Mass Effect Footage: Opinions Sought?
OKAY SO.
Man, I have been busy. VIDUKON! In general I'm glad to say that I think most people had a good time, and hopefully the few things that did not go, err, smoothly, will be worked out at future cons, since people did seem keen to have another one. Which is aces! Also it really was awesome to get to meet a bunch of people for the first time, and to see a bunch of others returning - it started to feel...familiar, like a reunion, and that was nice.
Hopefully in the next few days I'll actually get together a bunch of recs and perhaps a slightly longer report on things.
But for now, because I am impulsive and stressed and realised (a) I have slightly more money than I thought this month and (b) you can, actually, buy a small HDTV for less than a hundred quid these days, I am...somewhat seriously considering getting one and then capping my own Mass Effect footage. So far I've been using generic walkthroughs from YouTube, which are fine as far as they go. Problem is not everything is easily available, and bluntly, I end up manufacturing a bunch of it myself with masking different sources together and it's sort of a nightmare. And I would like to be able to just...clip myself a standard library with all the major variations.
I mean, it's a stupidly huge undertaking either way. But.
HYPOTHETICALLY. IF I DID IT. Here is my dilemma:
What Shepard do I use?
No, no, of COURSE I mean Femshep, but what I mean is. I've been using what is, essentially, an amalgamation of the two default Femsheps throughout the series because it's generic enough it was easier to source footage and I didn't feel like I was ripping off anyone's custom Shep.
I also don't want to use either of my Sheps because, well, I don't particularly think I'll be vidding their journeys?
But I guess I have residual bitterness from that stupid competition they ran for the ME3 default face when of COURSE the generic blonde, white chick won. (And then they didn't even stick with that because they went back to the red hair which if they had to change the default model part way through at least they stuck with that much. *sigh*)
But on the other other hand, I do think there's something useful about using a character model that is as close to the "default" version as possible. We all have our custom Sheps, but we also all recognise Sheploo (man I hate that name, makes me giggle EVERY time) and a shaggy-haired redhead as "Shepard" too.
Especially the few vids I have actively planned, I kind of...don't want to necessarily read as though they're the adventures of someone's personal Shepard, but rather explorations of her as an archetype.
Which in turn brings us back to the unavoidable fact that the fact "default" Shepard is a white dude is all kinds of ist, and making her a chick only solves one of them. :/
I'm kind of leaning towards keeping the model I've used for my previous vids for consistency and because she's more recognisable. And that iconicness is actually pretty important to me. I want to vid...varying versions of the pop culture icon, not my game's playthrough. So, you know, I kind of want to stick with the Default (or as close as possible with Femshep since they kept changing it).
But I'm not totally comfortable with the way I'm leaning. Cus there's no avoiding the underlying reasons for how the default looks. Should I just jailbreak this thing and make an awesome new Femshep for vids purposes (including possibly remastering Machine into higher quality)?
EITHER WAY THIS WILL PROBABLY TAKE YEARS. o.O
[ETA! I should also say, if I do this, I would totally be willing to share footage with any other fine folks who wished to vid ME...]
Man, I have been busy. VIDUKON! In general I'm glad to say that I think most people had a good time, and hopefully the few things that did not go, err, smoothly, will be worked out at future cons, since people did seem keen to have another one. Which is aces! Also it really was awesome to get to meet a bunch of people for the first time, and to see a bunch of others returning - it started to feel...familiar, like a reunion, and that was nice.
Hopefully in the next few days I'll actually get together a bunch of recs and perhaps a slightly longer report on things.
But for now, because I am impulsive and stressed and realised (a) I have slightly more money than I thought this month and (b) you can, actually, buy a small HDTV for less than a hundred quid these days, I am...somewhat seriously considering getting one and then capping my own Mass Effect footage. So far I've been using generic walkthroughs from YouTube, which are fine as far as they go. Problem is not everything is easily available, and bluntly, I end up manufacturing a bunch of it myself with masking different sources together and it's sort of a nightmare. And I would like to be able to just...clip myself a standard library with all the major variations.
I mean, it's a stupidly huge undertaking either way. But.
HYPOTHETICALLY. IF I DID IT. Here is my dilemma:
What Shepard do I use?
No, no, of COURSE I mean Femshep, but what I mean is. I've been using what is, essentially, an amalgamation of the two default Femsheps throughout the series because it's generic enough it was easier to source footage and I didn't feel like I was ripping off anyone's custom Shep.
I also don't want to use either of my Sheps because, well, I don't particularly think I'll be vidding their journeys?
But I guess I have residual bitterness from that stupid competition they ran for the ME3 default face when of COURSE the generic blonde, white chick won. (And then they didn't even stick with that because they went back to the red hair which if they had to change the default model part way through at least they stuck with that much. *sigh*)
But on the other other hand, I do think there's something useful about using a character model that is as close to the "default" version as possible. We all have our custom Sheps, but we also all recognise Sheploo (man I hate that name, makes me giggle EVERY time) and a shaggy-haired redhead as "Shepard" too.
Especially the few vids I have actively planned, I kind of...don't want to necessarily read as though they're the adventures of someone's personal Shepard, but rather explorations of her as an archetype.
Which in turn brings us back to the unavoidable fact that the fact "default" Shepard is a white dude is all kinds of ist, and making her a chick only solves one of them. :/
I'm kind of leaning towards keeping the model I've used for my previous vids for consistency and because she's more recognisable. And that iconicness is actually pretty important to me. I want to vid...varying versions of the pop culture icon, not my game's playthrough. So, you know, I kind of want to stick with the Default (or as close as possible with Femshep since they kept changing it).
But I'm not totally comfortable with the way I'm leaning. Cus there's no avoiding the underlying reasons for how the default looks. Should I just jailbreak this thing and make an awesome new Femshep for vids purposes (including possibly remastering Machine into higher quality)?
EITHER WAY THIS WILL PROBABLY TAKE YEARS. o.O
[ETA! I should also say, if I do this, I would totally be willing to share footage with any other fine folks who wished to vid ME...]