Originally posted by Dlitz
Zaphod that was super fun to watch.I loved the music.Could you give us a play by play rundown on how you got it to the movie stage .Like what codec you used to turn it into an AVI.And stuff like that.I dont end up with such sharp pictures when i finish one yours are beautiful.Thanks
Dlitz
Sure....couple things first. I use a combo of Fraps (fraps can be found using google search...great program), Windows Movie Maker (first few films) and for this latest film the $99.00 version of Sony Movie Studio + DVD.
Once I pick the film and figure out the views I want to use (external, internal, chase etc) and when I want to use them this is how I capture and edit.
1. I select the film or part of the film I want to use (you can turn fraps off and on while viewing or do a start/end select to section that part of the film). I always do a start and end select to remove text...if I don't want vox on all or part of the film I will remove vox also. It's done with the edit text/voice button after selecting the part you want to remove text and or voice. You can do this separately.
1. I start Fraps (capture program that converts ahf to avi). I set fraps to capture sound (little box you check) that way you can hear the engines and guns of other planes. The settings for video capture in fraps are full screen and 30 fps (frames per sec.).
2. I start film viewer and then hit the little windows box at the top that maximizes it (not the full screen view box). This sets the screen size close to 640 X 480 for the capture process.
3. Now for the tricky and frustrating part.....I start the film and after memorizing what I want to do with regards to views I hit the hotkey in Fraps to start the capture. While fraps is capturing I manipulate the views (external, internal, guncam, chase etc). This is frustrating because you have to memorize it and many times you may change quickly between recorded views on/off along with the various internal, external etc. You have to be careful about manipulating with the number pad if you are capturing sound with fraps because it hears the funky sounds the keypad causes by holding down a view (like side view 4). I normally decide early what part of the film I want to be seeing view changes with on internal and use the show recorded views. I can then use the mouse to click btw internal, external, chase etc.
4. After that's all done I take the finished AVI (which will be HUGE) and import it into the editor. WinXP service pack 2 has a really nice version of Windows Movie Maker that is pretty powerful. I just got a new one called Sony Movie Maker (cheap ver. at $99.00) that is also very nice. Spend some time with Win. Movie Maker and decide if it's good enough for ya. It just won't separate audio tracks too well. Sony allows me to add 3 vid tracks, and 3 audio tracks...very nice.
5. Once you have edited the film (take your time and get it the way you want it) you need to save it as some sort of vid file. This is where it gets compressed (and where it gets kinda messed up looking if your not careful). Each editor saves and compresses a little differently so here is how I do it in the two I have exper. with.
Windows Movie Maker - very easily done by selecting "save to my computer" and using the settings under "more settings" drop down menu for 640 X 480 at either 2.1, 1.5 or 1.0 bit rates. The higher the bit rate the larger and better looking it is.
Sony Movie Maker - not so easily done. You must use a preset for 640 X 480 and then I use variable bit rate. Variable bit rate should be better and is with Sony but with Wind. Mov. Maker I get better results with the above settings.
The quality of the finished product is dependant not only on the settings you save with (end of process) but ALSO on your Fraps vid settings for capture AND the film viewer size when capturing.
One last thing....I used advice I had gleaned from reading posts from guys like Stream and Morph to start with then experimented ALOT to get something I was satisfied with. I didn't figure all this out on my own lol.
edit: on the codec... I saved the files as WMV files. So I reckon that is the codec I used. I tried mpeg (too big), Qtime (too big) and divx (poor quality). Morph I know has been experimenting some with those codecs but I like WMV. Win. Movie Maker doesn't really offer options on that. Sony does but I still use a standard 640 X 480 variable bit rate WMV and it seemed to work best for me.
Sorry for the novel...let me know if you need any clarification on this.
Zaphod
