NICK: Niko is about to...
Do something FRICKIN' CRAZY.
He's about to DROP A TAPE in DIRT
NIKO: One tape please.
NICK: One tape!
NIKO: I've heard that LiPo batteries are really dangerous.
So we have this really puffed up LiPo battery,
and it's a really old battery, it's been used a million times...
WREN: A million times...
NIKO: ...Slight exaggeration.
Anyway, you're not supposed to use them when they get puffy.
I figured, let's see what happens
if I pierce it through the heart with an arrow
NICK: Where is the heart of a battery located?
NIKO: Uhh, right in the smack-dab center.
The battery's like the heart of your electronics...
...Uh, yeah, I dunno what it actually is. NICK: [laughter]
Carmichael, what do you think's gonna happen?
Nick, what do you think's gonna happen?
NICK: I think it's gonna fuckin' explode.
NIKO: [laughter]
CARMICHAEL: Wren, you're an engineer, will it explode?
NIKO: Oh! Just fell off the tape.
CARMICHAEL: 'Cause you watered the board!
NIKO: So it wouldn't light on fire!
It's not fallin' down this time.
I'm hoping this is a little bit of a show.
I'm hoping that we haven't enticed you with an exploding battery...
...just to have it sit there.
[Arrow impacts]
NIKO: Too high.
[Arrow impacts]
Niko: All right, need to pull it out again.
[Arrow impacts] NIKO: [quietly] Aww!
[Arrow impacts]
[Flames hissing]
ALL: Whoa!
CARMICHAEL: Whoa!
NIKO: Holy crap!
NIKO: Whoo, baby!
NIKO: [laughter]
NIKO: That... was great!
WREN: Oh, god! CARMICHAEL: Whoa!
WREN: Oh god, oh god! CARMICHAEL: Round Two, Round Two!
NICK: Holy shit!
NICK and NIKO: [laughter]
NIKO: The arrow is done...
NICK: Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
CARMICHAEL: Oh, film it in slow--
ALL: [exclaiming and laughing]
ALL: Whoa!
WREN: That totally makes sense, 'cause isn't that a three-cell battery? NIKO: Yeah.
WREN: Three... Three burnings!
That FAR surpassed my expectations! Holy crap! That was amazing!
NIKO: Yeah, we didn't want Wren to, like...
...We wanted Wren to hype it up in the beginning,
to make it like -- the video seem all exciting, but he wouldn't do it,
'cause he's all like,
[imitating Wren] "Tsk, I'm an engineering student, and batteries don't explode."
WREN: No-- I-- That was not the case! NIKO: [laughter]
NIKO: Turns out, Wren's expectations... were surpassed!
NICK: Dude, look at the arrow!
NIKO: The thing is, when you charge it, all that electricity releases all at once!
CARMICHAEL: Oh, there's still an arrow in there!
NIKO: If I don't wear this hat, people won't know which channel I'm with!
NIKO: Turns out they weren't lying about LiPo batteries.
Look at that.
SAM: Did it straight up explode?
NIKO: Hah, close. It, uh, it just shot out a jet of flame, like, this long.
SAM: Oh, that's cool. I wish I could've known you guys had been doing that. That'd be fun to watch.
NIKO: I guess you can watch the replay.
SAM: One take! First try!
First try!
I can do this...
ALL: [exclaiming]
SAM: Yeah, like that.
ALL: [exclaiming] NICK: Oh, one take, first try!
SAM: One take, first try!
ALL: [exclaiming]
NIKO: First try. SAM: First try, first try.
WREN: Oh! [laughter]
D: Wow, that was one take, that's crazy.
SAM: I can't believe you did it-- like, you made it perfectly in the first take on the first try.
NIKO: One take, first try, all the way back here!
D: Yup! Here we go!
ALL: [exclaiming]
NIKO: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last day to get your very own Corridor Digital hat.
The reason we do them limited edition is because we actually have to make them to order,
so we take the number of people that ordered them and make that many hats.
So if you want one, today is the day.
I'm personally a big fan of the new yellow and black colors.
CARMICHAEL: There's on average about four to five people working in this studio.
Nick and I can't always be there to film them.
We have a great workshop designed for the builders,
not the cameramen.
Simply put, we need a top-down rig.
I'm going to build the best-moving top-down rig for this workshop.
SPENCER: Top-down rig's only $224.
CARMICHAEL: Minus the camera. SPENCER: Minus the camera and the light.
CARMICHAEL: Here's the plan for the top-down rig that Spencer and I designed.
First we're gonna mount brackets onto the walls.
Then we string up two sets of wires across the room,
horizontally on both sides.
That provides us lateral movement from left to right.
The next step is to cut two boards that go on those cables,
with one board on each side of the room
We attach them with four cables and four tensioners.
These board have four pulley wheels on the back of them
so they can slide left to right on the cables.
Next step is to cut and build the camera dolly that goes in the center of these four cables,
which allows us to go bilaterally across the room in a way that we couldn't before.
CARMICHAEL: Spencer has built the entire top-down rig as a 3D model in 3ds Max.
Functional - so we can have a better idea of physically what's going to be, virtually.
SPENCER: So here's the very unfun part.
I'm curious - There probably is a tool to do this, but I don't own it.
CARMICHAEL: So you're just hand-screwing it for now? SPENCER: I have to.
Stick thing in, and rotate thing.
SAM: One take, first try!
[laughter]
SAM: One take, first try!
D: First try.
[laughter] D: Hold on-
D: One try. [laughter]
D: God dang it.
NIKO: Wren, you want something cool?
WREN: What's that?
NIKO: We did this mixed reality video for Node.
We've been doing it for a couple of weeks now.
[Wren crashes]
NIKO: Holy moly, you okay? WREN: Yeah.
NIKO: The video that just came out today - looks crazy. WREN: Yeah?
NIKO: Yeah, like as a video effects guy, I think you'll really appreciate it.
We figured out a way where we take a third controller that's tracked in 3D space
and you put it on the camera, and that gives you a virtual camera
that's doing the same thing your real-life camera is doing.
So you take the footage from the virtual camera,
and you combine it with footage from the real camera.
It looks like the stuff you're filming is in real life as long as it's on a green screen.
It looks like it's in that virtual space.
There's this game called Gorn, which is a fighting game.
It works flawlessly with mixed reality.
WREN: Oh man. NIKO: Like, it has perfect foreground layers.
WREN: Dude, the key to this is having those foreground layers. NIKO: Yeah.
NIKO: It keeps track of where the headset is in space,
and any models between the headset and the camera - it renders out as a separate layer.
The part where Sam grabs two arms and just starts like poundin' the ground with them...
WREN: [exclaims, laughter] NIKO: Look at this. Look how crazy that looks!
The tracking, the foreground layers, the compositing - like, it all works out so well.
Like, I'm in that space, just making blood triangles fly everywhere.
WREN: We should do, like, an entire short film based on this.
NIKO: Yeah, I'm kinda thinking we should, too.
The visual effects side of me is like, I'm really excited about this.
I really wanna make a GIF of this, 'cause I think this'll hit the front page of Reddit.
I'll do it right when this vlog is posted,
and I'll put a link in the comments so you guys can go upvote it
and we can hit the front page of Reddit.
Would you guys like a GIF making tutorial?
If you would, let us know in the comments below
and we'll put one in one of our upcoming vlogs,
and maybe we can actually do like a little GIF film festival,
where everybody makes GIFs of, I dunno, their favorite parts from a Sam and Niko video,
or something like that.
There's only like, a billion Corridor Digital GIFs out there
but Sam and Niko channel needs a little bit of love.
If you guys wanna check out the full video, it's on Node
so head on over there to watch us live in a virtual realm.
WREN: Isn't all the Big Bear weekend stuff going up soon?
with all the Nerf gang? NIKO: Yeah, every Wednesday now, going forward.
SAM: Every Wednesday for the next two months. NICK: Holy moly.
[Nick speaking]
[laughter]
CARMICHAEL: What's the fit?
SPENCER: Fits in goooood, lookin' good!
SPENCER: We're ready to string our first layer!
And then we need to cut some wood - the first set of wheels on,
tension some more, and we'll be golden!
SPENCER: Time to swedge.
What it does is that we have this little piece of aluminum here,
and a swedger closes that aluminum down on it,
so it doesn't... move.
SPENCER: Without really, actually tightening the middle-
Increase the tension of the walls -
you're the ex-engineer,
Is that more of an exponential pull, or is it more of a -
WREN: Like a linear pull? SPENCER: Yeah, linear.
WREN: Linear increase?
WREN: The crux of the issue is that you need to be able to make this really really tight
so that this doesn't sag. The issue is that when you do that, you're pulling this away
putting a lot of extra tension on these wires which are attached to the walls.
SPENCER: I really wanna know how many pounds we're pulling on the wall there
There's only so much a 2x4 can hold.
WREN: [sighs]
Here, it's a matter of how strong is the connection of the 2x4 to the roof
for whatever studs that the 2x4 studs are connected to.
SPENCER: I'm more worried about here, 'cause this is a pressure point
where the threads are digging into the wood
WREN: So you're saying - you think that this screw point itself might fail.
SPENCER: Oh I think - I think that screw point will fail before anything else, for sure.
SPENCER: Our plan of attack, as I said, is:
we leave the top ones on, replace one wire at a time
making this as tight as we can with, like, unscrewing these.
WREN: I'd say, yeah, just one at a time, pull these cables until the whole system's tight.
SPENCER: From a technical standpoint, this should be easier
than dealing with poles and finding the hardware, and cheaper.
WREN: I feel like going the pole route would've been easier... to be honest.
CARMICHAEL: I just wanna go home.
NIKO: Get that shield outta my face. Get that shield outta my face!
[exclaiming, game sound effects]