Arma 3 Prairie Fire Bullshittery - Update #2 (Patreon)

Good afternoon everybody. Hope you're doing well. It's been a week and a half since work started on Arma 3 Prairie Fire Bullshittery and here's an update on how things are going.

Things have properly conspired against me a bit, corr blimey. It's been a real uphill battle:

• Last week I was struck down with (presumed) food-poisoning. Which greatly damaged my overall efficiency in the "scrubbing" phase.
• No sooner had I recovered from, that was I struck down with (presumed) Laryngitis for all of this week.
• The first 6/7 Prairie Fire livestreams experienced a malfunction with "Infowriter", the plugin that I use to mark clips. Which I'll explain in a moment. This greatly slowed scrubbing speed.

Despite this however, I can report that I have a bullshittery cut. Playable from end-to-end. Currently going through tightening and polish. And its almost ready for the keyframing phase.

Well aware of how long the previous two bullshitteries have been, I've tried my best to rein this in. I can't make every project a 3 monther.

There's only really one segment with clips that must be chained together due to their aesthetic similarities - the introduction to the Vietcong tunnels.

But beyond that, the clips have been easy to mix and match.

Now about the scrubbing work...

During my editing process, I like to use an OBS plugin called "Infowriter". This is a simple tool that automatically creates a text file every time I livestream. Showing the precise start and end time. And letting me sort everything with consistent naming conventions.

Unrelated to Arma, here's a shot of the worksheet that tracks every livestream uploaded to the archive website. Consistent names, all saved as .mp4 files onto the storage NAS, notes saved alongside them. A far cry from what it used to be years ago with names like "Cullingstream11111-ffriday.mp4". And literal post it notes, with chicken scratches written with a Biro.

Normally the infowriter text files look something like this. A simple dash inserted whenever I've pressed a hotkey on the plastic Stream Deck in front of me.

Sometimes there's much more detail if I've gone back to 'fill in the blanks'. To help future me remember why I recorded a specific timestamp.

So picture my confusion, on opening up Prairie Fire last week, only to find that most of the initial 6-7 streams streams had something like this:

I never hit the button? Not even once? Not even accidently? Infowriter is clearly working. It tracks the start and end of the recording just fine. But I never once hit the button? 

That just made me suspicious.

So I started watching through the first 6 Prairie Fire streams, showing the campaign "MACV SOG", trying to see whether there were moments of note. And I tell you - if you ever want to feel bad at your job - try slowly reviewing something you've made previously.

Urghh.

And I was right to be suspicious. the MACV SOG streams were full of funny moments. There was some sort of unidentified issue with the Infowriter plugin over the course of about 3 weeks in late 2021. Perhaps a software update for OBS or Stream Deck made it fail to record the previously bound hotkey. I have no idea.

I must have been hitting the button and nothing was being recorded. Annoying.

Regardless, I can report that I've scrubbed past those streams to find the Mike Force stuff comparatively well annotated. The above is an annoying hiccup that cost me 4-5 days editing time, scrubbing through livestreams to ensure what's there isn't lost.  I've forgone the usual diligence in which I track sequences in premiere. Just dumping them all in a single bucket called SOG to be scooped out as I go. A tad frustrating.

Additionally, one of the questions I wondered during scrubbing was - is there actually a comedic difference between the games of MACV SOG and the large games of Mike Force? 

•  MACV SOG - Relatively small and intimate missions, about 7-8 of them, officially made by Bohemia. Where you play as a special forces unit sneaking around in the jungle.
• Mike Force - Map is divided up into grids. You attack a grid. And the game mode will send hundreds of VC at you to try and take it back. So you fortify and helicopter in supplies to avoid being overrun.

And the answer there was oh my god, yes.

Many of my friends and clan mates are natural comedians. So it's fascinating to watch them feel around the edges of the game concept - like it's a comedy skit. Trying to make each other laugh.

For example, MACG SOG teams consisted of (mostly) native Vietnamese, being coached by 1-2 American "advisors".  So we would giggle about how "fat" the American officer looked, how we're going to trade their boots for bags of rice, or periodically pretend to not speak English.

At one point Digby ordered me to leave the rest of the squad behind.  And I called him an "Imperialist pig dog" before running back to the Vietnamese group.

On other side of the coin, Mike Force has a lot of static defence. Particularly when you're getting a firebase setup and helicopters are coming in to deliver the building supplies. Meaning there's lots of moments standing at the wire - with naught to do but be on guard duty - bantering about silly shit. Such as films or other games.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1713412367

MACV SOG has us more closely poking the world setup in Prairie Fire. Where as Mike Force has lots of guys mingling and chewing the fat.

So right now, the plan is to finalise the cut, get the scenes into Adobe After Effects, then start the keyframing job.  I expect will take about 11 days to complete. No major problems to report currently. I'll try to get this done as efficiency as possible.

I'll leave that optional musical montage till last, I think. Focus on the comedic first and foremost. It's really just a fun extra. I expect that will take me an extra week at the very end. But I've already tagged lots of cool looking moments for a montage.