GuestJim Side Project - The Body on Games

[Guest_Jim_*]

With the FEAR videos wrapping up (actually the last one went public today) next week the next set of videos starts coming out. The upcoming game is Alien: Isolation and here are some highlights from 14 chapters:

Alien Isolation - Highlights

 

I actually made some 17 videos for this game, with a Chapter 0 for the tutorial, a Chapter 3.5 from when I misjudged when a mission ended but was recording gameplay when I discovered this, and a Chapter 6a that ended early because I was sick that day and needed to stop.

The next game I intend to do these recordings in is FEAR 2. I just like the idea of interrupting games in a franchise with another game like this.

To fill out the week, I did a recording in the System Shock Demo that will be up on Thursday.

Finally, for anyone who cares, I've started telling YouTube to post on Twitter when these videos go live, so it currently just got slammed with each of these highlight videos: https://twitter.com/bodyongames.

[Guest_Jim_*]

So I've been doing some testing recently with using the Lossless encoding option for these recordings. The idea is that this will result in very high quality recordings to work from, but then I re-encode them for long-term archiving, to keep file size down (from 584 GB for 12 archives to 69 GB for final archive, upload, copy of audio mix, and pulse data). I do use settings to keep the videos visually lossless, but there are still going to be some differences. Well, FFmpeg has a means to show the differences between video streams, so I decided to do that and upload the resulting video. (Green is where the videos are identical.)

Anyway, it's basically half an hour of mostly green video without any audio, but if anyone is interested, here it is:

 

The source video is from a playthrough I did in Killing Floor 2 and I have no idea when that may be coming out. Current plan is to use the 12 KF2 videos I've recorded as one-offs to finish off odd weeks.

Oh, also the original recording is lossless but the final archive is encoded with x264 at a CRF of 15, max bitrate of 25 Mb/s and at the medium preset

[AkakmanH]

Checked out your You Tube channel - subscribed.

Looks interesting.

Considering that I have enjoyed all of your tech posts, I figure it will be good.

[Guest_Jim_*]

Well, I don't know if my videos will live up to that expectation, but thank you for your support! I certainly hope you will find them interesting.

[Guest_Jim_*]

Last week the Outlast 2 demo came out, and naturally I did one of these recordings in it. Was not sure when I wanted to release it yet, but decided to put it up today.

Yesterday I also finished playing/recording in the Outlast: Whistleblower DLC, so that will be coming out eventually too. (It's all scheduled, and because of all the other videos scheduled ahead of it, we're looking at December.)

[Guest_Jim_*]

Apparently the last Alien: Isolation video went public Monday (you have no idea how easy it is to forget what comes out when), so to fill out this week, today I made the Killing Floor 2 - Biotics Lab video public:

 

I have recorded a video on each of the KF2 maps, and did them all using the lossless encoding option I mentioned somewhere above. Not sure when the other 11 videos will become public, but I just had the idea of releasing them all on Halloween. Seems appropriate, and honestly I don't want to have to remember these are waiting to go public. (By the way, I started doing these recordings just as a test and not really thinking I would upload them. Don't remember when I changed my mind, but I did at some point.)

Starting next week the FEAR 2 videos will be coming out, but the highlights are already public.

[Guest_Jim_*]

Today a little bit different of a video is coming out as it does not show heart rate. Instead I put the Tobii Tracker 4C to work to capture where I was looking while playing some Audiosurf 2. At least I find it interesting as we can all see I actually keep the car in my periphery and focus instead a distance up the track. My eyes also seem to go to the lane on the track with the most point blocks on it.

All of the music is from the YouTube music library (so I don't need to worry about rights or even attribution for these tracks). The game shows the track name and artist at the bottom of the screen. I also made a version without my voice over, for anyone who does not want to hear me talking, and the link to it is in the original video (and vice versa).

 

I also have five Super Meat Boy videos with the gaze tracking (and a lot of frustrated cursing), but I have not quite decided when I want those to go public. Might start next week though.

[Guest_Jim_*]

Huh, didn't realize I forgot to post anything about the Outlast: Whistleblower or FEAR 3 videos, and the latter is ending this week. That's annoying, but not why I'm posting now.

With FEAR 3 ending this week, next week Amnesia: The Dark Descent will be starting next week and the highlights are already public:

Also starting this week is another set of gaze tracking recordings, releasing every Tuesday like the Super Meat Boy videos before, but this time in DuckTales Remastered. (I wanted to play it and why not do recordings with it too?)

 

After Amnesia: The Dark Descent will be Dead Space videos, which are already done and uploaded, just waiting for Amnesia to finish coming out. Don't have any specific plans for what to do next with the Tracker 4C, but I've some ideas. (My focus is primarily on the heart-rate videos, especially as they tend to take longer, but I love doing all of these.)

[Guest_Jim_*]

Today the Dead Space videos start going public. Unfortunately I had some technical problems with it, so most of the videos stutter a lot and it was not until I was almost done that I thought of a solution that worked. The good news is the solution also works for Dead Space 2, which I just finished recording. Just noticed that the final DuckTales Remastered video releases tomorrow too.

Anyway, here's the Dead Space playlist:

 

After this will be the Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs videos, and then Dead Space 2. Will probably do some more gaze tracking videos before I get to recording SOMA as I kind of want a break to let my fear recover to normal levels. (Being chased by monsters just isn't affecting me like it used to.)

[Renigade]

check these out https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8661and  http://www.amazon.com/Polar-T31-Coded-Transmitter-Belt/dp/B000ARDPPU/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1408060881&sr=8-7&

https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/2d6023/how_to_put_your_actual_heart_ratepluse_on_screen/

 

Bit more expensive but looks a little easier then a finger monitor.

and the interface has other options as well https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dsporting&field-keywords=Wearlink%C2%AE

[Guest_Jim_*]

Wonder why I never found that Reddit thread when I was looking for ways to do this a year ago. I'm doing almost the exact same thing and with the same oximeter he originally linked to, but I record the game and heart-rate graph separately and combine them later while he streams them live.

Anyway, a chest strap could be easier in some ways, but the oximeter works well enough. It gives me the real-time data I want and is not uncomfortable to wear on a toe. Plus that chest strap apparently tracks heart-rate by monitoring vibrations, so other vibrations may set it off. (Using the Average mode will clean those out, it says, but then it is not real-time tracking.) What I really wish I could figure out how to do would be to get an Intel RealSense camera and use that for monitoring heart rate through micro-flushing. They are supposed to be able to do it but I've yet to find an application with that monitoring capability. Some remote sensor like that would be ideal, but is not yet a commercial reality it seems.

[Guest_Jim_*]

Have a few updates and something I don't know how much anyone will care about. (That will be last.)

First up, I did some gaze-tracking recordings in Braid and those actually started coming out last week, follow a Tuesday schedule. I would not recommend watching it as a guide, since I sometimes had to refer to one...

Going to do The Witness some time, but then I saw how long it can take to beat, so I think I'll do one or two other games first.

 

Next update is I just took the time to make a The Body on Games Steam Group. Just did it to have an easily viewed list of the games I've done these recordings in, thanks to the Curator feature on Steam.

 

Last and possibly least, because I know some of how h.264 compression works, and how to expose some of this with FFmpeg, I decided to try cutting together a video showing this. I thought it was interesting enough to do but I don't know if it is interesting enough to watch.

Don't know when/if I will do another video like this in the future, but I might.