I realized I did not post ANYTHING on YouTube in 2018. This is sad, considering 2018 was my 10th Anniversary on YouTube. I didn't post anything on YouTube since March 17, 2017 prior to my latest video. So I had to plan something for my return. What I ended up doing was posting a song I made in 2016. I hate that it took so long to return to YouTube, but I returned in some sort of way. What I did was post a song I first created in 2016 or so and then have it play while showing an Assetto Corsa skin I developed. The end result? This:
This song is called "Hope After Pain." Originally, it was called "Sunshine Despite Rain." The reason for its former name is because it was inspired by when a miserable rainy day finally has the rain stop and the sun come back out (or moonlight at night). The song is meant to be a positive song in case anyone may have fallen on hard times or is battling depression. The song is hope that things will get better for you after experiencing such rough times. So that is why the tone of the song is so mellow and a bit depressing.
"Hope After Pain" was developed in Linux MultiMedia Studio (LMMS) back in 2016. For the longest, I wanted to post my music online. I never had the energy to post it until recently. I hate that it took me until 2019- a year after my 10-year anniversary on YouTube- to finally post this song. But as they say, "better late than never."
I hope you enjoy this musical effort of mine! :)
Special Request!
Did you know I am on Bandcamp? You can hear a lot of the other music I've produced by visiting my Bandcamp profile at: johnbmarine.bandcamp.com/.
I hope your 2019 is going well. So please be sure to Subscribe/Follow my work if you enjoy it! Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.
Playing GTR2 and sampling mods has me thinking of series. Let me share this fantasy story representing one fantasy series I have in mind. It is part of a project for YouTube to expand my array of videos and have some fun. After all, this kind of stuff should be fun, right? So read on for more info. Maybe if you want to contribute something, feel free to contact me.
BEFORE I BEGIN...
This story is (obviously) fiction. All licensed brands featured here are copyrights of the respective companies.
Blog posts in this category relate to my designs based on game mods. My own personal work is shared towards the work I produce.
Fashion Racing Association
Here is the story to set up this series idea. You will even get some ideas as to what I am looking to accomplish with such stories.
Story.
Certain fashion designers and motorsports promoters came together to discuss starting several different racing challenges as well as special events to try to offer a unique parallel between fashion and racing. This league is collectively called the "Fashion Racing Association." This series invites various fashion personalities the world over. The series primarily focuses on fashion bloggers, but even those even remotely into fashion will have their chance to compete in this unique series sanctioned by the FRA.
One of the racing events is a series featuring identically-prepared vehicles in a one-make series. Here is a press statement prepared by one of the promoters of the FRA:
For the maiden race of our series of races, we want to invite a host of fashion bloggers to a unique racing challenge we like to call the "International Race of Fashion." The racing challenge we have set up involves various fashion personalities all competing in cars as stylish as their blogs and outfits. While we are aware that racing is not the finest talent of these competitors, we must make sure to provide purpose-built race cars to ensure safety. The cars themselves are not to be anything overbearing. We are not interested in causing tension among the fashion community with heated rivalries or anything- our plan is just to let fashion personalties compete in single racing challenges. We welcome a vast array of personalities- petites, curvy/plus-size fashion personalities, thrifty fashionistas, and more. We also welcome personalities of many different ages. If one is old enough to drive, they are eligible to compete in our events. We are looking forward to making this series grow as much as we can.
Prototype and Plans.
My goal here is to come up with a unique kind of series featuring some peppy amateur-type race cars. In brainstorming this idea, I had initially thought of using a mod featuring the 2009 model Ford Fiesta ST based on mods I had at that time for GTR2. Then, I thought about using more proper and more sporty cars- namely the Hankook MX-5 Cup mod for GTR2. The mod seemed simple to mod. My intent was to make a certain livery for the car and have the individual cars painted differently based on the same scheme. I then thought about some other cars. So I looked at mods for GTR2 including a mod featuring the BMW 1-Series hatchback and another mod featuring the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. While I mentioned not having anything too extreme for race cars, I even considered a Porsche Cup mod to serve as the cars for the featured racers. Because this project involves envisioning fashion bloggers, the liveries of each car would have banners atop the front windshield bearing the name of the individuals' blogs. It is promotional while not trying to be promotional.
I had planned on setting up a pilot featuring certain bloggers I like or that I follow. As much as I wanted to make a pilot for this concept, I felt it would be wrong to try to innocently make a series without the consent of others. The plan for making this was to come up with some new content for my YouTube channel. I found this to be a fun concept to try out. It is just a pilot- a prototype, yet I didn't want to release a pilot video unwillingly without permission of certain individuals.
Another element of this series is an emphasis on two different classes: American contenders vs. international contenders. As part of the deal, the American personalities will have white banners across the windshields, and the non-American personalities will have red banners across the windshield. Those not born in the USA are what will be "international" contenders. The American drivers will have numbers between 4-99, and the international contenders will have numbers between 100-199. Examples of liveries I've created will be featured later in this blog post.
Story Execution.
The races to be set up are AI (artificial intelligence, for those not educated on gaming) races. These are simulated races. How will they play out? I don't know. All I know is that anything can happen when you set up AI races. I am not going to do any kind of tweaking just to ensure one personality wins. There is no favoritism at play here.
Personal Commentary.
In a way, I sort of thought of "Sex and the City 2" when considering the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG mod. Not that I seen "Sex and the City 2," but part of me made me think of Mercedes-Benz as one of the cars in this conceptual race idea I had.
Similar Plans?
I had interest in making extra series devoted to specific categories of fashion bloggers and even those who are just mere fashion personalities online (such as those who don't have fashion blogs or Instagram accounts).
There is your look at my series concept. Because I never did this before, I will be learning as I go along. Learning as you go along is a lot like life. I don't know what to expect, so I will slowly get better with my work over time the more I contribute to it.
The Competition Car
This car is a 2009 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. It is a mod for GTR2. Here is a look at the livery I have been working on as this first GTR2 project of mine:
This is a basic view of this car.
This is a rear view of the car.
As the livery was meant to be a template, I made a variation of the base livery. Also notice the text on the windshield banner. The name of certain blogs are displayed on both the front and rear windshield banners to identify the contenders. I am not putting myself in this series! I put this car in only as a demonstration.
As you can tell, the base white (actually silver) color is the base color complimented by the secondary purple/violet colors. I am a bit undecided on making tertiary colors with the rollcage. The color choices are decided by me to make as many different variations of this same livery as possible to fill out the grid of contenders. Each car boasts the same primary sponsor of Sephora. For those not educated about fashion and beauty, Sephora is a French company that is one of the most popular retailers of beauty products. Each car has the same primary sponsor.
My First Attempt at Sharing a Video Capture!
Want to see my liveries in action? I have this video for you all. There are skips and such, but this is my first-ever attempt trying to make a video from a video capture. Enjoy:
You now have an idea of what this deal is like in action and what I hope to improve to make this special.
Special Request! Want In?
My intent is to pick out different fashion blogs to serve as contenders to fill out my field of cars for this fantasy racing series. I am torn between either featuring certain bloggers [with or without permission] I follow and asking for certain bloggers who maybe want to be featured in this just-for-fun series. I do want to feature certain fashion blogging personalities I follow and maybe feature some out of surprise- as in you may not know who I will feature.
All featured personalities will be represented with the same racing livery but in different colors. I want to make the colors fun since this this is not supposed to be some overly serious racing league. I may select certain numbers or randomly generate driver numbers to represent each contender.
So if you are a fashion blogger that wants to be featured in this series I'm conceptualizing, feel free to contact me online through Facebook or here in my blog. I am concerned about the permission part because I would feel guilty featuring something like this series without someone knowing beforehand.
If I come up with more concepts towards fantasy racing series, I will let you know in this blog. I hope you enjoyed your time here. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.
Some people record game videos. Programs like FRAPS, Bandicam, CamStudio, and OBS among others allow people to make and record videos to upload online. I recently entertained the thought of making my own game videos. So for this blog post, I will discuss the different options as well as my ambitions of making and uploading videos.
By the way... I can't believe I introduced this label yet...
Blog posts in this category relate to the production of videos. It includes video-related posts as well as different thoughts on making videos of various kinds.
Gaming Videos
First of all, why would you want to make videos on games? There are many- tutorials, simple gameplay, walkthroughs, long plays, fail videos, trolling,... you name it. A good amount of reasons are there for anyone to even attempt wanting to make and post videos of games. People want to share their love of gaming and showcase it in special ways. Among the popular names in gaming and game videos are the likes of CaptainSparklez, PewDiePie, iHasCupquake, and others. Regardless, you want to be able to provide gaming videos with your own sort of charm to them.
So how do you get started? Well first, you need screen capture software and/or hardware. Consider the latter for recording videos from console to your PC/Mac.
Gaming Videos: Hardware.
You don't need anything spectacular if you plan on recording from a console to PC on the hardware front. For example, you could simply get one of those USB capture card devices that have multi-out ports to record from the Multi-Out of consoles. You could get something like a VHS to DVD or VHS to USB kit and use the different inputs to capture media. This is great mostly for those who don't have HDTV units for which to record media from. One of the real negatives of using these devices is that you can't have HD-quality video and sound in your recording unless you you try to stretch out the regular video or something. This is still an effective and efficient method for capturing some simple game videos.
If you want to record from devices that have HDMI inputs, you are going to need a capture card device capable of reading HDMI input. A capture card capable of HDMI input will allow you to post high-definition videos of games. However (and as you would imagine), HDMI devices can be quite expensive, not to mention also taxing on your PC/Mac space trying to record such videos. What you get can be quite amazing once you put it all together. Two of the most popular options for capturing HDMI video of games today are HDMI capture cards from the likes of Elgato (like the Elgato Game Capture HD) and Hauppauge (like the Hauppauge HD PVR 2 Gaming Edition). There are other options (including better offerings from the brands I mentioned), but this gives you a start in regards to wanting to record game videos.
Gaming Videos: Software.
If you prefer your game videos through software, consider any number of programs to help you to record your finest gaming moments. Sad thing is that there are not many quality programs for screen capturing, game capturing, or even game streaming (to be discussed in the next section). FRAPS has long been a favorite of screen capturing for some time. Unless you get the paid version of FRAPS, you are going to be severely limited to how much you can do. There have been many other programs trying to offer their own appeal in the screen capturing and recording department. There was a program used with some early videos called Hypercam. Some old videos have had "Unregistered Hypercam" as a watermark in the top-left corner of videos. One of the more enticing screen capture programs is Bandicam. Bandicam, for what it is, is an excellent program at capturing game video. However, you'll need to buy Bandicam to take full advantage of its capabilities and to be able to edit without having so many restrictions. Even though it an open source program, you will have a tough time trying to make videos using CamStudio unless you find quality codecs and do a good amount of tuning. The good news is that you don't have to pay anything to get the full power of CamStudio. You also don't have to pay anything to use the full power of another free program- OBS (Open Broadcast Software). OBS is more catered towards streaming, but you can still create some quite good screen capture videos of games and programs. I have been using OBS the past few days to envision the possibility of making game videos. For the most part, I want to use OBS to make some videos using the racing game rFactor. Most of my testing has gone pretty well. Only thing is that I wish I can make something proper and complete to provide some quality video material on YouTube.
Gaming Videos: Streams.
I will admit- I have no experience in game streaming. All I do know is that for people who are on Twitch and post game streams, you obviously want to consider some hardware and software to stream effectively. People who stream videos of games online need to consider things like resolution, connection speed, audio and video, and other factors to effectively provide quality streaming media of gaming. Again- I have no experience or any recommendations to anyone in this category.
Once you consider all of these things, be sure to make the most of your experience making game videos.
Game Videos: Resources
Most of what I wanted to discuss has been discussed. What I want to do here is offer you all some resources in case you enjoyed this blog post. Feel free to take a look at these links and items to help start your own adventures in game videos. I would appreciate your business if you looked into some of these items.
Now for you game capturing folks... consider this a gift from me to you for reading my blog post. Help yourself to these items in case you're interested (availability may vary):
Happy shopping! :)
Best wishes to all of you either wanting to make your own gaming videos or your own gaming channels. I'm glad you took time out of your day/night to visit my blog here. I hope you enjoyed your time here. Subscribe and Follow to get more of my work and to know when it is released. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.
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