First Update of 2018

Been busy so I hadn't fully realized I had not posted anything here in the form of an update, so here it is: I have finished Dust: An Elysian Tail and all of its videos are up and scheduled now. Dark Souls is taking longer but I am making good progress. If I am lucky maybe I can finish by the end of the week, but regardless I have plenty I can upload before Monday, when I need one to keep to my schedule.
To make things a little easier on myself, I think there are two changes I am going to make to my process. One is dropping the highlight videos for every video. Not all videos have a moment to highlight and always forcing myself to find one is kind of annoying. Then working to upload and schedule them is another layer of annoying. The other change I am considering is to just upload the CSV files I have for the heart rate data, instead of pasting it into a Google Docs sheet and then formatting it. Honestly, Google Docs is a pain to work with in this way because of how long it takes for the formatting changes to be applied, so this will really ease things for me, especially as then I will just link to a folder with all of the data instead of each individual file.
In a way these changes are already in effect, as I never cut out highlights for Dark Souls (didn't have the time to previously) and failed to put up the heart rate data for the six videos I made last year (just forgot to do it then). Now I am formalizing these changes some. I might change my mind about either or both in the future though (could see myself doing the sheets again, as I have more time, but probably not the every-video highlights).
Any way, there is an update on things.
(PS. You can expect a lot of frustration from me over Dark Souls, if that is something you might enjoy seeing. Only thing is my frustration will turn to actual anger at times, and so is not very amusing.)

Have Three Weeks Ready

Last time I mentioned I did not have videos ready for the start of next week, which is just a week away, but I got three weeks worth, nine videos ready. Just need to upload and schedule them. These videos are the first six in Dark Souls and the first three in Dust: An Elysian Tail. In both cases I am using these videos as an excuse the play the games, though in the case of Dust it is replay. It is a good game and I am happy I had the thought I could do it with gaze tracking.
Dark Souls is... not my game. Basically, if you watch them, expect a lot of me bitching about the game. It does not help that I accidentally ended up going to the latter half of the game in the first hour, but there are still things that are pissing me off. I've found a 'solution' though. It is not ideal, but sometimes you just want to play the game and not get exceedingly angry at it. Really hoping Dark Souls 2 and 3 are more approachable/accessible.
The last video is still processing but I'll have them uploaded and scheduled in the next day or so. One change I think I may do going forward this year is to drop the highlights. When there is something cool/funny, I'll still cut it out and share it, but that does not happen every video, so I'm going to stop forcing it.
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Year is Almost Over!

The end of the year has been creeping up on me faster than I would have liked, which could become a problem. I know exactly the next game I want to record in, but between finishing a couple higher-priority projects first, and a vacation, I am not completely sure if I will be able to play and record the game in time. It is supposed to take about 60 hours to do, but I think I can do it if I can focus well enough.
Oh, also I have some Dead by Daylight videos I recorded but haven't done anything with yet. My plan is to schedule them for the end of the year, which means 2018 will start with the next set of videos that I will hopefully find the time to record. I also need/want to record an eye-tracked game for the Tuesday release, but I am not sure if I will find the time. I feel less commitment to that schedule, but I still want to try for it.
Anyway, just a quick update on that and hopefully I will not miss a week. Even if no one watches the videos, I still want to keep to the schedule.

Big Day Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day of the Extra Life charity stream and I can only hope I will be able to stay awake for all of it, because I am in fact going to be streaming from 10 AM Saturday to 10 AM Sunday (assuming I stay awake). I think it will be fun and hopefully it will also be productive.
While I do not have a firm schedule in mind, the games I have ready to stream are:

• Dead Space
• Dead Space 2
• Killing Floor 2
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Super Meat Boy
• Dead by Daylight
• Dead Rising 2

My plan for both Dead Space games is to do a New Game+ playthrough, assuming I do in fact play them. Haven't played Dead Rising 2 yet, but I think it will be fun, and Dead by Daylight I have only been playing this week. I actually recorded those games too, with the intent to play the recordings whenever I need a short break for one reason or another. (It seems like a good idea in my head.)
The stream will be here: The Body on Games YouTube live stream.
Extra Life donations can be made here: Extra Life - Jim Pitchford.

32 Threads of Awesome

Actually it was last week that I built my new computer, but I haven't started a new set of recordings until this week, and it is so nice. With an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X overclocked to 4 GHz, I'm able to record gameplay, the heart rate overlay, and the gaze tracker overlay all in real-time and all on the CPU. Oh, it is wonderful to be able to do that, as it means I can produce higher quality recordings, and I am not dependent on the h.264 ASIC on whatever GPU I'm running.
One unfortunate thing is that the FFmpeg filters I use are only single-threaded, so they present a bottleneck to the processing at the end while x264 can use all of the threads I can throw at it. In a way though, this is still a positive because I can use the veryslow preset, giving the most efficient compression x264 offers without a loss in speed (the bottle neck is that severe). Think I want to play around with voltages to hopefully drop temperatures, but regardless, I now have what, for me, is practically a dream computer (higher single-threaded performance would be nice for those filters, but this is still a rocking setup).
Now, if only I could get a capture card so I can work with some console games too...

Oh, also (I should probably make a separate post, and I will later) I'm planning on taking part in the Extra Life charity stream on November 4. I've wanted to participate before, and now that I have a better computer, I figure the time is as good as any.