Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Films and Screenshots => Topic started by: Krusty on March 12, 2007, 07:40:55 PM
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This is for SLED's question in another forum, but it is about screenshots and films, so I'll post it here (then link him to it). It may or may not help anybody else as well.
First off I start the film viewer and play the film. You either have to see a possible screenshot coming up before it happens, or you have to replay the film multiple times.
You cannot rewind the film, otherwise smoke, flames, etc totally screw the film up and the screenshot looks like crap.
Further, I do not PAUSE when taking a screenshot. If you reduce playback speed (with the slider) all the way to zero you get some problems with shells falling forward while the aircraft sits still, or the hit sprites time out and disappear, and/or other things that make it look uncool.
So, if I see I'm about to merge and I know at the top of the merge I'll get a wickedly close snapshot, I will slow the speed down to about 0.04 or 0.07 if I can get it that slow. I'll start positioning my views, including ZOOM and FOV sliders, to get the best image. Once I know the FOV and ZOOM, and I'm in external view, and have about what I want, I need to give myself plenty of advance time.
I click "Fullscreen mode". Now you have to give yourself plenty of time for all the white textures to display again. Move mouse all the way off screen to the right. Wait. You can adjust position of the view and zoom using your keyboard, but not your FOV. So you follow the action. As your aircraft moves, you reposition it. Always be on the lookout for an angle you hadn't thought of.
This can be a long wait, if you gave yourself too much time. Nothing to be done for it, because you really' can't rewind once you start shooting. At 0.07 it's fast enough to not make you give up, but slow enough to get screenshots with tracers, hit sprites, or really cool action shots, and let you position the view to get the shot you want.
When you GET the shot hit PRNT SCRN. Don't hit it again unless a split second later you get a BETTER shot. Anytime you press it again, what you had before is lost.
Once you have a print screen you like, click anywhere with mouse, pause the film or close it. Open Photoshop, new file, paste, flatten image, rectangular marquee, and crop.
Save, voila.
Rectangular marquee because your are ALWAYS centered in the film viewer. It doesn't always lend to the best image or screenshot, if half the image is just grassland below you, and all the action is in the upper right corner. Might as well just crop around the action.
Note you don't have to be in external view, or even in your aircraft. You can double click another player in the player list, and position the view around their aircraft showing yours in the forground/background for effect, or you can position the view in internal mode in your aircraft if you so wish. Play around, have fun! It's one of the best ways to learn.
That, SLED, is how I take screenshots from films, in a nutshell.
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Originally posted by Krusty
This is for SLED's question in another forum, but it is about screenshots and films, so I'll post it here (then link him to it). It may or may not help anybody else as well.
First off I start the film viewer and play the film. You either have to see a possible screenshot coming up before it happens, or you have to replay the film multiple times.
You cannot rewind the film, otherwise smoke, flames, etc totally screw the film up and the screenshot looks like crap.
Further, I do not PAUSE when taking a screenshot. If you reduce playback speed (with the slider) all the way to zero you get some problems with shells falling forward while the aircraft sits still, or the hit sprites time out and disappear, and/or other things that make it look uncool.
So, if I see I'm about to merge and I know at the top of the merge I'll get a wickedly close snapshot, I will slow the speed down to about 0.04 or 0.07 if I can get it that slow. I'll start positioning my views, including ZOOM and FOV sliders, to get the best image. Once I know the FOV and ZOOM, and I'm in external view, and have about what I want, I need to give myself plenty of advance time.
I click "Fullscreen mode". Now you have to give yourself plenty of time for all the white textures to display again. Move mouse all the way off screen to the right. Wait. You can adjust position of the view and zoom using your keyboard, but not your FOV. So you follow the action. As your aircraft moves, you reposition it. Always be on the lookout for an angle you hadn't thought of.
This can be a long wait, if you gave yourself too much time. Nothing to be done for it, because you really' can't rewind once you start shooting. At 0.07 it's fast enough to not make you give up, but slow enough to get screenshots with tracers, hit sprites, or really cool action shots, and let you position the view to get the shot you want.
When you GET the shot hit PRNT SCRN. Don't hit it again unless a split second later you get a BETTER shot. Anytime you press it again, what you had before is lost.
Once you have a print screen you like, click anywhere with mouse, pause the film or close it. Open Photoshop, new file, paste, flatten image, rectangular marquee, and crop.
Save, voila.
Rectangular marquee because your are ALWAYS centered in the film viewer. It doesn't always lend to the best image or screenshot, if half the image is just grassland below you, and all the action is in the upper right corner. Might as well just crop around the action.
Note you don't have to be in external view, or even in your aircraft. You can double click another player in the player list, and position the view around their aircraft showing yours in the forground/background for effect, or you can position the view in internal mode in your aircraft if you so wish. Play around, have fun! It's one of the best ways to learn.
That, SLED, is how I take screenshots from films, in a nutshell.
actually, if you hit the pause button (as opposed to just slowing it down to zero, you can preserve hit sprites etc...er...the integrity of the shot. sorry to interupt krusty...nice write up! didnt know you could click on other players names. thanks!
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Ah, interesting. I normally pause by sliding the speed multiplier all the way to the left. Thanks for the tip!
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well, you do that right up to where you want to start capturing, like barely moving...and then you hit pause when you see the sprite or shot you want to capture. as long as its slow enough, you wont miss it.
:)
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I just pause it as well Krusty, works pretty nice once pause and then going into the fullscreen view. If you have problems with smoke, fire, etc., I just reload the film and move the slider to about where it was and let it reload... usually your good. Nice wirte-up.... :aok
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Using our board to discuss the theft of goods will not be tolerated.
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One more tip. Use the video Capture feature to save just the part of the film you want to take a shot from. It really helps on those long FSO films.
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You can also mark in points and out points, and copy a new film from that selection. Unless that's what you meant?
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Originally posted by Krypto
The only thing is, you can take multiple screenshots through fraps, binding your key to printscreen and having it save a jpeg file. Thats what I do, so I can keep hammering down that key. I have the full version and know where you can get it for free, so just PM me for info.
You can just set it to take start taking screenshots every *set amount of seconds* and then when you hit the key again it stops taking them.
Fraps works great for taking screen shots this way as you get that stutter effect which looks cool :D
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Careful about such talk. Skuzzy might lock the thread.
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Originally posted by Krusty
Careful about such talk. Skuzzy might lock the thread.
What talk.... :noid
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Hey! a thread just for me. I feel........... special. :)
Thanks, that is a good right up, and it gives me some tips I have not thought of.
But what I really need to know is how to post the pictures on AH BBS.
:D
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Originally posted by SLED
Hey! a thread just for me. I feel........... special. :)
Thanks, that is a good right up, and it gives me some tips I have not thought of.
But what I really need to know is how to post the pictures on AH BBS.
:D
For posting up a photo: Upload it to a webpage photo bucket or something. From there, get the address of the photo (right click / properties) Copy the properties and then come in here and use the 'IMG' button when you post. Use the properties for your photo on where it is hosted and paste it in there... :aok
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I use picturehangar. Run by saw and tbolt.
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I pasted my screen shot in a word document, and idea how to convert it into a jpeg? at the time I didn't have a photo editor and can't seem to find anything that will open my word document.
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Uhm, paste the screen-shot to Windows Paint:
Start>All Programs>Accessories>Paint. Once you pasted it, save it as a .jpg file.
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Yes, but that means going back through all the films again... it there a way a converting a word format that includes a picture into a jpeg?
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See if you can copy the picture from within the word document then paste it to paint. I don't know of any way to convert a picture within a word document to a graphic file.
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See Rule #10 folks