Video making Q&A

hawk

With the recent launch of the video making contest, I'm sure many people have started recording or thinking up ideas for submissions. Now, getting from "having an idea for a video" to "mashing the render button in your editing program of choice" can be tricky sometimes if you aren't very experienced with the whole video making process.

I've been making videos for years now, and I still learn new things almost every time I run my editing program - so I'm making this thread to give whatever help I can involving video capture/editing to those that need it. Feel free to ask any questions you have in this thread and I'll (hopefully) be able to answer it.

For now though, the basics:

To make a video for this contest you will need a video capturing program. There are a variety of these out there, some of them being free. Here is a list of a few that immediatly come to mind:

www.fraps.com (free trial available, which limits you to 30 second max length clips and puts a small watermark at the top of the screen. Watermark is easy to crop out, though. This program will cost you $$$ to get the full version of)

www.xfire.com (This is a program that a lot of people use that isn't really specifically designed to be a video capturing program, but just so happens to have one built in. It is free. Outside of messing around with the program for a few minutes I don't really have any experience with this one.)

http://www.planetgamecam.com/ (This is much like fraps in that a free version is available alongside a full version that will cost you 30 dollars. I have no experience with this program.)




Ok, so you've got your editing program. The next thing you need to do is fire it up, start perfect world, and begin recording your masterpiece. Typically, you will assign a hotkey that will start and end recordings (Mine is the insert key). Whenever you end a recording session, an uncompressed video file will be placed into the folder that your video editing program is located. For instance, if you're using Fraps, it will go into the "Fraps" folder under whatever drive you installed it to.

WARNING! uncompressed movie files are HUGE! I would highly recommend that you have LOTS of free hard drive space if you plan on recording a large amount of stuff.

Alright then. So you've recorded your stuff, now you want to start editing. The easiest program to use for this is definitely windows movie maker. Every computer that uses windows (and probably even those that don't) should have this in their start > programs menu. In order to get to your movie files through WMM youll need to click the "import video" button that's under the "capture video" tab on the left side of your screen.

From there on out it's up to you with how to arrange them and what effects to use. It's a very easy to use program, so if you're just starting in the movie making world I would highly recommend it (I used it myself for awhile when I made my first few videos b:victory)

Most people that know their video editing stuff will probably be using some version of Sony Vegas. Consider Vegas the next step (and ultimately the end game) for video editing. It is vastly more complex than WMM, but allows editors a much larger array of effects and editing tools. This program is not free. To get an official version will cost you anywhere from 50 dollars to nearly 600. BUT! You can download a 30 day trial HERE that is fully useable and unrestrictive. A month should be more than enough time to get in, make your contest winning video, and then get out before it expires on you.

PHEW, ok, that's a lot of words. Basically this OP is to help out people completely new to video making. But please ask any and all questions about the subject in this thread and I (or some other editing mastermind) will answer them and help out as much as possible.

Good luck!

RedsRose - Lost City

Thank you for posting this. I personally have never done this before and the contest has given me an excuse to try it out.

I will definitely be asking questions if and when I encounter something.

dvorak

how awesome is this guide? so awesome. b:victory

Mr_jingle - Sanctuary

One quick question:

If a group of PWI players got together to work on a single video with all their names in the credits (at the end of the video), would they all get credit if it wins or just the one who posted it?

Oh forgot to mention, is it ok to add music that not from PWI?

hawk

I imagine whoever filmed and edited the movie would get the prize if their video won. Should probably see what an admin says about that though.

And yeah, any music is fine.

dvorak

Mr_jingle - Sanctuary wrote: »

One quick question:

If a group of PWI players got together to work on a single video with all their names in the credits (at the end of the video), would they all get credit if it wins or just the one who posted it?

Oh forgot to mention, is it ok to add music that not from PWI?

We will be sure to recognize anyone involved in the creation of the winning video(s) but only a total of 3 prizes will be awarded to the 3 winning videos.

It is up to the individual director/submitter to determine how prizes should be split/shared with their creative group.

Yanjing - Heavens Tear

Just an aside - I do have some editing experience and for those who want to get serious I recommend Adobe Premiere Pro. You can download a trial here. I haven't tried the trial so I'm not sure how complete it is.

Mr_jingle - Sanctuary

Dvorak wrote: »

We will be sure to recognize anyone involved in the creation of the winning video(s) but only a total of 3 prizes will be awarded to the 3 winning videos.

It is up to the individual director/submitter to determine how prizes should be split/shared with their creative group.

Alright, the sharing part won't be a big deal. My friends and I could take turns using the prize mount if we do win it. 2 headed dragon ftw!

Q - Dreamweaver

Question: When i run fraps i get A LOT of lagg on PWI... any way to fix this?

Drazo - Heavens Tear

Q - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Question: When i run fraps i get A LOT of lagg on PWI... any way to fix this?

Upgrade your computer. b:thanks

I think fraps uses up a lot of CPU and hard drive I/O resources.

Soho - Lost City

I'm using Camtasia Studio 6.0

Awesome program.

b:victory

Aelric - Lost City

Soho - Lost City wrote: »

I'm using Camtasia Studio 6.0

Awesome program.

b:victory

~$300... guess im stuck with Xfire o.o

(which is another problem with this event, ALOT of us aren't going to be able to get the same quality recordings as the people who use these high tech programs)

Batista - Dreamweaver

Decent intro to video capturing software ... I haven't checked out any freebie movie makers yet but I'm gonna search http://www.download.com later on tonight to see what else is out there.

Personally, from what I've seen so far, FRAPS has a decent reputation but like some have stated, unless your on a killer gaming rig, you'll likely lag (and in my case, badly I think).

formykka

I may be a complete doof, but I didn't notice any way to crop out the fraps watermark using movie maker?

If that is the case I did find that it can be done using VirtualDub, which is free, albeit it was a college project of the author's, so perhaps not the most intuitive. It also has a few extra special effects doodles and fine tuning that WMM doesn't. Not a replacement for WMM, but a helpful addition.

There's a short tutorial for how to do cropping here.

Kittennice - Heavens Tear

Nevermind I figured it out lol.

jemima

hawk wrote: »

Most people that know their video editing stuff will probably be using some version of Sony Vegas. Consider Vegas the next step (and ultimately the end game) for video editing.

Or Premiere, or Final Cut, or one of the many other programs out there.

VenLooki - Heavens Tear

Im done with my Trailer..

Anyone know how to get it on youtube WITHOUT the music beiing mutedb:sad

I placed it on youtube but they mute my music.. And the trailer is made on/around the music!!

Can I post it somewhere else 2 PWI staff???


b:surrenderb:cryb:cry

Salvia - Heavens Tear

VenLooki - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Anyone know how to get it on youtube WITHOUT the music beiing mutedb:sad

If it was removed because of a copyright issue you can solve it using the method shown on this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPZ0sxrBkek

(And Supernatural = amazing show.)

VenLooki - Heavens Tear

Thnx that helpedb:victory

Klosar - Sanctuary

Is there any program who alow us to see models in game? I wanna do some machinima video but i cant find it :S
For those who doesnt no about this check this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE1tgO-LCh0

Hisuna - Sanctuary

and the quality of video is nice, but like hawk says in the OP, the file size is ridiculously huge...

that being said, there isn't a place I can upload such a huge file to that I know of without being charged, if I edit with movie maker or whatever else, is there going to be a way to convert this to a smaller size? Video newbie here, so if anyone can explain this that'd be great.

hawk

By rendering the movie through windows movie maker or some other program, you will cut down on the file size dramatically. A 3 minute movie will probably be around 150 megs, more or less, depending on what type of render you are using. Be warned that after rendering there is a drop in video quality. You can compensate for this by encoding the video at higher quality levels (causing larger file size).

VenLooki - Heavens Tear

My vid/trailer is 20MB actual size.. (3:30)

But when you place on youtube, youtube will crop it for ya..b:surrender

But the quality of it goes down really fast.. It's so bad on youtube my trailerb:sad

Klosar - Sanctuary

Can some one reply on my question? Is there any model viewer for PWI? I wanna try to do one rly nice video b:pleased

hawk

Klosar - Sanctuary wrote: »

Can some one reply on my question? Is there any model viewer for PWI? I wanna try to do one rly nice video b:pleased

Nothing like this exists as far as I know. You could probably get the same effect by doing some crazy alpha channel/masking work but stuff like that is way over my head.

Aelric - Lost City

Heres a little something to add to your guide Hawk... some videos recorded are not able to be edited by certain programs, I know when using Xfire you have to encode the videos to use WMM to edit them. To do this just download Windows Media Encoder.

PerfectQueen - Lost City

Q_Q does any know how to get the skills and other stuff not showing...all you see is the chara and the environment Q_Q? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVrq3gmj8NM&feature=related i dont want my chara name showing or skills or chat nothing like that Q_Q but chara and enviroment..plz reply Q_Q

PerfectQueen - Lost City

thx Q_Q asddddddddd

Aelric - Lost City

Queen, go to your UI tab under the settings menu and uncheck everything u dont want to show... also Alt+H hides the interface

hawk

While in game, click the rubix cube in the lower left and go to the "UI" tab, and then just uncheck everything that you dont wan't to be visible. That will get rid of all of the names/text and stuff.

Klosar - Sanctuary

hawk wrote: »

Nothing like this exists as far as I know. You could probably get the same effect by doing some crazy alpha channel/masking work but stuff like that is way over my head.

Ty for info man. I hope we will get PW Model Viewer from some one soon b:sad