Making A Video From Ns
ikir
Join Date: 2003-07-19 Member: 18265Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Gold
Join Date: 2003-07-19 Member: 18265Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Gold
<div class="IPBDescription">Help! I'm a noob about it</div> Hi guys! Sorry for these lame questions... but how i can make a video (mpeg, avi ecc..) from a NS Game?
Do i need to record a demo first and then capture it? Can you point me to the right tools?
Thanks in advance to all.
Do i need to record a demo first and then capture it? Can you point me to the right tools?
Thanks in advance to all.
Comments
<a href='http://fraps.com/' target='_blank'>http://fraps.com/</a>
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Generally, I record a demo while playing ("record demo1" in console for example), then play it back later and use fraps to dump it to an AVI file.
Then import it into your video editor of choice, add music, etc., encode it, and you're all done.
I'm not sure how demo playback works in NS because I've never tried it.
Don't try recording while playing though, as it can easily cut your FPS in half.
THere's a startmove command that will let you transform demos into .bmps. These can then be used for creating a movie in a program like videomach.
As mentioned, its best to do each A/V stream seperately:
1) record a demo
2) playback the demo
3) use "startmovie <name> <fps>" to start recording to a .bmp video stream
4) use "endmovie" to stop recording
5) this dumps numerous .bmp video frames (number depending on the fps you chose) into your NS directory.
6) import these .bmps into your favourite video editor (Vegas 6, Windows Movie Maker, etc)
7) edit, change, etc, and save as your desired encoding
8) overlay with your favourite songs/FX
9) if you want to maintain the original game sound:
-go back to the rough location of where you used "startmovie" in your demo
-open your favourite sound recorder (SoundForge, recorder, etc)
-set its recording input as "what you hear" or "wav" (depending on your sound card)
-record the game sounds as the demo plays
-combine this audio with your video (may require timeline editing depending on your fps settings).
voila, your own NS motion picture movie!
As mentioned, its best to do each A/V stream seperately:
1) record a demo
2) playback the demo
3) use "startmovie <name> <fps>" to start recording to a .bmp video stream
4) use "endmovie" to stop recording
5) this dumps numerous .bmp video frames (number depending on the fps you chose) into your NS directory.
6) import these .bmps into your favourite video editor (Vegas 6, Windows Movie Maker, etc)
7) edit, change, etc, and save as your desired encoding
8) overlay with your favourite songs/FX
9) if you want to maintain the original game sound:
-go back to the rough location of where you used "startmovie" in your demo
-open your favourite sound recorder (SoundForge, recorder, etc)
-set its recording input as "what you hear" or "wav" (depending on your sound card)
-record the game sounds as the demo plays
-combine this audio with your video (may require timeline editing depending on your fps settings).
voila, your own NS motion picture movie! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
im using rather fraps... because not everybody got enough diskspace to save several thousand uncompressed bmp images.....
and then syncing that crap with the audio again is a pain in the ****....
i use my 100 gig hdd to record uncompressed avi, with full resolution, and highest sound quality, and compress it later with xvid..or divx5 .... and have not really a visible quality loss... in comparsion used the fraps version to the startmovie method several gigs less.... WITH sound...
i would say for longer vids use fraps... and lots of hdd space is needed anyways...
All unencoded/RAW AVI files use a crapload of space... so does the 30+ bitmaps you're generating per second when recording.
Fraps-generated AVI > 1 zillion bitmaps k
Startmovie thingie takes too much time and you cant get the sound from the game if needed.
And about this diskspace thingie.
well for bmp you can always convert em to jpgs easily with Irfanview etc.
And about avi, you can download Virtualdud, divx codek and make high guality video
wich still saves alot disk space without killing the guality.
I tested for fun. 609 bmp files needs 836mb diskspace.
Convert em to high guality jpg and its only 185mb now. (well still guite alot but cant help it) <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Startmovie thingie takes too much time and you cant get the sound from the game if needed.
And about this diskspace thingie.
well for bmp you can always convert em to jpgs easily with Irfanview etc.
And about avi, you can download Virtualdud, divx codek and make high guality video
wich still saves alot disk space without killing the guality.
I tested for fun. 609 bmp files needs 836mb diskspace.
Convert em to high guality jpg and its only 185mb now. (well still guite alot but cant help it) <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You don't want to convert BMP --> JPEG --> AVI. You're compressing the video twice.
I just use FRAPS to grab an uncompressed AVI and VirtualDub to compress it using Xvid.
Some reasons against Fraps:
-It compresses the video while recording, that causes a slight quality loss. While it might not be visible for your eye at all, it will cause trouble for the codec which compresses the movie at the end.
-Fraps compresses in real-time, which means it is meant to capture 25fps per second on at least 640*480 resolution. I don't need to say that it's a lot of data to be saved on the disk. nearly all today's hard disks (beside the 10000rpm thingies) cannot capture these amount of data. What Fraps does then, is skipping some frames. So in a 25fps movie, you might have lets say 20 'real frames', and 5 repeated frames, because Fraps couldn't capture these. That is the biggest disadvantage of Fraps: you will get frame-drops, which will even worsen during CPU-intensive scenes.
-You'll have to buy it
Reasons for Fraps:
-It's easy and fast to use.
-Quality is 'OK', even if not perfect.
-You can capture audio and video footage at the same time.
There is a much better alternative as long as we talk about Quake engine based games (like Half-Life and all its mods). The 'startmovie <name> <fps>' command captures uncompressed .bmp files into your ns folder at an unlimited framerate (well I used over 1600fps, don't know if there really is a limit). The good thing about it: The command 'waits' for your computer to draw these bmps. You could capture at 100fps on a 100Mhz machine and it would still work. You can be sure that you don't get any frame drops, and due to the uncompressed .bmp output, you get perfect visual quality.
The bad thing about startmovie is: It's a bit more effort to use it. But believe me: When you're a bit serious about moviemaking, startmovie is the way to go. No other way!
Okay, so far so good. Now to the other statements here
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->6) import these .bmps into your favourite video editor (Vegas 6, Windows Movie Maker, etc)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh hell no <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> . The bmps generated by startmovie should first be converted into one single avi. Why? Because it's much smaller (no bmp headers for each file), and easier to use. Beside that, it's a good thing to add lossless compression to the file at that point. That'll save ~50% disk space with no visual loss (it's mathematical lossless). The most used codec for this task is <a href='http://www.divx-digest.tv/software/codec/huffyuv-2.1.1.zip' target='_blank'>huffyuv</a> (opensource). With that compression, the avi file is now roughly as big as the Fraps files would be, just with better quality. The software for bmp -> avi conversation is also opensource: <a href='http://www.virtualdub.org/' target='_blank'>VirtualDub</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->i use my 100 gig hdd to record uncompressed avi, with full resolution, and highest sound quality, and compress it later with xvid..or divx5 .... and have not really a visible quality loss... in comparsion used the fraps version to the startmovie method several gigs less.... WITH sound...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's the most widespreaded mistake out there: To compress the footage with any lossy codec (like xvid).
1: These codecs are based on delta-frames. While I don't really want to explain what that exactly means, I can advise you to try to play these backwards (or just jump around in the timeline). You will see it is not possible / takes a very long time. They are meant to be played forward. Anything else will get these codecs into trouble, and cause enourmous slow-downs while editing. And you propably will jump a lot around in the timeline during the editing process.
2: There is a major quality impact, even at astronomic bitrates. Even if you don't see, the codec will 'see' it at the final compression. So this is really a no-no!
And as stated above: If done right, startmovie is as big as Fraps footage.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->i would say for longer vids use fraps... and lots of hdd space is needed anyways...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's exactly the other way round. If just want to capture a small video, let's say a single Frag, a jump or something, then you can use Fraps for it. But if you want to make a more serious movie project, maybe a Story movie or something, Fraps is no alternative.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->well for bmp you can always convert em to jpgs easily with Irfanview etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Same as above: you would have a double-compression, which brings codecs into heavy trouble.
Enough said I guess. If anyone still things that Fraps is a good way to capture ns movies, post here <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
If you have a semi-decent computer, you won't lose any frames while playing a Half-Life game and recording with FRAPS. I didn't lose any FPS while recording in Garry's Mod, and that's the Source engine.
Quick question though, does Source still support the .BMP method?
I found a stick of 128mb RAM in the back of my Dad's pickup today.
Fraps is for those with less time/skill/patience.
Bitmap video streaming is the more professional systematic way.
If you want a quick duck-taped job, you can use Fraps, but I assure you, if you want to exhibit this aa a professional and thoroughly created movie, use the latter method.
How do you know you don't have any frame drops? The avi will always have the selected 25/30/whatever fps.
And yes, the source engine supports startmovie, but the syntax is different ('host_framerate <fps>'; 'startmovie <name>').
It was ok but there was alot of quality lose.
So if you want to make a serious video project on ns then please, take the time and effort to do it efficiently because i know i will <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->