SlapHappy Posted June 5, 2008 Share Posted June 5, 2008 Martin I'm a little surprised you haven't mentioned the two nice video AAR's you put on youtube. Or were they mentioned in the blog? I just ran across them and viewed them in the last couple of days. Shows a lot of nice content for someone who doesn't have the game or simple entertainment for someone who does. Search "Combat Mission Shock Force" on youtube and sort by date and they should be at the top. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Psst...They will be properly announced monday as part of a new Video AAR contest we're opening in cooperation with Matrox. But don't tell anyone just yet Martin 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C'Rogers Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Interesting videos. Probably a better method of showing what this game can do then all the posts on this forum. Though somewhat surprised you went with a quick battle. The "Ruined" video shows how that doesn't always turned out so well. When you hit the ruins and the javelins filled the sky it was very interesting. Though the battle as a whole showed some of the AI/QB limitations. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 The two VAARs were put together quickly as a sample of what can be done with the overall idea of a VAAR, so I picked a QB. Also, I didn't want to spoil any specific scenarios. As for the limitations it shows - yup, but why should we be afraid to show that. What makes VAARs interesting, besides the fact that it can be really cool to get a player's eye view of the action with commentary etc., is that they are "honest", and show what the game is all about, strengths and quirks and all. Grognards in forums tend to over-analyze stuff Some live action footage with additional background may help remember why this sim is so much fun. I really hope that people will like the idea and concept of a VAAR and come up with their own. A $300+ prize from Matrox will hopefully help, once the contest is announced. And for those who are afraid to reveal their own voice or have an even funnier accent than I do: subtitles will be allowed as well. One note: the VAARs were made with v1.07 from what I recall. Martin 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pandur Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 moon, how did you get so much "video" in such a smal size while maintaining more than acceptable quality!? after i saw that vids a week ago or so i thought about doing one in "wego" wich would take even longer but my expirience about this things equals my expirience in rocket sience. i recorded some footage with fraps once, it turned out to be some 600Mb and more. i have no clue how i would put that in a "container" wich shrinks the size quiet much. also wich container to use and what programms i would need for that. i gave up at that point and deleted the huge file. some video guru here wich could give me some hints!? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pvt. Ryan Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 That was pretty good, but next time find someone who can play the game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Webwing Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 Originally posted by Pandur: moon, how did you get so much "video" in such a smal size while maintaining more than acceptable quality!? after i saw that vids a week ago or so i thought about doing one in "wego" wich would take even longer but my expirience about this things equals my expirience in rocket sience. i recorded some footage with fraps once, it turned out to be some 600Mb and more. i have no clue how i would put that in a "container" wich shrinks the size quiet much. also wich container to use and what programms i would need for that. i gave up at that point and deleted the huge file. some video guru here wich could give me some hints!? I'm no guru but I've been playing with this for a while. Video files are usually very big, it's in their nature. If you plan to share them then capture them smaller. You will need to keep them at full resolution to edit them but after that you can save them using for instance a codec like DivX. It will make your files incredibly small. Several free and paid programs to do edit or just to convert video files. Windows Movie Maker is quite easy to use and gives good results. Go to download.com and check the options. If you want to upload them to youtube then time limit is 10 min. Don't worry about the size of the file though as Youtube will shrink the file for their own format. - [ June 06, 2008, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: Webwing ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Webwing Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 By the way, I really enjoyed the videos that Martin uploaded! He was very brave to expose his way of playing in such an honest and open way. It's not just a promotional piece, or just made for the cameras, but a real AAR. - 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pandur Posted June 6, 2008 Share Posted June 6, 2008 @Webwing thanks that already helped a lot! about you tube; so that would mean if i upload a, lets say, 400mb file to you tube wich must be below 10 minutes, i can do that but i have to take the "you tube compression"? thats what i meant with "more than acceptable quality". can i avoind the lousy you tube compression when i shrink the fily by myself to a acceptable size, wich could at least make the quality loss by the you tube compression smaller than with methode one? do i userstand that right? about downlaod.com; is there any program you could suggest!? iam also looking forward to record some spoken things to the video. either while recording or after that, no matter. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 Pandur, here is what I did. I recorded the videos in Fraps, full screen capture. In order to do this on my computer, I had to downgrade the model and texture quality in-game somewhat to maintain acceptable performance. The raw Fraps files are HUGE, because they are recorded completely uncompressed. I then load the files into Windows Movie Maker. It comes free from Microsoft I believe. I also played around with other video editing software such as Camtasia, but for some reason keep going back to WMM (maybe becuase it's free ). There you can combine and edit your recordings, and then you have a whole bunch of options how to export the file. The best quality setting in WMM ("for display locally on your computer") will still shrink down the uncompressed Fraps files a LOT. The compressed raw videos are something like 150 MB each (i.e. each part). What you see on YouTube went through their filter, bringing the size (and quality) down some more. Martin 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wicky Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 Little tip with youtube simply add : &fmt=18 to the end of the youtube video clip URL in the browser bar To my eye it certainly improves the compression artifacts in the VAARS Apparently YouTube stores videos in their native resolution, so by appending a few extra characters to the end of the URL, you can access high-quality videos instantly. I tested it, and it worked, so here it goes: * By adding &fmt=6 to the end of the URL, you'll get a video at a 448 x 336 resolution, and audio at a 44100 Hz sample rate. The video still loaded fast for me, and I was able to see a better video immediately. * If you want even better quality change the 6 to 18 and append &fmt=18 to the end of the URL. This changes the resolution to 480x360. Example: Regular video (320x240): High-quality video (448x336): &fmt=6 Higher-quality video (480x360): &fmt=18 I'm not sure if this will work for all the videos on YouTube, but it works fine with newer videos. If you don't think you can remember those characters, you can download a Firefox script that automatically does this for you. Give it a try. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Webwing Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 @Pandur, I guess your questions have already been answered! I think Martin's way is the best. Almost painless! It would even be a good idea to suggest that people do it that way since I imagine a lot of people will want to participate in the competition but will have no idea how to go about doing it. Fraps will leave a watermark in your movies unless you get the paid version. Windows Movie Maker is free AFAIK. That's all you need I guess. You might have to download some codecs. But wait to see if you really need them. My new video card came with a capturing software for games, so you might take a look if you got that as well. It's quite good. In my case I have loads of programs and converters. I just love to try all this things. Besides I do presentations and animatics in my studio so I need stuff like AfterEffects and Camtasia for my professional work. - 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pandur Posted June 7, 2008 Share Posted June 7, 2008 hehe, many thanks! thats all i needed to know. the rest i will gladly figure out myself 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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