I'm new, Use Vist, Need a Screen Capture Program, Need HELP!

Hello! I hope that someone can help me. I've been looking at this forum and doing searches through it, but so far I must have missed the one that might help me, so thought I'd just start a thread that would, hopefully....

To start with...I'd heard of "Machinima" before, but never knew exactly what it was. I'd seen the tutorial movies Torley done and things, and I'd wanted to make my own for teaching purposes so I went around looking for how to capture "live feed", knowing he could capture his. But I couldn't find anything.

Then I ran across the Machinima.com site and was amazed (& hooked) on what is out there. I'd seen stuff before, like I said, but didn't know it had gone to this extent and had reached so far. So I started looking into more links in the forum and such and have followed all kinds of links through it. I've watched several well done movies, none of them as 'jerky' as my lame attempts have been so far, yet so far all of them only spoke of what editing program they used or what link I could find the movie at or what other special thing was used for it or in it. Or something else special about it. So far, the only thing remotely helpful I've found was a link to "Alt-Zoom" which I thought was the capture program. It had stuff that you set up these way points in-world then a camera that you pulled out and the camera would then follow the way points when you said 'action'. Only thing is... It didn't record anything. I can't figure out how to get anything to record. Sure, the camera follows from waypoint one to two to three, and so on and so forth, and it took me a full day to figure this out, after being thrown across the sim I live in a few times too because two of the waypoints were too close together but it doesn't "record" anything. No where in my computer is there a file that says all the information I stuck on the camera.

Sooooooo I tried it again this time with the "start/stop" button. But it didn't work. The thing is, I'm embarrassed to say it, but just don't know how to 'capture' the videos. I went back and looked at the machinima site and I looked at this forum, and I looked in-world, and I spent quite awhile trying out different things, even tried the normal 'start/stop' button again that SL has. But I don't know if it is my operating system (I run Vista) or what, but that start/stop gives me a jerky picture when I GET a picture, and it cuts it up into 4 pictures all off center when I open it to view it. I know that my video card is good, it's new and a 8600 GeForce with 512 mgs of it's own memory. I just installed it a few weeks ago. So that shouldn't be a problem, but it might be the Vista that is... ?

Anyway.... I've tried all kinds of things, and I can't figure it out. I've tried to look in here for a program for Vista but don't see anything listed.

I have a couple questions for those that have been doing this...

1: Do I have to buy expensive 'capture' programs?

2: Do I have to have a separate "camera man" or can I take the picture while still having my av in the picture as well?

3: I've got plenty of room for 'sets', so that isn't an issue to set things up. Do I have to use the 'way points', or I can I just 'pan' around my subjects using the built in camera that you use normally while in SL?

4: Is there any special "equipment" needed while in-world that will help with making these?

Thanks for your time and effort. I applicate it. I have some ideas, but mostly I'm a teacher and I'd like to be able to make some instructional videos for some of the more difficult builds that I do that I've had some of the students have problems with. It'd make it so much easier.

Thanks!

I'm probably not the most knowledgable person to reply but since no-one else has so far I'll give it a whirl...

Fraps is one program I know of that will allow you to capture in-game footage. You can download a trial version but you will have the watermark on all footage that you capture. There are various settings within this program..codecs..etc and I'm afraid that I know very little about them but at least I was able to tell you the name of the program..

I've tried it and whilst the footage doesn't look ...eh....great... at least it's a start. I've seen some of the amazing stuff out there that people have put together...don't know how they do it..but I also would love to learn.

www.fraps.com

I'm sure there are loads of other applications out there but that's the one that comes to mind...

Regarding camera shots in-world, there are loads of 'tools' that will help you in that respect and make things easier than using the 'camera controls'...just have a look around on Slex etc...

Good luck with your machinma and let us know how you do.....maybe it would be good to learn from a new perspective....for me anyway...

You can find a 6-page instruction path tht will take you from where you are now to posting videos on YouTube here:
http://www.thinkerer.org/Studios/StuCamEd.htm

To follow it, you need to get FRAPS. There is a free version, but later you will want to get the $40 version. Don't buy an expensive capture vesion unless you know why you need it.

Vista is no problem. I have been taking video with it for 6 months.

You will get pictures (and audio) of what you see on the screen, including your av. You don't need to buy a program to control camera movement. You may later decide that you need one, but first learn to make videos. Then you can learn to use a camera control program if you want it . Start by using a fixed camera and let the action happen in front of it.

You will need to edit and compress. Windows Movie Maker comes free with Vista and is qujite adequate for beginning work.

If you have other questions, send me an IM.

Thinkerer Melville

Thinkerer..... I've used the trial version of Fraps....but my footage comes out very pixelated and 'stuttery'...if that's even a proper word...lol

What would be the correct settings to use in Fraps ....

it works great for capturing..all you do is start the program, then when second life is running you just push one key (I use the num lock key) and everything on screen starts being recorded to your computer..if you want to get rid of all onscreen writing while recording then you push control-alt-F1 at the same time....good luck...filming in SL can be a distinct challenge but it can also be very rewarding as well.

I've got Sony's ""Movie Studio" for editing. I bought it when I was going to edit together some movies for dvd from my old vhs home movies (just haven't yet)....... Sounds like Fraps is what I'll be downloading to test out. Thanks everyone. I'm heading over to the link now to check it out.

Will see if the studdering/jerky happens. I've got a high end video card so that should be good....?

I installed the 'trial' version. And since it comes with no instructions, I looked at the FAQs that were in the "HELP" file and tried to see what I could see... I hit the "hotkey" and... nothing. That was a complete waste of time and space. All I got was "exiting Fraps will make it so you can't see the frame rate in your game" when I tried to close it. Yeah, well since I couldn't see anything anyway....

I am now experiamenting with a totally FREE program called CamStudio http://camstudio.org/ that so far, even though it has no instructions, and no real support either, at least when I hit the clearly defined "record" button I actually got a picture! Yeah! Something came out! Wasn't as good as I've seen other's images, even on the highest setting SL looked a bit grainy and blocky, so that was a bit disappointing. But it was better then nothing at all.

Only thing left would be got get a MAC and I'm not going to buy a MAC just to make machinima movies. Next stop... I'll try to get up in time to visit Torely Linden during office hours and see what he uses.

My own preferences are HyperCam... it does the same as Fraps, but you can dynamically choose the 'screen zone' for capturing, you can also move the capture frame on the fly.

The stuttering maybe caused by either capturing at a higher frame rate than your system can cope with. The default is 25fps, to see what your system is capable of, press Ctrl+Shift+1 and look at the report window, it states the fps your client is capable of rendering dynamically. Although, thats not under the loading of capturing. I say this because, if you are running all your programmes and capturing onto the same HD (not different partitions on the same HD, thats the same as it uses the same controller and data connection), the controllers throughput will slow down.

Try capturing to a different HD, that is a Master on it's own controller. I prefer Sata II HD's.

If you are capturing at a lower or higher frame rate than preset in your editing programme, then the additional frames of higher frame rate will be dropped and you will have jerky movement, similarily, too low a frame rate of capture, you simply won't have the data to match.

Try capturing at 15fps, or that nearest to your system capabilities, given an average, and use that setting in the preferences of your editing programme, before you load any media into the project window. Try not to capture sound as well, as this adds to the load, apply sound/music/sound effects, in the editing programme in different layers/tracks.

If you struggle to get better movement, consider either taking foreground moving objects/avatars against a solid green screen in a skybox, then using a chroma keying mask, remove the green background and overlay this into a background picture or movie. You can use pan and crop, and or using the timeline, actually move each layer (Ken Burn technique) to create paralexing movement, gausian blurring, pan cropping, even special effects on each layer, masks between the layers. See an example here http://www.wba-advertising.com/test/wba.html

Also using Hypercam, try reducing the capture window, although too small will not give you quality, last resort, use a codec as you capture (avi is uncompressed), reducing the effectiveness of the codec percentage to gain you a balance of quality and movement flow.

I don't think the problem you described is the result of FRAPS settings. It is likely to result from machine load. You can reduce the FRAPS machine load by using the half screen setting.
More important things to do: Clear cache and limit the size to half a gig.
Defrag your disk.
Close any programs you don't need, including background stuff.
Sorry I took so long to answer but I overlooked your question.
TM