Arcaxon:
Hi all, seems as usual my estimates are always way too optimistic, this time though it is mostly due to a lot of things out of my control but despite that I still shouldn't give estimates if they are not assured since I am quite bad at them.
The good news is, that this is truly the final stretch. I have finished the longest map animation in this section so the rest should be easier in that aspect, I still have a lot of work ahead but if it goes steady then hopefully it sh...
2023-09-30 05:37:33 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone! You get Fredrik this week for the progress update. Poor Arcaxon caught cold this week, but he was able to make significant progress. He's currently finishing up the most complicated map covering the most recent war, describing PAPI moving in on the Imperium's territory. We'll be meeting this week to discuss the remaining animations for accuracy.
I also wanted to take a moment to acknowledge some of the things that elongated the production process to such an extreme degree;...
2023-09-18 03:37:40 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone, progress on the FINAL section is going well with 21% of it completed already on a somewhat turbulent week. if I keep the pace I do believe the video might be finished BEFORE September ends! 🎉
Today is my Birthday (September 10th), and I'm still disappointed I couldn't finish the video before my birthday, I really do owe all of you an apology for the botched time estimate I gave for the production of these animations & the slowness of my work.
...
2023-09-11 20:16:38 +0000 UTC
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Hello everyone, sorry for the long amount of time between the updates.
I've recovered fairly well from my tooth surgery but I'll be honest it really threw me out of the tempo and has made it harder for me to work.
Thankfully though we're at the end and I have now finished all other sections except for 27; the last one!
All sections combined before 27 are about 35Minutes and a half of animation, most of which use at least 2 canvases each!
This last section though, 27, i...
2023-09-02 04:12:52 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone! Fredrik this week. Arc is coming out of his convalescence after his surgery which went well! The pain is manageable for him with pain meds and he's healing quickly, though he says he misses solid foods. He says he's feeling well enough now to return to work tomorrow after I pressured him to listen to his fatigue and rest.
Before the surgery, however, he was able to get some work done for his diagrams of the (admittedly truncated account for the) Battle of B-R5RB. He had to...
2023-08-21 23:02:17 +0000 UTC
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Heyo everyone it's me once more, I'm still on track with my work! I've finished Section 23 and 24! (Fred misheard what I said last update, by the time of the update I was done with section 23 but not 24 as 24 was a massive section but I was almost done with one of the animations within it which is what lead to the miscommunication!)
So with all that I only need to complete section 18...
2023-08-13 01:29:12 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone, it's Arcaxon for another weekly update!
So this week was a bit ruff for me but I still managed to basically get 2 sections done this one week! (as is my current pace) Section 16 is over 75% complete while Section 26(Yup skipped a few sections there) is completed! I also worked on Section 18 doing 20% of it.
I'm kinda disappointed that I couldn't do more this week,...
2023-08-07 22:38:59 +0000 UTC
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This is what a timeline looks like with nearly all relevant assets.
The vast bulk of my work is now completed; all that remains is a polish pass where I'll add the characteristic zooms, tweak audio slightly, highlight quoted text, and add text where necessary, including credits. Each orange line you see is some small thing that needs to be done during this polish pass, but compared to the work I've done so far, this is trivial and even meditative. This is the only part of the process du...
2023-07-29 04:46:06 +0000 UTC
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Since I'm mostly just waiting on Arcaxon, my graphic designer, we agreed that it would make sense for him to provide progress updates, as well! He's a huge sweetheart and has really been put through the wringer lately, but is still working hard to get his work done so we can get this video out to you all.
He'll be providing gifs as we go to show what he's been up to, so be aware in case you want to avoid spoilers.
Arcaxon:
"Hey Everyone, this is Arcaxon, the...
2023-07-22 06:41:01 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone! I lost the last few days of work last week due to a trip I had to take a bit earlier than I thought I would, so I'll be finishing up the principle editing this week. However, the rate at which I complete editing is mostly immaterial now, as my graphic designer, Arcaxon, will need longer to finish the animation than I will need to finish the editing; unfortunately, personal matters out of his control have arrested his progress for the moment, but they should hopefully be resolved...
2023-07-11 04:31:28 +0000 UTC
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Progress continues at an uneven pace.
Above, you can see that four hours of the video have been plotted out with source images and video. Each orange line is a marker denoting a spot that needs some bit of minor work done to it, such as highlighting text for quotes, each a small amount of work. Altogether, resolving those should only be another week of work.
Though I've missed my goal of having the principle editing done by the end of June, I'm making far more rapid progress as I ...
2023-07-01 03:04:12 +0000 UTC
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The past week has been profoundly frustrating. On multiple occasions, sites that I've referenced in the script seem to have succumbed to link rot in between writing the script and editing, and I spent hours at a time searching for them in archives. Given that, I'm completed about half an hour less of editing than I wanted this week. However, I'm now entering a part of the script that should be much easier, so I've decided that I'm going to work over the weekend to catch up. I believe ...
2023-06-24 04:47:27 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone! Apologies for the lack of progress update last week; there were some family matters that got in the way (please forgive my vagueness, it's been a bit difficult and has taken the wind out of my sails) but I'm back! Progress has been a bit plodding but steady. The animations are, as we suspected might happen, taking a bit longer than we would have liked; Arc and I have taken to working together in a Discord call throughout the day, and there are frequent hiccups as we have to go r...
2023-06-17 03:33:22 +0000 UTC
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With the music completed and the narration cut together and timed to it, my graphic designer Arcaxon and I continue to trudge through the trenches. Given that we tend to work at around the same time as each other throughout the day, we've taken to sitting in a Discord call as we do so that he can ask questions of me whenever he needs and can have me quickly review the work he's doing incrementally.
Over the past week, we've sat down and blocked out all of the animation he needs to compl...
2023-06-03 01:07:57 +0000 UTC
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This week, I can finally give you all a precise runtime for the new Down the Rabbit Hole: 5 hours, 55 minutes, and 14 seconds.
This week has not been a terribly productive one for me personally for Down the Rabbit Hole; other responsibilities unexpectedly tied me up, including some state automotive bureaucracy and family engagements before I move away permanently to another continent.
As fate would have it, however, Arc, our graphic designer, has ...
2023-05-27 05:09:18 +0000 UTC
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The first hour and forty minutes is now edited. Progress this week was slower than I would like due to being a bit unwell, but given that I still need some graphic work from Arc, my current pace is still at the rate that I need to get it done as soon as possible.
In the timeline image, you'll see a lot of new markers compared to last time. There are three things being noted with them: first are the sections where Arc's animations will go, and this is easier and less acc...
2023-05-20 01:37:28 +0000 UTC
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Hello! Big update today.
I was planning on posting last week's update a bit later so I could share the feedback from early viewers, but I figured that it would be better to just wait for this weeks' update and give you all a large one.
First off: the first hour of the new video has now been edited. Progress is going quickly right now, since I had already gathered most of the visual material I intended to use, but even considering this, progress has been relatively...
2023-05-13 03:02:14 +0000 UTC
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Apologies for the late progress update, I was nursing what I believe to be an illness I contracted from my trip a couple of weekends ago and an extremely busy weekend. I'm feeling better now, but my lethargy during the week left me mostly in bed or on the couch and relatively useless.
Arcaxon managed to complete a rather large piece of animation which I'm reticent to share, since I want to maintain the surprise of it for the final video.
This Friday, I'll hopefully have something ...
2023-05-01 05:23:10 +0000 UTC
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The past week I myself haven't been able to accomplish much for the new video due to a road trip I took with Brian of Regular Car Reviews to help him film a couple of episodes, as well as desperately catching up on sundry things that have fallen by the wayside due to things that had to be completed before the trip, such as taxes.
However, this hasn't slowed down the release of the video at all, as Arcaxon, my graphic designer, needed a bit of time anyways to catch up. His work for this ...
2023-04-21 23:56:18 +0000 UTC
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Hello! The major thing that was accomplished this week was that all of the narration has been edited, and when combined with the scant time given over for other audio, placed end to end, it runs for 5 hours, 41 minutes, and 26 seconds, which means that the video will be about 6 hours long, in line with my estimates. I had thought that it might be a bit longer than my initial estimates, but it looks like I was just about spot-on in the first place.
Arcaxon, my graphic designer, surprised...
2023-04-15 04:23:01 +0000 UTC
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Today, I come to you with a small animation from Arc, who's making quick progress on the animations (now that most of the placeholder assets have been replaced) while I work on editing. As a little teaser, here's a work-in-progress gif of an animation that Arc is doing to describe the merchant races in the first days of EVE. The station has necessarily been sized down to about 1/3 of what it otherwise should be, but we believe that the scale still comes across okay with this zoom-out:
<...
2023-04-08 06:43:01 +0000 UTC
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Boring progress update this time, no major milestones, all of us are just plugging away at our respective responsibilities. The largest milestone is that Ryan is finishing up the last of the music; late in the script's production, a couple of extra sections got added, and so no music had been written for them until now. Fortunately, work has been swift, and the tracks are nearly completed.
See you all next week!
2023-04-01 04:28:42 +0000 UTC
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A somewhat flashy update for you all this time: Arcaxon has just completed the maps that we will use to chart the movements and locations of players in New Eden! Rather than mapping out all 5,201 stars, we chose instead to use the constellations, which still created a daunting task for him, but it will be immensely helpful and will be used frequently throughout the entire video. Given that it's an asset that will be used frequently, it was worthwhile to take the time to do it right. Stellaris...
2023-03-25 03:28:47 +0000 UTC
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All narration has now been recorded.
I intended to have it done Monday, but I had an urgent family matter to attend to. Still, I was able to go a bit longer than usual tonight and get it all done. Looking at what I've recorded, it looks like the video will be just over six hours long, as estimated. I'll have a much more precise estimate as soon as I've edited the remaining narration together and Ryan has made his music.
I'm relieved to have this done; I'm much more used to doing o...
2023-03-18 05:32:16 +0000 UTC
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My estimations from last week have held: I only have one final recording session remaining before the narration will be complete. I have a few more edits to the script to make before I can record it, and so I'll use my time this weekend to do that so that I can have it completed for Monday's final recording session.
Arcaxon has spent much of this week updating the map that he's made of EVE's game world to make it fit better visually with the tone of the game, and it's l...
2023-03-11 03:43:52 +0000 UTC
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A couple days late, but progress continues as ever.
The most exciting thing to report is that Ryan has begun sending the parts to Naomi, our returning saxophonist, for the soundtrack.
Right now, I've recorded just over the first four hours of narration, and I just need to make some adjustments to the script before I can continue recording. Usually, my recording days are Monday/Wednesday/Friday, but this week, Monday will be set aside to make the necessary script changes for Wednes...
2023-03-06 04:49:57 +0000 UTC
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A rather dull progress update; work continues, much as it has the previous weeks. However, what I can share is how the work pipeline has changed, for those who are interested.
Previously, I've recorded all of my narration in a single day in order to maintain a similar tone throughout the video; however, after years of practice, that's no longer necessary, and I've found that the narration sounds better if I record it more spread out, as has become necessary for this video.
I've di...
2023-02-25 04:29:49 +0000 UTC
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The first approximately three hours of narration have now been recorded, though I've decided that I want to re-record section 2 since I'm generally unhappy with how it sounds and I have to keep re-recording parts of it anyways. (At one point, I mudmouthed the word "world" in much the same way that Tommy Wiseau does) I've found that I can record between 30 minutes and an hour of narration in a day before my voice gives out over the course of about four hours; for Down the Rabbit Hole, I projec...
2023-02-18 05:56:16 +0000 UTC
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We've hit a milestone with the first two hours of the narration now recorded! About half of this narration has been edited together, which is a bit of a tedious process, but progress is steady. Some of the sections are only partially edited since I realized I had to re-record a couple of lines, but that's been little impediment.
The reason I'm editing them before I'm finished recording is so that Ryan and Arc can start timing their music and animations respectively to t...
2023-02-11 05:43:07 +0000 UTC
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Short update this week.
Work was admittedly a bit slow this week, but I did manage to have a meeting with ProGodLegend, who went over one of the last sections of the video with me talking about the most recent war, of which there hasn't been much coverage. I've begun work adding a little bit to the script to detail an event that both Asher and PGL believed to be fascinating: a masterfully-executed trap foiled by a bug in the game code. He's also taking the time to look at the section ab...
2023-02-04 06:54:46 +0000 UTC
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