NS1 Movie-Making Guide
SpaceJesus
Join Date: 2004-07-02 Member: 29683Banned
Join Date: 2004-07-02 Member: 29683Banned
<div class="IPBDescription">everything you need to know</div><u>Necessary Software/Files</u>
<b>VideoLAN VLC Media Player</b>
A very barebones media player, which has a frankly ludicrous number of video codecs built into it by default - if you can't get a movie to work in another media player, VLC will mostly likely play it.
<i><a href="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/" target="_blank">http://www.videolan.org/vlc/</a></i>
<b>VirtualDUB</b>
Fairly simple yet diverse application which we're going to use to compile our BMP frames into an video file.
<i><a href="http://www.virtualdub.org" target="_blank">http://www.virtualdub.org</a></i>
<b>meGUI</b>
GUI H.264 Encoder
<i><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui" target="_blank">http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui</a></i>
<b>AviSynth</b>
Script-based Frameserver (Needed for H.264 encoding)
<i><a href="http://avisynth.org/" target="_blank">http://avisynth.org/</a></i>
<b>DOWNLOAD</b>
<a href="http://files.filefront.com/Encoding_appszip/;5338765;;/fileinfo.html" target="_blank">Encoding Apps pack - meGUI, VDub, Avisynth, codec pack</a>
<b>Overview</b>
With this guide, we're going to be using the "takes longer, but is better quality" method of moviemaking with NS, I mean we could use FRAPS and be lazy, but this method gives us much more control of how it will turn out, and will also give a much higher quality end product.
The method we'll be using, will be exporting a bunch of frames out of NS via the console, then compiling it into a video, editing, and finally compressing the final video.
This is what I'll be going over in this guide :
<i>Modifying your NS install for moviemaking
Recording from NS via console
Compiling the exported BMP frames into a video file
Basic Editing
Compressing the final video</i>
<b>Modifying your Install</b>
Let's take a look at your default NS install quickly, and how we need to modify it for the purposes of moviemaking :
<img src="http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/208/hudbeforepw5.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
That is your default install, and it isn't going to look particularly pretty in a movie compared to our edited version, is it?
<img src="http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/199/hudaftergm7.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
So let's sort it out yeah?
I was going to go into loads of depth about what you need to replace, what does what etc, but it's easier to just sort it out and put it in a zip for you so here it is - download and unzip to your NS folder and you're ready to go (also included Fana's small dot crosshair, use if you want, imo it looks great in movies).
The bottom two lines are hard coded into the game and we can't remove them, nor can we remove the commander text at the top without losing the names in the killspam - just crop your movie to pand bottom when you finish and it'll be fine.
<a href="http://spacejesus.interlopers.net/downloads/sj_moviens32.rar" target="_blank">http://spacejesus.interlopers.net/downloads/sj_moviens32.rar</a>
<b>Recording from NS via console</b>
<u>Before you capture even one frame of footage</u>
Right from the beginning -> Go to the NVIDIA or ATI driver pages. Get the latest update. Then go into driver settings and look for quality, uncheck anything ‘application controlled’ and push all sliders for anisotropic filtering, anti-aliasing, supersampling, filtering to the highest settings. My card goes to 8x/16x/transparent/triple respectively. And anything that says, “performance vs image quality”, go towards quality of course.
Also enable transparent AA and supersampling if you have the options, but be aware that transparent AA may screw up the text.
<b>Anti-aliasing</b> : <u>most import and noticeable</u>: makes diagonal lines non-jaggy or smoothed out. Adds pixel data to a image.
<b>Anisotropic Filtering</b> : used to make textures more crisp, in particular far away textures.
<b>Example - ATI</b>
<img src="http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/993/atiev7.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
<b>Example - nVidia</b>
<img src="http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/4816/nvidiact6.png" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
NS doesn't have any support for any of these graphical options, so we're setting them in the device driver settings in order to get the highest possible image quality.
In order to record stuff out of NS, we're going to be using the "startmovie" command in console. What this basically does, is makes a screenshot every frame, and saves it to your NS folder, then we can compile the screenshots into a movie.
First off you're going to want to create a new folder in the root of your NS folder called "movies" or something, this is gonna hold all your screenshots so they dont get lost/cluttered in your root folder.
After that, you're ready to record, just make sure everything is as you want it on screen (HUD-wise) and start recording using the startmovie command.
Here is the correct syntax to use
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->startmovie <filepath/filename> <framerate><!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
For example, this is what I'm using for my current movie
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->startmovie movies/rebeli_01_ 30<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
That will record the screenshots/frames to my "ns/movies" folder, and will name the screenshots "rebeli_01_00001.bmp" etc
I'm using framerate 30 because I think it looks a bit smoother on rapid motion than the PAL standard 25FPS does, but anywhere from around 25 to 35 frames per second, is the norm.
<b>Compiling the exported BMP frames into a video file</b>
So now we have all our BMP frames, what are we going to do with them? huh? Well, we're going to use VirtualDub to compile them into an avi, and compress it using huffyuv, a lossless codec. Which means we get 100% of the same image quality, at about 1/5th the filesize per clip. Which helps.
Just open VDub, "File->Open Video file" then double click on the first BMP in your series of frames - for example "rebeli_01_00001.bmp".
then go "Video->Compression" then click on the "Huffyuv" codec in the list, and click OK.
next, click "File->Save as AVI" and save wherever you want, and when you click OK VDub will start compressing.
Bear in mind that VDub encodes at 30fps by default.
<b>Basic Editing</b>
Editing is a pretty big field to cover, suffice to say make sure your footage syncs to the music well, basically learn the effects and tools you can use and you'll be able to do pretty much anything you want eventually, it's just a case of making stuff look good and have a consistant visual style that's really the hard part.
<b>Compressing the final video</b>
So you've got your final video finished in vegas/premiere/windowsmoviemaker - you'll have something that looks like this :
<img src="http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/9523/vegas1pw0.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
what now? First off you want to render out your movie uncompressed (or using the huffyuv lossless codec to save space).
For simplicity's sake I'll give my example using Sony Vegas, seeing as I don't have premiere installed (and have never used it).
<i>File -> Render as...</i>
<img src="http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/70/vegas2hj5.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
<i>e/ encoding stuff later</i>
<i>ignore these links they're here so i dont lose them when i come to write other parts of the tut</i>
x264 settings
<a href="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7115/x264settings2ig1.jpg" target="_blank">http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7115/x264settings2ig1.jpg</a>
<b>VideoLAN VLC Media Player</b>
A very barebones media player, which has a frankly ludicrous number of video codecs built into it by default - if you can't get a movie to work in another media player, VLC will mostly likely play it.
<i><a href="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/" target="_blank">http://www.videolan.org/vlc/</a></i>
<b>VirtualDUB</b>
Fairly simple yet diverse application which we're going to use to compile our BMP frames into an video file.
<i><a href="http://www.virtualdub.org" target="_blank">http://www.virtualdub.org</a></i>
<b>meGUI</b>
GUI H.264 Encoder
<i><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui" target="_blank">http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui</a></i>
<b>AviSynth</b>
Script-based Frameserver (Needed for H.264 encoding)
<i><a href="http://avisynth.org/" target="_blank">http://avisynth.org/</a></i>
<b>DOWNLOAD</b>
<a href="http://files.filefront.com/Encoding_appszip/;5338765;;/fileinfo.html" target="_blank">Encoding Apps pack - meGUI, VDub, Avisynth, codec pack</a>
<b>Overview</b>
With this guide, we're going to be using the "takes longer, but is better quality" method of moviemaking with NS, I mean we could use FRAPS and be lazy, but this method gives us much more control of how it will turn out, and will also give a much higher quality end product.
The method we'll be using, will be exporting a bunch of frames out of NS via the console, then compiling it into a video, editing, and finally compressing the final video.
This is what I'll be going over in this guide :
<i>Modifying your NS install for moviemaking
Recording from NS via console
Compiling the exported BMP frames into a video file
Basic Editing
Compressing the final video</i>
<b>Modifying your Install</b>
Let's take a look at your default NS install quickly, and how we need to modify it for the purposes of moviemaking :
<img src="http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/208/hudbeforepw5.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
That is your default install, and it isn't going to look particularly pretty in a movie compared to our edited version, is it?
<img src="http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/199/hudaftergm7.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
So let's sort it out yeah?
I was going to go into loads of depth about what you need to replace, what does what etc, but it's easier to just sort it out and put it in a zip for you so here it is - download and unzip to your NS folder and you're ready to go (also included Fana's small dot crosshair, use if you want, imo it looks great in movies).
The bottom two lines are hard coded into the game and we can't remove them, nor can we remove the commander text at the top without losing the names in the killspam - just crop your movie to pand bottom when you finish and it'll be fine.
<a href="http://spacejesus.interlopers.net/downloads/sj_moviens32.rar" target="_blank">http://spacejesus.interlopers.net/downloads/sj_moviens32.rar</a>
<b>Recording from NS via console</b>
<u>Before you capture even one frame of footage</u>
Right from the beginning -> Go to the NVIDIA or ATI driver pages. Get the latest update. Then go into driver settings and look for quality, uncheck anything ‘application controlled’ and push all sliders for anisotropic filtering, anti-aliasing, supersampling, filtering to the highest settings. My card goes to 8x/16x/transparent/triple respectively. And anything that says, “performance vs image quality”, go towards quality of course.
Also enable transparent AA and supersampling if you have the options, but be aware that transparent AA may screw up the text.
<b>Anti-aliasing</b> : <u>most import and noticeable</u>: makes diagonal lines non-jaggy or smoothed out. Adds pixel data to a image.
<b>Anisotropic Filtering</b> : used to make textures more crisp, in particular far away textures.
<b>Example - ATI</b>
<img src="http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/993/atiev7.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
<b>Example - nVidia</b>
<img src="http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/4816/nvidiact6.png" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
NS doesn't have any support for any of these graphical options, so we're setting them in the device driver settings in order to get the highest possible image quality.
In order to record stuff out of NS, we're going to be using the "startmovie" command in console. What this basically does, is makes a screenshot every frame, and saves it to your NS folder, then we can compile the screenshots into a movie.
First off you're going to want to create a new folder in the root of your NS folder called "movies" or something, this is gonna hold all your screenshots so they dont get lost/cluttered in your root folder.
After that, you're ready to record, just make sure everything is as you want it on screen (HUD-wise) and start recording using the startmovie command.
Here is the correct syntax to use
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->startmovie <filepath/filename> <framerate><!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
For example, this is what I'm using for my current movie
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->startmovie movies/rebeli_01_ 30<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
That will record the screenshots/frames to my "ns/movies" folder, and will name the screenshots "rebeli_01_00001.bmp" etc
I'm using framerate 30 because I think it looks a bit smoother on rapid motion than the PAL standard 25FPS does, but anywhere from around 25 to 35 frames per second, is the norm.
<b>Compiling the exported BMP frames into a video file</b>
So now we have all our BMP frames, what are we going to do with them? huh? Well, we're going to use VirtualDub to compile them into an avi, and compress it using huffyuv, a lossless codec. Which means we get 100% of the same image quality, at about 1/5th the filesize per clip. Which helps.
Just open VDub, "File->Open Video file" then double click on the first BMP in your series of frames - for example "rebeli_01_00001.bmp".
then go "Video->Compression" then click on the "Huffyuv" codec in the list, and click OK.
next, click "File->Save as AVI" and save wherever you want, and when you click OK VDub will start compressing.
Bear in mind that VDub encodes at 30fps by default.
<b>Basic Editing</b>
Editing is a pretty big field to cover, suffice to say make sure your footage syncs to the music well, basically learn the effects and tools you can use and you'll be able to do pretty much anything you want eventually, it's just a case of making stuff look good and have a consistant visual style that's really the hard part.
<b>Compressing the final video</b>
So you've got your final video finished in vegas/premiere/windowsmoviemaker - you'll have something that looks like this :
<img src="http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/9523/vegas1pw0.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
what now? First off you want to render out your movie uncompressed (or using the huffyuv lossless codec to save space).
For simplicity's sake I'll give my example using Sony Vegas, seeing as I don't have premiere installed (and have never used it).
<i>File -> Render as...</i>
<img src="http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/70/vegas2hj5.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
<i>e/ encoding stuff later</i>
<i>ignore these links they're here so i dont lose them when i come to write other parts of the tut</i>
x264 settings
<a href="http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7115/x264settings2ig1.jpg" target="_blank">http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7115/x264settings2ig1.jpg</a>
Comments
e/ and yes i know its been ages ill post the rest of the tut soon, been busy with radial
I'll need all this stuff for my next vid <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
Thank you !
I know there is a cl_ command for this in HL2, but is there something in HL1 for stopping that?