Update: Dec 29th, 2023

Hey everybody!

As promised in Wednesday’s Q&A, here’s a little update/report on what I’ve been up to these past couple weeks.

I’ve actually been asked about this first point a few times, which is nice, makes it feel more tangible than just a friend and I daydreaming concepts. I completed a penultimate draft of the 007 short mentioned previously, and the director just sent me a revision to go over tonight.

Assuming this Revision is the last, we’ll be going into 2024 calling studios for funding. I’m trying to keep my expectations in check, but just getting to this point is rather exciting, and I hope we’ll have more to share in the new-year than a pitch.

Next, just before Christmas, I managed to get a major step for another big collaboration completed too, of turning Stanley Park, the biggest and most scenic park in my hometown of Vancouver, into a Grand Prix circuit that’ll be playable in Assetto Corsa.

Almost any behind the scenes feature of a production will demonstrate the research phase, of artists going around just taking endless reference photos and video of the locations they want to capture, and it was rather surreal to be on the other end of that task, but really fun too.

I didn’t dump the money on a top level camera, being my profession is Youtube, not Photography, but it’s definitely made me respect it even more, and think about ideas that’ve been in my head for some-time regarding Vancouver.

My Dad just happened to give me a Molson Indy Vancouver shirt from 1997; should I ever start presenting on camera, that shirt will have to appear at some point.

I’m glad to have these project milestones behind me though, as it frees me up to focus more on the current Youtube script, one where the introduction’s already been rewritten almost a dozen times.

I was really bashing my head against the wall at this, mainly because there’s so many ways it can go wrong. There’s a balancing act between self-deprecation, lumping strangers in, and objective data, but it is possible, and efficient when properly organized.

I’m expecting this video to be shorter than the last batch, but then again… I said that last time, and look how that turned out.

I don’t know if I mentioned this too, but Stoofer, friend of the channel and graphics designer got in-contact with me again recently after an extended hiatus, and I’ve already got some ideas to pitch them for this project to make the video’s point even more efficient.

I’m also attempting to implement a new work ethic.

It wasn’t meant to be a New Years Resolution thing, that timing is just a bit unfortunate.

Part of the challenge of self-employment is having a distinct work/life balance, one that I’ve definitely not had.

I was of the belief of jumping on inspiration when it happened, and I haven’t completely abandoned that. I keep a little notebook on me for whenever ideas come about in my day to day, I’ll even write a little bit if there’s particular sentence or concept to realize.

However, when your work days vary between two and twenty hours, it leads to a lot of waking up at 3pm, a lot of which I did this month.

Wednesday, I finally started to meet my goal of a 9-5… more accurately, a Soft 9 and Hard 5 cut-off, inspired by multiple artist interviews I happened to watch recently.

Sometimes it’s good to go out of your comfort zone.

I am a slow learner; the schedule got fucked after I discovered a tool called Special-K upon researching Ghost Recon for this Ubisoft video, and stayed up to 3am experimenting with multiple games.

TL;DR: It makes janky games smooth.

So now Future Soldier can feel as buttery smooth as the latest Ghost Recon games that have the benefit of PC Ports not made during the dark ages.

Having spent literally all-day yesterday though messing with this thing (and going down the Uplay rabbit-hole, hence my recent Tweets) your mileage may vary from game to game, especially if you’re like me, and have no real understanding of what Injectors and Wrappers for DirectX and OpenGL actually do.

Lastly, my gaming this month was mostly spent on of all things, Starfield, after I acquired, a version that didn’t shit itself to death after installing one mod. Don’t expect a “Skyrim Was Actually Bad” video from me, what I’m actually considering is revisiting Oblivion, because that was my first ever RPG, and the first game I got with my Xbox 360.

I remember discovering it via Gamespot's unique (at the time) coverage.

Oblivion was the reason I wanted that console.

I think people are pretty unified on their feelings for Bethesda, so a video that’s more about confronting my own childhood, has more potential. It’s a time commitment though, one I’m not sure is best to jump head first into at the moment… if only for the sake of said childhood.

That’s where I’m at right now though, this year’s been both a low and high for me, and I hope y’all get to see more of those highs, as the lows were definitely my public productivity.

To all of you: long-time, brand-new, older, younger, viewer, donator, developer, player, thank you.

Making this living is a privilege; I never want to lose sight of that.

Hope the holidays have and will continue to treat you well.

Best wishes,
Lucas Raycevick