Second Life: Using Fraps & Camtasia to make Machinimas

[peakdavid]

@YouAreTheBestKakak --->> Machinima (muh-shin-e-muh) is a video done by screen recording in a 3D virtual world.

[Akramcsboy99]

xD frats

[AmethystMoonChannel]

How do you get rid of the toolbars and cursor after you've recorded it on fraps? Just so You can see the avie and the environment alone.

[peakdavid]

@AmethystMoonChannel -- to record just the world without toolbars top and bottom, just turn off them off before filming. That is how most machinima are done, but because my stuff is instructional, I leave them in.

[AmethystMoonChannel]

@AmethystMoonChannel I use viewer 2, for some reason i can't find where You hide the tool bar and stuff

[peakdavid]

@AmethystMoonChannel -- I don't use Viewer 2 and a lot of others who make machinima in Second Life don't use it either. Problems with frame rate. I suggest that you download and use the old viewer for the purpose of making a machinima.

[PeePulz]

What is a good video editor that lets you record your voice and overlay numerous sound tracks with the video? I notice camtasia doesn't let you record with the mic for a video, neither does windows movie maker 2.6. That option would be helpful when making machinimas where you want your characters to talk.

[peakdavid]

Pee--I don't know what version of Camtasia you mean, but since 4.0 it has had voice recording and camera recording, together or separate. But if you are doing machinima, I do not recommend Camtasia, which is not really an NLE video editor, although close to one. I think the best buy for consumers in the NLE video editor category is Sony Vegas, Platinum or Pro.

[fuzonacid]

Also a 25fps file is smaller than a 60fps file and generally you won't notice any difference especially if the SIM fps is lower than your 60 fps. I haven't tried 60 fps unless I could get the game to run that fast. Is their some benefit I don't know of?.

[peakdavid]

fuzonacid wrote: "I haven't tried 60 fps unless I could get the game to run that fast."

Good comments and questions. Thanks. The highest fps possible in SL is 45 fps. To get there, you need good gaming card, reduce draw distance to minimum, reduce graphics detail, and increase network bandwidth to max--600. Turn off all unnecessary features and close other programs on your computer.

60 fps on fraps was probably overkill on my part when I first started. Now 30 fps seems fine.

[fuzonacid]

I believe network settings are dependant on your personall internet bandwith. Mine is around 5400 and I'm sure that allows me more fps when recording. It does load a SIM quicker if I have it set just below my internet bandwith rather than say 600 for example. I see it in the stats bar. No lost packets.

[fuzonacid]

When I am dancing 60 fps will look smoother if I am actually getting 60+ fps. Fast motion benefits however because I have a duocore and FRAPS uses a lot of cpu I need a bout 90 fps to record at 60 and depends on what is being drawn in the SIM of course.

[fuzonacid]

I run the SL cache folder on a virtual RAMdisk. It makes a huge difference in fps. A guy with a quadcore I gave the tip to said it doubled his fps to 200 fps. Which would the make shadows possible for filming since that is a big hit on performance. My bottle neck at the moment is cpu I thin since I max out at 98%. He also captured to a RAID system which may account for the massive fps as well on a quadcore..

[fuzonacid]

I guess I should say "viewer" fps as opposed to "SIM" fps as it is indeed only 45fps whereas the former can get much higher.

[fuzonacid]

I have a few questions. Why record at 60 fps when your game was running less than 15 fps? I record at 25 fps which is not always possible of course but most places it will record with no lag. Also why not remove the UI? Unless that ws there for tutorial purposes. SONY vegas will allow you to edit the original FRAPS file. Retaining better quality before the final render.

[peakdavid]

fuzonacid: "Also why not remove the UI? Unless that ws there for tutorial purposes. SONY vegas will allow you to edit the original FRAPS file. Retaining better quality before the final render."

Good guess on the UI--I live it in because I make tutorials for students. On Sony giving a better render--so far I disagree. Sony's MP4 render seems several rungs below Camtasia's MP4 output. So I use Sony for non-linear editing and Camtasia for final output. LOL.

[fuzonacid]

I used to use wmv to render but found the Mainconcept mp4 decoder (in Vegas) if you have the right settings is far superior to wmv with a much smaller file and YouTube seems to convert it better also. I will have to check out Camtasia. I know SONY's codec is not recommended but maybe Camtasia is using the Mainconcept codec as I do?

[peakdavid]

@fuzonacid --good question! I do not know what MP4 codec Camtasia is using. But I did a bunch of comparative tests and Camtasia came out a lot better for me. Someone who knows Sony might get a better output.

This is sort of an old video and I was trying to help this person not crash her earlier version of Camtasia with SL clips.

I wouldn't recommend WMV for anything but Facebook!

[fuzonacid]

From my reading info on the net SIM fps (max 45) is different than Viewer fps (which I have seen 140 on my own machine and others have had 200 fps so not sure what the maximum is). I have recorded once at 60 fps actual frames but general I use 25 fps for the smaller file size and it will remain there rather than the recording rate fluctuating). I have found the "lag" is usually avatar induced or hardware related on the users end.

[peakdavid]

No. I'm not even sure that your question is legal. Giving you a license key certainly isn't.

[zamorak363]

can i have a license key please?