LESSON 2: FILMING

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

LESSON 2: FILMING

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

OK, time to really roll up the sleeves. In this lesson, you will be creating your raw FRAPS and CinEd .avi video clips of all of those wonderful TW battles you've been aching to record. When you are finished this lesson, you will have all the raw footage you will need to to produce your 2 minute masterpiece!

Just to re-cap a bit. By now, you:

• have installed FRAPS and/or CinEd;
• you have tested it to make sure it works in the TW you plan on filming;
• you have made adjustments to the in-game graphic settings so that while FRAPS is running and recording, your FPS is at least 18; and
• you have planned your video, defined you audience and limitations, and produced a draft storyboard.

The adjustments to the in-game graphics are crucial before you start actual filming. We will not be grading or assessing people's creativity here, but at the bare minimum, your final product must be smooth, and that means good FPS during recording. If it is not smooth, everything will have to be re-filmed later if you wish to complete the course.

Before you start filming, you will need to read through the Cinematic Techniques and Pro-Tips sections.

Basic In-Game Cinematic Techniques for FRAPS

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"Debugging" the Camera

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In ETW and NTW, the camera is "locked" at a minimum (about eye level for the troops) and a maximum height. For many camera shots, you'd like to be lower, higher, and closer. To do this, you need to unlock the camera.

This step can be tricky if you are trying to change your in-game graphics and settings. We suggest not debugging the camera until you have done the following:

• set all of you graphics options to your optimal recording settings - that is, best graphics you can get while still getting at least 18 FPS while FRAPS is recording.
• in OPTIONS, you have the "camera control" type that you want...we suggest TW Style
• you have turned off all flags, shooting range/radius graphics, and any other interface options that will interfere with the video.

VERY IMPORTANT: If you make any of these changes after you have debugged the camera, the camera will immediately resort to vanilla (don't know why).

Now, if your game settings are where you want them, you can follow these steps to debug and unlock the camera:

1. In Vista, go to the "preferences.script" file in the folder C:\Users\owner\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Napoleon\scripts (substitute Empire for Napoleon in ETW)
2. Open the file, find the line "default_camera_type" and change the following number to 2 (it will either be set at 0 or 1).
3. Save the file and close. Now right click the file to see the preferences, and set it to "read only". If you do not do this step, the 2 will always change to a 0 whenever you change your in-game options/settings.

Cleaning the Screen

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By default, F5, F6, and F7 will clean much of the screen of the radar, troop bars and command bars (in ETW, the radar cannot be turned off in replay mode). While recording, you will want to eliminate everything you can.

"Fixing" The Camera

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The "DELETE" key will fix the camera to a selected unit. This key is crucial for movement shots that don't eat up valuable FPS. Essentially, while this is active, the camera will "lock" to the unit, and keep relative position to the unit (close up or far away). You get much much more flexibility with this when you've "debugged" the camera.

You can also use a "runner" unit. In this method, the camera is fixed to a unit, but NOT the unit being filmed. This allows for more dynamic camera sweeps without taking the FPS hits that A/S/D/Q/W/E commands do. By using a foot or cavalry unit, and walking or running, you can control the camera sweep and pan speeds more easily.

First Person

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The "INSERT" key will put you into first-person perspective, and the mouse scroll will scroll through individual soldiers in that unit. It is effective mostly for the front of the line, for recording moving and rocking camera motion without taking a FPS hit. Be careful using this too much...there is alot of image "clipping" in large groups (the camera getting too close to an image, and allows you to see through things you should not be able to in piecemeal segments).

Focus and Zoom

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The "N" Key will perform a focused zoom on your curser, regardless of the distance. These shots are very effective, amplifying your "depth of field" effect (clear in foreground, blurry in background), and adding greatly to cinematic feel. However, the FPS penalty is significant. I recommend adjusting your graphic settings further to be able to perform a few of these shots above 18 FPS.

This is called "intelligent zoom". While in this mode, you can move the camera only with by center-clicking your mouse, holding it, and moving the mouse. Any other camera movement will break you out of this mode.

Camera Movements and Panning

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The Q/W/E/A/S/D/Z/X/C keys will move the camera in various directions. Of particular interest are the Q and E commands, that allow for arcing camera pans. [Ctrl] [PageUP] or [PageDown] will adjust the speed of the Q and E camera movement. Play with these controls in combination with the [Del] key for various movements. You can also try combinations. Here are a few that can be effective:

• Q+D, or E+A...a sideways pan shot with a bit of camera rotation...good for moving the camera across the battlefield while staying focused on a particular soldier or unit
• Q+W, or E+W...a forward moving camera that strays left or right (like being in a low flying airplane).

However, ANY camera movement using any of these commands has a significant FPS cost. These kind of shots should be used sparingly due to the performance hit. Likewise, any movement of the camera caused by your mouse will have the same penalty. The A/D/W/S keys have the biggest performance hit because you can't control that camera's speed, which is quite fast.

Recording While Playing or During Replay?

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There are advantages to each. During 'live' play, you are able to "fix" the camera and perform first-person, options not available during replay. Also, while 'live', you are able to clean more of the screen in ETW (the radar can't be removed from raw footage in ETW replays), although in NTW you can clean equally live and replay.

Replay gives you the obvious advantage of being able to focus solely on filming, and not on playing the game. While live, you must be constantly opening and closing the control bars and radars to get the movement you want.

Basic In-Game Cinematic Techniques: Demonstration for FRAPS

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Here is a quick narrated video by The Nanny (in HD) that shows you the basic in-game techniques from this lesson. This video uses FRAPS, and some of the commands may not be applicable to CinEd.

Basic In-Game Cinematic Techniques: CinEd

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Please begin by watching the following YouTube instructional video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW4o0_cTbNo

Take particular note of part 3 (at 2.40). It explains already almost everything, but we'll sum it up again, because nearly everyone has had trouble with this part:

1: You saved a replay and inserted its name to the .cfg files and run the cined_edit.

2: Search for a nice scene you want your camera to start and select camera-new.

3: Activate the “x”, “y” and “z” line under “position” and “focus” (marked with red and blue at the screenshot) and double click at your starting position (the red line) – now you get 6 points, each one for the “x”, “y” and “z” of “position” and “focus” (on the screenshot we only have one, because we only marked the “x” line).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

4: Choose the end of your camera, and drag the red line a few seconds after the first one, and again double click on it, now you should have 6 points at the same position as the first one…

5: To change the position of the ending camera, it is much easier to change the points one after another. Always start with the “position” points! (First press Tab to “jump” into the camera position).
Just select “x”, “y” and “z” from “position” and deselect them from “focus”. Now you only have 3 points left.

Note that the red line always has to be exactly on the position of the points when you want to change them.

You can now select one of these points (they turn red like marked in the screenshot) and change it with the keys “W”, “A”, “S”, “D”.

Now you should also see the camera changing in one direction, when you edit the “y” spot, the camera moves higher or lower, when you select the “x” one, it should turn left and right, by selecting “z” it moves back and forward.

This way, you can move the camera to every point of the replay you want, you already have a camera movement (you can see how it moves by dragging the red line slowly from the beginning to the end, don’t forget to put it on the spots you want to edit again after it !)

6: Now we’ll do the same for “focus”.
Deselect the “position” points and select the “focus” ones, and just do the same as in “5”
You can change the view of the camera, so you have a movement, and also the right view direction at the end of it.

7: That are the main things you have to know, for advanced users, or if you get bored, you can also use “FOV” marked turquoise in the screenshot to zoom in and out, very useful tool to create nice scenes, almost like the “N” key for Empire and Napoleon…

The brown marked “ROLL” can make the camera rotate to the right or left.

And the purple marked “Noise” option can make the camera shaken. You have to select all 4 and double click on the start and ending, to edit them, also mark all four and just drag the ending positions a bit further down, only a very bid, as it starts to shake very easily!

It’s best to play around with these tools a bid to get used to them.

8: Now view the complete replay board and drag from the very beginning, like described in the movie the black line to the start of your camera and from the end the black line to your camera’s end, press “save camera as” and give it a name…

After you’ve done all your tracks “save group as” and you can simply render the scenes and see whether they became good or not (rendering by pressing the cined_render.bat).

Pro-Tips

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The following are optional tips and tricks that we have discovered or stolen from other machinima makers:

• To get the most our of your FRAPS, in the FRAPS settings (under movie tab), you have to change to FULL SCREEN...half screen will give poor quality...also select 29.9 (lowest) FPS capture...above that is wasted for YouTube.
• Smoothness and higher framerates are by far more important than in game high quality graphic settings. A choppy video is very distracting. Anti-aliasing and in-game graphic setting goodies have a high FPS cost, especially with FRAPS running. Anti-aliasing in particular is much less important a visual effect when watching a video, and should only be used on the most powerful computers. Remember: high FPS outranks in-game graphic quality...I would sell my grandmother for 10 more FPS.
• Shut down any other program that could be draining your computer's resources, such as any IM or even any virus protections.
• Turn off all in-game music. Not only will it interfere with your audio later, it eats up valuable CPU, thus decreasing FPS.
• Get in close: high aerial shots do not translate very well in video, and should be use quite sparingly. Unless you need to show a particular strategy or tactic, get in close. Really close. Pretend these are real people, and make your video personal.

• Turn off all your unit flags, firing range markers, movements markers...anything that reminds the viewer that this is a game, and not real life (unless you are shooting a vid that needs to demonstrate tactics).
• Keep camera movement to a minimal. The FPS hits are hard on quality. If you want movement, fix the camera to a unit that you are not focusing on. This is effective if you are approaching the enemy line, who are in a stationary position: if you want a panning shot over the enemy line, fix the camera to your moving troops, then move the camera to the enemy line.
• Turn off camera shake in NTW. While fun to play (maybe), its brutal on film. Shake and jittery camera movement can be simulated with the mouse if you need (with an FPS hit). To remove camera shake in NTW, open the user.script file (found in C:\Users\owner\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Napoleon\scripts in Vista) and add this line:

battle_camera_shake_enabled false;

• Try different angles of the same activity. If you want a shot of soldiers marching, try low, high, fixed camera with DELETE, stationary camera, rotating Q/E cam. This will give variety in the final video, and also allow you to choose what shots look best later in the editing process.
• It is not unusual to film 10-20 minutes of raw footage for every 1 minute of finished video. More raw footage is better. Most of the best "money" shots are unplanned, and you won't even see them until viewing the clips later.
• If you really wish to shoot for maximum quality while preserving FPS, shoot the entire video in slow motion! You must turn off the sound in your FRAPs options to free up more processing power. Then record every video shot in slow motion (slow motion cuts speed exactly in half, and there is an effect in Movie Maker that will allow you to double your video clip speed ). If you want in-game sound, you will then have to re-enable sound in FRAPS, go back to the same battle in "replay", and start recording the sound track separately, focusing only on sound and not worrying about video clips. This method will get you the best quality video in terms of frame-rates, since the FPS will essentially be doubled when watched in regular speed. However, this method is extremely time intensive, requiring you to later line up appropriate in-game audio tracks with a corresponding video track, and requires more HD space because of the increase in number and length of raw clips. Not for the faint of heart. Each and every one of Nanny's videos has been filmed using this method.
• Organize your raw .avi clips. After filming, you will find life to be much easier in Movie Maker if you go to your default FRAPs recording folder and start organizing them. Do an initial sort/purge. Delete obviously bad footage (accidental records, stuttering clips, clipping, or just plain bad shots). Then rename the clips that survive to something practical (e.g. French firing line, Prussian cannon firing, French firing line2, etc.). You can divide them into separate folders.

NEW Some CinEd-specific pro-tips from MasterBigAb...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

1: As already explained in the "how to create a camera movement" part, the first and really useful advise is always to first change the camera's position, and then the focus, with this method, you'll keep the overview about your project, otherwise it can really get confusing very fast.

2: Always check your camera movement again, sometimes, especially when you make a “suddenly” jump from one place to another, for example the first seconds are focusing on a unit, and than you make you camera move 200 feet into the sky to show the battlefield, the camera will make some kind of amplitude to the off side before it and “destroys” your focusing on the units.

3: When you are focusing on units, and you want to follow them, it’s always good to create three instead of only two camera stations, because when you just set one for the beginning, and another one at the end, the camera will move too fast at the beginning, and running away from your units, and getting slower again at the end of your track, so you haven’t really followed the units…
Therefore just create three points, and the camera will move with a constantly speed…
(It’s sometimes not too easy, especially following cavalry, as you often “loose” your unit and don’t know which one it has been, the camera following is much harder than in Empire/Napoleon, but just like in that games, it can make some really nice tracks, like in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v9FQvwKcWw ( ~ 2.30 when the cavalry charges)
Or that one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goc9B...eature=related
(~ 0.10 following the Uruk-Hai)

4: Also when you want to follow something, a unit, an arrow (sometimes very hard) etc… it is very helpful to create your starting scene, and than press play on the replay for a few seconds, so you see how the situation will be after this period of time, and you can search for your object again and place the camera’s focus on it…and of course, there also have to be more than two camera stations created…

5: Sometimes you can sadly also “destroy” the whole scene, when you zoomed in to closely and you have “clipping” in your tracks, units running through your camera doesn’t look very good in a video (I had that a few times in my first try: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlrlnIy0W8c (~ 0.30 / ~ 1.15 etc…)
Also when you show trees and change the distance to them, it might look weird:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMHLIkkfJqk (at the very beginning))

6: Another tip, it looks really good and epic, if you use the shaking function sometimes, especially good when some heavy troops or cavalry charges, or siege weapons are firing, it can create some real atmosphere…
(When armies are charging: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeDKD_t-i2I (~ 1.20)
Or when some heavy units, like trolls in Third Age are running: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCyBlC5BEE (~ 3.15)
Or siege weapons are firing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72dpU...eature=related (~2.25 but I made the mistake that I only made one single scene like that, which doesn’t look to good sadly – also the same vid after the trebuchets fired when the missiles hit the ground some shaking looks good)

7: And at the end it can also look very good when you simulate an first-person perspective, which can sometimes be very hard indeed, due to the clipping, but it can also look really nice…
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeDKD_t-i2I (~ 0.15 btw: some little “bob” to simulate the walking is also not wrong))

8: Last but not least a bit camera variety is a real advantage…
Even if you cannot make a super vid, cause you are new to it etc…(You’d laugh if you saw my very, very first try) you can get some nice and exiting scenes, also without much camera movement, when you just show the same from different perspectives…
It sometimes (not always of course) is better than any special camera movement.
I used it in the UVoM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72dpU...eature=related (~ 0.10) and combined with some simple unit following tracks, and variety in positions, like from the ground, the back etc…you can also bring some life into you vid…

Homework Lesson 2 (due May 30th)

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Go into the field and do your film shoot (watch out for the coke-addict diva actresses who want their own trailer though ). Aim for about 20-30 raw clips. Then write down and post the following information by May 31st.

1. I successfully used the following 3 camera techniques...
2. I had difficulty with the following camera techniques...
3. Did you film live or replay, or both?
4. I tried using the following pro-tips...
5. While filming, I learned that...(name one significant learning experience)

Post any questions or challenges you are encountering. Good luck, and happy hunting!

Additional Posts of Importance:
FRAPs settings
fps settings

[.Mitch.]

Ok so I just recorded my first ever clip.

I thought I'd give it a go on maxed settings, I was still getting a FPS of 30+ on max.

But when then viewing the saved .avi the quality was terrible!!

What can be done, would lowering the game quality actualy increase video quality?

Thanks.

[MasterBigAb]

Ok so I just recorded my first ever clip.

I thought I'd give it a go on maxed settings, I was still getting a FPS of 30+ on max.

But when then viewing the saved .avi the quality was terrible!!

What can be done, would lowering the game quality actualy increase video quality?

Thanks.

Yes, try to lower them, especially aa shadow and smoke etc effects...

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

In FRAPS, in the FRAPS settings, you have to change to FULL SCREEN...half screen will give crappy quality...also select 29.9 (lowest) FPS capture...above that is wasted for YouTube

[LuckyLewis]

In FRAPS, in the FRAPS settings, you have to change to FULL SCREEN...half screen will give crappy quality

Indeed! Fraps recordings are basically uncompressed with 'Full Screen', each scene being hundreds of perfect screenshots put together (hence the huge file size) but it can look really good, especially when you set it to full size, where you are basically using the resolution you use in game. You can set this from the 'movies' tab in FRAPS.

[.Mitch.]

Ahh much better already, and I only lowered a few things, I'll try and get that perfect balance for the best quality.

Thanks All.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

I successfully used the following 3 camera techniques...

- delete key to fix camera
- Runner unit to fix camera
- N key for intelligent zoom

I had difficulty with the following camera techniques...

Putting my camera in the right place.

Did you film live or replay, or both?

Live.

I tried using the following pro-tips...

- To get the most our of your FRAPS, in the FRAPS settings (under movie tab), you have to change to FULL SCREEN...half screen will give poor quality...also select 29.9 (lowest) FPS capture...above that is wasted for YouTube.
- Shut down any other program that could be draining your computer's resources, such as any IM or even any virus protections.
- Turn off all in-game music. Not only will it interfere with your audio later, it eats up valuable CPU, thus decreasing FPS.
- Organize your raw .avi clips. After filming, you will find life to be much easier in Movie Maker if you go to your default FRAPs recording folder and start organizing them. Do an initial sort/purge. Delete obviously bad footage (accidental records, stuttering clips, clipping, or just plain bad shots). Then rename the clips that survive to something practical (e.g. French firing line, Prussian cannon firing, French firing line2, etc.). You can divide them into separate folders.

While filming, I learned that...(name one significant learning experience)

It is hard to set the scene up. I had to redo it a few times before getting it right.

[John Doe]

Something I read on the TWC forum to get some more FPS from an ATI graphic card, but I can not find the original post,

go to control panel/device manager/sound video and game controler, there disable the ATI driver for HD audio. That should give you a few extra FPS.
Disabling any other stuff you don't use will help (webcam, printer, joystick....)

Also for those using the cineditor, it's best to copy/save you medieval2.preference.cfg before, as the change made in the cinedit bat files will overwrite it.

[MasterBigAb]

Something I read on the TWC forum to get some more FPS from an ATI graphic card, but I can not find the original post,

go to control panel/device manager/sound video and game controler, there disable the ATI driver for HD audio. That should give you a few extra FPS.
Disabling any other stuff you don't use will help (webcam, printer, joystick....)

Also for those using the cineditor, it's best to copy/save you medieval2.preference.cfg before, as the change made in the cinedit bat files will overwrite it.

Yep, something i forgott to say, i haven't done it myself yet, i always set them back when i want to play

(yap, i am a masochist....^^)

[LuckyLewis]

Since the 1st Lesson assignment deadline has now come appeared, let us hit this thread up to the top to ensure everyone sees it.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

Since the 1st Lesson assignment deadline has now come appeared, let us hit this thread up to the top to ensure everyone sees it.

Close the other thread and unstick it?

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

I would prefer not to close the other thread...there are still a couple of people who have not posted their 1st assignment.

[.Mitch.]

Is a deadline not a, ermm, deadline?

If people can't do that first one on time, how the hell they gona do when it comes to the filming.

No offence meant or anything.

EDIT: Or doesnt it work like that?

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

well, the pay for this job isn't quite enough for me to be hounding people The class isn't stopping...missing deadlines either means:
a) they won't be caught up enough to have their vid passed in the end (the final vids we will be evaluated for technical quality before issuing passes)
b) retro support for previous lessons won't be given (if we are on lesson 2, and somebody submits assignment for lesson 1, we won't be providing feedback)

I just assume everyone here can police themselves...I'm providing support for those who do things on time...of course, this doesn't include people's real life stuff that gets in the way...with explanation, of course we'll accommodate.

[Hesus de bodemloze]

Oke just unstick the thread so lesson two stays on top. This shows every one where we are and won't create chaos with all the threads that are stickied.

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

ok, good plan...now, if I only knew how to stick/unstick things...hehe MasterBigAb?

[LuckyLewis]

Good suggestion Hesus!

@Nanny

We can't unstick/stick things here as we haven't been given moderating rights unlike the course drafting section.

[Nanny de Bodemloze]

ok...I'll ask GED to do it...thx

[MasterBigAb]

ok, good plan...now, if I only knew how to stick/unstick things...hehe MasterBigAb?

Lucky is right, we only have it in our section and i'm only local mod (but i agree it would be useful if we (or at least you) would get it for this course as well

[LuckyLewis]

Looks excellent Brig, Nice work. Using a nice amount of tips there!