This was started 10 months ago,but I stopped working on it when I left for Paris. Now that I'm back, it was time to finish it. I've always had this passion for space, like many of you, so I finally took the opportunity and made a video, since Space Engine has all the tools you need. I remember 7 years ago, watching the "Infinity Pre-Alpha Tech Demo" and being in complete awe that you could fly into a planet without loading screens...but then that was post-phoned to make room for Infinity Battlescape... A lot of research was done to see how I can get the best quality out of the engine ( v.0.9.8.0 ), so I had to edit the config files, some planets too etc. Then put everything into AE and composed it.
Warning: Story of my life :p
I've been reflecting a lot lately on what I would like to do in this world, and what it needs from me, like last year, and the year before last year. The question is always: should I study something else and broaden my knowledge, get some degrees and maybe have more security from that point of view or...keep doing what I like, study from what I find on the internet on the subject but maybe being more unstable? I still haven't found an answer.
Like in previous phases of my life, I tend to focus a lot on things that I consider important but that people around me think they are not. Trackmania has become one of those things. It has become a mania that has taken already too much time of my life. I wanted to make 1-2 videos max, just to test it, like this Space Engine one...but then the videos started getting traction, people liked them, and that made me want to improve and try different things. So I ended up making 26 of them, not counting the ones I still have to finish. In order to improve, I learned more about video editing, cinematography, photography, compositing etc. but then I also stopped drawing, stopped building RC planes, stopped sailing, stopped focusing on school just to focus on this. My whole life is on the computer now and it's not like I live in a place that is polluted, gray and cold. It's a paradise and I feel like I'm not taking advantage of it.
After my last experience I realized that what satisfies me is not the goals that I achieve but the things that I learn. I learned nothing about filmmaking there, but learned a lot about work and people. This is something I think you learn better with experience rather than with studying. (depends on what you are studying of course) So this is an important factor that is keeping me back from trying my best to go to university. I will probably learn many new things there but are they worth the sacrifice of the things that I would have learned from not going there? I know it's a 1st world problem, and that on the absolute scale again, it's just stupid, but this is what I've been wondering these days...I'm a human too after all.
Anyway...I usually avoid writing these things here because each one of you has his own problems and don't need to listen to mine as well...but maybe some of you might find them interesting, I don't know.
Speaking of things that I think the world is missing...one of them is "quality", in general. It's a world that wants quantity. It's better having 5 bottles of dirty water than 1 with clean water. Better having 1 broken videogame every year, than having a good one every 5 years. Still better than nothing of course. But people unintentionally agree with that, by buying the dirty water or the broken videogames, so nobody cares about finding a way to sell 5 bottles of clean water or 1 good videogame every year, because the cost would simply not be worth it. (The water one is just a metaphor, I'm not comparing it to videogames...just to be clear) So there is a crisis of values, where garbage is being sold like gold to the masses and real gold is appreciated by too few.
In conclusion, under these circumstances, my content will not go anywhere. I'm not saying my videos are gold, but neither garbage...what I'm trying to say is, quality can't feed me, unfortunately. It takes too much time and care to do a good, solid video, for only too few people to understand the difference from a fastly, badly made one. And usually it's the fastly, badly made one that is more profitable. Just compare Eye Candy with River, a video that took 4 days with recycled content from older videos and crappy effects vs one that took me several months and has a lot of thought and research behind for the story and the effects. Should I find a balance in-between? Well, I don't do it for profit, but I will have to one day, If I want to survive.
Space Engine - Rising BeyondDaniXks2017-06-01 | Alright. Space Engine now.
This was started 10 months ago,but I stopped working on it when I left for Paris. Now that I'm back, it was time to finish it. I've always had this passion for space, like many of you, so I finally took the opportunity and made a video, since Space Engine has all the tools you need. I remember 7 years ago, watching the "Infinity Pre-Alpha Tech Demo" and being in complete awe that you could fly into a planet without loading screens...but then that was post-phoned to make room for Infinity Battlescape... A lot of research was done to see how I can get the best quality out of the engine ( v.0.9.8.0 ), so I had to edit the config files, some planets too etc. Then put everything into AE and composed it.
Warning: Story of my life :p
I've been reflecting a lot lately on what I would like to do in this world, and what it needs from me, like last year, and the year before last year. The question is always: should I study something else and broaden my knowledge, get some degrees and maybe have more security from that point of view or...keep doing what I like, study from what I find on the internet on the subject but maybe being more unstable? I still haven't found an answer.
Like in previous phases of my life, I tend to focus a lot on things that I consider important but that people around me think they are not. Trackmania has become one of those things. It has become a mania that has taken already too much time of my life. I wanted to make 1-2 videos max, just to test it, like this Space Engine one...but then the videos started getting traction, people liked them, and that made me want to improve and try different things. So I ended up making 26 of them, not counting the ones I still have to finish. In order to improve, I learned more about video editing, cinematography, photography, compositing etc. but then I also stopped drawing, stopped building RC planes, stopped sailing, stopped focusing on school just to focus on this. My whole life is on the computer now and it's not like I live in a place that is polluted, gray and cold. It's a paradise and I feel like I'm not taking advantage of it.
After my last experience I realized that what satisfies me is not the goals that I achieve but the things that I learn. I learned nothing about filmmaking there, but learned a lot about work and people. This is something I think you learn better with experience rather than with studying. (depends on what you are studying of course) So this is an important factor that is keeping me back from trying my best to go to university. I will probably learn many new things there but are they worth the sacrifice of the things that I would have learned from not going there? I know it's a 1st world problem, and that on the absolute scale again, it's just stupid, but this is what I've been wondering these days...I'm a human too after all.
Anyway...I usually avoid writing these things here because each one of you has his own problems and don't need to listen to mine as well...but maybe some of you might find them interesting, I don't know.
Speaking of things that I think the world is missing...one of them is "quality", in general. It's a world that wants quantity. It's better having 5 bottles of dirty water than 1 with clean water. Better having 1 broken videogame every year, than having a good one every 5 years. Still better than nothing of course. But people unintentionally agree with that, by buying the dirty water or the broken videogames, so nobody cares about finding a way to sell 5 bottles of clean water or 1 good videogame every year, because the cost would simply not be worth it. (The water one is just a metaphor, I'm not comparing it to videogames...just to be clear) So there is a crisis of values, where garbage is being sold like gold to the masses and real gold is appreciated by too few.
In conclusion, under these circumstances, my content will not go anywhere. I'm not saying my videos are gold, but neither garbage...what I'm trying to say is, quality can't feed me, unfortunately. It takes too much time and care to do a good, solid video, for only too few people to understand the difference from a fastly, badly made one. And usually it's the fastly, badly made one that is more profitable. Just compare Eye Candy with River, a video that took 4 days with recycled content from older videos and crappy effects vs one that took me several months and has a lot of thought and research behind for the story and the effects. Should I find a balance in-between? Well, I don't do it for profit, but I will have to one day, If I want to survive.
Music: Akira - The Blithering Heights Water Drips - Auroras Rhythm of Mankind & Nature - Two Invisible Worlds
My facebook page: facebook.com/Danixks-634764303223321369 - Dodeca | The path of simultaneous least and greatest resistanceDaniXks2023-11-01 | Let's remember what this channel was made for.
One of the earliest inspirations for Dodeca was a video-game from 2014 that a friend of mine had recommended to me at the time. It was a philosophical puzzle game that ended up becoming one of my favourite video-games: The Talos Principle. I am mentioning this now because tomorrow the sequel is coming out.
(Don't read the following paragraph if you want no Dodeca spoilers at all, in case I write a book)
In Dodeca, Tritos (which means "Third" in Greek, to emphasize the third-person nature of the character) is essentially a robot that by some random chance wakes up in a future deserted world. The beginning is quite traumatic for Tritos, for reasons I would not like to spoil here, but it pushes him to want to understand why things are the way they are. Tritos knows he can't survive on his own but at the same time enjoys "playing God" without thinking too much about the consequences. But, as the story unfolds, he is reminded not only of his own vulnerability but of the one of everything and everyone else too. The more he learns about the past, the bigger the sense of responsibility. And yet, he can't decide if he really wants to try and wake up the rest of the robots.
Now, I am curious to see if The Talos Principle 2 explores that direction in its story too. I doubt it but...it's a possibility.
In the meantime, here is "369", a video with some shots from Dodeca, both old and new. I also uploaded "377" on my Instagram account more than a month ago if you want to check that out too. It's the same kind of video but with a different soundtrack. instagram.com/reel/CxGJ1iaO0HF
But what is the path of simultaneous least and greatest resistance then? You can interpret it in many ways but one of the intentions was to make a metaphor that attempts to describe life and its duality. Not only in an existential, philosophical sense, about the balance between ease and challenge, comfort and growth but also in a more physical and biological sense, from abiogenesis to life as a system that in its effort to temporarily decrease its own entropy contributes to the increase in entropy of the broader environment.
Speaking of favourite video-games I have never mentioned, in 2020 I played Outer Wilds. It's something special. I recommend it.
See you.Blender - Resume Fluid Bake (Free Add-on)DaniXks2023-08-12 | Hi, this is basically a script I had written to force Blender to resume baking a simulation from a specific frame, even after crashing, when there is no “Resume” button.
I decided to release it for free. Use at your own risk though as it makes Blender think it had just paused baking at the frame you selected. I don’t know what would happen if any of your settings were different when resuming.
Music: 203, 128, 104240 - Desire & DecadenceDaniXks2023-04-01 | This one, 240, was started on 12.7.2020. It was only long around 1 minute back then, no drums, just the intro. I worked on it for around an hour that morning and then left it untouched for more than a year, till 2.11.2021 when I decided to develop it some more. Then left it untouched again till March 2022 when I cleaned it up a bit. And here I am uploading it in April 2023.
You are listening to my past, to something I've listened to countless times, yet it's completely new to you right now. Isn't that interesting?219 - Dodeca | An Unfinished CryDaniXks2022-10-01 | This is 219. Version 96. "An Unfinished Cry" sounds appropriate.
This was for the ending of Dodeca. Of course, no-one can imagine what I imagine when I listen to it. Even if I tell you what happens during every second in it, it wouldn't be the same as seeing it the way I do. It's all baked into my mind, either waiting to be made or forgotten. It can make me feel isolated in the entire universe. I'm the only one with the story, the only one who can make it. If I fail, the whole thing fails, and the entire world for all of eternity doesn't get to see it.
It's painful to release its music like this but...right now, I feel like I have to do it to try and detach myself from its weight.
While working on this music, I was constantly reminded that I wasn't good enough for it. It always sounded like it could be improved. It always sounded unfinished. I didn't want it to be "perfect", just good enough. But it simply never sounded good enough. I wanted to use this piece as a vehicle to challenge my limits, to express what it means to be human, a music about life, death, everything. So it had to be the best...and the worst. An ill-defined, impossible task. Now...it's been more than 2 years since I started it and I don't think I will ever be satisfied with it. How could a soundtrack even begin to be about all of existence? But I wanted to try anyway. I guess my works are like my "children". They can speak into the infinite void for me. But of course, the void is the void, completely negligent, never caring about what me or anyone else thinks, if we anthropomorphize it.
Therefore...to wake up next to a beautiful pair of loving eyes trying to read my mind, isn't that the greatest feeling in the world, sometimes I wonder?
What a nightmare.71 - Unrequited LoveDaniXks2022-09-04 | As if words could fix anything...DaniXks - GhostDaniXks2022-06-14 | Ghost.
Warning: Actual spoilers (actual pun).
--
It's about a car racing with itself. It's the title. It's what racing games use so that you can race yourself. A metaphor for the entire channel. A full circle, from ~Driving through a Dream~ to that.
Did you notice that the Crystallize video from 9 years ago starts the same way as River? The empty icy environment, the location the 12 car begins (same as the 7 one), the crash at the end. That video was the beginning of Ghost. I tried to blend those 2 together in the "Checkpoint" video to see if anyone would notice. Did you notice how the car kept reviving itself to live in "Amnesia" a little more (notice the trailer soundtrack) and create a new track, or essentially...a new video? How it kept deceiving itself that it was doing something meaningful, yet the track always returned to emptiness anyway...like "reality"? Or how everything the Ghost itself was doing was pre-calculated and the 12 car sometimes remembered that...which is what is happening right now? The channel banner changing. The "Checkpoint" video. "The title says it all" the thumbnail for that 100K video. The map in the tutorial. The shots in Eye Candy. I left clues everywhere. I created something like a mini-meta-universe. Did anyone ever see it's depth?
Ghost was me. The numbers: 12 being my "real" self, and 7, 8 and eventually 9 the dark side that kept growing. In the end, they would have added up to 21 to symbolize the "opposite" of 12. I was planning to make one video each year. Then the videos took longer to make and I missed the train. But the concept was this. When the number would have turned to 21, the car would have removed the whole track with the start line. The start line is important because it meant that they would have never been able to respawn again. Then 12 would have separated, stayed with the Ghost a little, and then they would have both crossed the remaining finish line, turned to gray and disintegrated one last time together, to end "their" suffering forever. And yes, it's just one car doing it with itself. That would have symbolized the end of my Trackmania videos. It's so poetic. Who would have thought, right? "The beginning of the end." I had written under River. "Dodeca - A new beginning", the next project.
And I remember everything. How I wanted people to understand and how I kept getting slapped by reality, by hundreds of clueless opinions, as if understanding was something impossible. I tried telling you that you only saw the tip of the iceberg. No-one ever understood what they were missing. Despite the correlations, it wasn't a story about Trackmania specifically. I was getting praise for things I didn't care about and couldn't say it because it would have resulted in alienation and disappointment. Too many people were missing the point. They stayed at the surface level and missed the ocean underneath. While it felt good that I was an ocean, it ended up being detrimental...so what was the point?
I know, deep inside, that no-one is really at fault here. Maybe I expected too much. Maybe you did. Maybe it was all doomed from the start.
Do you now see what these car stories contained? A huge riddle that no-one really solved. At least you enjoyed them while you could...and we had some "fun".
I don't think I need to make Ghost now. And maybe I waited too long to finally explain it.
In any case, thank you for being a part of this journey. In a sense it made life more interesting. In another, it made it more challenging. But it's ok. You might have waited years to watch every video...but people might binge all these together in the future. I might have created something quite unique here, but maybe not in the way you thought unique.
Now imagine having written dozens of texts like these, then coming here and having a measly 5K character limit!! Bye. And...thanks for playing with me.
Here is a link: youtube.com/watch?v=qwZ2mczHnII333 - Time to UnlearnDaniXks2022-06-12 | ...338 - The stories that were never toldDaniXks2022-04-04 | Read the 000 description first. This is the continuation:
So was it better when people were living in their blissful ignorance but the engine kind of worked? No idea. But was it really working anyway?
I didn't make videos because I really enjoyed making them. I made them because I'm a human that needed to go my own way. Did you ever understand what I was trying to tell you all these years? It doesn't seem to me like anyone stopped to think why I made ~Driving through a Dream~ 9 years ago. Maybe it was my fault for being naive and having any hope that anybody would understand. As if a car rising on top of a cliff with the words "I'm lonely, please come and play." was not obvious enough. It's ok to be stupid, I am stupid, we all make mistakes, but did you ever try to understand the world and other people? Because that is how you "love". So when some "ignorant, confident, dumb, idiot f*ck" comes to you with an opinion that is not even his, you can "love" him (or her for that matter) because you can understand where he's coming from, even when they don't accept you. That is someone who doesn't know how to love and would rather hurt you than to deal with his fears. He's completely lost but it's good to have your limits too. Now imagine the consequences of making those humans feel "free". Would society collapse? Or would it work like a clock? Any examples coming to mind?
You know what is harder than picking a side and believing in something? Not comprehending. That, is pure fear. Anything can happen, you have no control. Infinite possibilities, you can't even begin to predict the future. Chaos. You are powerless. You can't protect yourself. We are that primitive. To the "idiot f*ck": What if you start dealing with that instead of giving in to delusions and escapism? How did you miss the whole point? How do you think you can start to build anything if you haven't dealt with that first? When was the last time you replied "I don't know." knowing that it would have made you appear stupid and hurt your ego? Or the last time you decided to disprove your views, to suffer? You see, this is the problem. Nobody should suffer. But isn't life inherently suffering? There are no shortcuts. Not everyone survives. If you aren't suffering then you are basically not growing, not learning, and, thus, not alive. Through suffering we can learn to appreciate one another. But when you have a world full of people who avoid it by drinking, watching countless seasons of series made to make them feel "better", then scrolling through TikTok all day or playing repetitive video games to pass time, you have a world that doesn't live, and that doesn't know how to love. And that is regardless of age, sex or whatever the f*ck your location is on this f*cking ball. Deal with the fear of the unknown alone and then you might start to see why humans do anything. Then you might want to read a book because you are curious. Then you might start to see what's behind my videos. Then you might feel happy simply for having a beating heart. If you want to grow, you have to create your own "Dodeca", there are NO SHORTCUTS. I can only be an example, like many other people, but not your saviour. Accepting that you have been living in a sleeping state is more difficult the older you are. It will be painful to realize that you have wasted the limited time that you have. But that's ok. You can always keep living in the lie. You can do absolutely anything. Again, there is no "truth". That means there is no lie either, right? Don't let DaniXks tell you how to live your life.
And that's when it all falls apart again. The ultimate contradiction.
Now that we have a common ground we can start to see the boat we are all in. Now we can see why we try to comprehend the universe and ourselves...to make our suffering more bearable. We look for things that give us comfort. If they don't exist we invent them. We create chairs, beds, houses, infrastructures, music, art, science, love. We make the stories that we want to hear and we keep living as if they were true. Whether that will help us or spoil us is up to us.
We will never experience what it means to be each other. We will never be given the true comprehension we all need. It hurts. Embracing the subjectivity of it all is hard. We are not gods. We have no clue what we or anything is doing here. But we have a consciousness capable of abstract thought, capable of creating complex models that can translate "reality" to us. To be more accurate, it creates it for us. We can use that to make our lives better or to burn everything up, or both, or neither. Knowledge can be a double edged sword. Ignorance also. We all have our limits. But let's not forget the chaos we are coming from. Because someday we will cease to exist and we will not want to have lived in vain.
Live your life, think freely...please love each other. For the stories that were never told. :)000 - The DescriptionDaniXks2022-04-01 | Hi, how was your day contributing to the pyramid scheme we call life? Are you having fun being part of this system? Did you get your daily validations? Your rejections?
I started this channel 10 years ago, around the time I realized nobody really knows anything, no matter who they are and what they have done, and that I had to find meaning in life all by myself. But I wanted to live it, to try to enjoy it, do things I liked, and hoped that one day things might change. Nothing changed. I simply became more aware of how deep the rabbit hole goes. Even the things that I enjoyed, I never really enjoyed, they were just a temporary, comforting substitute. I will never have what I really want. No-one will. It doesn't even exist, not in the way we need it. That is hard to accept. "Oh but you must keep having hope because if you stop trying that's when you will never get it!" But it doesn't work like that. You can hope and try all you want but you can't get what does not exist. Do you really believe that what you are doing is actually increasing your chances of getting what you want? Do you even know what you want? Do you think it's a car? A family? Or is it happiness? How do you even define happiness? Is it the feeling of belonging, of acceptance? A feeling of safety? Or is it just a superficial smile? Or a passionate hug? Does it matter who is the one giving it to you? Or...maybe it's just the lack of sadness...but then that means we also need to define sadness. What if your existence means suffering, does death equal happiness? Or is it that you want to believe that it is happiness you are looking for? What if you wanting things is the way your brain keeps you fighting for life? Do you even have free will? These are all deep questions I see very few people asking themselves. This disappoints me deeply. Then usually people answer them like they know the "truth". This disappoints me also.
No-one is really "sane". Everyone can be a point of reference for others, but we are all wandering points in space with questionable stability. I've reached a point where I question everything. I see fear controlling people. And the question becomes, should you help or let them suffer?
At one point you wonder whether saying "I like you" or "F*ck you" to someone makes any difference. Because it was never what you did or said that really mattered but how the other person interprets it, according to their perception of the world. Whether you say something calmly or by shouting it till you cry, the words might stay the same, but how people will interpret them will vary significantly. I started noticing this when I was little and it made me feel angry. Now, that I see the power someone can have if they manage to control these interpretations, and how they can manipulate or deceive others, it makes me sad. The things I observe are not necessarily observed by other people. Like the fact that something like alcohol is so ubiquitous, really says a lot about humanity's state (or how so many people want to escape being aware), or how actors, so people who fake people, are idolized, or how the marketing for a product has more influence on it's success than the product itself. (Sorry for not analyzing but I only have a 5K character limit here.) If what you've been reading till now only translates to "I'm better than everyone else!" in your mind, then that is exactly my point. You cared more about the way I said it than what I meant. Because somewhere deep inside you, you already wanted to believe that I thought that I was better than everyone else.
This video is a statement. It's not about a particular problem. It's an allegory of the way this universe seems to work, a reality that we take for granted and is hard to accept. A black video can't be watched, the same way an object that doesn't interact with it's environment is virtually non-existent, dead. The next closer thing I could have done is making no video at all, but how would you have known it existed then?
What a joke. But isn't life the joke? And it will keep repeating itself to you till you overlook it's madness. It's not that I'm trying to remove Chesterton's fence for the sake of chaos or to make you feel sad. I'm giving you the point of view of someone who is living in a world full of people who don't even want to see the fences. And they will call you crazy if you don't conform, as they did hundreds of years ago. That hasn't changed. If they could, they would burn you at the stake. You will feel understood if you have lived this. Even if we have the internet now and people can get "educated" for free, the way they think stays the same. The internet reflects the chaos well. You can find contradictions for everything and people believe what they want anyway. Because accepting that there is no truth is harder. I get it. Chaos = death = scary.
Can we comprehend the universe that created the same brains we are using to comprehend it? To be continued under 338.337DaniXks2022-03-01 | ...335 - Dune soundtrack in FL StudioDaniXks2021-12-04 | I watched Dune the other day. The sound experience had an impact on me (literally) so I decided to try and make something that had that modern Hans Zimmer sound with what I know so far. I wanted to get close but not identical, just to have fun, as If it's still one of Dune's soundtracks but from a parallel universe.330DaniXks2021-11-13 | ...328DaniXks2021-10-29 | ...327 - DodecaDaniXks2021-09-30 | ...The 100K Project - Just having FL Studio open in the background...DaniXks2021-08-10 | ...Trackmania - The 100K Project TrailerDaniXks2021-06-27 | The 100K Project is almost here. Subscribe to L4Bomb4 so you don't miss it: youtube.com/c/L4Bomb4
It's been almost 5 years since we started it and we are now at a point where we have everything we need to assemble a full video. But there is still a lot of work to do. Everything will probably be shown in a behind the scenes video later, If we can remember everything that happened during these 5 years...but for now, enjoy the trailer.
Cya ( 275 btw )The 100K Project - Just testing the car shadows...DaniXks2021-06-24 | ...305 - DodecaDaniXks2021-04-24 | ...200 - Dreamland | A piano piece inspired by DisenchantmentDaniXks2019-12-12 | Hi, just wanted to make something special for my 200th track. So, here is a piano piece reminiscent of Disenchantment's OST.
I finished watching Matt Groening's show on Netflix some days ago and decided to try and make a simple solo piano piece, similar to the one playing at the end credits of Episode 9 in Season 2 (or Part 2) for learning reasons. (created by Mark Mothersbaugh btw) Though, I didn't want it to sound like a complete rip-off so I tried a few things to make the melody go around. It also ended up being 3 times as long as the original...but my university friends still thought it was a rip-off :p Besides, I still don't have enough music theory knowledge to be able to accurately judge the pieces I make so...feedback is appreciated, as always, but in-depth constructive criticism even more.
Anyway, for my closer followers, first of all, thanks for 6.000 subscribers! If you are wondering what is happening with the other projects...well, the Trackmania 100k project is still in progress, Ghost is still in progress, Push on the Gas is still aging like fine wine and Dodeca...well, i'm mostly working on the story and the soundtrack (which is part of the reason why there are huge gaps in the numbers on the names of the tracks that i've released, #95, #127, #155, #200). I will try to keep up the pace though with at least one video every 1-2 months. 2020 might be a year full of surprises :p
Alright, this is it then! Cya in the comments
P.S. Do you like the blinking? :D heheArt Bird | 2019DaniXks2019-10-22 | Hi, this was made for my university and it includes works of many students and teachers. It is getting featured right now at the Athens International Airport inside the Art & Culture booth. Music download link: soundcloud.com/danixks/art-bird-155
It will be there till the end of 2019 but I wanted to upload it here too. It is also getting featured in an exhibition at the Cultural Centre of the National Bank (M.I.E.T.) till the end of October.
The theme was "The Journey". It doesn't really have a story but I guess you could imagine one.
It's my 1st 2D animation but...those who have been following this channel since a long time have probably realized that there is not much effort involved. To me, especially since the trailer of Dodeca, everything else feels like a step back now. But as I said in the comments, I need to relax my standards or this channel is going to get one video a year haha.
About the music, well, there was some effort there. I wanted it to sound simple and playful but also open for development for the climax. It's free for download this one, with a Creative Commons license (Attribution-ShareAlike).
That's it for now I guess! Cya :D
Music is 155.Dodeca | A new beginningDaniXks2019-08-07 | Hi guys, it's been a while again...8 months, a little more than usual... How are you?
During this period I would have liked uploading something but I figured I had to get this project going so I focused just on this. This video was made mostly to release some tension from myself that If I died, nobody would have seen anything from it.
This will most likely be the main project on the channel in the future. The big difference from the videos I've made till now, is that I will be making the music for this. That should give me more freedom. I can now shape the music to the story instead of having to do the opposite all the time. My only concern now is that I have to be good at that or the video and the soundtrack will never be...like one ( so romantic :p ).
So...in case you want to support this or me in general, I now have a bandcamp page where you can buy the music: danixks.bandcamp.com
In the end it isn't how much the music is worth, but more like If you want to help me economically.
Now, everything I upload on this channel has always been just the tip of the iceberg of what goes on behind the scenes. In these 8 months I was busy with university but there were times when I could have uploaded something and just didn't feel like it because the previous video was so serious. For me, these 8 months flew like nothing but in the meantime I was happy to realize that the urge I've always felt to upload something was just not there. I just felt satisfied as If I had proven myself and now it was just a matter of enjoying the little things in life.
Speaking of little things, making a feature length film by myself would probably take me 15 years and also drive me insane in the meantime. What I think I can do though, with Dodeca, is making several 10-20 minute episodes that when they are done, you should be able to assemble together and get that feature length film. Yes, that is an ambitious goal but...slowly...baby steps.
Even if this channel is small in the abyss of youtube, I think it has already helped me enough understanding myself. Sometimes, reading my older descriptions, after a long period of time, also helps me understand what I was going through and If what I was thinking was right or not. This channel really feels like a diary and you are part of it.
At this point I feel like I finally have the time to focus on what really matters to me. Problem is, what does really matter to me? I don't really know. That's why this project will be just that. A search for meaning. Now, what feels like true to me for a lot of things, is that slowing down is as important as going faster. But who does that nowadays? Maybe we are too focused on speeding things up to stop and wonder, what on earth is going on. Where is that spark that made you wonder and imagine things when you were a child? Why does it feel like I am the only one trying to keep in touch with that spark? Well, this is what this project might help me do.
And what I would like to make is something sincere and genuine. Not something that feels like that or something that is trying to deceive people into thinking that it's something meaningful, like a lot of "intellectual" movies these days. Another rant again but anyway, point is, even if it has to be shit, it's going to be shit. No sugar-coating, just pure storytime. Driven by pure intuition. Kind of a post-modern approach but of what I would consider the good type, not the "yeaah, this black dot at the center of the canvas represents the struggles of not being accepted by society...duude" type... And now I get to make the music and design as many things as I want, so it's some layers deeper than my previous videos, probably, I think...right?
By the way, this is still a very early preview. Everything that you see in this trailer is basically rough and unfinished but I figured things were in good enough shape to come to life.
Music is 127.DaniXks - LimboDaniXks2018-12-09 | Finally...Limbo, the 2nd episode of the trilogy.
It's been 4 years since this story came into my mind and it has never left me since. I had to make it, no matter the consequences. It took me 2,5 years to make the sequel but...still worth it. Now, one of the problems I faced with that was that the rate at which I was changing feelings about this video was faster than the rate at which I was making it. Which meant that I would often find myself wanting to change some parts of it, or even changing the story completely at some point. That's also why I don't recommend reading my comments under River as they will probably lead to more confusion. However, I do recommend watching River again If you want to understand the story better. Limbo might pose new questions but it should also answer those posed by River. And the Ghost trailer is also kind of outdated...keep that in mind If you go and check that too.
So...I've always wrote a lot of technical details under every video but I won't this time. Not because I want to hide them but because they are not important. These videos were made with expression first in mind and everything else just works for that goal. Everybody can read and learn about editing, visual effects, rules of composition, but who cares, honestly, If the story is bad. Which makes me think of how everything in this day and age is so formulaic, even things that probably aren't supposed to be, like music, movies, art in general. You really have to go and look for originality nowadays and unfortunately not everybody cares or has the time and patience for it. And then, it's a vicious cycle. The more attention mediocrity gets, the more people get used to it and the worse it becomes. I guess mainstream art is to blame for this.
But anyway, let's talk more about expression, I liked that more. I don't understand why but for me, this is a big deal. In this superficial and desensitized world, where not caring or worrying is becoming accepted as a sign of strength while being empathetic and doubtful is seen as a sign of weakness, where numbers and logic have become more important than living beings, where social constructs control everyone, directly or indirectly, and where individuality is in a crisis again, of course I want to escape and try to express myself. According to the world, this is a product of my weakness, a desperate need for expression. Well, I constantly blame myself for being too sensitive emotionally so maybe that's not too far off from the truth. The cars I animate are as weak as me, they don't use words, not even expressions, they just have a soul. The way they drive and their slight gestures with their wheels and lights, the camera movement and composition, the music and how all of these things are coordinated is all I have to work with to try and make them come alive.
But come on, how stupid can I be? I've met more people that can't connect with the videos than people that can. And their excuse is that they are just not interested in cars. But that's not the point, I use the cars to tell a story and channel my feelings into them. If they weren't cars, they could have been any other object. It could be that I'm just a horrible storyteller but I think a lack of empathy by these people is also a key factor. Now, yes, this story can be confusing and it's not a good example...but how come some people almost cried without even understanding it? I don't know, the difference just seems so big to me. It might be a bit of a stretch but it could have to do with what I was talking about earlier. In a society in which everything is becoming so formulaic, where children are taught how to be smart with logic but never get taught enough how to be emotionally intelligent and understand their feelings or others' feelings, of course they will find it hard to relate to anything when they grow up...except idiotic vines. And you know, If one can't control their feelings, he also, potentially, becomes easy to manipulate. Also, do people really need a religion to...ok, this went a little too far haha...sorry.
So, in a few words, everything starts to fall in line too well from that perspective and that is scary to me. Look, I would never consider myself someone that has the power to teach anybody anything. But If only people wanted to learn...they could find something useful in everything. Even If you don't agree with what I'm saying here, there are still things to be learnt from this description.
Anyway, here we are again...at the end. Thanks to all my subscribers for being here and having the patience to listen to me rambling again. I hope you all enjoy this video...and see you on the next one...or the previous one :) Also, here is a little surprise for those who are down here: soundcloud.com/danixks/escaping-limbo-95
Cya :DDaniXks uploads an update video in 2018 (Limbo and 100K Project included)DaniXks2018-09-20 | Aaaaand....it's been a while again!! Sorry for the bad mic.
So...I thought about trying something different this time. The video may be quite awkward in some parts but I didn't want to try and hide it. That would have ruined it's amateurish flavour haha.
Basically, this is what I've been working on over the past 2 years.
About those two unfinished videos...It makes me feel sad when I decide to stop working on a video because it feels like turning off life support on a new story. If I had infinite time, I would have really loved to finish them. But unfortunately, the rate at which I'm making videos nowadays and the amount of detail I want to put into them doesn't allow me to make all of them. So I have to be selective. But of course...If I ever run out of ideas, in the future, I might come back and finish those, who knows...
This year I also had to study to enter University. I was full of energy at first, didn't even touch my computer for 3 months. But I had to study my last 3 years of highschool, all over again, in just 8 months. So after those first 3 months, my efficiency started dropping. I started turning on the computer again. I felt too tired to work on videos, but I had just enough energy to start making music. I played the piano for 4 years when I was very young...but now I had even forgotten how to read the notes. So I started composing music on the computer by ear, lots of tutorials and trial and error. Listening to them now, it's interesting how the music reflects what I had been going through during that period.
Anyway...I'm happy to announce that the results of the exams got released a month ago and I finally made it into University! I will be going there in 1 week and I'm pretty curious about how it will be. I have no idea. The lessons seem interesting. I will become a design engineer If everything goes right and be able to design real cars. So i'm pretty excited about that :D But it will take 5 years. And 5 years is...5 years. What If I want to study for a master's degree later? That's 1-2 years more... I just hope I'm not too old by then haha.
That's all folks! :) Thanks for your comments under Rising Beyond, you made me consider opening the books again. If one day I make a car, I will maaaayyyybe let you drive it xD
Cya :DTrackmania - The Lagoon TrailerDaniXks2017-05-23 | And it's been a while agai...no, it's actually been just 1 month, woah! Here is the Lagoon Trailer, only in 4K and in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
So, I think this is one of the greatest things I worked on during my 6 month stay at Nadeo. I had a lot of freedom so I basically did it just like I do my other Trackmania videos: chose the music, reflected about what type of shots can work and when, possible transitions, animated the cameras, editing it etc. It didn't feel like "work". I was enjoying listening to the music and thinking about it when I was at home too. In fact, I had been listening to this music before even knowing about the Nadeo offer and I wanted to make an unofficial Lagoon trailer with it...and now it ended up being used on the official. haha, what is life...
It took around 1 month to complete, and I then decided to make little changes over time, like making a more appealing intro and re-rendering some shots again as the game was getting updated.
I would like to mention the 2 "Track building shots" at 0:42 and 0:46 which took a total of 72 renders being used at the same time and many animated masks in order to blend them together nicely. The 2nd one especially is one of the most complicated shots I've ever done in TrackMania.
Some of the maps in it were built just for some specific shots while the rest are from the Lagoon campaign (some modified or from an earlier version of it).
With the excuse of the trailers, I reported as many graphical bugs as possible, (like the water plane disappearing out of the building area when setting the "water reflections" on "High" or the clouds getting rendered behind the horizon) and suggested all the things I felt were missing in the mediatracker (like a motion blur control setting, the 16x Antialias value setting and the...ehm...400x one haha)
But anyway, I hope it's good enough to give the game a fresh start and for you to like it! :)
Cya :DDaniXks - Lit UpDaniXks2017-04-02 | And it's been a while again! Since I upload so rarely, ideas tend to stack up in my head and so this is a combination of some of those ideas. :p
I just hate letting them go and eventually forgetting them completely...
Today is also the 1st of April, which means it's finally a good moment for it...funnily my 1st video on the channel was also uploaded on the 1st of April. :)
This is the 1st time I tried to animate some cameras in a realistic way. And the aspect ratio totally helps making it look like some dude was recording with his phone. :p ( with digital zoom too haha ) It also has a little story. Since "Shadow / MCYC Productions" is doing a movie contest, I decided to add his cars into the story and submit the video!
It took a little less than 4 days to make. I focused a lot on the behaviour of the cars, the cameras and the cuts but didn't sit and polish it like I'm doing on Limbo. :p It still came out pretty good though!
Cya :DDaniXks - CheckpointDaniXks2016-12-13 | Dear people, It's been a while again...
So this is a montage of almost all of my older, published, Trackmania videos...just to celebrate a little.
That doesn't mean that I'm not working on more videos of course...but If I hadn't forced myself to upload on this date, it could have taken months for a new video to see the light on the channel. (ehm Limbo hehm)
So, where do I start... Things are a little unclear from my point of view but I surely can't complain...because I'm actually, pretty much, living some of the best time in my life right now thanks to this game. That's right guys, it payed back... :) Remember back in the description of "River", where I wondered If all the time I'm spending every day on these videos is wasted or invested? I was starting to have the feeling that I had just gone too far with River...too much time I could have invested differently... Instead, a few weeks later, what happens is "Mr. Trackmania" himself, Florent, sends me an email congratulating me especially for River and Eye-Candy...and offers me the opportunity to join their team, at Nadeo, for 6 months. The moment I read that email, it was the moment I realized that everything I had done till then, all these videos with countless hours of editing which I kept doing and doing for almost 6 years, they all served to making one of my biggest dreams come true. It's funny to think that I could have just never found out how to render a video, and now none of this would have happened. :O
When rendering the 1st render test, I can remember me wondering If Trackmania was enough to substitute professional 3D programs...because all I wanted was just to make little videos with cars doing crazy things and racing, that were fast to render, and were looking realistic enough...and Trackmania was just that, it had an editor for keyframed cameras, it could fastly render some realistic motion blur that made the game look 10x times better than on standard gameplay, I mean...that's all I needed.
And here I am now in Paris working with those who made this game, I still can't believe it. Like, who needs a birthday present after this lol.
Of course, you are part of this as well...all your amazing support on each one of the videos is what helped them getting noticed! So thank you....thank you so much. I never expected this little channel to change my life, but damn, this is awesome!!! :D You are awesome!!!! :)
Cya :DMicrosoft Flight Simulator 2004 - LETS DRIFT IT!DaniXks2016-07-20 | It's been 12 years since this game was released! :D I've been playing the Microsoft Flight Simulator games since the age of 6 lol xd
So, I decided to finally make a video with it...when I found some old recordings from 2012 hahaha Till 2:13, without the text, camera shake etc, it's one of the original clips. I was actually listening to that music while piloting and changing cameras in sync with it xD If I remember correctly, it was recorded on my old AMD Athlon 64 3700+, with an ATI Radeon HD 4850 and 2GB of DDR ram...on a 1360 x 768 screen.
The game has some add-ons of course, like the airport and that aircraft (A330-300)...which's rudder was just way too effective hahah
But yeah, with the new record of 6 Trackmania videos in a row, I wanted more than ever to make something different. This is just a simple, not serious vid...
I hope you laugh at it :D (1506jet is going to hate it...jk xd) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cya :DDaniXks - RiverDaniXks2016-07-13 | Here we go...the beginning of the end. River is only the 1st episode of the trilogy. Here is the sequel: youtube.com/watch?v=5o-pA3ZM91I
This is, by far, at the time of uploading, the Trackmania video which required the most amount of work on this channel. :) There are hardly any shots that came out from the game like they are in the video. (not counting the LUT and grain effects which were applied to all of it). Most of the shots required compositing of tire smoke (which was impossible to render correctly when using car reflections of any kind), 2D or 3D tracking for lens flares (thanks to Video Copilot's Optical Flares plugin for AE), particle effects (thanks to Red Giant's Trapcode Particular plugin for AE), clipping sprites correction, masks etc.
The green screen mod I made for Canyon in combination with some matte red or blue car skins helped a lot in some shots where I needed to mask the car for motion tracking or change something in the environment without touching the car. And in comparison with the Stadium green screen mod I had made for the 20k - 42k project, I now fixed the specular and normal maps errors so you get a much more pure, matte green.
Also, in order to render tire smoke separately and add it later you can use the fog effect and set it to complete black. The fog will affect everything except the smoke, essentially separating it for you. You can then add it in "screen" blending mode later on top of the original render. The fog effect is very useful and could be also used to create a Z-Depth pass. Can't wait to play with it xd
Then of course the original resolution of the video is 1920 x 816 but I upscaled it to 3840 x 1632 just to maintain a decent bitrate on YouTube. :p
But after all, as you probably noticed, this video is not only about compositing tricks etc...this video has a story. And even If it sounds convenient for me, I would like each one of you to interpretate it as you feel.
Not adding dialogues or subtitles of any kind was completely intentional as all I wanted was to give 2 souls to 2 dead cars and see what happens.
And it is funny how I started making Ghost more than a year ago and now River and Limbo appeared to introduce it. All because of one video...a Trackmania video.
Is it worth it? Am I wasting my time or investing it? Are you wasting your time reading this? xD
Cya :DDaniXks - Eye CandyDaniXks2016-06-24 | Ouu it's been a while again :) But this is not what I've been working on since my last vid!
I made a green screen mod for "TrackMania² - Canyon" 4 days ago (I will let you guess the reason :D) and so I did so many render tests...that I said, "I'm going to edit them all together and make a vid lol". Yep, this is the vid! And with some "TrackMania Turbo" shots as well just to give it more taste.
I've been working on other longer ones but I pay so much attention to every detail in them that I end up loosing some of my motivation...and so these short "dirty" ones are what keep me having fun. I hope you have fun with them as well xD
For example I haven't touched "Push on the Gas" since 1 year and it's 90% done...I might make it a bit longer when I go back to work on it :( good thing I wrote "probably before 2017" in the trailer xd And then there is "Ghost"...I realized the story was too abstract so I decided to make a trilogy to give it more sense. "River", "Limbo", and "Ghost". "River" is almost finished and I'm going to upload it on 12.7 If everything goes as planned.
Anyway, back to "Eye Candy"...it is nothing compared to those xD It's 1st preview was called "TrackMania on Drugs" hahah
I still hope you like it though, it surely took some time to make! :D (4 days)
cya :DTrackmania - The In-Depth guide for Editing and Rendering by DaniXksDaniXks2016-02-08 | Hello guys, It's been a while again...
Since the channel reached 1.000 subs, I wanted more than ever to share with you all my experience with the TrackMania MediaTracker.
I remember years ago, in 2011, when I was just wondering how everybody was getting that nice, smooth and correct Motion Blur in this game...it took me a while to realize that it was not in real-time...but that this game could render it frame by frame.
So 1 year later I fell in love with the MediaTracker in Canyon, I started rendering every kind of thing, just to enjoy that smooth looking motion blur. Did hundreds of tests to understand how it works, how you can optimize render times and getting realistic results.
I was so addicted, I later bought Stadium and Valley, Shootmania, and even the older TrackMania United Forever star edition. TM United has a more primitive MediaTracker (btw I suggest using camera path there) but it was still pretty amazing for it's time. I've now pre-ordered TM Turbo as well...but I'm just disappointed that it PROBABLY won't have a MediaTracker. I mean, that's what made me buy the 1st game, and now I just...I don't know...I hope they add one later or maybe make the game compatible with the ManiaPlanet MediaTracker.
So after all these years, I don't want people to be in the same trouble I was when trying to understand how it works. Here is almost everything I know about it. I hope you like it :)
I chose to use text in it, as from my experience with tutorials, I think pausing the vid and reading is far more convenient than going back and listening again to what the guy said. :p
And guys...PAUSE...the video, there is no way you can read that fast xD This video would have been around 1 hour long If I gave you enough time to read everything I say.
So yea...go make some vids, ask me any questions you may have...(cause I feel lonely)...and most of all, have fun guis! :D
Anyways, haha I'm tired of typing, here are all the links you may need:
P.S. for noobs: Forgot to mention it but by default, your rendered files go into the "/Documents/ManiaPlanet/Screenshots" folder. The files will get split If they reach a size bigger than 1GB and there is no way to change that at the moment. :)
P.S. for noobs 2: If you render in uncompressed or lossless, you most likely won't be able to play the file smoothly, but that's normal...it happens because the bitrate of the file is very, very high and your computer is probably not a spaceship. However, it should work fine after you compress it :)
EDIT1: Even If I explained a ton of stuff, there is so much I've left out...especially for the MediaTracker effects and clips etc. So maybe in the future, If you guys need it, I can make a 2nd tutorial explaining some other stuff like...that for some reason, tire smoke can not be rendered from certain angles when using reflections. And If you care about not having them disappear, you have to turn off all the car reflections, then render a 2nd time and add the smoke later in a compositing software. That's the only solution I've found so far xdTrackmania - [PF] Extasys (by ThunderClap)DaniXks2015-12-02 | Hey ppl! Skip to 2:45 If you don't want to watch the long intro. ;)
So now we start with the longer vids, I had been working on this one for around 8 months (but with big pauses in between) xD
I decided to make a little story with our real skype messages between Dorian and me as an intro, just to make it a little bit different from standard [PF] vids.
Except from being my 1st [PF] movie this is also my 1st public video at 60fps. Since 60fps feels a bit too slow and smooth for me, I went double fast on the cameras :D The run part was rendered at the highest possible quality...yes, 196x Antialias with all the 3 reflection buttons on. xD (and I swear 100x wasn't enough, you could clearly see the motion blur samples being torn apart).
To track the messages, I rendered almost every shot I had to track a 2nd time in 4x Antialias without motion blur. That helps a lot when tracking!
Also, since it's not just 1 camera, I put a little screen near the top right-hand corner, like in "Sentence", to show you what's going on from the standard cam2 perspective! :) I then used the lagarith lossless codec for the entire thing and it did a pretty good job! And finally I took advantage of the mediatracker feature which imports directly the music into it. In that way I could sync perfectly every camera and watch it in real-time!
About the track...it was delayed a lot for many reasons, one being me taking my time to make this vid...but now it's finally on TMX and you can download it ;)
Yea...I hope you like it! :D Special thanks to you Dorian for your enormous patience!
cya :DDaniXks - Push on the Gas [Trailer]DaniXks2015-11-19 | Hi...I don't like making trailers but on the 18th of November in 2013 "TrackMania² - Pure Awesomeness" was uploaded and since "Push on the Gas" is not ready yet...I had to upload this xd Yes, even though I started it 2 years ago!
Half of the shots are rendered in "Maniaplanet 2.0" :D and you can see I added some lens flarez...I don't know If I'm going to keep those for the final movie though.
So, Ghost is in progress, this is in progress, then I just finished my 1st TrackMania tutorial which I will upload in a few days and finally there is another surprise that will come on the 30th of November! :) I think you are going to like it!
Thanks for Watching! :)DaniXks - Ghost [Trailer]DaniXks2015-10-06 | Hi ppl :D After more than a year since it was started, I am happy to present you "Ghost".
I was tired of the dubstepish, camera shakeish, pointless vids, so I started thinking of a story that could touch the heart of anybody. :O
I believe this is by far the best Trackmania thing I've ever done on this channel and I think it will be for quite a while after it's release too :)
There are a few other videos coming too...actually about 4, all almost finished. :p But I will take my time because I seriously don't have much xD
Also, about the crazy visual effects in it...I will tell you more when it's released. The ones you see in this trailer, might not represent the final ones, as I tend to retouch them every time :D
And of course, thank you for almost 1.000 subs :)
Thanks for watching and see you in the comments! love you!
So this is my 1st 3D short movie, the one I presented on my final exams when I was a student.
I know, it's for little children but this was the subject, it's not my fault :D So, hopefully I will make more of these in the future, maybe with more interesting subjects and a bit longer lol
Anyway, now that I finished my school I have some free time so I will try to upload more frequently. As I said in the last vid, I've been working on some big Trackmania vids, and I might upload a trailer of one of them quite soon :)
Thank you again for watching! :)CG Generalist Showreel 2015DaniXks2015-09-02 | Hello everybody! I finally just finished this 3D Animation school in Italy, which is called "Rainbow Academy", and so this is my Showreel!
The software that was used for all these was: Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3DS Max, Autodesk Mudbox, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere and The Foundry Nuke.
And so...now, I'm officially an Autodesk Advanced Certified Professional in MAYA 2015...
It's been exactly 4 months since my last vid, but don't worry, that doesn't mean I haven't been working on anything!
Thanks for watching! :)Trackmania - Ugly, Unused and Unfinished Shots (Subs special?!)DaniXks2015-05-03 | Hey everybody! I still don't have enough free time for more frequent videos...but since you kept subscribing I just couldn't not do another vid! ;)
So in this video, I just took the most bad rendered shots I had laying around in my pc, that I haven't used in a public video and edited them all together... For those who watched the videos on my "Unlisted vids" playlist you will be able to recognize some of these. :D
Also, about what I said at the end, yeah, go make your own vid with your ugly, unused and unfinished shots!! Just make sure to use only trackmania and...try to avoid cam 2 :p Don't care about quality...there are shots in 360p in this video!
Then I might put them here, in the description of this very vid!... (I don't know, If you have a better idea just comment it)
Thanks for Watching! :)NR2003 - 12 years later...DaniXks2015-03-01 | Hey guys!
As you noticed, it's not trackmania this time x)
Twelve years and two weeks ago this game was released and I've been playing it since then (actually from nr2002)...but I had never made a video with it.
So here it is! :D
All the motion-blur was post-processed of course. :\ It was added with the "Timewarp" effect in After Effects but had to fix some parts with an adjustment layer and a Radial Blur effect set on zoom with a mask which was animated for every frame. ( k )
Then the camera shake was added with the "Wigglerama" effect. :D
Then the camera movements were made with a mod called "Camera Control Master"...and you have to do everything with your mouse and record with fraps! xD
The music is: "Born of Osiris - Follow the Signs" ( SOLO BATTLE FTW!!! I hope you have watched that TF2 vid xD )
Soooo let me know If you like it and you want more!!
It's been a while so since I had some free time I decided to upload something short and sexy! :D
First of all, 4K is a lie and I'm sorry, the video was rendered in 1080p and then upscaled to 4K in order to maintain as much quality as possible on YouTube.
Anyway...I read that you liked the cameras in the previous video so I said: why not make them even worse? x) Yeah, I hope you like all that camera shake!
I don't know when I will be able to upload another video so enjoy this short one as much as you can, lol.
EDIT: lol, did this vid inspire the TrackMania developers at Nadeo to make the helicopter drop in TM-Turbo? :PDaniXks - Sentence - 1st fullspeed track (4K + 60 fps on Tm-Tube)DaniXks2014-09-24 | Hey everybody, (a mistake: it's 2.35:1 aspect ratio, not 2:35 )
don't forget to watch the last clip after the credits! :)
So, here I'm showing you my latest disappointment which I call a "track" and of course it's calculated so badly, that "stunts" happen all the time. (or it's me that I can't drive). :D There are no checkpoints so you can cut very easily... :P
As you can see this is in 4K....because P1XX3L had this beautiful idea, go search it in the comments of the previous video x)
Anyway, despite the resolution, I wanted to keep the quality high...so...this took 2 months to make. Every little shot took hours If not an entire night to render. yeah, 4K, 60 fps, 196xAA ftw!! No, seriously, 90% of the shots are in 196xAA. xD (with all the reflections buttons ticked, on 90% of the shots too :D)
So, basically...I think this is what Trackmania can do at the moment. This is the true max quality. :)
About the 1st music, I always check before but this time it had very few views on youtube so I thought, who could have used it anyway? But instead, about yesterday, I was shown 2 other videos with the same music. I didn't want to upload the video anymore...but then I said...nah, I will upload it but with some explanation in the description. :)
Anyway...for the 1st joke, I actually asked friends on skype and also played on multiplayer and tried to find people that would have liked to help me translate the word "track". :D So, thanks a lot to them! :)
Then I used some effects with After Effects on some shots like the one at 3:20, to simulate the splash and the water drops on the camera (CC Mr. Mercury).
All that text is there just to cover those black parts...because rendering takes soo long lol. :D That's why I decided to render in 2.35:1 aspect ratio (yeah, I did a mistake there, didn't want to re-render and upload again :D), because I render less pixels...and it kinda looks more professional. :)
Then for the last shot after the credits I had to zoom to 1 degree FOV in order to show the car close enough. :P However, since I rendered everything in uncompressed, that last shot was about 20 GB in size.
EDIT: I just discovered that H.264 had resized the video to 1920 x 2160 from 3840 x 2160...so yeah...this is not true 4K. I will re-upload the video later, when 60 fps on YouTube become available so that I try to keep the resolution too. :)
EDIT2: Nah, I will never upload it again. It's time to move on.DaniXks - A Night OutDaniXks2014-07-28 | Hi, so this is another little vid, took me 2 weeks to make but it's very simple. :)
mm...I don't have much else to say...
well, the canyon car you see is not just 1 replay :P I had to drive a new car every 3-4 shots cause I was so bad at driving :D
Also, I added some lens flares to some shots for extra swag...and the transition from Valley to Canyon happens inside the tunnel with an animated mask going from bottom right to upper left pretty fast. In that way it kinda looks like there was no transition at all :)
The cams are pretty simple too, there are a lot of just 2-3 keyframes cams. Rendering quality is with all the reflection buttons on from 25xAA to even 196xAA in 2 shots. Of course some shots were rendered in 30 fps and others in 60 fps to reduce motion blur.
P.S. I used just one smiley in this vid cause apparently I overdid it last time as McIchmagKatzen (ad'gado) said!DaniXks - New little vid!DaniXks2014-06-28 | Hello :D
Sorry for not uploading, but I have been working on a big video in the last months and didn't want to start another one... Haha, instead, here we go again with something not programmed... :P
The track was made just for this, I don't think it's good, but If you want it, I could upload it on ManiaExchange :)
So, the shots in this one go from 30 fps up to 240 in some...yeah, just wanted to test how it looks. :) I did one at 480 too, but while rendering I realized it was just pointless...so I rendered it in 240 instead. ( 480 had almost no motion blur ).
Have fun! :DA NEED FOR SPEED MONTAGE! - (NFS Hot Pursuit, NFS The Run, NFS Most Wanted 2012)DaniXks2014-05-01 | Hello! How are you? :)
So this obviously was made with NFS Hot Pursuit, NFS The Run and NFS Most Wanted 2012.
I added motion blur with the Timewarp effect in After Effects. But in some shots it wasn't working well enough so I had to create fake motion blur with masks in adjustment layers containing the effects: Radial Blur or Directional Blur... x)
Instead, in some other shots I wanted to add some depth of field...yeah, I had to do the same thing except with the Camera Lens Blur effect. :)
And I stabilized almost all the shots because you have to use your mouse to move the camera and that means you will end up with a very ugly camera movement! :\
Also, of course, I used some Camera Hacks (made by Racer_S) which you can download from here:
Need for Speed - Hot Pursuit, Camera Hack: http://dl.gamecopyworld.eu/?g=1&r=pc_nfs_hot_pursuit_2010&c=725495341&d=2011&f=NFS11CH2.0%2521zip&cc=2&cn=GR
So, this is what I've been doing all this time... I basically started making a Trackmania video (00:12 + 00:58)...then got bored of it and started a 3ds Max animation (00:23), it took me 2 weeks to make just that shot and since I wanted to upload something I started making another Trackmania video (00:26 + 00:40). Then I got bored of that one too and started something completely new...a Need for Speed video (00:17 + 00:52 + 01:01)
Yes, I found a "camera hack" which allows you to move the camera wherever you want and it can be anchored to the car or not. There are different ones, each one for every game (NFS Hot Pursuit, NFS The Run, NFS Most Wanted 2012). They all have one common disadvantage...you have to drive the car at the same time! :P
Anyway, I will probably make 2 NFS videos. One will be serious, like a trailer maybe? I've almost finished this. And the other one will be funny...yeah...and I haven't even started it yet. :D
P.S. I think I get bored of the videos while I make them because I listen to the music over and over again in order to synchronize it with what is shown in the video... :PTrackmania² Short Movie - CameraManiaDaniXks2013-12-22 | Made in 28 hours :P Haha, Merry Christmas! I hope you like it! :D
The title of this video was just an excuse to make something completely pointless :p Also, there was a guy who commented "cameramania" on the "TrackMania² - Pure Awesomeness (Celebrating 10 years)"...so that's when I had the idea, but I can't find his comment anymore x) All the shots were rendered at 60 fps, with 25, 49 or 100 AA, with Sub-Sample reflects and Raycast Reflects on, at 1080p...quite good uh? :)
Music: Flight Facilities - Crave You (Adventure Club Dubstep Remix)
Cya! :D~ Driving through a Dream ~DaniXks2013-12-07 | When I was listening to this music...I was thinking of this...so I decided to let you see exactly what I had inside my mind. :) (yeah, I don't like just Dubstep xD)
Since in my last video the 720p quality was not good enough...I decided to go 1440p this time :P I actually cheated though, I wanted to unlock 1440p quality bitrate without rendering in 1440p. So I went with just a slightly bigger resolution than 1080p. The actual original resolution of the video is 2048 x 1152. And it worked in the beginning, you can see it in the comments too, we had a 1440p option. But now it seems like YouTube has removed that and you just get 2048 x 1152 when you choose 1080p.
All of the cameras were rendered at the highest quality, some of them even at 196 Anti-Aliasing and 196 Depth of Field. xD "1440p" should make it possible for you to see the real quality of this video. :D
Anyway, I hope you like it! :)
Useful tip: Watch this before going to bed... :)
Music: Beyond two Souls - Childhood Memories (by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe)
Old edit: If the video lags and you are using Google Chrome, try with another browser :) ...or move your mouse in circles xD I don't know why but it works :PTrackmania² - Pure Awesomeness (Celebrating 10 years)DaniXks2013-11-18 | Yeah, I know...you could make a 2nd video with all those unused clips :P but they took time to render and I wanted them to be in the same video so... :) 10 years - 10 minutes
I used, of course, all the 3 environments of Trackmania² and some music that I thought would be perfect for this kind of video. Kind of video: Just some random badass shots :D
Unfortunately, YouTube's compresses the video so much that it looks really bad sometimes... :\ So, after watching the video in 720p, I recommend you watching it again in 144p, in fullscreen, to see what real quality is about...hehe
Anyway, I hope you like it! :D
Music:
I SEE MONSTAS - Holdin' On (Skrillex & Nero Remix) Frisco - Sea Of Love (Hixxy Remix) (TECHNO KITTEN ADVENTURE - DREAM PACK MUSIC xD)
Thanks for Watching! :)
P.S. Feel free to comment! I want to hear your thoughts!
EDIT: I'm sorry that I used only fullspeed in Stadium :( Next time I will use all of them! :D
and my facebook page...facebook.com/pages/Danixks/634764303223321 in case you want to...well I don't know, it's still new, there is almost nothing...but I share my unlisted videos there... :)
Apparently, there are no more endings to find...but this is the Stanley Parable...you can't be sure about anything. It's a philosophical game about the illusion of choice after all...if we can call it that.
There are so many things to play with in the Mind Control Facility...if there is a hidden ending there, then that is going to take some time to discover. Sometimes when you press the "WRONG" colored button, the screen doesn't even say: INCORRECT So, maybe, that shows that everything is just random... And don't forget that 30 seconds before the explosion all the screens say: GOODBYE EMPLOYEE 427 That, maybe, shows that everything in there is useless...whatever you do, it is just pointless, you are going to die anyway. :)
Also, at 3:50, for the screens, there are actually 256 combinations, not 16. ( that is an actual mistake I overlooked but I guess that makes the video even "better" ) And YouTube annotations are gone so...
Music by: The Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra 1) Exploring Stanley 2) Following Stanley 3) Informing Stanley 4) Introducing Stanley 5) Leaving Stanley (Extra)
Thanks for watching! :) Have fun with the English.