Every once in a while I discover an artist that I can tell is really special. Merlin is one such artist that I discovered only a couple of months ago when she showed up in my Twitter feed.
Before her, I only really got icons and occasionally full-body commissions of Egee because that is what most artists advertise. But Merlin has done a bunch of full scenes so I decided to commission one.
Random Note: ...
2021-05-12 19:04:59 +0000 UTC
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I crashed pretty bad in traffic last Sunday evening. The bike fared much better than I did.
The only the mechanically "wrong" with the bike is that the gear shift lever is bent pretty bad but it's still usable and I managed to ride it home.
The accident was caused by various things, most of them on my part. It was my first ride of the season and I had been on the road for hours at that po...
2021-05-04 17:30:59 +0000 UTC
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tl;dr I posted a picture of my elementaryOS 6 desktop, some people trash talked me, and I decided to kick it up a notch with this meme-y video that showcases the Egee wallpaper they apparently didn't like.
I've had a silly "Vaporwave" video idea on the back burner since the ZorinOS stream but I haven't been able to muster to energy to make it. Until I saw this egregious comment on a post I made on the elementaryOS subreddit:
2021-04-28 04:11:46 +0000 UTC
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This blog post is coming a few days late because I wasn't sure how to start it or how I felt about this video.
It ended up being pretty low on the effort scale because my work has been super intense the past couple weeks and Tumbleweed snapshots age out weekly so I had to wrap this one up quick. There's not even a thumbnail! 😝
I still enjoy making these videos and I want to dial in my style. I feel the voice-over is spot on but the script is a little week and the graphs just ar...
2021-04-24 03:28:06 +0000 UTC
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WOW this video was a lot of work to make. I underestimated this one on so many levels, it's just crazy. I seriously thought this video would be a piece of cake to make 😅
Out of all the videos I've produced, the earliest that is most similar to this one is probably this one from 2015. It even has some live action stuff too! I still remember filming that intro scene. It took a ...
2021-04-10 02:33:37 +0000 UTC
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Sometimes I think back to my early videos and wonder when things changed from being fun to feeling like an obligation.
"Egee" comes from EG which originally meant Ethereal Gaming (cringe) but now Egee just means Egee as in the OC.
The earliest videos on the channel were mostly me futzing around with hardware stuff and an occasional gaming review or "How-To" style of video. I made them because ...
2021-04-08 02:14:36 +0000 UTC
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Ages ago, I had a YouTube channel & website called BriansProjects. Both are long gone now, but the name lived on as BriansAdventures.
I've been thinking a lot about YouTube and the channels I have, and I simply don't have the time to spend on tons of different projects.
...
2021-03-26 18:29:55 +0000 UTC
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From my previous post:
So when I saw an email from Packt, I assumed they were asking me to author a course on Panda3D or something.
Well...
When I agreed to do that Packt course on Qt years ago, it was a video course and I was expected to do literally everything. They provided a loose outline of topics and I basically had to fill in the rest.
<...
2021-03-23 00:17:26 +0000 UTC
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It's been a minute since I shared an unsolicited marketing email. And while this email isn't a marketing email, it is still quite interesting!
A little context - I made a gamedev video on Panda3D a last year to see if game dev videos would perform well (spoiler: they don't). Development videos are quite tedious to make so I don't generally make them anymore.
Fast Forward to today and I get this rea...
2021-03-12 01:33:35 +0000 UTC
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This might just be my first post here of a video about my other channel.
I was kind of on the fence about making this one but decided to just do it at the last minute.
I've never really talked about my dyslexia but it was kind of unavoidable in a video like this. Folks say I have a good speaking voice so why not use it by reading something? Well...
I actually had a lot of fun making this video. Struggling with reading isn't great but people aren't listening to me re...
2021-03-02 05:10:23 +0000 UTC
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I've been practicing on the track from the previous post and I think I'm really improving!
I'm only using a single trigger pedal for this one because the other is just so inconsistent and it wrecks the flow of the song when it double-triggers. I think having just the kick sounds alright here.
I recorded this with two mics on a single track. My SM57 was pointed at my guitar amp and the 58a was p...
2021-02-26 18:23:59 +0000 UTC
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Is playing guitar & drums at the same time a thing? It's easier than I thought it would be and it's more than enough to help get those creative juices flowing for songwriting.
I'm struggling in this clip but I'll get the hang of it. I tap my feet and jive to the beat of whatever I'm listening to anyway so this is kind of an extension of that.
The biggest problem is that the foot triggers for my DD-75 are super inconsistent. The pedal for the kick works pretty good but the othe...
2021-02-24 18:45:33 +0000 UTC
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Sometimes, the best thing to do is to take a break and move on to something else, even if only temporarily.
I think I'm pretty good at making Distro Delves episodes so, rather than agonizing over trying to make that history video, I'll try out some of the techniques with a Distro Delves episode!
This video was really enjoyable to make. I stayed up late mastering it because I was so pleased with how it w...
2021-02-15 15:24:34 +0000 UTC
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I'm still working on the history video I talked about in the previous post. Ugh.
The problem remains the footage. The voice-over is admittedly not my best work but it'll do. I just need the footage to go along with what I'm talking about.
I was thinking about what I like in these sorts of videos and, I do like the desktop or "hands-on" portion of the videos. Bu...
2021-02-13 01:50:09 +0000 UTC
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I currently have two videos in flight waiting for footage before I can finish producing them. The script & voice-over are done but I just can't seem to put together footage for them.
One video in particular is about the Mate desktop. More specifically, a snippet of the history behind it.
So basically, rather than diving into all of the features Mate has, I want to talk about the history behind the DE and what makes it tick.
But... what kind footage do I pair that with? I...
2021-02-10 00:04:47 +0000 UTC
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It's been months since I did anything with the Subaru but I made huge progress this weekend!
The garage has been a temporary storage area for about a year after we inherited a bunch of IRL family stuff. It finally got cleaned out enough that I was able to move the Subaru into the garage.
The poor car leaks super bad, and I don't mean the engine. Practically all of the weather seals are shot. It's going to be a lot of work to replace the seals but I finally can now that it's in the...
2021-02-08 16:00:04 +0000 UTC
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As a follow up to this post, I wanted to share my first demo of 2021. It's just a guitar track but it takes me ages to mix demos, especially with other instruments, and I wanted to let you guys hear my new equipment.
The tuning is Open C# (C#AC#FG#C#) but I don't like it because it makes the strings too slack and notes ring when I don't want them to. The chord progression is mostly lifted from another song ca...
2021-02-06 15:00:04 +0000 UTC
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The last time I ever seriously produced music was way back in 2011. I'd love to re-record some songs I wrote back then this year as a "10th year anniversary" thing.
Sadly, I'll have to do it from memory because all those songs were lost to an old Google account I accidentally deleted. I didn't realize the songs were there until a year after I deleted it so, there's no hope of getting them back.
The early 2010s was a really weird time in my life but I mostly stopped playing guitar ...
2021-02-05 23:55:41 +0000 UTC
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Earlier this week, I teased on Twitter that I was moving. I didn't really expect people to be so interested in it but I'm glad to talk about it with you all about it!
As an aside, I'd like to do more life posts like this one. This is less about Egee and more about the IRL stuff behind Egee and everything that goes into making videos and whatever else.
So a couple years ago, I m...
2021-01-29 01:16:20 +0000 UTC
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I wanted to thank you all and share with you this:
You are responsible for this! I bought this guitar (as will as an amplifier that hasn't arrived yet) with Patron funds that I invested.
I'm planning a video in February to talk about YouTube & money so this post is a little "behind-the-scenes" teaser for that.
Patreon "pays" me each month into an escrow account and I have t...
2021-01-22 17:32:09 +0000 UTC
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I've needed to make an introduction video for a long time. But dang, these videos are really hard to make!
2021-01-16 02:55:04 +0000 UTC
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I didn't get much done for the game last weekend, but I did create this adorable 8bit-ish Egee!
I don't actually know what qualifies as "8bit". Like, the sprite is 32x32 but it uses the NES color palette so...? Either way, it's a NES-inspired Egee sprite!
I started out in Aseprite trying to re-create Scrooge McDuck for DuckTales on NES. I couldn't figure out how to include his top hat so I removed it and replaced it with some hair floof.
2021-01-12 01:55:54 +0000 UTC
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Ok, so it's not exactly a Linux video...
But it kind of embodies the direction I'm moving with the channel. The pace is slower & more informative. I'm also trying to use more images and just talk about things.
A lot of people enjoy just listening to my videos so I'm trying to speak slower and clearer and explain things a bit more. I'm also using chill-er music and I even remade the outro.
I've picked up a lot of new followers (mostly furries, l...
2021-01-08 03:44:29 +0000 UTC
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I started from scratch with a new repository and rewrote the prototype using GLES2 because I wanted to see what the differences are and if they impact this type of game.
I added a better jump puzzle and win/lose conditions. Right now the game just pauses because making anything GUI-related (including title screens) is a huge pain.
Now that I have the basics down, I need to create my own tileset. I'm calling this game "Mallard Tails" so I'm going to re-create Scrooge McD...
2021-01-03 00:31:40 +0000 UTC
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2020 was a strange and opportune time for the channel. I've already talked enough about how Distro Delves was more or less a failure in terms of channel growth, but I haven't talked about the other stuff I've been doing.
I've been listening and trying to understand the feedback I get from videos and, most importantly, live streams.
I've been unable to fathom the idea that people tune in because they are interested in Egee. So I decided to dip into an avenue of Yo...
2021-01-01 21:23:54 +0000 UTC
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One of the most beautiful things about Godot is just how easy the darn thing is to use - I completed the final bits in less than an hour today!
In this alpha/prototype we have a simple 2D platformer with tilemaps & sprites, collisions, and camera. The last thing I need to do is add win/lose, and a GUI + pause.
Once I complete the MVP I am going to throw it all away and build it again from scratch! I want to get proficient at building a basic game so that I don't have to look u...
2020-12-28 03:45:43 +0000 UTC
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So in the video I said that the Delvie Awards may become a live show but after producing the video, they will absolutely becoming a live show.
Honestly I'm not a huge fan of how this video came out. I thought I had a good idea for it in my head but as I produced it I had to ask myself "is footage from episodes really that interesting to watch?".
But I mean... what else would I put in there? If I'm talking about OpenMandriva, why wouldn't I put footage fr...
2020-12-24 13:35:05 +0000 UTC
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When I was in the midst of Distro Delves, I could tell I was beginning to cultivate an audience of toxic people. Not that everyone or even most people in the Linux community are toxic but let's be honest, the community has a problem.
I suspected that by doubling down on Linux content it would be more difficult for non-Linux content to gain traction. And by judging my latest non-Linu...
2020-12-21 14:27:40 +0000 UTC
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I was going to write a big long post about Distro Delves and how it has impacted the channel but I'm going to save my thoughts for another post where I'll talk about the analytics of my latest videos (non Distro Delves content).
I'm really interested to hear the feedback on this video. I think a lot of people will be bummed but I think even more won't really care that much (foreshadowing the upcoming post).
I don't usually have regrets about things I commit to but I do regret focu...
2020-12-21 02:39:10 +0000 UTC
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DuckTales on NES was one of the first games I remember playing and it's still the game that comes to mind when I think a great retro platformer.
Is DuckTales perfect? No. But it's damn close! And it's very simple which makes it the ideal candidate to make a prototype from.
My goal is to remake the Amazon level from DuckTales in Godot. I figure if I can do that, I can definitely create an original game for Egee.
2020-12-20 22:05:56 +0000 UTC
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