them in 1998 and onward. Half-Life, its expansions, its third-party mods and server-side add-ons... I continue to hold a lot of those memories in my heart as I delve further and further into my 20s, now preoccupied by adulthood and the responsibilities that come along with it.

With that said, that bond I once strongly carried has been slowly disintegrating since the last release of a full game from Valve, Portal 2 (2011). The magic of machinima that I once channeled through Valve’s titles and mods (like Garry’s Mod) has disappeared. Exploring the idea of Goldsrc machinimas held off that void for a good while, with the productions of Blew Shift, A Posing Farce, Astral and Dream Mesa, but now, approaching the end of 2017, I can’t help but sit here and think “Now what?”

Is there any passion left? I could potentially explore CS:GO or SFM-based machinima, but do I really want to?, considering Valve’s total abandonment of Half-Life fans like myself?

With this sense of disconnection brings the future of my YouTube account into question. Its roots are clearly a product of my passion for Valve games and their communities, but that passion is nearly--if not--gone. Is it time for a new channel for newer games unrelated to Valve? Basically, what I’m asking is: Is it time to move on? If so, where to? I can only hope that the future will answer these impending questions.