Please note this guide is not completed yet, I'll be adding to it as quickly as I can but I didn't expect to run short on time.
I know some stuff is missing from the guide, such as locations of base folders in mac/linux feel free to inform me with these or I'll look it up later when I have time! I'd gladly take any input including software/resource links to add into the guide. I will put a large resource pack at the bottom of the guide after its finished with more links that I find or any that you guys think could be useful.I've noticed a lot of people having an increased interest in making some tremulous videos lately and it seems a lot of people just don't know how to do it or are making videos with extremely low quality that almost hurts the game's image. So I thought I'd break down a simple tutorial on the basics of recording and producing your very own tremulous video!
First things first, you need an idea. If you know you want to make a video it is always a good idea to have an idea of what you want to make. I wouldn't suggest just trying to swing an entire video, you'll have plenty of opportunity throughout the video to do something eccentric and un-planned, if you just start a video with no plans whatsoever, however, you'll probably end up with a cluster of confusing unorganized clips that no one can enjoy. Some popular video ideas usually include.
- Parodies (pick your favorite movie/book/songs and do something creative with them and your tremulous footage)
- Frag Videos - This one is popular to fps games. Show off you or your friends mad in game skills pew pew
- Clan Matches - Make a video of highlights of an epic battle between two different clans, don't forget to show the outcome as thats the most important part.
- Goofing off - Pick some fun music and search through your footage to find the most amusing scenes you can.
- Creativity - Maybe make your own story serious or comical.
Next you need some audio. Most of the time you'll be looking at music but you're always welcome to do some voice overs/clips of audio from movies or whatever else floats your boat. If you are going to use self recorded audio, make sure you use a good program with good sound input to record yourself. I would suggest using
Audacity® a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds though there are other options out there. Next, you'll need a mic. Make sure you're using the best quality you can and always be willing to re-record yourself several times to get the highest quality you can. Alter and edit your sounds to the best of your ability to clean and clear them up, there are plenty of guides out there to help you with that if you want to google them. Nobody wants to hear your dog barking(well, most of the time) or severe static noise when they're trying to enjoy the video. You want clear crisp audio that is easy to understand.
If you are going to use music, you are welcome to use whatever you want but I would really suggest using some free music. As most video sites you can face copyright issues using copyrighted music and your video could get removed once you're ready to share it with the world. Some great audio resource sites including music/sounds are listed below. Remember if you used someone else's audio always credit them! Thats just common courtesy.
http://www.opensourcemusic.com/ http://www.freesound.org/http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/Last but not least, you could always make your own music, I wont go into details with composing your own music because that'd be one large guide probably a lot bigger than this one in itself. If you do, however, already know how, then more power to you and I'd really suggest it! It isn't too hard to cut a simple mix together yourself if you have some of the software required and innovation is the key to success!
Next you need some footage this is probably the hardest part for most but it is also the most important. This will be the longest and most detailed part of the guide, so grab a soda and a notepad and please take this very seriously because this at the very end will effect how people enjoy your video more than anything else!
Obtaining footage in game. -
The best and most effective method of obatining footage is to record a demo first always. We'll get to screen-recording your footage later, but running screen recorders while you're playing will only cause your video to be laggy and pixilated and will not give you the option to remove your HUD and other things that can really improve your video! Not to mention that demos are very small in filesize compared to recorded footage, that means you can have 30 minutes of demo of a whole match and use a way less amount of space compared to recording all 30 minutes when you'll probably only need 2-3 minutes of actual footage out of that demo. Recording a demo in game is very simple. While playing just open console with the tilde key(`) on most keyboards its directly above TAB and below ESC but some smaller laptops will place it down by alt just left of the space bar. When your console is open type
/record nameofdemo. You should see a little circle show that implies that you've begun recording. To stop recording either quit the game or type /stoprecord in console. You can name the file whatever you want or you can leave that part blank and just type /record. If you do just type /record, however, you will get some really long confusing demo names that you will not be able to sort through very easily. The demo names will be demo0000.dm_69 and will numericaly increase by 1 everytime you record a demo. It will be a lot easier for you if you name your demos something you'll recognize such as atcsfun or clanmatchaodvs>< so keep that in mind when you're recording footage to use in your video. Remember, you can always have someone else demo you too! Having a spectator record can always be a good option because of the ability to free roam and to switch between different players giving your more angles, veiwpoints, and options for your video.
Next is keeping track of your demos, they should go right in your default tremulous base folder unless you've specified elsewhere.
Windows users with any semi-updated client that will be
C:/Documents and Settings/YourUserName/Local Settings/Application Data/Tremulous/base/demosIf you're using the clean install right of tremulous.net(which I hope no one is) the demos will be in
C:/Program Files/Tremulous/Base/demos - or wherever you installed tremulous at if you didn't chose the default installation location.
LinuxMacNow that you have your demos you need to turn them into editable and viewable material!The first thing you need to do is play back your demos to record them or at least the parts you want to record. To play back your demo, open up tremulous, open up your console and type in
/demo demoname Remember it is very important to include .dm_69 at the end of the name to paly it back! When you're saving the demo it will automatically add on the .dm_69 for you to save as thats the file type it records to but you need to specify that to play the demo back. If you named your file atcsfunmatch you'll need to type in
/demo atcsfunmatch.dm_69 Also remember it is case sensitive! I'd suggest just never capitilizaing your demo names to avoid the trouble.
Once you've done that you should see the map you were playing on when you recorded the demo load up and you'll start seeing yourself playing!(or whoever you recorded) Now you need to record this into a viable video format!
The first option would be to use /video the tremulous built in video recording feature. I don't suggest this option because it will always cap your fps to 30 and severely hammers your computer's resources. If you do want to do it, however, it is pretty simple. Just like recording demos, when your demo is playing you type /video nameofvideo and watch it work its magic. Then you can go grab the file in the same base folder your demos are at. You can quit out of the demo to stop recording it at anytime. I'm not sure if you can type /stopvideo to stop recording at a specific point, but I'll look into that and update it immediately.
The next option would be to use a screen recorder, this is probably the method I would suggest. There are several screen editors you can use but I'm only going to mention two of them at this point. The two I would suggest would be CamStudio or Fraps. The difference in them is fraps will record better encoded files with slightly higher quality but it also is not a free program where as camstudio is completely free.
http://camstudio.org/http://fraps.com - the full version of fraps costs $37 US
Both of these programs have quick keys that you can set to automatically start recording your screen and I believe they both have default file locations of your recoreded footage that you can set to anywhere you want. I'd suggest making your own specific folder to keep your files in. Fraps is slightly easier to use and lets you specify a controlled fps which is a really great feature for your recording process. If you're going to use fraps I'd suggest setting the fps to 60. I know you can go higher in most cases as the usual tremulous player plays with 90+ fps, but I wouldn't suggest going higher than 60 because having a consistent fps is a lot better than having a high one that occasionally goes up and down a little. Also most video sites wont recognize higher than 60 fps anyway, as the standard video footage runs in 30 fps. As long as your fps is consistent the video should play through smooth and crisp. You don't want a random fps like 37 or 42 because video codec formats will find them unusual, they'll cause interlacing, and your footage will come out jagged. That is a very bad thing. The default fps would be 30 and 60. I'd go with 60 and after you're done editing your footage we'll probably cut it down to 30 for space to quality reasons. Fraps will default 29.97 if you decide to use 30, just leave it at that. Don't panic and think that the .03 makes a difference as 29.97 is actually the correct framerate, its just usually specified as 30 because people like things simple.
Anyway, to record your demo with fraps or camstudio. Just run either of them, then open tremulous and start playing your demo. Then hit the quick key you've assigned (default is f9 on fraps not sure about cam studio) and it will start recording automatically for you. You should get smooth clean usable footage in a viable video format(avi). Both programs give you the option to record the default sound(which your demo will be playing) or to add new sound whether from mic input or an audio file but I would suggest not doing this. You have the option to alter the audio later when you're editing your video and these programs are designed for video not audio so you could be imparing your audio quality for no viable reason.
The most important thing to remember when getting footage is that it is always better to have more than enough than not enough. Get as much as you can afford spacewise and/or as much as you could want, that way you have plenty to choose from and you're not limiting your creativity editing wise.
The next step is editing your footage/adding your audio!I have to go to sleep now, I'll be adding this and the last section in tomorrow!
The final step, sharing your video with the world!
