Anywho, the newest addition of Web Zeroes is now up for your enjoyment. In Episode 2, Ray convinces Nate to let him film a documentary about his day job, where he moonlights as a tech support specialist named the Tech Yeti. Yes, there are beards involved. Also, handsome brown men.

To download the episode or see higher res versions, head over to Revision3, or subscribe to Web Zeroes on iTunes. We’ve actually been featured there in the “new and noteworthy” section under the podcasts. Cool stuff.

Much thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to watch this episode and leave a comment. Hit the jump to start watching. Episode 3 will be out next week on October 21st!

A few people have asked about “Bobby King”, who does the commercial breaks. He is, in fact, Ty, who voiced Mendoza and Asher for The Leet World. Look forward to seeing more of him in Web Zeroes. A good bit more, actually.

Over the next week, I’m hoping to finally get to some Leet World content that I’ve been sitting on for awhile now. Mainly, some outtakes from the later episodes of Season 2, so be sure to check back here for updates on that.

But for now, watch the episode, comment and enjoy! As for me, I’m about to get my Uncharted 2 on.

I was thinking the other day about The Leet World and doing a bit of reflecting on the Counter-Strike machinima that was, and I remembered some cool pieces of commentary that I’ve been wanting to share with you guys. Normally, this kind of stuff would come up in a podcast, but as we haven’t had any time to ourselves lately, I thought it’d be good to go ahead and post it.

Here are some lost TLW factoids for you to nom on.

• Player was originally going to be a girl. Yes, how very Spriggs (and Red vs Blue, come to think of it) of us. I’m not sure when the decision was made. Somewhere in the middle of making the first episode, we felt that if Player ever got a voice, the voice would have to be funnier than what he already was. We decided we could never top him as he has always existed in the show, so he stayed voiceless and male-ish.

• Asher’s original name was Jenkins. As many have surmised, Leeroy, the World of Battlelore player extraordinaire, was named after Leeroy Jenkins. As even more of a nod to the classic video, we were going to name Asher as “Jenkins”. We eventually changed this idea so that people wouldn’t start assuming that Leeroy and Asher were twins, seeing as how they shared the same model. Asher’s actual name is a reference to Ash, the android in Ripley Scott’s Alien.

• Westheimer was going to be Chet’s father. This is one that I’m still kind of sad we ditched. For whatever reason, we chunked it by the end of season 1, but Westheimer was intended to be Chet’s father. This adds even extra humor to Chet’s lamentation in Episode 5 about never knowing his father.

• Ahmad’s original murderer? The Producer. After Asher detonated (inside the warehouse instead of outside), the gang was going to leave the burning building behind, assuming Ahmad’s demise was inevitable. He is eventually found by the Producer and some Noonien soldiers. Ahmad reaches to the Producer for help and is shocked when Prod pulls out a silenced pistol, executing him amidst the rubble of de_nuke. The Producer simply walks away, ordering the soldiers to “Clean up this mess”. As awesome as this would have been, it was just a little bit too brutal and far less heroic for our lovable noob.

There are plenty more where those came from. Feel free to send in your questions about The Leet World, I’d love to give out more information like this. And come back on Wednesday for more Web Zeroes!

For some of you, the cat has already been out of the bag since the newest episode of Diggnation aired last night, but the rest of you can still be surprised. If you’re unaware, Rev3 is the king of awesome Internet television content like Totally Rad Show, Film Riot, Co-Op and then some. Those of you that already watch their stuff can easily attest to that.

As for our show, this is going to be a slightly rebooted version of Web Zeroes, hence the removal of the episodes from our site. I can’t go into a whole lot of detail about it just yet, but for now, you should go watch the new Web Zeroes trailer over at Revision3! This is a huge opportunity that we’re extremely pumped about. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on.

Go watch the trailer!

The Leet World Series Finale, Army of One Part 2, is now available for your viewing pleasure.

I have to admit, it’s a little bittersweet to be presenting this one to you guys. While we’re sad to see the show go, making a series of any kind is like slamming your testicular area in a car door, so we’re happy that it’s past us. It takes lots of grueling labor and a bit of a masochistic streak to make a show like this. Like that dude in the Da Vinci Code who keeps whipping himself. Ah, self flatulation… wait, I think I got those words mixed up.

Anyway, there’s lots of stories we could tell you about these last two months and what all went into getting this episode up for you guys, and also what kept us from finishing it when we wanted to. Be sure to send lots of love to Jace, Nick and Daniel who kind of took one for the team in the last 24 hours to make this release date possible.

So, check out the episode on the TLW premiere page, or just hit the jump for the normal version.

Special thanks go to Tyler of Young Street Productions for providing a voice in this episode, as well as Gainesworthy, Lord Ned and DJ Shox for all of their Hammer and mapping tips. You probably won’t notice it, but there are probably 10-15 different maps utilized in the finale alone. And as I mentioned before, Jace Ford deserves a big standing ovation for kicking this episode in the balls. Especially with the little number he did for the ending credits…

A lot of you guys are asking us what’s next, and soon enough we’ll be able to talk about the new show. In addition, we still plan on tackling the occasional machinima short, including a TLW short every now and then, so this isn’t exactly a total goodbye to the characters in that regard.

I have to say that all of us at SFF are really proud of this finale and what all goes on in it. Trying to nail an ending like this is a hard job, and we felt if we could pull it off without sucking it would be a big deal. I’d like to think we did so. Hopefully you agree. Once again, thanks so much for sticking with us and watching this ridiculous show. It’s so beyond me that people actually like it, so we appreciate it. Stick around, there’s more good stuff to come.

Enjoy!

Edit: Assets for this episode include the control room and the Noonien guards.

Before, we’ve posted some community favorites of ours, so I thought I’d repeat that again with some new links that we found recently.

Check these out:

• Day in the Life of a Turret piano cover. Though sometimes YouTube can be a pit of despair, there are plenty of dudes that make it worth it to be there, such as David Debono, who has an awesome video of him playing Nine to Five, the song from our Portal video. We were hanging out last week during our shoot when Jace found this video and promptly freaked out, he was so excited.




• TLW Season 2 trailer. A pretty impressively put-together trailer for our 2nd season. While it’s not heavy on effects and such, the guy just did a great job of researching through the season and finding some great lines. The clips are organized really well and the trailer kind of pumped me up a little for the finale, even though I know how it ends.




• TLW Typography. This one needs almost no explanation. It kind of made me a lulz bandit.

So yeah, view those guys for some awesome tributes. We have some hearts for them. And if you have anymore things that you want to draw our attention to, send them over.

Oh, and if you’re wanting a TLW Finale update, our target is still this upcoming week. Probably later rather than sooner. Also, everyone dies. Not really. But maybe.

Soon-ish. We’ve still got lots of post-production stuff to do, not to mention Jace writing the music. But we’re getting closer. I’ll let you know when we’re about a week out. Believe me, nobody wants this thing out worse than us. But as I’ve said, the new project takes precedence, so we’re doing all that we can to make sure we can work on both of those without hurting the new one.

We’ve put an extensive bit of time into the finale so that it offers a satisfying conclusion and doesn’t leave you guys hanging. We’re happy with how it’s going to end. It wraps up the story pretty well, since there’s a chance we might not get to work on the movie for a long time, if at all.

In terms of the new project, Jace is actually flying down to help us with it next weekend, and even JJ, our kindly Web master and TLW co-writer is going to join. It’ll be the second time that all of Smooth Few Films has been together since TLW started, so that is worth a hell yeah or two, if you’re feeling wild. I really can’t wait to do some show and tell with you guys, and I apologize for all of the vague language. Just know that we’re working hard and we appreciate you dudes for hanging out with us.

Also, Batman: Arkham Asylum is awesome. That is important to know, too. Just saying.

Here’s what I can tell you: we just got a big deal to produce Smooth Few Films content. No, it is not TLW. I can’t tell you who we made the deal with or go into more details about it, but trust me when I say it was a pretty crazy moment for us when we found out they were interested.

This means the “band is staying together” essentially, and that all of us (including Daniel) are rearranging some plans so that we can invest ourselves into this project. As a bonus for you guys, it means lots more Smooth Few Films content after The Leet World is over, which wasn’t going to be the case before.

This is a huge opportunity that deserves all of our time. It’s the kind of thing that we’ve been working towards for the last two years. We’re kind of giving it all we’ve got. So it means there are probably going to be some more changes coming soon, and it is partially responsible for the extended time that Episode 14 is taking us.

We’ll give some more information when we can, but our hands are a little tied. Rest assured, you should stick around for all of this because it’s going to be badass.

In this episode, we continue to build up to the explosive series finale, which will be a rather exciting conclusion, if I do say so myself. Some guys argue, the Producer spills the beans, there are some cyborgs and perhaps a big surprise by the end. Re: the surprise, allow me to be the first to say it… Served.

To check out the high res version of the episode, mosey over to the TLW premiere page. Or just hit the jump to see the regular version if you’re not feeling up to its awesomeness.

I say it all the time, but Jace Ford is a titan among men. He is a Goliath on the music front. A shagohod, if you will. Simple machinima videos are not worthy of his tunes. If you can’t tell, I think his music for this episode is just over in the badass category.

The series finale should be out sometime in August, hopefully around the middle of the month. We’ve got a lot of stuff going down between now and then, so we’ll see what happens.

Remember that all comments go directly into moderation now. So if it’s just a worthless pile of letters in Player lingo, it’s gone. I feel little to no remorse about ejecting nonsense back into the ether from which it spawned.

Enjoy!

I know that some of you long timers have seen some of our setup pictures before, but I thought it would be cool to talk about again. For those of you that don’t know, TLW isn’t made inside of a studio, but rather, in my spare bedroom, with a total of 6-7 computers, depending on what’s working at the time. That’s machinima for you.

Ideally, we’d show this in the making of video we’ve been wanting to do, but that’s been put on hold indefinitely while we try to finish this darn show. Anywho, there’s a general overview, with pictures, after the jump.

Four of the computers you see there are “actor” computers. They control the characters that make up each scene. The other two computers are the “camera” and “capture” computers. The camera computer is the player camera that captures the footage. You might also notice the piles of scripts everywhere. One of those is for Episode 13.

We almost never use spectator cam for the show, in case you were wondering. Rather, we use the following source commands: sv_cheats 1, cl_drawhud 0, and cl_drawviewmodel 0 to remove the HUD and the weapon model (we film through sniper rifles for adjusted fov values).

Anywho, you can see the camera computer above. It’s connected to the capture computer, which is Daniel’s Mac that has been essentially confiscated by Smooth Few Films. The camera computer runs out via DVI to component cables over to the AJA Kona card, so that we can capture in 720p. See all the crazy cables above, as well as the back of the capture card.

The “sound booth” we use is actually just a closet. Notice the ghetto tape holding the mic stand up, as its puny snake neck buckles under the weight of the mic and the popper stopper. Totally not glamorous in the slightest.

So there you have it. Hopefully that doesn’t let the air out of your tires any. This show is mega ghetto. And we are ghetto fabulous.

There hasn’t been an update in awhile because there’s not a whole lot to say. We’ve been eating, sleeping and fondling production for the last couple of weeks. And not just on TLW, but more on that later. Episode 12 marches inexorably towards its fated release day, which should be at some point over the weekend. It’s currently in post production while we film Episode 13. Or rather, part one (of two) of the finale.

As far as a general FYI goes, you might notice that all comments now go to moderation before being posted on the site. We’re trying to raise the level of discourse around here, so play nice, have something worthwhile to say, and your post will go through with no problems. There will be some other changes coming to the site shortly after the season, and we’ll give you a heads up when the time comes.