Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Films and Screenshots => Topic started by: Fulmar on December 18, 2008, 04:09:11 PM

Title: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Fulmar on December 18, 2008, 04:09:11 PM

(http://www.aceshighmovies.com/images/posters/AHFV_CST_main.jpg)

I'm proud to present the Aces High movie community with something that I have felt needed more attention drawn to it.  I have created a tutorial movie on how to use the camera shots feature of the Film Viewer application.  Over a 15 minute tutorial, I explain how to start and setup scenes using the camera shots feature while explaining each feature and what it's used for.  So if you're struggling or eager to learn this wonderful addition to the Film Viewer, I hope my movie helps visually guide you through it.

This tutorial discusses how to use the Camera Shot system in the Aces High Film Viewer program.  It discusses in depth how to use the World Relative, Plane Relative, and World Pointing camera shots.  2 examples of how to do such a scene are provided in each section.  The movie runs apporximately 16 minutes.  78mb.

http://www.aceshighmovies.com

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: USRanger on December 18, 2008, 04:26:09 PM

Right on bro.  Good thinking and great work.  I think it will come in handy to a lot of people.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Steel on December 18, 2008, 04:54:22 PM

Quote from: USRanger on December 18, 2008, 04:26:09 PM

Right on bro.  Good thinking and great work.  I think it will come in handy to a lot of people.

I can think of one already!

Thank You

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: SouthLanda on December 19, 2008, 04:26:29 AM

Thanks, downloading now. The AH viewer system drives me crazy.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Kazaa on December 19, 2008, 10:41:33 AM

Thank you. :aok

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: BMathis on December 20, 2008, 07:33:57 PM

DLing  now. TYVM !!!!!!  :rock :rock :rock

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Forker on December 20, 2008, 08:27:42 PM

Great stuff, just what I needed to see.  :cool:

Froker

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: BMathis on December 20, 2008, 08:40:59 PM

STICKY?  :aok

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: JETBLST on December 22, 2008, 08:10:05 PM

So far sounds like great reviews.  I just wished I wasnt such a jump in with both feet first, ask questions later kind a guy!  Hehehehe!

Measure twice cut once!   :rofl

Downloading now hope it helps 

Thanks for the effort! :salute

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: JETBLST on December 22, 2008, 08:46:07 PM

WOW  So impressed! 

Great presentation, informative, and it will blast me ahead by leaps and bounds.

If your reading this and are making movies, and you havent seen this totorial, you need to!  Before you go ANY further!

WTG   :salute

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: RATTFINK on December 30, 2008, 07:19:26 PM

EXCELLENT!!!!!! 

Can someone say.... STICKY??  Come on BBS Films & Screenshots Mod./Admin.!

Great job fellow Catter!!!

<< :salute >>

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: daddog on December 31, 2008, 01:31:01 PM

Thank you so much. I will be looking over this tonight. :)

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Sled on December 31, 2008, 07:46:33 PM

Nicely done Fulmar, very educational.

:aok

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: mipoikel on January 01, 2009, 07:10:01 AM

Fulmar, would be nice to watch films without downloading them first.

Have you tried this? http://www.floobs.com/index.html?locale=en_US

You can easily add movie to your webpage.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Fulmar on January 01, 2009, 10:38:48 AM

I've considered it.  Not sure if I have the time to go through 70 movies or so and build them into the page.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Krusty on January 04, 2009, 05:54:10 PM

Okay, I've watched the tutorial, and I found it quite helpful.

However, there's one area that you did not cover.

Using your guide I've set up a simple plane relative camera shot with a duration of 12 seconds. I've tried "stream shot to AVI" and all it gives me is 12 seconds of an odd view of a field tower.

Other than just running FRAPs while you hit "play shot" how do you dump this into the film viewers export feature? Folks have been saying it works as long as you use uncompressed frames.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Fulmar on January 04, 2009, 06:59:05 PM

I didn't cover it since I never figured it out myself.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: JETBLST on January 04, 2009, 07:04:40 PM

When I made my video I never used fraps once.  I streamed to AVI. 

If your looking to do that, instead of fraps let me know.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Krusty on January 04, 2009, 10:19:45 PM

I tried that many time. I also tried not using camera shots and just saving as an AVI a short ahf clip. Every time I am given a clip of the proper length (if it's valid) but it's just the inside/outside of the tower and nothing that I need.

I hit the "stream" checkbox, gave it a name, chose 720, chose 30 fps (also tried the defaults, had the same problems). It doesn't export well for me.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: ImADot on January 04, 2009, 10:35:47 PM

A lot of it is picking the right codec for it to stream into avi.  It's been a while, but I think I had the best luck with Windows Video 1 codec.  Also, I grab and extra 5 seconds before and after the shot to allow for scene transitions and the occasional hiccup in texture painting at the beginning.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Krusty on January 04, 2009, 10:43:23 PM

That doesn't work. It looks like I'm standing on the big pad of a medium/large field staring up at an awkward angle for the allotted time, but doesn't show me what it should.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: ImADot on January 05, 2009, 08:38:12 AM

So, you've set up your shot and it plays just fine?  All you should need to do is check the box to stream to avi, and then play your shot again.  Sometimes I find it helpful to click the "goto start" button (or whatever it says) to get to the beginning of the shot, then play the shot.  Before the shot plays, it should prompt you for a codec and filename.  If this isn't working, then I'm at a loss as to why.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Krusty on January 05, 2009, 07:21:03 PM

Well, that seems to be the case for me :(

Was hoping to get higher res video clips than I can get with FRAPs, but oh well.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Fulmar on January 05, 2009, 08:21:31 PM

What kind of resolution are you looking for?

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Krusty on January 06, 2009, 03:32:03 PM

FRAPs doesn't like to run at "full size" on my system, even though I never have slowdowns during the game, during playback of the films I have major stutter issues when FRAPs is running. I've had to run at "half size" which gives me very little resolution to work with, if you've seen my videos to date.

I was hoping for something at least in the 720 range, because I crop in and resize, etc as I'm editing.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Fulmar on January 06, 2009, 03:46:10 PM

Quote from: Krusty on January 06, 2009, 03:32:03 PM

FRAPs doesn't like to run at "full size" on my system, even though I never have slowdowns during the game, during playback of the films I have major stutter issues when FRAPs is running. I've had to run at "half size" which gives me very little resolution to work with, if you've seen my videos to date.

I was hoping for something at least in the 720 range, because I crop in and resize, etc as I'm editing.

I used to have studder issues with fraps (even across different version).  I thought it was something with my computer and could never figure it out.  Such as my monitor is set at 60 Hz and I'd open up the Film Viewer and my FPS would show up in Fraps as 45 or less with some jerkiness.  And then by chance one day, I had Window Media Player open and was playing around with the Film viewer and it seemed smooth.  Open up Fraps and it said my FPS was a solid 60.

Long story short, when I record with Fraps for AH Films, I have to have Window Media Player open.  Skuzzy said it may have been a glitch with Directshow or something similar.  I'd give it a try Krusty.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Krusty on January 06, 2009, 05:05:07 PM

Whoa.... Freaky enough, that helps! Getting only a few stutters by doing that, instead of constant.

Thanks!

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Skuzzy on January 13, 2009, 10:11:12 AM

Most CODEC's cannot handle resolutions higher than 720x480, or 640x480 (NTSC).  If you want to go higher, you probably should be using H.264, X.264, AVC, MPEG2, or Uncompressed.

Uncompressed will usually end up with the best image quality after encoding to the final format.  It just takes a ton of disk space.

I'd like to check out this tutorial, but I cannot get to your WEB page.

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Fulmar on January 13, 2009, 12:41:27 PM

Quote from: Skuzzy on January 13, 2009, 10:11:12 AM

I'd like to check out this tutorial, but I cannot get to your WEB page.

What kind of error to do get?  Does it time out?

Anyways, try these links for a direct download:
http://www.aceshighmovies.com/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemid=56&task=finish&cid=107&catid=4

And this one is where its physically stored on the server:
http://www.derstuhl.net/ahmd/uploads/Aces%20High%20Training%20and%20Help%20Movies/ahfilm_camerashots_tut.zip

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Surf35 on January 21, 2009, 08:18:48 PM

I made this film after watching this tutorial. It was really helpful, THANKS!   :salute

http://www.4shared.com/file/81082101/c8d44b9f/equinox800.html (http://www.4shared.com/file/81082101/c8d44b9f/equinox800.html)
download it for full quality

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: Forker on January 21, 2009, 08:46:36 PM

Quote from: Surf35 on January 21, 2009, 08:18:48 PM

I made this film after watching this tutorial. It was really helpful, THANKS!   :salute

http://www.4shared.com/file/81082101/c8d44b9f/equinox800.html (http://www.4shared.com/file/81082101/c8d44b9f/equinox800.html)
download it for full quality

Nice, well worth the 12 min+ download wait. (for me)

<S> Well Done

Forker

Title: Re: Film Viewer Camera Shots Tutorial
Post by: kculon on January 25, 2009, 12:29:27 PM

Thanks for the Tutorial. Helped a bit getting my head around the viewer and shot box.
I encountered more than a few problems while making my films.
Came up with a couple fixes too.
When using Fraps for my matrix shots I got stutters, or tearing of foreground/background objects.
Trying to capture, using fraps at 720p was a mess. I could capture, but the footage was unusable.
After may attempts I gave up on using fraps for anything but my 180* shot.

I found that if the shot I wanted, (and edited in the shot box) was much longer than the shot I setup, the render would crash ala krusty's problem.
(Shot editing on a file a minute or longer vs 10 second file)
So I grab just a little before and after the action I want, save it as a new file, then edit my shot using the small file I get fewer render crashes.

I was unable to get the camera to move in the "Y" using World Pointing. Only "X" & "Z"

I was unable to zoom in close enough on the fixed position camera shots(shot box).

In my opinion the camera controls are ridiculous. All those numbers to edit by hand, nasty!
The camera controls need to rounded off, or have slider controls, or something better I have not thought of.
On every shot in my last film I had to clean up the camera position numbers to find the place that would move the camera, just a little in the direction I wanted. Needless to say it took a while to get the shots I wanted, then half of them crashed on render for one reason or another.

Now granted, I may have a few problems on my machine, but after making 2 short AH films I won't make any more unless the film viewer is fixed up a bit. I mean it runs and feels like a half done beta or something. I know the main focus of development is the game it's self, but the film viewer needs some major help to be easy, fast, and fun to use.
I would love to make a 5 minute film with a storyline using the style of my other 2 films, but no way with the viewer in the shape it's in now.
WAY too frustrating.
Happy Filming,
~kc