Blog Posts from "Guide me plz" - Gameriot.com

The Great Machinima Turf War

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:33:58 -0400

So before you think the "big boys" are out to get you and little guys don’t stand a chance, remember that some of the big boys in our early days gave us grief to, but we kept making movies anyway. I made the mistake of entering battles that couldn’t be won and lost countless hours defending our work before I realized it didn’t matter. Don’t ridicule or hate on anyone even if they hate you today, because after all… this is the Internet, and they might be your biggest fans tomorrow.

Dual Boxing.. with one Box. It's totally possible and pretty damn sweet.

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:15:47 -0400

I'd rather have one really beefy computer that can do it all but can't sacrifice the stabilty and performance of my most important tasks. Using virtualization (I picked the software VMware Workstation) I've eliminated half of my computer hardware and energy consumption and still have access to all the tools I need. I know a lot of you out there in the Machinima world are pretty crafty and diverse in how you use your computer(s). If your list of programs is as long as mine, it's pretty common to run them from different configurations and sometimes operating systems to get the best performance.

While I'm not providing a guide on how to install and configure your own virtual rigs, this is going to vary depending on your needs and current config. If you're familiar with installing an operating system from scratch it's pretty easy to get started. You can also create an image of any current computer and convert it so that it can then be opened using VMware Viewer or Workstation. Don't forget to backup all your important stuff before you do anything crazy!

Space Wars. A Guide for the Ultimate Hard Drive Configuration!

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:46:19 -0400

Written by: Clint Hackleman, Producer

Blizzard & Machinima Law Part 4 - Using Private Servers

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:57:49 -0400

Written by: Clint Hackleman, Producer

Blizzard & Machinima Law – Part 1 – Does Blizzard Hate you? What is Commercialization?

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:26:08 -0400

Blizzard & Machinima Law - Part 1 - Does Blizzard Hate you? What is Commercialization?
Blizzard & Machinima Law - Part 2 - Machinima Fair-use Guide
Blizzard & Machinima Law - Part 3 - Legal Ways to use Great Music

Written by: Clint Hackleman, Producer. Myndflame Multimedia Advanced, Inc.
Title image courtesy of Andrew Secunda. Placed into World of Warcraft by D.W. Hackleman

Blizzard & Machinima Law – Part 3 – Legal Ways to use Great Music

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Mon, 04 May 2009 09:20:11 -0400

Written by: Clint Hackleman, Producer

Blizzard & Machinima Law – Part 2 – Machinima Fair-Use Guide

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:00:39 -0400

Blizzard & Machinima Law - Part 1 - Does Blizzard Hate you? What is Commercialization?
Blizzard & Machinima Law - Part 2 - Machinima Fair-use Guide
Blizzard & Machinima Law - Part 3 - Legal Ways to use Great Music

Written by: Clint Hackleman, Producer. Myndflame Multimedia Advanced, Inc.
Title image created by Clint Hackleman

Permitted Content for Blogs

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:09:44 -0500

It's probably a good time to outline what you should be discussing here on Myndflame. Our visitors come here to read more about Machinima, our community, the publishers, their techniques, software, or other topics that are directly related to Machinima, primarily using World of Warcraft.

With that in mind, you're welcome to create blogs to discuss and share your productions, knowledge, or involvement in Machinima or in this community. Good examples of topics are sound and audio production, music composition, script writing, video editing, voice acting, capturing game footage, software guides and tutorials, hardware recommendations or discussion, movie reviews, and general project discussion, planning and distribution.

Other topics and discussions should remain on the forums. Some exceptions will be made for unique content but must be approved by me first. If you have any question as to whether your content is appropriate please contact me directly. Off topic blog entries that are not relevant may be removed.

Video Publishing Guide

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:20:40 -0500

Myndflame Video Publishing Guide

For Gameriot 2.0

Written by: Myndflame

So you want to add your videos to the Myndflame Machinima portal? First let's check to make sure you meet the requirements.

PUBLISHER REQUIREMENTS:

1. You have at least one video that is made in-part or entirely using footage from a video game, multiple games, objects, images, textures, or models extracted from video games or is a tutorial, documentary, or information guide of some sort with direct relevance to Machinima creation or production.

2. The videos you publish are your own or you have permission from the original author to publish it on their behalf.

3. You understand that by publishing your videos here, you non-exclusively authorize the public distribution of your videos through myndflame.gameriot.com and the embedded player which may be syndicated to our affiliated websites and partners, community websites, and considered for spotlights, features, recommendations, discussion, and promotion.

Limitation of Content:

We encourage the creation of story line videos but do not currently require that your videos absolutely must contain a story. Player vs Player (PvP), Player vs Environment (PvE), or general gameplay videos may be published at your own risk with the understanding that at any time we may remove or relocate these types of videos for any reason.

YOU KNOW HOW TO NAVIGATE THE WEBSITE, RIGHT?

This guide assumes you've read the "Getting Started Guide" and are familiar with the basic layout and functionality of this website. If you have not read this guide, please do so before continuing!

MANAGING VIDEOS:

Any logged in member may view, publish, and edit their videos by navigating to the "My Stuff - Videos" section by clicking the "myVideos" button in the Member Toolbar. You can also use the "Post Stuff" button to quickly get to the "Add a Video" page which is located on the main navigation bar throughout the website.

MY STUFF - VIDEOS:

The My Stuff page has 4 main sections.

Section Overview:

Upload or Embed a Video

Posted

Unpublished

Responses

1. Upload or Embed a Video.

This page is used to add new videos by uploading or embedding them.

Form Overview:

Video Title

Tag it - Use tags to help felter your videos. Examples of tags are "World of Warcraft"

Description

Upload Video

Embed Video

Legal Stuff

Enable Video

Privacy Options

Community Portal

Video Title:

Keep your titles short & sweet. Don't add unrelated information or descriptions in your title.

Tag it:

Use tags to help filter your videos. Examples of tags are "World of Warcraft", "Comedy", "Drama", "Holiday", the name of the producer or production alias, the series name or recognizable character names, or other identifiable words that directly associate with the current video.

Description:

Use the description to describe the current video, list the cast, or include any information that you feel is important for the audience to understand its content or subjects.

Upload Video:

Locate the video on your hard drive in any common video format and open it. You can begin uploading your files at any time. If this is a rather long process you may wish to start the upload first and then fill in the other information while you wait. For the shortest processing time and highest quality, upload your videos in Flash Live Video format (VP6-E FLV). The recommended settings are:

FLASH (VP6-E FLV) RECOMMENDED SETTINGS:

Rate Control Mode: VBR

Maximum Video Bitrate: 668-872

Video Size: 720x405 (16:9 Aspect Ratio) or 720x540 (4:3 Aspect Ratio)

Audio Output Settings: Stereo MP3 Audio Codec at 44100Hz with a Bitrate of128kBit-192kBit

Exceeding the Recommended Settings:

Exceeding a combined Video and Audio Bitrate of 1000kBit may cause buffering problems for your viewers. These settings have been thoroughly evaluated to provide the absolute best viewing experience to file size ratio. Even Myndflame's in-house productions do not exceed these standards. Do so at your own risk. I recommend using On2 Technologies Flix Standard for converting your files from divx, wmv, mov, avi, mp4, or other standard video formats.

For those less familiar with video encoding:

If you don't have much experience with efficient video encoding or don't have access to an FLV encoder you can upload your videos in most standard video formats and they will be converted automatically for you. However, as with any compressed file being compressed again, the quality of the conversion may vary. You can use any file size up to 500MB and the progress of your upload can be monitored in real time.

Successfully Uploading:

When the file is completed, a message below the progress bar will confirm that it has been successfully uploaded.

Embed from Another Site:

You can also embed your videos from many other websites and add your existing library. However, I highly encourage you to upload your videos to our site, as many promotions, features, and other special events may not include externally hosted videos. To successfully embed your video, copy the entire embed tag provided by any of the Sites Supported into this field.

List of Sites Supported:

http://embed.break.com/

http://flash.revver.com/

http://static.filefront.com/

http://video.google.com/

http://www.brightcove.tv/

http://www.dailymotion.com/

http://www.gameriot.com/

http://www.heavy.com/

http://www.liveleak.com/

http://www.megavideo.com/

http://www.noobflicks.com/

http://www.veoh.com/

http://www.vimeo.com/

http://www.youtube.com/

Legal Stuff:

Please mark these select boxes appropriately so viewers can choose when, who, and where they should view your content.

Enable Video:

Sometimes you may not want your video to appear immediately to the public. With this feature you can set an advance date and time that your video will be published on. This was developed specifically so publishers could schedule their videos to be released on pre-determined dates even if they're at work, out of town, or unavailable. I recommended releasing your videos on the hour so that it synchronizes with the site's caching system. Otherwise, it may take 10-30 minutes for it to fully appear across the modules on the website. By default, video's are set to publish immediately, though caching throughout the entire site may take up to 30 minutes.

How to enter a time:

Either of these would result in a video being published on January 15^th, 2008 at 9PM. You can change this value by editing your video later.

Examples of appropriate time and date formatting:

Jan 15, 2008 21:00

01-15-2008 9:00 pm

Privacy Options:

You may want to make your videos viewable only for your friends or privately. This will allow you test that your video is uploaded, encoded, and displayed properly on the site. If you are uploading a test file, you may want to include "Test" or something in the Video Title so that when you upload the public version the site URL for your video is not already taken by the test file.

Community Portal:

By default, this is set to "Machinima". Unless you intend to publish your video outside of the Myndflame Community, there is no need to change this setting. Videos published outside of the Machinima Community Portal will not show up anywhere in our community and are effectively out of our jurisdiction. If you inappropriately or accidently publish your video to the wrong community the moderators may remove it.

2. Posted

This section will show all of your currently published videos and some information about them. You can use the "Sort" option to change the order you view them. Use this section to get an overview of how the community is responded to your videos or edit the details of your videos.

3. Unpublished

When a video has been submitted, it is temporarily moved to this section while it is being encoded and prepared for publication on the website. Any videos with the "Enable Video" option date set to a time in the future will also be available here for you to preview and edit. Once videos are finished processing, they're moved to the "Posted" section. If a video has been in processing for more than 2 hours and still hasn't published, contact support.

4. Responses

This section displays all the latest responses to all of your videos. This was developed so publishers can view and reply to their comments quickly and easily.

WHERE ARE MY VIDEOS DISPLAYED?

If you're wondering how people will find your videos, here's a list of places that public videos are published on the website.

Your "Posted" tab in the "My Stuff - Videos" section.

The "Videos" tab in your member profile.

The Feed

The Front Page "Mixed View" available in "List View" and "Extended View"

In blogs or forum posts where you can shamelessly promote yourself!

WHAT OTHER PLACES CAN MY VIDEOS BE DISPLAYED?

There are a few featured locations for videos, each with an achievement which is displayed in the video listing in most places is displayed (including your profile).

Featured Locations from Least to Greatest

The Front Page Video Player

New videos are displayed in the Front Page Video Player to be quickly screened and viewed.

The Spotlight

Reserved for affiliated publishers and members whose videos are of great quality and popularity.

Â
The Rotator

A gigantic banner reserved for affiliated publishers, site exclusive content, contests, or an extraordinary achievement or contribution by a member.

Â
The Gold Mine

Videos in the Gold Mine are given a special tab in the video section that have been honored with significant popularity, quality, views, awards or other combined achievements that deserve to be recognized for years to come.

WHAT ARE MYNDFLAME AFFILIATED PUBLISHERS?

Becoming a Myndflame Affiliate entitles a member or team of members access to special promotions, features, and opportunities. If invited, members may opt-into this program given that they meet certain criteria. Myndflame actively promotes our Affiliates and maintains a relationship with many game developers, marketing agencies, and gaming communities to bring advancement to Machinima. These opportunities are exclusive to Myndflame and our partners. For more information, see the full documentation here.

Gameriot 2.0 Getting Started Guide

no.spam@gameriot.com (Myndflame) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:05:20 -0500

Gameriot's Getting Started Guide
By Myndflame

In this guide, we'll go over the site's main features and front page and explain some of the core functionality. If you're new to publishing or participating on the site, this is a good place to start!

The Front Page:
The Front Page is a quick way to see an overview of all the content on the website.It is composed of the following content:

Summary of Content:

Community Selection Box
Registration Button
E-Mail & Password Login Box
Member Info - Settings, Help, Logout
Member's Toolbar
Main Navigation Bar
Headline Rotator
Spotlight Section
"View All" Content Module
Front Page Video Player
"Most Popular" Module
"The Forum Feed" Module
"The Feed" Module
Talkback Toolbar
What are Likes?
What is the Gold Mine?

Community Selection Box:
Gameriot is composed of multiple communities. Your membership allows you to access any of these communities and participate, make friends, or contribute and earn XP however you like - just make sure you follow their rules and post relevant content. Each community has its own forum and administrators who have absolute control over what stays and goes. A few global moderators also lurch around and may moderate content that is generally inappropriate.

To select the current community, use the Community Selection Box. This should bring up a menu with all the available communities. It doesn't take long to figure out that the "World of Warcraft" community discusses WoW and the "Starcraft 2" community is for well.. Starcraft 2. You can bounce between communities any time you choose, and the Selection Box will always be located in one convenient locations... in AFRICA!

A list of the Current Communities:
World of Warcraft - Wowriot -World of Warcraft Discussion and News
Starcraft 2 - Starfeeder - Starcraft 2 Discussion and News
Diablo 3 - HellForge - Diablo 3 Discussion and News
Warhammer Online - Chaos Moon - Warhammer Online Discussion and News
Machinima - Myndflame - Machinima Movies, Discussion and News
Guitar Hero - Guitar Hero news - Guitar Hero Discussion and News

Registration Button
This is not a complex process, we do not require two forms of ID or your passport. Simply create a username, put in your REAL e-mail address and the password you want to use. Â EVERYONE should register! Being a member grants you access to lots of cool stuff, so don't be a tool and just do it.

E-Mail & Password Login Box
If you're already a member, login here. Use the e-mail you registered with and your password to login. Start clicking "Likes", send messages to other members, add Friends, Subscribe to your favorite stuff, or post comments. If you're here to publish, explore the Member Toolbar to start your blog, share videos, files, and images.

Member Info - Settings, Help, Logout
If you need to change your member info, click "settings". For general site help click "help". And to logout so your little brother doesn't delete your stuff, click "logout". You can also click your Member Name to go directly to your profile and gaze upon your massive achievements.

Member's Toolbar
This is where you get famous. There are no restrictions or requirements. Any member can blog, post videos, files, images, and add friends. Regardless of the community you're browsing, this toolbar will guide you to your currently published documents or to create new ones. Don't expect your brownie recipe to get featured though. Unless it's really good.

Main Navigation Bar
Quickly jump through the current community's content. The buttons in order are, "Home", "Blogs", "Videos", "Downloads", and "Forums". A "Post Stuff" button is also here to give you quick access to post your content. The Main Navigation is consistent across all the communities.

Headline Rotator
Big pretty images that help you find important stuff are placed here. If you post something awesome, it might be featured in the Rotator, giving you extra e-fame that can be witnessed in your profile!

Spotlight Section
The spotlight is similar to the rotator, meaning any member may have their content featured in the spotlight for extra win. You can see the current Spotlights or previous ones by navigating through the pages using the arrows.

"View All" Content Module
This module doesn't discriminate - unless you or the community administrator says so. Sort by "Likes" and set your personal viewing options. Change to "List View" to simplify the content or "Extended View" to see previews. You'll see this module throughout the site, generally with advanced filtering options specific to the section you're in. So get familiar with it.

Front Page Video Player
Want to preview the latest videos on the website? Click on a video in the list to play it or "View Full" to go to its main page. If you're trying to find a specific video, search for it!

"Most Popular" Module
If you're looking for the latest popular content, this module will help. Sort by "Blogs, Videos, or Forums".

"The Forum Feed" Module
If you're interested in finding new forum content, view all the latest posts or sort by "Friends" to only view posts by those in your Friends list.

"The Feed" Module
To see the latest activities by all members on the current community, The Feed is available. This module is pretty much everywhere on the site so you'll always have an overview of what's hot and where it's at. Â

Talkback Toolbar
"Talkback" is an easy way for member's to communicate with each other. You'll receive instant notifications when there are replies to your content or comments, messages sent to you, stuff posted by your friends, or content added to a blog you're subscribed - all without a page refresh! Preview Talkback items and navigate to them using this toolbar. No matter where you are or what page you're browsing, you'll always have access to the Talkback Toolbar.

What are Likes?
Each member can raise the value of stuff they appreciate by clicking the "Like" button associated with it. Each member can only "Like" something one time, but don't be frugal! If you view something that you enjoy, "Likes" communicate to other member's that it's worth taking a look at. When viewing a member's profile, you can also see "Stuff You Both Like".Â

What is the Gold Mine?
Community moderators use the Gold Mine to highlight significant content similar to featuring it in the Rotator and Spotlight. However, the Gold Mine may be used to honor content in retrospect. For instance, a video or blog that becomes extremely popular in the community may go in the Gold Mine to make it easier to find later.