Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Until something changes..

If you're reading this, rather than monitoring this blog, I am going to focus on my youtube content.  The traction there is much bigger, and I think video content goes better with gaming discussion.  I will use this blog for any content I wish to create which is best in text.
If you want to keep up with me and my current projects, my GamesBrained facebook or twitter pages will be the better place to do so.

Shane

Monday, July 21, 2014

New Video

This is quite a bit after the debut on YouTube but my 3rd GamesBrained video is up on youtube.  You can go to it: here!

It was at first frustrating to lose progress on making this video, but as I learned my next program it actually became quite a joy.  I've already started my next video and in fact have about 10 pages of notes and 60 gbs of video content captured, so I just gotta think if I want to slim it down (keep about 8 mins) or do something more elaborate (20+ mins).  What do you think?  Also are there any games I might not have played you could recommend for my channel? I already intend to branch away from talking about the Elder Scrolls Series, and have no desire to make any more videos about the games for a while; so, it would be good to get some other ideas going.

Let me know :)

Shane (Hiro)

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Video Editing Blues

Hello all~

I just put the finishing touches on my 3rd video for GamesBrained.  This one continues the trend of me improving my editing abilities.  This one is way more complicated than my two more previous videos, and took me a good amount of time to put together.  Plus, about 1/4 through originally putting it together on Adobe Premiere 9, the program started having a major problem with my video clips.  Even just watching them on a preview would totally crash the project, losing all of my progress.

After fighting this for several hours, I had to give up and start over completely on a new program.  After trying out several different programs, I eventually settled on Lightworks, a free and powerful video editing software.  The only warnings I heard about Lightworks was that you would need to read up for quite a bit before being able to do anything.

Well, they're not joking.  I tried to just wing it, using my experience with several different editors before to guide me, but Lightworks was unlike anything I've ever used.  Luckily, they have a great 10-video series explaining how to use it, and they really are extremely useful.  After taking about an hour to watch these with my full attention, I was able to jump back into the program and re-assemble my lost material with much better ease, and even an improvement in editing quality!

So, yeah, I recommend Lightworks.

As I'm writing this, I am extremely tired from having an 8-hour editing marathon until about 3:30 AM last night, which came after a day of teaching.  I'm going to be uploading the video soon, and the only issue I can say that still exists in the video are some very obvious refresh-rate based issues with several video clips I captured.  It's pretty obvious and also fairly quick, but I'd say that 95% of the video clips I used appear with no visual issues and look as intended, so I left it in since I had to switch half of my most important software in the middle of editing.  I'll be working on this so it doesn't appear in my next video.

That being said, if you can point out the issue with ease, please please please contact me and let me know.
The video was captured at 60 fps, and the editor was set to use that kind of material.  
--> gamesbrained@gmail.com  

Anyway, I'll leave you with a video slice so you can see what the theme of this video will be~


- GamesBrained Shane

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Artwork

My girlfriend Kimmy put together some amazing logo artwork for my youtube channel.  I'm really happy with it, I think she did an amazing job.  Check it out here and let us know what you think in the comments there or below!

Shane

Games Brained levels up!

Thanks everyone who watched and shared my first video for this blog.  I plan on making more, and in effort to make more I have collected some much needed equipment to make sure I can really improve on my audio and video quality from here on.



I had been hearing really great things about the Blue Snowball microphones, which are affordable and I had heard had excellent quality too.  I just received mine today and after a short test (which confirmed what I had heard) I can't wait to begin working on my next video for GB.  Stay tuned!

Shane

Sunday, March 23, 2014

The Elder Scrolls Online (Beta) Impressions VIDEO REVIEW OMG

My first video content for this blog is live on youtube! I really sunk a lot of my time into these 7 minutes and am actively looking for content suggestions, likes, and sharing this video if you enjoyed it or liked the points I made about the game or other MMO's.  I am really looking forward to this game, so why don't you go ahead and click the link below to see why!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hIhxAX2UIQ

Shane

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Video Content Incoming!

So, my biggest announcement is that I am just now putting the finishing touches on video content for this blog, soon to be uploaded to YouTube!  I am very excited about this, and can't wait to share it with you all.

One note: I recorded all of my audio on a lower-mid range gaming headset, with only one tiny mono microphone on it.  So, while I tried to fix my voice's pitch-y range in post, the audio quality on this first video isn't everything I'd want it to be.  But, no problem, this is my first one out of the gate!  However, I have already placed the order on a new mic to do these with and I promise you will see a huge difference in audio quality on any future content after I receive it.

But, this is my first video I've created in this style, and I am looking for as much feedback as possible. Of course, if you 'like' it when it comes out or subscribe to my new channel that would help me in its own way, but I really just want to see some comments whether you liked it or what I can improve.

Keep an eye out!

-
Hint.
Shane

Update for the last 18 months

Wow.  My last post was in October of 2012.  That is quite a long way between posts, and to make it worst I was promising a follow-up with my last post.  Well I lied, because now I don't even own the iPad I was talking about in that post!  I actually have made a move away from Apple devices, but whatever, that is another story for another time.

I guess it is obvious, in my year and a half break from writing I have played a lot of game and had a lot of experiences that I'll want to possibly write about, but I'll leave my most important announcement for the next post.

Shane