Been a while...

Summer break is upon us and I've finally had some time to work on projects.

Just another marine, he's not perfect but I feel like they are getting easier to work on.  I've bought some of the new Khorne base paint spray and have been using it to basecoat the models.  It's cut down on the time it takes to assemble these guys.  Best of all, it means I don't have to sit there and apply coat after coat of red in order for them to be ready to paint.

I'm finishing the bases right now and will post again once the models are totally finished.

Destiny Video Uploaded

Sweet!

I have no desire to talk during a video.  I know that's pretty much a death kneel to anything I do on YouTube, but if I do speak it'll end up being worthless rabble.  Eventually I want to start twitch streaming (when we can pay for faster upload speeds), and will at that time talk to the audience.  Until then, the videos will either be silent or only have my team mates talking.

This video was a heroic run-through of one of Destiny's story missions, done on Heroic mode.  It was a fairly simple run altogether.  Tonight we are planning on running Vault of Glass for the first time as a clan.  If all pans out, I'll record the video and upload it next week.  None of us have run it, but we are hoping for a full clear over the course of the next two days.

-Cj

Sisters of Battle model

Ran by the local game store the other day and they had a metal Sisters of Battle Adeptus Sororitas model for sale.  The faction is not that popular and as a result you don't see them that often.  Also, they do not have a plastic range yet, so they are a little harder to come by.  This one happened to be an extra from a special order the store owner had made.

Adeptus Sororitas are one of my favorite lines of models due to the odd nature of the faction.  An all-woman religious fighting force out to protect humanity.  But in true 40k style they end up the joke of many stories.  Honestly, I wish they'd hire Karen Travis or some other kick-butt author to clean the slate and write a decent back story for the army.  At the very least they could clean up the story in the codex.

Rumors on the net however are that GW doesn't know what to do with the range, and as such has not made any changes to the models.  With the recent feminist/anti-feminist movements going on, it was probably wise of them to back off.  My hope however is that one day they will dust off the models and polish the faction a bit.  I would love to get my hands on some plastic models

My best project yet.

Man it's been a crazy two weeks!

We brought this little one home from the hospital at the end of last week.  She is an absolute doll!  I can't think of any other project I've written about here or elsewhere that even compares to our daughter.

She's not perfect, but no one is born into this world perfect.  We ended up having to leave her in the hospital for an additional two days, which caused many tears.  Her infection score was too high, so in an effort to get it down they kept her on antibiotics for a few days.  She also was having problems eating.  Thankfully the nursing staff was amazing and helped us get her fed and taken care of.

Hopefully I'll get back on track with some more projects soon, but with the amount of both homework and regular work, combined with a new baby, I'm not sure when I'll get another post done.
-Cj

My videos

I actually have a like on YouTube.

It started yesterday when I noticed I had 50 views on my videos.  50!  I'm still reeling about it!  They all occurred on Sunday for whatever reason.  When I checked today, I noticed that someone from Greece had liked a video.  YAY!

Really, when I look at these videos, I wonder what there is to like.  It's just the campaign footage from Halo Wars with no commentary!  Yet there it is, one like!

I've got a blog post on Destiny I need to finish, but it probably won't get done until Thursday or Friday when I get some more time to play.  It basically goes over the public perception of Destiny and likens the game to a trip to the mall.  Also, I have a usb cable coming in tomorrow that should allow me to record destiny game footage onto my computer and upload that.  Hopefully by grabbing the latest game play and posting it to YouTube I can gain more subscribers.

Video Recording

Success!

Yesterday I played around with Adobe's Creative Cloud Premiere software, and I was able to get a video that had been recorded a few weeks ago using an Elgato Game Camputre HD processed and uploaded to YouTube.  It's video from a recent game of Halo Wars that a good friend and I played.  Up to this point when I would upload the video from the Elgato into Premiere the audio track for the video would end up around 10 seconds late.  Going online, it turned out that because the Elgato outputs the video as .mp4, you have to enable file extension view in the folder options of your control panel and rename the .mp4 to .mov.  I don't know why it works like that, but after doing so the video was able to process and sync audio and video just fine in Premiere.

After figuring that out, I started the video processing, and quickly decided that I need to invest in a better heat sink and fan system.  My processor ended up maxed out and was over 70 degrees Celsius for about an hour.  As far as I can tell there was no damage to the processor, but sustained activities at those temperatures are not good for a computer.

Another odd thing, after finishing the video Premiere decided to dump it back out as a .mp4.  I didn't think much of it until I attempted to load that video to YouTube and it failed.  Same trick however, after changing the video to .mov and trying the upload again, it worked like a charm.

The thumbnail for the video was another cool trick.  In the Game Capture software I found a screen shot from the video I liked and clicked on the screen shot button near the play button of the software.  After clicking there, the screen shot was put on the desktop.  The picture was actually too large for YouTube, so a quick wash through Photoshop to change the file extension got the picture to the right size.

From here I have a few more video projects to add to my channel.  The video for mission 5 and 6 of Halo Wars needs trim'd and posted to YouTube.  Tu1kas and I still want to finish off the campaign and post those videos.  Additionally, I need to troubleshoot and figure out why I can't get mic audio to play through the Xbox.

Lastly, this morning I decided that it would be good to record some of Gruuler's (my gamer tag in xbox live) play through of Destiny, Bungie's latest game.  It comes out on September 9th and should provide some great game play moments to record and share.  Hopefully as I keep at recording and postings of videos, I'll learn a few more in's and out's of the process to speed up content uploads.

-Cj

Weapon placement on models

Well, I messed up my Land Raider.

When you play with vehicles, you measure from the barrel of the weapon for distance to target.  If the target is within the max range of the weapon, then you get to fire at it.  While making the vehicle, I followed the instructions that have you set the turret in the back window slot on the side, without realizing that you could put it in the front bay as well.  Since I was going with the heavy flamer variant, this means I've lost two inches from my frontal range due to the weapon being placed two inches farther back on the hull.

Honestly, it could make a difference if/when I play.However by moving it back you gain additional coverage along your side.  Since the weapon has a 45 degree arc this means that models approaching from the side will be flamed before they can get close.

One other thought, since I wanted to run the Centurion setup, it probably would have been better to set up the Hurricane bolter variant since the tank will be staying a ways away from danger, lessening the impact of the heavy flamer.  Since I've already set up a turret, it's off to ebay to see if I can't find someone selling spare side turrets.
-Cj