Relics of Orr Goes Postal on the Fraps
By coehl ~ 29th May 2012
As some of you may recall, I spent quite a bit of time dinking around with Livestream. (Coehl on Livestream) I played some Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Valve games, and Champions Online. But today, I wanted to start experimenting with ways to prepare for massive Mumble parties that would be recorded during Guild Wars 2 gameplay, and what better way to do that than in Guild Wars?
Well there was one better way. Using a variety of four letter words and cursing Procaster to the depths of the worst places your disowned uncle once spoke of. By this, I mean I was pissed off. And so a revelation occurred unto me. But soft, what value is the “live” part of it to us really? Seriously, if we’re running a dungeon or something, are we going to be watching chat? Pfff.
So no, I hunkered down, bought Fraps, and started recording.
To get us going on our Youtube endeavors in this regard, I gave us all a nice priming on the Signet of Spirits Ritualist and how he works within the Realm of Torment on the last two missions (Gate of Madness and the one where you dance for Abaddon).
Note that the first two videos were done with a lack of familiarity with whether or not full size or half size was a better idea. As this continues, I’ll refine the resolution more and more, and the third video should be a goofy testament to that.
I like this idea. Videos of friendly people playing high-level content would encourage lots of people to join your guild.
Exactly. And it’s easier and more fun to produce than a podcast. I like producing podcasts for commuters or people that need something to listen to while working, but that’s a small demographic. Seems to me we’d get far, far more value on the whole from growing from the roots of a good guild and entertaining gameplay commentary.
A while ago I did some dinking of my own in an attempt to do some Let’s Plays, so here’s a bit of Fraps and general recording advice you may find a use for:
1. Record at the resolution you want your final video to run as.
- By this, I am talking about the best resolution you want possible. If you are aiming for 720p HD, set your game resolution to 1280×720. This avoids a smattering of encoding-goofs that crop up when attempting to force something into a different resolution. Scaling down (while keeping the same aspect ratio) is still possible without the lower resolution looking like garbage, which is good for sites like YouTube that will do precisely that without you having an influence on the final version.
2. Record at 30 fps. Most video hosts won’t play it any faster anyway, so recording at 60fps just inflates files and potentially gives you desyncing issues. Fraps will still let you play at your normal frequency, so this only affects the recording.
3. Use Fullsize. Halfsize will compress the recorded footage, which will mangle in-game text beyond reading. The files are going to be huge anyway, and your final video size can be adjusted better in post if this is an issue.
4. Record to a non-system HD. Ideally you should record to a HD where neither Windows nor the game you play is residing, since IO access may give you lagspikes (Fraps isn’t a lightweight app when it is recording), but if both is not an option, avoid the drive your windows is on.
5. Learn to use AviSynth for editing. Even if you are not doing fancy stuff, it’s easy enough to wrap your head around if you have done any coding ever, and will allow you to streamline your workflow.
6. Finally, read this. Most of what I learned can be extrapolated from it, if it is not stated in it directly: http://lparchive.org/meatsupport/FrapsToMeGUI/
Coming through like a boss again man. Thank you. I will use all of this in the next recording. Most of what you say were things that I was catching onto in the process as well. Good stuff.
Holy superninetendo chalmers look at all dem moving pictures for me to knee-slap over. Will my comment work this time?
Sorry about that Dominic. Akismet has been acting up but I’ve been getting into it and messing about to get it to stop being so restrictive. Been frustrating to watch it filter out long time commenters (Like Nox above) for absolutely no reason.
In my case it’s probably because I stopped using all my guildwars-y email addresses.
That makes some sense. Still, there’s no reason I should have to comb through all of that spam every 4 hours (otherwise it becomes a huge job) just to find the posts that are worthwhile and approve them. We get a whole lot of spam now that GW2 is getting more attention on the large scale.