Video FAQ

Welcome to the section for all the frequently asked questions about my Gmod movies that nobody will bother to read and ask anyway! Woot!

Q: How to I get Garry's Mod?
A: Go to www.steampowered.com to get the Steam client and register an account on it. This will let you purchase and download a wide variety of games including Garry's Mod. Remember that Garry's Mod is not a game on it's own. If you don't have games like Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source, the game won't work right.

Q: What tools do you use to make your videos?
A: Fraps to record the screen
Sony Vegas 9.0 Pro for editing
Audacity for recording other sources of audio
Paint for cheap-ass alterations to screenshots

Q: How do you get the ragdolls to move so well?
A: I always have the option to not show the physgun beams when working the ragdoll's movement and then just use the camera tool to give the illusion of me not working them at all. It's an extremely basic process, it just requires multiple takes until I'm satisfied with the movement sometimes. For more complex movements, like Billy Mays doing the Liu Kang bicycle kick, I did something similar to what "FancyPants" does with his ragdolls. If you'd see his "Dancing Ragdolls" tutorial video, you'll get a pretty good idea of that process. I'm really not doing anything out of the ordinary, it just takes a good understanding of the physics engine and PATIENCE!

Q: How do you make the phsygun beams invisible?
A: Open the build menu, go to the "Options" tab to the top right, select "Hiding" and then un-check the box, "Draw physgun beams"

Q: I press the ~ key, but my console doesn't come up!
A: In the options menu, go to "keyboard" and click "Advanced." There will be a check box labeled, "Enable developer console."

Q: How do you remove the health and ammo meter from the screen?
A: Bring up the console and enter "cl_drawhud 0" to remove it and "cl_drawhud 1" to bring it back

Q: When an NPC or a player dies, I want to remove the kill notice at the top right of the screen.
A: Bring up the console and type "hud_deathnotice_time 0"

Q: Need any help with your Gmod movies? Can I be in a video?
A: I don't like using actors in my movies. The only time I did use actors besides just myself, was in my very first skit, "The most annoying sound in the world." On GIB and the April Fools video. I came to realize using ragdolls was much more amusing and since I could manipulate them well, I was sold on that idea instead. The reason I don't film with others is for multiple reasons.
1: I can't stand server upkeep. I always have to worry if certain models are on it, certain mods, weither or not the server broke down, etc etc.
2: If my ping isn't between 1 and 5, the ragdoll movements lag and if I am the one filming, that is very bad for the project.
3: I make these videos in my spare time in between work, friends and whatnot, and that schedule is often very different, so I can't be bothered to schedule when me and the actors can come in to start filming and I don't want them bitching at me when I started without them.
4: I have a bad habit of not giving others much to do. I've been filming alone for over a year now, so I'm very much accustomed to handling everything myself. It creates many bored players who will always wind up running around, throwing things, firing machine guns and ultimately getting in a shot by accident when I was recording.
5: Having other actors creates drama and the illusion of favoritism. For example, "Well he was in more shots than me! I wish I was your best buddy ever, but nooooooo!"
6: Many people don't have all the models, maps and so forth for a certain scene and it eats up a ton of time making sure they got every last thing before resuming a film.

I am however looking for skilled model creators. It would have been so awesome to have someone create a Billy Mays and Vince ragdoll before I started the project.

Q: Will there be a Gmod Arena 2?
A: I would like to do another one and originally I had planned to do "Jack Thompson VS Uwe Boll" but as time went on, I realized barely anyone even knows who Jack Thompson is, or even Uwe Boll for that matter. Uwe is a little more known for his god awful movies, so from an audience standpoint, all they are going to hope for is that Uwe Boll doesn't win. For now, I'd like to wait on it until I discover two combatants that are both well known and would probably hold a grudge against each other. Two possibilities have been either Dr. Phil VS Oprah or Joe Rogan VS Carlos Mencia. A big obstacle with both is getting plenty of their voice clips that work well in a fight video.

Q: What song is that from?
A: Still having trouble with "Music link in video description" in the credits, are we?

Q: Why didn't you make Vince the Scout from Team Fortress 2?
A: Have you actually tried posing the TF2 ragdolls yourself? Let's do a little hands-on activity, shall we? Take the scout out and freeze his head only in place. Now try and make him put his arms up over his head. Now make him do a thumbs down. How about flip off the camera? Done? All right, now for the short answer ... the TF2 ragdolls are extremely broken and buggy. Vince would have fought like a popsicle stick jointed taffy man! That wouldn't be fair to the Vince fans, would it?

Q: Can I use Dr. Hax, Uberkleiner etc in my video?
A: I have never really cared who used any of my characters from the start, so go nuts!

Q: Why do you ignore so many friend requests on Steam/YouTube?
A: For Steam, unless I know you and want you on my friends list, I'm going to keep hitting that "ignore all" button. Sorry, I'm just trying to be selective and keep mutual friends on there, rather than sift through a list of complete strangers. As for YouTube? They pretty much made the friends list completely and totally useless, so I see no point.

Q: Where did you get that HAAAAX sound from?
A: That's actually from Half-Life 2. When a refugee spots a Manhack, they shout out about four variations of the sound.

Q: What song is that from?
A: ...

Q: How do you get Valve sound effects, voices and music like that?
A: My method is quite different from other people's, as my sound card is an old Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 sound card that still has the "What U Hear" feature on it. With that feature, I'm able to record direct from my sound card. With that in mind, I go into the "Valve Hammer Editor" and go into the Sound Browser. Every single sound from the game I've selected is listed and all I have to do then is open Audacity and hit record, then play the sound I want and save it as a .wav file. Now yes, I understand there's probably different, more non-complex ways to do this, but this method is very quick for me. The music from the game doesn't play on this list however, but thankfully, since I purchased Audiosurf, the Orange Box soundtrack is included, so I just use that.

Q: How can I download your videos? I want them on my Ipod!
A: I now have a wegame.com account! You can go here and download either the .mp4 version of the vid, or the very original version in it's raw, flawless form.
http://www.wegame.com/user/DasBoSchitt

Q: What's your computer specs?
A:
AMD Phenom 8450
Triple-Core Processor
2.10 GHz, 4.00 GB of RAM
GeForce 9600 GTX
Windows 7 64 bit

Q: How did you get the Left 4 Dead maps in Gmod?
A: I didn't. I put all the characters in a chroma key (green screen) environment and then went into Left 4 Dead and took screenshots identical to the position of the characters and then combined the two

Q: How do you make a ragdoll run?
A: Using a combination of a stand up contraption for the body and sawblade wheels at the bottom of it, you're able to weld the body to the contraption and then use the axis tool to attack the sides of the feet against the sides of the wheels. Then it's just a matter of turning the contraption invisible by opening the color tool and finding a "checkered" palette beside the color palette. Turned the checkered one all the way down to apply invisibility to the pieces of your contraption.

Q: How do you make frozen ragdolls fall over with force?
A: There's two methods. One is making use of the weld tool's weld break value and another is a mod known as the "Sleep n' wake" mod at www.garrysmod.org. Both have their advantages and disadvantages in Machinima, so mastering both may be key. First of all, the breakable weld method is done by applying it to certain limbs on your frozen ragdoll. Let's say for example, you have a ragdoll that is pointing at an oncoming car that will hit him. The most common weld break limit is 800 to 1600. All you have to do is apply the appropriate strength on varying parts of the ragdoll that holds the most weight. For example, a hand often only need 800 to 1000 in value. Apply it to the hand and then you can either apply the other end of the weld to the world or the torsoe of the ragdoll. Obviously either the chest or the head of the ragdoll will be supporting the most weight and a weld of 1000 to 1600 will need to be applied. Any portion of the ragdoll that is expected to hold it up MUST be welded to the world. Now carefully unfreeze the ragdoll and if done correctly, it should only slack slightly, but overall, be where you need it. Now a nice bit of pysical force will cause the welds to "break" and down they go. The Sleep n Wake tool makes it much easier, keeping the ragdoll up in one click, then any physical force applied releases the ragdoll and makes it fall over. However the disadvantage of the mod is that if you want to have a ragdoll do something like slap another ragdoll's extended hand away, only the breakable weld can pull that off without making the entire ragdoll fall over. On the other hand, breakable welds often require more excessive force to knock the ragdoll over. Simple things like getting shot with a small set of bullets with little force often won't do the job. That's where the mod has it's advantage. As long as you can master the breakable welds, using both will get you everywhere

Q: Where do you get all your other sound effects not related to Valve games?
A: www.findsounds.com is your friend ... Sometimes. Other sources are recorded using the same "What U Hear" feature as mentioned before, taken from other YouTube videos, flash movies and so forth.

Q: How do you make the mouth move on a ragdoll while still moving a nearby limb?
A: That's an editing trick I use in Sony Vegas 9.0. Let's use Francis when he said, "I hear a witch!" As an example in GIB7. First, I place a static camera on Francis and take one shot of him lifting his arm and pointing a finger up. Next, I change his facial expression to almost each said letter of the desired voice clip you'll be using and take still shots of each one still looking through the camera's view. Once done, using the "cookie cutter" tool in Vegas, I cut out all of Francis' head in the "pointing" recording I made and in it's place, put each facial change in time with his voice clip until it's all properly timed. This is going to take a lot of patience, but nothing ever good is made without effort!

Q: If you film alone, then how do you make multiple ragdolls move on screen?
A: Again, this is done either with editing using the cookie cutter tool, or using invisible contraptions to movie the other ragdolls.

Q: Some of your videos are blocked in my country, or have been flagged for 18 or older content!
A: That's also where the WeGame account comes in. Remember, it's http://www.wegame.com/user/DasBoSchitt

This FAQ will be updated as more questions come up. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a private message on my YouTube account. The blog comments I'm afraid I don't have any direct way of responding to questions posted there. PMs on YouTube, I check and respond to as often as I can.