~ Red Praises ~

What would we be without each other? Here you can read praises made by and made for CodeBastard "Codie" Redgrave, citizen of the SecondLife metaverse. Vanity? Maby a little. But it's not about bragging. It's about all those marvelous people that surrounds me. It is a praise to them, their caring, thoughtfulness, talent and beauty. I just love you all.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

•

Sat May 2

Class given on 02/04/2009: Introduction to machinima and MachinimaCam basics

CodeBastard Redgrave: This is a class called Introduction to machinima and MachinimaCam basic
CodeBastard Redgrave: I recommended reading the general MachinimaCam documentation prior to this session, I hope you all did. If not, it is available on: http://codebastard.com/machinimacam
CodeBastard Redgrave: We will start with very basic stuff, like hardware and software requirements and recommendations.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Making machinima is an art, of course. Furthermore, it is a very experimental art, most of the people learns machinima skills mostly by trial and error.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Also, it has it's limitations, and requirements. The one thing you need is at least one very powerful machine.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The bottomline is, if you cannot do at least 20FPS, even 25, at ALL time, you probably need a machine boost, or to tweak your configurations to achieve that goal.
CodeBastard Redgrave: If you cannot achieve 20FPS with your machine, imagine while you do capture, it's about twice as slow. So you absolutely need to have a flaming high framerate, or else your machinima will be unbearably sketchy and skipping frames. Nothing is more annoying than that.
CodeBastard Redgrave: One comparaison you could make, is looking at one's picture without Antialiasing.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Any experimented inworld photographer will want to pull his eyes out rather than look at a picture with staircase pixels. It's the same for machinima. If your framerate is too low, you will want to stop watch it after 30 seconds.
CodeBastard Redgrave: There is many ways to achieve a higher frame rate, notably your Secondlife window size.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Unfortunately, the SecondLife developers judged it intelligent to remove a very useful function that was in the File menu that allowed to fix your SecondLife window to "standard sizes" like 800x600. It WAS very useful for fixing your window for shooting machinima.
CodeBastard Redgrave: But this can be done in another place in your SecondLife viewer.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Notably, in Preferences / Graphics / Window Size
CodeBastard Redgrave: Since it is extremely RARE that one will want to shoot at full screen resolution, it is recommended to shoot at a lower resolution.
CodeBastard Redgrave: This will, in effect, BOOST your frame rate trememdously.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Another advantage is the captured file size, it will be much smaller and easyier to handle with video cut/edition applications.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Of course, if this is not sufficient, you can play with the standard settings to increase your frame rate. For example, Atmospheric Shaders when enabled, will put some pressure on your frame rate.
CodeBastard Redgrave: But of course, if you disable Athmospheric Shaders, you won't be able to capture those awesome Windlight skies. So it's all a question of balance.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Normally, any modern computer bought in the last 2 years should be able to get a good frame rate, without disabling Athmospheric shaders.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Now, what resolution to shoot?
CodeBastard Redgrave: Unless your machine is a monster, you won't shoot at your actual screen resolution, which is the default.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The old standard for video is 640x480, but shooting at this resolution will surely make you loose nice details. This resolution is way below what we call HD, like High Definition TV.
CodeBastard Redgrave: To achieve the regular HD definition, not HIGH HD which is 1080x large, one can use the standard NTSC HD standard: 720x480
CodeBastard Redgrave: Of course, our European friends will surely want to use PAL HD, which is slightly different: 768 x 756
CodeBastard Redgrave: As little as it seems, PAL will make a great difference when played on a PAL compatible TV for example, but if you burnt it into a video, a normal american HD TV wouldn't show the difference.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Why am I talking about TVs?
CodeBastard Redgrave: Because in the future, those may become prime vehicles for viewing and distributing machinima content, so we may as well stick to the standards.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Videos made in NTSC HD resolutions will look splendid and crisp even on normal computer LCD monitors, and this even if they are mangled by shitty compression algorythms like the one YouTube HD uses. Since YouTube is still the #1 machinima distribution channel, this gains a certain importance.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Thankfully, we have Vimeo and Blip which carries much better compression algorythms, and are also adapted to this specific NTSC HD resolution of 720x480
CodeBastard Redgrave: Unless you plan to distribute at higher resolution than NTSC HD, I would recommend you capture in those sizes. But as for photography, for professionals, the bigger the better. If you capture in very high resolutions, the final format will be determined when you export the final cut anyways, you can always choose when you reach this step.
CodeBastard Redgrave: This just depends, again, how much big of a frame rate your computer can handle.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Another little thing you need: huge amounts of disk space.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Not only for the capture, but also for the cut editing.
CodeBastard Redgrave: A normal capture session, if you are a bit "trigger happy", can consume EASILY 2-3-4-5 gigs of disk space.
CodeBastard Redgrave: My last capture session was over 12 gigs. So you need plenty of comfortable disk space.
CodeBastard Redgrave: I think I talked enough about hardware requirements, framerate and resolution for now. Now let's talk about the required software.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Capture software.
CodeBastard Redgrave: As you probably know, the Lindens removed that broken video capture that was in the SecondLife viewer.
CodeBastard Redgrave: It is a good thing in a way, as this feature was flawed and highly relied on external CODECS that were hard to deal with.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So that leaves us to use external video capture programs.
CodeBastard Redgrave: I cannot of course go in details for all of them. But I do recommend a few ones in the MachinimaCam documentation.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Some excellent ones are completely free, like for example WeGame.Com and CamStudio. CamStudio is even opensource and free software, which means it will be free forever.
CodeBastard Redgrave: CamStudio also have a Linux version, which is worth to mention as there is a flock of SecondLife Linux users.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The single one I recommend the most for Windows PCs, is FRAPS. It is not very expensive, VERY simple to use, and does the job flawlessly.
CodeBastard Redgrave: For Apple machines, unfortunately, the choices are a bit more scarce. I can mention SnapXPro which is probably the most widely used.
Sereine Bard: Cody- Would Snagit work?
CodeBastard Redgrave: BUT a good news for MacOSX users, is that the next version named like another random felidae, will include a NATIVE video capture program.
Kiwini Oe: Snow Leopard
CodeBastard Redgrave: Anything that captures video on an OpenGL screen will work Sereine.
Sereine Bard: :) thanks, sorry.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Unfortunately, I don't own an Apple machine, so I am less knowledgable of Apple screen capture programs. But I guess you can download trials and see for yourself what works better for you.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Let me come back to FRAPS, as it is the most widely used.
Sloan Skjellerup: I have fraps, but no luck converting the files to store on the streaming server ... if you have any tips there ... Do send
CodeBastard Redgrave: FRAPS captures video with a single toggle key: F9
CodeBastard Redgrave: (I will come to that a bit later Sloan)
Sloan Skjellerup: and Audio <-- that's why I use it for recording meetings ... but the files are huge
Sloan Skjellerup: TY
CodeBastard Redgrave: Incidently, when I created MachinimaCam, I consulted many machinimists, among them Moo Money, which is a fervent FRAPS user.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Since I didn't want people to modify their usual capture behaviour, you will surely notice that the MachinimaCam gesture hotkeys carefully avoids F9.
CodeBastard Redgrave: How FRAPS works is very simple. You fire it, while your SecondLife viewer is running, focus on your SecondLife window, and as soon as you want to capture, just hit F9.
CodeBastard Redgrave: It will record non stop until the next time you hit F9.
CodeBastard Redgrave: When you stop recording, it will dump the huge file directly in your C:\FRAPS folder, which is the default install folder for FRAPS.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Of course if you have a secondary drive to store your dump files, you just have to install FRAPS let's say on your D: drive, like D:\FRAPS, and your captures will be dumped directly in that folder.
CodeBastard Redgrave: It is as simple as this as far as FRAPS go. But, be careful.
CodeBastard Redgrave: It happened to me to forget that I was capturing. 2H later, I had to delete a 120Gigs video file that was nothing short of useless.
CodeBastard Redgrave: It is better to go by "bursts" of capture. For many reasons. Mainly, to facilitate cut and editing.
CodeBastard Redgrave: You will retrieve yourself much more easily in 20 x 2Gigs captured files than a single 40 Gigs file for example. The bigger the files, the more it will be a strain on your video editing program.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So, capturing in small chunks will increase your productivity greatly, since you can sort through those little files faster, delete those who were "scrapped" (for example if you forgot to hide the interface)
CodeBastard Redgrave: Those general recomendations goes for any capture software program on any platform, it's just common sense.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Any question about video capture programs before we go to video edition programs?
CodeBastard Redgrave: Okay.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Video Editing.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Called video post-processing, cut/editing, or many obscure names.
CodeBastard Redgrave: There is as many approaches to this subject as there are artists. Same as for photography.
CodeBastard Redgrave: If we think really old, must of you may have heard of Adobe Premiere and After Effects. Two separate programs, one that does strict cut/editing and the other for special effects.
CodeBastard Redgrave: To be honest, I would never recommend those. Premiere is clunky, crashy, and not very reliable. After effects is very nice, but it's dependency to Premiere for final cut and editing makes it very unpractical.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Apple people are lucky on this one.
CodeBastard Redgrave: FinalCut Pro is probably the software editing suite that they will immediately want to stick with.
CodeBastard Redgrave: It is stable, even rock stable, and combines both postprocessing effects and as the name states, cut and editing. It is relatively low priced and a very good bargain.
CodeBastard Redgrave: For PC users, avoid at all cost: Windows Movie Maker.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Believe me. It is utter crap even for basic editing. Unstable is not the word, it is unusable. I edited "Beauty is only skin deep" with this software, and must have crashed 20 times while doing it. So unless you like frustration, avoid it.
CodeBastard Redgrave: While we are on the subject, Linux users are the most disavantaged of them all.
CodeBastard Redgrave: There is not, to my knowledge, any worthy cut/editing software for Linux, much less with postprocessing effects.
CodeBastard Redgrave: There's some, but they are mostly clunky. If you have some to suggest, I would be glad to hear of them.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So, my recommendation for any PC user, is a software called Sony Vegas.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Vegas is the Photoshop of video editing on the PC. It is VERY, and I mean VERY stable on all counts. As an experiment, I let Vegas run for 3 days on my PC with a plethora of files open, and it never blinked.
Sloan Skjellerup: Which Sony Vegas Product are you refering to? http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/vegasfamily.asp
CodeBastard Redgrave: There are, as Arteer just stated, other fine video processing software for the PC, among those I would name ULead and Avid (Pro or Express). Avid is a very good contender if you already have worked with it, it is most excellent.
Prad Prathivi: (Sony Vegas Movie Studio, I'd think)
CodeBastard Redgrave: I use Vegas Pro.
CodeBastard Redgrave: They are all built on the same base, the difference with the Pro version is just a lot of added bells and whistles, most of those you will find really practical.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Of course I cannot cover the use of Vegas or any processing software for the scope of this class, learning using those mostly goes on trial and error. It is very important you take the time to get comfortable with one of those, practice is the key, as usual.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The important thing is exportation, usually I would recommend again to stick to NTSC HD format of 720x480 for export. This is suitable for any online video hosting website, from YouTube HD to Vimeo to Blip and even Machinima.Com
CodeBastard Redgrave: Of course, don't do that if you shot smaller than this resolution, in this case use the same resolution you shot with. This will insure there's no distortion of your original video captures.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Any question about video post-processing applications?
Prad Prathivi: Do you think Vegas Pro is worth splashing out for? I'm on the bog standard version at the moment
Stephen Venkman: How much is Vegas anyway?
CodeBastard Redgrave: Personally I think it does, but if you are happy with the post processing effects that you have with the basic version, I would tell you that you can stick to it Prad.
Sloan Skjellerup: 54.00 USD up to 549.00 usd ..
Prad Prathivi: about £40 in the UK
Prad Prathivi: Does Pro have a lot more in the way of PP effects, then?
CodeBastard Redgrave: If you want quality and doesn't want to shed 549$ for the Pro version, I would recommend the Pro Pack:
CodeBastard Redgrave: Platinum Pro Pack
Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Pro Pack takes video and audio production even further with tools for professional-level sound design and hundreds of built-in video effects and transitions. From US$114.95
CodeBastard Redgrave: There is a few more than the regular version Prad, but not noticably. The Pro version have side applications for HD video producers, which I think are irrelevant in the machinima making scope.
CodeBastard Redgrave: I own the Pro version as I had uses for RL video filming and broadcasting. Those are useless in this case.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So the 119$ version will do everything you need.
[10: 26] Prad Prathivi nods
Arteer Oliva: perfect
TROI Timtam: /Re: Macs: Final Cut Pro (US$1,300) or Final Cut Express (US$199) for Mac's
CodeBastard Redgrave: Both are suitable Troi, I don't think Final Cut Pro is essential, the Express version will do just fine.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Okay, so I guess we are ready for MachinimaCam!
CodeBastard Redgrave: Before starting with MachinimaCam itself, let's just overview what's essential to know when shooting machinima in SecondLife, shall we?
CodeBastard Redgrave: We already mentioned the window resolution.
CodeBastard Redgrave: This is important as your final capture will have the same resolution.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So, first thing one would do is set the window resolution to NTSC, as you will probably see, the window will become much smaller, and the interface will take up most of the screen.
CodeBastard Redgrave: If you try a FRAPS capture, of course, the first thing you will notice is that you have that pesky interface all over the place on your captures.
CodeBastard Redgrave: This is absolutely normal, as one could want to snap the entire interface. Notably, for video demonstrations of inworld products.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Well, the key combo you better be prepared to use often and instinctively is how to hide this interface: CTRL-ALT-F1
CodeBastard Redgrave: Formely it was CTRL-ALT-1 but the Lindens changed it.
CodeBastard Redgrave: SO memorize those, apart F9, this is the single key combo you will use the most often as a machinimist.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Now, let me explain WHY in the world I invented MachinimaCam, and what makes it so special.
CodeBastard Redgrave: What is so special about it, is that it is the only inworld camera movement aid that can operate WITHOUT ANY VISIBLE INTERFACE.
CodeBastard Redgrave: All of MachinimaCam operates through invisible HOTKEYS.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So, even if you hide your whole interface using CTRL-ALT-F1, MachinimaCam will be able to operate using those hotkeys.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Yes, they are simple gestures. It is a simple mechanism, and for now a bit spammy as people will hear your commands to your camera. But it works.
CodeBastard Redgrave: FRAPS will capture the content of the whole Secondlife window even if it's split on 2 desktop screens.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Another important note: You better close inventory, chat and any window like notecards or opened textures.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Why?
Arteer Oliva: skype in this case ... if one needs to direct?
CodeBastard Redgrave: Because when the interface is hidden, if you try to focus your camera on a point that is overlapped, even by an invisible window, you cannot focus it.
CodeBastard Redgrave: You can try that by remembering where your chat interface is, hide your interface, and try to mouse-cam on that area. You can't. Even if the window is invisible, it will have the same behaviour as if it was showing.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So, close everything that could interfere with focusing is what I would recommend.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Yes you can use skype or voice if you want to direct, it's an idea.
Kiwini Oe: I use a second laptop logged in with voice to direct
Sloan Skjellerup: I guess that's wher a voice chat helps ..
Sloan Skjellerup: jinx
Arteer Oliva: yep ... second moni works for that
CodeBastard Redgrave: I know this is a difficult aspect, so machinimists uses several tricks. Like a second computer to direct by voice or text chat. Or skype. Or they just unhide the windows.
Sloan Skjellerup: "second moni ' ?
Arteer Oliva: dual monitors
Sloan Skjellerup: oh, duh, monitor
Sloan Skjellerup: I'm sooo not hip ..lol
CodeBastard Redgrave: You can do a second monitor if your machine is VERY powerful. Don't forget you are capturing video and it's high bandwidth on your processor. So unless you have a Quad CPU with lots of RAM, i wouldn't recommend doing that.
CodeBastard Redgrave: I think we are pretty much done with the Intro.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Now, how to install MachinimaCam.
CodeBastard Redgrave: It's a normal HUD. So first thing would be of course to unbox it, which will result in a folder for your MachinimaCam sitting in your inventory.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The first thing you will notice is that bunch of silly gestures that comes with the camera
CodeBastard Redgrave: They are there for a reason, as they are essential to operate MachinimaCam with Hotkeys
CodeBastard Redgrave: Every single one of them will need to be activated. It is sad but they occupy most of the function keys, from F2-F7 and F11-F12 respectively.
CodeBastard Redgrave: IMPORTANT: You must avoid having any other conflicting gesture. If you have any other gesture that have F2-F7 or F11-F12 as a hotkey, some MachinimaCam hotkeys will fail to operate properly.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Make sure that when you hit a hotkey, nothing else than your commands appear. They just sound like what Kiwi did: camnext, camprev, camspeedup, camspeeddown, camaction, etc...
CodeBastard Redgrave: Next version will do that silently, but is yet to be released. For now, it requires the gestures to talk on openchat.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Once all of your gestures are installed, and tested, you are now ready to attach MachinimaCam.
CodeBastard Redgrave: IMPORTANT: DO NOT drop MachinimaCam on the ground. Never. It will completely break the scripts in the cam.
CodeBastard Redgrave: This is a HUD, it's going on Bottom Center if I am not mistaken, but it's already preset to be attached to the right place.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So, the next thing will be to attach the camera.
CodeBastard Redgrave: When you do so, the camera will do a lot of jibber jabber, which you could find useful to read.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The camera will require your permission to handle your camera view, which you should grant it. Or else the camera won't work at all.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Okay, everybody got the camera permission thing?
CodeBastard Redgrave: If you do not grant it permissions, it will fail epically. For re-granting permissions, you will need to detach and re-attach it.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Let me explain.
CodeBastard Redgrave: There is 2 "modes" under which the camera works in SecondLife, as a general thing.
CodeBastard Redgrave: "Free mode" and "Scripted mode".
CodeBastard Redgrave: If you use your mouse to focus on something, you will fall in "Free mode" and this overrides script controls.
CodeBastard Redgrave: How to escape from Free mode? Simple: press the ESCAPE key 2 times.
CodeBastard Redgrave: ESCAPE will re-give control of the inworld camera to MachinimaCam scripts.
CodeBastard Redgrave: As soon as you will do mouse focus on any object again, you will fall in Free mode again.
CodeBastard Redgrave: When in Free mode, MachinimaCam looses control over your camera, and won't have any effect at all. So if you try something and nothing moves, you know you are probably in Free mode.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Press ESC twice and redo your action again, and like magic, MachinimaCam will behave and do your requested action.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So this is the lovely little camera you should see on the bottom part of your screen.􀀀
CodeBastard Redgrave: One thing you will notice fast enough, as soon as you perform any action with the camera, it will hide like a champ.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The auto-hide feature is a desired effect. It will just get out of your way so you can operate it transparently, even if you have your camera visible.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The camera will display textover text, whenether its hidden or not, but the text will also disappear after 2 seconds. Again, normal behaviour.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The camera notices you shortly of what is going on, it's status, and the next effect that will operate when you hit the "Action" key.
CodeBastard Redgrave: To start the camera, click on it once. It will hide, and show you this simple effect menu.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Those are the 14 special effects that this camera can perform.􀀁
CodeBastard Redgrave: Those are the 14 special effects that this camera can perform.
CodeBastard Redgrave: 7 of them are MOVEMENT effects. Using trigonometry calculations, the camera will perform a timed movement, depending on what action you choose. The movement effects have a duration that depends on what camera speed it is set to. They have a begining, and an ending.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The 7 other effects are FOLLOW camera effects. They will stay on as long as you don't use the Default action.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Or choose another follow or movement action of course.
Arteer Oliva: Codies ... plz explain the diff bw Movement and Follow?
CodeBastard Redgrave: A follow camera will follow your avatar in a different way that it usually does. One example is Side Cam.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Side Cam will follow your avatar is if it was the side mirror in a car.
Gabby Panacek: the follow selection has no ending, correct? Your chosen follow cam setting will stay on until you change it, unlike movement which has a beginning and an end...do I have that right?
CodeBastard Redgrave: Driving cam is similar, but gives a very close following on the back side, as if it the camera was in a very close helicopter hovering at the back of the car.
Stephen Venkman: chuckles
Cuwynne Deerhunter: ~shuts up~
CodeBastard Redgrave: Exactly, Gabby. When you enable a Follow cam effect, it has no ending of duration. It will stick like that as long as you don't select another effect.
Cuwynne Deerhunter: got it
CodeBastard Redgrave: The Movement cameras are TIMED. They do cycles, have a duration, and ends after a few seconds. You have to press the "Action" key again to make them do their movement again.
Arteer Oliva: k ... I see the explanations in the manual of the FollowCams ...
CodeBastard Redgrave: The Movement cameras are TIMED. They do cycles, have a duration, and ends after a few seconds. You have to press the "Action" key again to make them do their movement again.
Arteer Oliva: k ... I see the explanations in the manual of the FollowCams ...
CodeBastard Redgrave: The Follow cams are steady effects, they don't stop ever, until you select another effect.
Arteer Oliva: but, my question is ... what is the diff bw Movement and Follow?
Cuwynne Deerhunter: duration
CodeBastard Redgrave: They are completely different in effect too, movement effects will perform "mathematical movements" like a 360 spin around you, zoom in, zoom out, the camera has a "life" of it's own.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The Follow cams will just follow you wherever you go, according to a certain camera angle, or position.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So let's just overview how exactly we can work with the camera controls.􀀂
CodeBastard Redgrave: Let's start with the most easy part: Hiding and Showing the HUD.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Most of the time, it is not necessary to use it. But you can hide or show the camera HUD at any time.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Some will want to show it, so they can click it to get the menu.
CodeBastard Redgrave: But, this menu is optional, as we will see. Most people operate the camera entierly without being visible.
CodeBastard Redgrave: That brings us to the 3 most important hotkeys for the MachinimaCam HUD.
CodeBastard Redgrave: They are F3, F4 and F5
CodeBastard Redgrave: It is pretty simple.
CodeBastard Redgrave: F3 is previous effect, and F4 is next effect. Those 2 keys will allow you to cycle through the 14 effects contained within the camera. As I explained previously, when you cycle to the next effect, the name of it will appear over the invisible camera interface, allowing you to know immediately what effect you have chosen.
CodeBastard Redgrave: After 2 seconds, the text will hide. And you are ready for action.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Let's say you want to make a 360 spin around your avatar.
CodeBastard Redgrave: You would press F4 until you see "Spin Cam" hovering on your invisible HUD. You now know you have the right effect you need.
CodeBastard Redgrave: (IMPORTANT NOTICE: This chart is wrong, it is really F3 for previous and F4 for next, I apologize for the mistake)
CodeBastard Redgrave: So, once you selected your Spin Cam effect, nothing will happen.
CodeBastard Redgrave: But you are ready for action.
CodeBastard Redgrave: To make sure your camera is not in Free mode, you would press ESC twice to make sure that MachinimaCam controls your camera.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Then, you would hide your interface with CTRL-ALT-F1
CodeBastard Redgrave: Then, we are ready to capture using the Spin Cam.
CodeBastard Redgrave: You would then press F9 to start FRAPS capture.
CodeBastard Redgrave: When capture is started, MachinimaCam is ready for action.
CodeBastard Redgrave: You can then press the F5 key, which is the Action trigger key.
CodeBastard Redgrave: As soon as you press F5, the camera will start spinning 2 or 3 complete 360 motions around your avatar.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Then, since it is a motion effect, it will stop.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Want another spin?
CodeBastard Redgrave: Cool. Press F5 again.
CodeBastard Redgrave: And it will spin another couple of 360's around your avatar. Repeat as wanted.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Then you have your fantastic 360 captured on your disk, press F9 to stop the capture.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Let's say you are immediately ready for more action.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Press F9 again to start another capture.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Select another movement effect, like Spaz Cam
CodeBastard Redgrave: Again, press F5 to start your camera spazzing all over the place. Like an earthquake.
CodeBastard Redgrave: When it's done shaking, you can stop your capture with F9 again, or if you need more spaz, just press F5 again. F5 will repeat the last action as many times as you want it
CodeBastard Redgrave: This can go on and on for whole capturing sessions. Always the same principle. Select a camera effect with F3-F4, and F5 when you are ready to start the last selected action. It couldn't be more simple.
CodeBastard Redgrave: If you noticed, I never specified you needed to show your interface again. You simply don't, that's how I designed this device. To operate in complete interface darkness.
CodeBastard Redgrave: 2 other interesting keys are F11 and F12.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Those keys will have no effect at all on all Follow cameras. But they will have a huge impact on the Movement cameras.
CodeBastard Redgrave: As stated, F11 will accelerate the effect, and shorten it's total duration.
CodeBastard Redgrave: F12 will do the exact opposite, decelerate the effect, and lenghten it's total duration.
CodeBastard Redgrave: For example, let's say Spin cam, if you use acceleration, the spin will go much faster around you, and will end faster too.
CodeBastard Redgrave: The acceleration keys goes with increments, you can ajust the effect to your own need at any given time.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Worth mentioning, the F7 keys is like a default factory reset.
CodeBastard Redgrave: It will return the camera to a normal followcam position, like behind you. It is based on the original camera position that is captured when you attached MachinimaCam.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Of course, if you are using a followcam effect already, you may want to use the Default effect, which is normal follow cam.
Arteer Oliva: k ... does it reset each time ... or save the settings from last session?
CodeBastard Redgrave: It saves it's last status
CodeBastard Redgrave: In fact, like any HUD, it remembers how it was set before being attached. UNLESS YOU RESET IT.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Also worth mentioning, but it is an EXPERIMENTAL feature: F6 which is Set Camera Position, better known as Camera Lock.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Simply put, you can go into free mode, focus your camera somewhere at a given position, and it will LOCK the camera there in place, and it won't budge.
CodeBastard Redgrave: If you leave free mode and go into MachinimaCam mode again, it will perform all effects from the EXACT starting point where you locked the camera. And it will RETURN at the exact starting point after the effect is done, unless you use a follow camera.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So if i lock my camera in some place, and do a Spin cam, it will start spinning where I locked the camera, and return there. It kinda sets the default place where your camera should be.
CodeBastard Redgrave: It can only be resetted using F7, for resetting the camera position.
CodeBastard Redgrave: I could go on for an hour just about this feature, as it is really experimental, but it could be useful to you in certain situations.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Okay, as for a last important note: What to do when the camera does a real fuck up.
CodeBastard Redgrave: As it is an attachment, wearable, and heavily scripted, as any device it can break during sim crossings or after a few hours of use. This is unfortunate but normal. And it is easy to do a complete factory reset of the device.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So, what you have to do to do a complete reset:
CodeBastard Redgrave: 1. Attach the camera
CodeBastard Redgrave: 2. Right click and Edit it. If it is invisible, CTRL-ALT-T will allow you to see it.
CodeBastard Redgrave: 3. Go into your Tools top menu, and do a "Reset all scripts from selection."
CodeBastard Redgrave: 4. Detach it
CodeBastard Redgrave: 5. Re-attach it again, to gain permissions.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Your camera will operate as if it was new.
CodeBastard Redgrave: AGAIN, NEVER DROP IT ON THE GROUND.
CodeBastard Redgrave: So, I think you have enough matter to think about for this primer on machinima and basic MachinimaCam usage. Hope you will all do a bunch of creative stuff with it, my biggest pleasure is to watch and showcase Machinima videos made using MachinimaCam.
CodeBastard Redgrave: Next class, next Saturday, will be a more in-depth look at MachinimaCam, and possibly a primer on my new FilterCam, which is a special effect filter for photography or machinima. Hope you enjoyed the class!