Answers to LB's Frequently Asked Questions

How do I request a map?

Please fill out this form. I will play maps for Portal 2, Destroyed Aperture, Aperture Tag, Thinking with Time Machine, and The Talos Principle. I don't have a schedule for playing cooperative maps, but you can still request them and I might play them someday.

You can view my map request spreadsheet to get an idea of when your map's video might be published.

What's your upload schedule and stream schedule?

I upload Portal 2 PeTI every day at 10am CST and 4pm CST, except for the days after a Portal 2 PeTI livestream. I upload Duskers Daily Challenge playthroughs some time after midnight GMT depending on how long it takes me to complete the challenge and upload the video. Sometimes I have a miscellaneous series running that I upload daily at 1pm CST.

I typically stream on YouTube on Friday and alternate between 9am CST and 7pm CST, and I usually schedule the event in advance so you can click "Set Reminder" and see the time converted to your local time.

How did you recolor your portals?

I managed to somehow follow this guide for Portal 1 and make it work for Portal 2, but only for the portal texture itself. The game hard-codes the color of the crosshairs, though, so if you know how to change them, let me know!

How did you recolor your light bridges?

My friend aerond did it for me, it's a simple matter of editing the texture files.

Which map is that in your queue cleaning thumbnail?

It's a screenshot from a work-in-progress version of my map Layer Cake between two versions that are no longer available. DeathWish808 kept breaking the map by angling lasers through portals in ways I did not expect, and the screenshot is me testing the map and still finding that it is possible. I sent it to DeathWish and he had a good laugh about it, and then I fixed the map and he finally couldn't break it. Then someone did break it and I redesigned the map entirely. You can see the original map layout in DeathWish's video - you can even see my comment with the link to the screenshot. Gameplay of other versions are available somewhere on DeathWish's channel but aren't labeled.

What do you use to record/stream?

I record and stream with OBS Studio on Microsoft Windows 10 Pro with an AMD RX 480 graphics card and an AMD Ryzen 7 1700 processor. My microphone is a Blue Yeti, but there's better microphones for cheaper. My chat overlay CSS can be found here.

In OBS, I use AMD's Advanced Media Foundation hardware encoder to record lossless H.265 video while streaming with x264, but when I'm not streaming I record lossless with x264 since it results in smaller file sizes than AMD's hardware encoder. If I have time, I upload the lossless video straight to YouTube for the best quality, otherwise I upload a compressed version. I use ffmpeg and libx264 to compress the lossless recordings down to more manageable sizes for archival and faster uploads, using the veryfast preset and a CRF of 20. For some games with many dark areas I use a lower CRF - contrary to populat belief, a CRF of 18 is NOT "visually lossless", as even a CRF of 15 will show very obvious artifacting in dark areas.

I typically record at 1280x720 at 25 frames per second (720p25), but for non-infinite series I try to record at 1080p60 or 1080p48 if my system can handle it. If the low video framerate is bad for you, you can change the video playback speed on both YouTube and Twitch to be a bit faster.

For audio, I record three audio tracks to my video files. The first track is combined gameplay+microphone, which is the only track that gets picked up by Twitch and YouTube, and is the track that is livestreamed. The other two tracks are just gameplay and just microphone. This allows me to mute one or the other in editing should the need arise, usually when I have to mute copyrighted music while preserving my own commentary. If I could, I'd also record the audio as lossless, but OBS Studio does not currently have that option in a way that is compatible with multiple audio tracks.

Unfortunately I am often plagued by an audio desync issue caused by some sort of incompatibility between my system hardware configuration and OBS Studio. This most often occurs when I read long map descriptions at the start of the video for Portal 2 PeTI. The audio will for several minutes become filled with crackling noises and will be sped up such that it quickly desyncs with the video. After a while it eventually becomes completely silent, and then it is back in sync with the video again for the rest of the video. I've filed a bug report, but the devs are convinced it is a problem with my hardware and/or system. I've since upgraded to a Ryzen processor and have yet to experience this issue again, so only time will tell if it truly was an issue with my system.

What are your keybinds in Portal 2?

What does "PeTI" stand for?

It's the official acronym that Valve uses to describe the Perpetual Testing Initiative. It refers to the Portal 2 Steam Community Workshop as a whole. It does not refer to the in-game editor called Puzzlemaker, despite many people using it this way. Maps made in the Hammer world editor are also PeTI maps if they are published to the Workshop.

What does "LB" stand for?

It doesn't. It's just two capital letters with no meaning or relevance to anything.

Why is your keyboard so loud in your videos?

It's a mechanical keyboard, this one to be precise. I'm not a mechanical keyboard enthusiast, I just like having N-key rollover.

What kinds of games do you like?

First person puzzle games primarily, but I also like some 2D puzzle platformers such as The Swapper and Vessel. There's a few other kinds of games I like, such as Duskers, but for the most part I don't like any specific genre that much - I decide on a per-game basis.

For reference, here's a list of my favorites:

Who are you talking about when you say "live studio audience" in your videos?

I livestream my recording sessions to my Patrons on Patreon, and they can send chat messages while I'm recording. I usually ignore the messages while recording unless I'm stuck or it's something important.

Can I use your videos in my video or project?

Yes, all of my videos may be redistributed and used for any purpose, with or without credit, commercial or non-commercial. I would even mark my videos as being in the public domain if YouTube had that as a license option. If you need to prove you have the right to use my videos, link to this answer. If that still isn't enough proof of permission, contact me.