I’m pretty into conlanging, which is basically making up languages. There are tons of different approaches and ways people can go about it, but like probably most (or at least a plurality of) other conlangers, I generally go for something as naturalistic as possible. I’m also into linguistics so it serves as kind of an interesting way to explore different features and grasp them better, as well as just an excuse to do more research to find out more about something.
Oooh. Have you heard of that indigenous language that is the only one in the world that doesn’t have a grammar structure that requires words? So it can be spoken, or whistled with the same functionality. It’s stupid difficult to learn, but the thought of carrying entire conversations via whistling is incredibly intriguing to me.
I heard about it in an college anthropology class, and its been something I’ve marveled at occasionally ever since.
Have you listened to this? It’s available on Audible and I found it mind blowing.
The Story of Human Language by John McWhorter, The Great Courses
Whoo! I’ve been spending the last year getting into Esperanto, and been slowly getting obsessed with how language works
I’m unsure if this counts as a “hobby”, but I absolutely love the Mass Effect series so much that I enjoy just watching it as much as replaying. I love it so much that I’ve been recording my gameplay and editing it into a sort of Mass Effect “show”.
I could just watch the handful of streamers out there who play it, but few people play as FemShep and I’ve never seen anyone play a Shepard looking anything like mine let alone take the “right” choices and actions, so this Mass Effect “show” gives me a way to watch my Shepard’s story as often as I’d like.
The whole project has evolved into learning how to polish things in Premiere Pro and Photoshop, so I’m self-teaching as I go.
Out of curiosity, how do you select what scenes to keep and what to cut? Are you freecamming things like combat?
Now you raise this, I kinda wanna try it with the Dragon Age trilogy
For Mass Effect, I’ve played the game enough times that I have my “ideal” story in mind each time I play. I’ve had to re-record playthroughs multiple times so that I can maximize the dialogue options and include everything that I’d like. For example, when it comes to the ME1 Virmire survivor, I decided that I liked a mix of the Paragon and Renegade responses when choosing to leave them, so I recorded with the Paragon response and then replayed that mission so I could do the Renegade response. Then, I edited the two so that it looks like a single cohesive scene.
When it comes to the combat, I’ve had to re-re-re-record some missions to ensure that I 1) didn’t die and 2) didn’t seem to be getting my butt kicked too much that it became distracting. For example, in ME2, I’ve had to record Jack’s mission a nauseating six times because I either got killed or there were just too many instances where I nearly died, even on Casual. I’ve also had to re-record missions because my first attempt had the “camera work” a little too janky and too hard to follow when just watching. I’ve since learned to play with a cinematic eye so that the combat is a lot smoother.
In the combat, I’ve also tried to minimize the “game” aspects wherever possible which meant editing around bringing up the different menus like changing weapons or directing powers/attacks. I’ve also spent a lot of time adding in some crossfades to speed up movement where applicable. For example, in ME1, running across the Citadel once can give a nice view for the first time, but there’s no reason to just watch my Shepard running back and forth across missions, so I’ll fade leaving Chora’s Den and running back to C-Sec or other places.
Overall, it’s been a pretty fun project. I’ve had to teach myself how to play with an eye for cinematography and how I’ll eventually edit things. It’s also been interesting to notice super niche things about how the games are put together because I’m observing scenes down to single frames when I’m editing.
I’ve been doing my recording off the original Mass Effect games since I’ll likely play Legendary Edition far more often than I’ll revisit the originals, so I’ll have my “show” for some added nostalgia as well. Right now, I’m in the middle of editing a full “re-record” of ME2’s combat to reduce some of the jankiness while also going through a first run of ME3. I’ll need multiple runs off what I loaded from ME2 to get all the right armor and weapons and play/record with reduced pop-ups for leveling up, etc.
If I can make a recommendation, I’d definitely recommend doing everything on PC if possible. I’ve done mine off Xbox which kept the files limited to 1 hour at a time, which has helped keep things easier to find, but it’s been heart breaking to get through a mission and then realize the recording stopped 10 minutes before I’d finished.
Mate, this is fantastic help! Thank you so much!
Final little question: have you got any examples of your work I can look at? Some of this is a little hard to envision, and I’d like to get a feel for how you’re going about it.
Looks like I’ve got a project to start in any case!
Here’s an “episode” I loaded earlier this year. It’s still a little rough in parts, so it’s not really a public link and I was just sending to a couple friends to get some thoughts. This is generally what I’m going for when it comes to making it into a Mass Effect “show”: https://youtu.be/TndVqwA4NBI
When I’ve finally got it polished, the plan is to put all the episodes on YouTube, but hopefully this will give you some inspiration for your own project. Cheers!
Fantastic mate, I really appreciate it! Definitely got a better sense of how you’re going about it now!
Is this a thing? Editing games playthroughs into tv shows? I’d love to watch this for games I’m interested in but would never play.
Also, FemShep is the only Shepard I’ve played (I only played the series the first time when the Legendary edition came out) and I can’t image it any other way.
Oh man you’ve never heard of “machinima”? May I introduce you to Red vs Blue. It’s going to be a fun day for you
I know Reddit had/has a GamesTheMovie subreddit. I believe this is exactly what you want, though I’ve never actually watched any of them.
Tbh I find the whole “the movie” thing to be too lengthy, would love hour-long “episodes” of various games as an alternative.
Might have to give making them a shot…
Saw this idea and tbh now I wanna do something similar, but for Dragon Age.
I guess I need to learn how to actually edit this shit together though, I used to livestream, so that kind of editing was never really necessary
I have a very dangerous and lame hobby.
I forage for food. It’s a lot of fun trying new things. But it’s also really dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing.
If you want to do this hobby safely start small. Identify plants in your own yard/park exct. I use an app called plant net, Wikipedia, duckduckgo, Google Earth, foraging sites, to find out where to go. Knowledge of when they grow and what condions they like helps.
Being 100% sure on what you are going to eat is a life and death choice. When in doubt, throw it out.
Feel free to ask me anything if you have questions.
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Making custom home automations with Home Assistant. Sure, a lot of it is unnecessary but it sure is a lot of fun.
I haven’t done much with it in a while, but I’m also not giving up on it, so I suppose it’s still valid lol.
I collect LaserDiscs
I got started with the format around 2010, and it was super neat to delve into this old, but strangely good, format. I found that most players and films were super cheap, and as a poor family with really no ability to move to HD yet, the SD format picture was clearly worse than DVD, but not so much so that it was unwatchable or anything.
I spent a lot of time collecting new films, looking at players, etc. etc., but I took a break while in college. Turns out that in that time everything went wild, and now the format is expensive to collect for. So much so that I’ve basically stopped at the moment. It’s still a super neat format though, and I’m not about to offload all my kit just yet.
For anyone looking for info about the format, I’d recommend Techmoan on YouTube. Matt does a lot of interesting tech videos, and the handful he’s done on LaserDisc are quite good.
I’m learning to play the talkbox. It’s tons of fun and it’s totally a valid way to make up for the fact that I can’t sing my way out of a paper bag, lol.
Coffee brewing! It’s not super niche (a lot of people enjoy coffee), but I’d love to get to the point where I could host free coffee for friends and be able to make just about anything one could ask for and make it well. It’d be nice to share it back just out of the love of doing it.
Quake Champions is an awesome PC shooter that almost no one has heard about. Has a small pro-league and everything
Never have played QC, but I am a fan of ut and quakelike afps!
Oh wow, it’s still going? I really thought the game got shut down! It’s a cool shooter, definitely fun to mess around in.
Painting miniatures, I’m new at this (less than one year) but I not so bad at this, and recently started to play street fighter 6 and really sucks buts is fun
Old Time Radio (OTR) - amazing to learn history by listening to the radio programs of the day
How would one get into this? Any websites you recommend?
On an app called Podcast Addict there are old time radio channels available. They even do old comedy and sci-fi shows.
I like falling asleep to them at night.
A great way to get started IMO is to listing to Command Performance. During WWII, all of Hollywood came together to put together radio shows that were recorded and send to radio stations throughout the world. They were a combination of Hollywood stars, comics and great musicians coming together - here’s a link to over 200 episodes - https://archive.org/details/command-performance-1948-12-25-xx-christmas-1948
YouTube has a ton of them, as does Archive.org. Old Gameshows from the 50’s are a great time too.
You bet your life with Groucho Marx is great - https://archive.org/details/you-bet-your-life-1952-02-20-160-secret-word-heart
I build various random number generators, and then use them in elaborate practical jokes.
Solid-state particle detectors, zener avalanche noise, etc. Many failed designs (or failed… So far).
Sometimes I put them in sinister looking cases. Sometimes behind an API. Sometimes I design a coffee maker that brews coffee in a quantum superposition of caffeination states.
I’m working on one that is a Lemmy bot. It won’t be done particularly soon though.
I’ve been getting into primitive technology lately. It all started when I looked at my back yard and thought hey, if we call it red clay, then I should be able to make it into pottery. I take dirt from my yard, levigate it, add grog and wedge, hand-build pots, and fire them in my fire pit. Been making sharpening stones from river rocks. Crafting replicas of Roman machines. That sort of thing.
That is an epic niche. Primitive skills are awesome. Have you ever read The Toaster Project? It’s a story about the attempt to build a ‘simple’ modern appliance starting with raw materials and only using primitive methods. Very insightful look into how complex our built environment really is.
Yessss. There’s somethig incredibly satisfying about understanding the raw materials around us.
Okay, this sounds cool as hell. Please post photos of this.
are there other people doing it?
would be cool to see what you do and the various techniques!
Brickfilming! I make films with Lego using stop motion animation. Takes a lot of patience and my perfectionism is my worst enemy, but it’s super rewarding, and there’s a really cool community online around it. And yes, my profile picture is from my most recent Brickfilm!
I really love this thread. It’s great to see people sharing things they enjoy!
