After having a little chat with Bob Smith, I was given a "go" on making this thread.
Seeing as SaM’s “Making LFS Movies” thread is getting way too big and isn’t being easy to navigate (and having lots of posts that don’t contribute to anything), and having lot's of replies scattered all over the thread. I have decided to write a new tutorial on LFS movie making. You can still find SaM's tutorial here
This post will be regulary edited to add stuff that I might have forgotten, or to answer questions that may be raised in the future.
Intro
First of all, you should make it clear for yourself : even if you’re making LFS movies for your own personal enjoyment, it’s the viewers who you’re showing it to, so make sure you show them a good one, not a “dog”. If you you post a bad video, and state that you don’t care about it’s quality, since you were making it for yourself, you will most likely be asked to keep it for yourself.
Recording the game footage
Improving FPS
It is possible that while recording your FPS drops to an unbelievably low rate, there are a few ways to prevent it.
This is how you do it :
Those are the basic recording techniques, those should be enough to set you on your way. But just recording is not good enough, without proper camerawork, your movie is nothing but a frapsed replay…
Another way of improving FPS (not tested by seasoned LFS movie makers)
This way will however result in green smoke, so it's quite bad for drifting movies.
Camerawork
In the game, you are able to go into free camera mode, by pressing Shift+U, when in Shift+U mode, press Shift+F a couple of times to remove the hud and the timeline in the lower part of the screen. Spacebar toggles the finetuning options menu of the camera movement.
Basic controls are : Mouse aims the camera, while arrow keys move the camera around. V toggles between top-down view and your regular free camera view. If you set both views to point in particular directions, you can shift between them while recording…
The camera options menu
There is also an addon to the custom camera view that allows you to focus on the car. There is no seasoned LFS movie maker's advice on that one, so no in-depth tutorial yet... here's the addon
Camerawork advice
If you’re going to edit a video, I assume you already know how to do that, and you have either Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas… If you don’t know how to do that, then you’re stuck with either Windows movie maker (found in your start menu) or a tutorial on how to use Vegas or Premiere (assuming you’re going to get any of these)
If you’re using Vegas or Premiere, don’t forget to deinterlace the video.(removing the horizontal stripes on moving images) You can do it by simply selecting “no fields/progressive scan” in the video quality settings toolbar.
Also, you should use the video resolution you used in LFS while recording, it will improve the quality of the video. Make sure to match FPS of the video to the FPS of the unedited raw footage you have (if you recorded in slow motion to increase your FPS, then match your video FPS to the FPS of the footage you have after speeding it up with virtual dub)
When you’re done editing in Vegas or Premiere, you can either compress and export the video from the software, or use a better method : export raw uncompressed movie (be ready for a very big video file) and open it with virtual dub. Go to video>full processing mode, and then Video>compression (I recommend Xvid codecs (found here http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/ ), and select compression level. Also, don’t forget to compress the audio by pressing Audio>full processing mode and then Audio>compression, selecting a codec there and setting the compression level
After that – press File>save as Avi. Virtual Dub does a better job on compressing than most editing software
Editing advice
Music is a major factor in your video. It sets the tempo and the mood, so it’s a very touchy subject. Ofcourse music is something you can’t agree on with everyone, but these are the advices that will make life easier for you and for the viewer. These are the notes I have made for myself while making my videos, and watching other people’s videos.
First of all, you should remember not to use anything that will be forgotten in a few years… that means nothing you see on MTV in the charts is allowed (with rare exceptions from long living, and very popular bands like Prodigy for example). Usuallly the video doesn't age well if the music is getting old
Try to avoid songs that are not in English, they are generally not well received. As much as everyone may respect Russian (Spanish or Italian or Chinese… doesn’t matter) singers, their style is too distant from songs in English, which everyone is used to. I’d also recommend not to use anything with words in it, makes it easier to accept.
Avoid music that has been used in successful LFS videos before you, it’s not original.
Avoid car themed soundtracks… yes, seriously. If you’re making a video on drift, and you use Teriyaki Boyz music, you’re going to be burned alive. There are the main reasons : 1. The music itself is not good for action packed video. 2. The music is a soundtrack to a drift movie, which (by general beliefs) means you have no style on your own, since you rip such well known stuff off. And it’s not original at that.
You can however use scores, or music that hasn’t been featured on soundtrack CD’s. Scores usually are there to create a mood, and that’s exactly what you need music for.
Remember : style and rhytm of the music is a major factor. R’n’B and Hip Hop may go good with chilling out in the club, but they sure don’t fit cars racing or drifting. You may like Drum’n’Bass very much, and the video you are making suits it, but not everyone likes it and so on. Before selecting your music, analyze it, does it suit the action? Is the tempo right? What about the style? Is the music not too repetitive? What about explicit lyrics? (yes some people have problems with that.) Remember, the more extreme the music style, the less chances of it being accepted by the majority (Black metal for example)
Overall advice
One and only thing, apart from the technical stuff mentioned above : Keep your work original, be creative.
Have fun
Squid.
and we have this entry on how to properly name your video...
Seeing as SaM’s “Making LFS Movies” thread is getting way too big and isn’t being easy to navigate (and having lots of posts that don’t contribute to anything), and having lot's of replies scattered all over the thread. I have decided to write a new tutorial on LFS movie making. You can still find SaM's tutorial here
This post will be regulary edited to add stuff that I might have forgotten, or to answer questions that may be raised in the future.
Intro
First of all, you should make it clear for yourself : even if you’re making LFS movies for your own personal enjoyment, it’s the viewers who you’re showing it to, so make sure you show them a good one, not a “dog”. If you you post a bad video, and state that you don’t care about it’s quality, since you were making it for yourself, you will most likely be asked to keep it for yourself.
Recording the game footage
- First, start up Fraps (Highly recommended screen capturing software, found at http://www.fraps.com/download.php ) . In “movies” tab, select Full-size and FPS you are going to record in (depends on your PC). Don’t go lower than 25 FPS. I also advice you to remap the video capture key to something that isn’t used in LFS, because default F9 key will show you tire temps every time…
- Start up LFS, and go to Options > Misc>Limit in-game frame rate, and set it to “yes”. Once you do so, the option to choose the max. Frame rate will appear below the “limit frame rate” option, set it to match the FPS set in Fraps.
- Start up the replay you’re going to use, press Shift+F twice to get rid of the HUD and the Messages. Edit : Shift+S removes mouse from the screen in one of the late patches (not really keeping up with LFS, so can't say since when exactly)
- Play the replay and hit the button you assigned to capture the footage in Fraps (F9 by default). Hit the button again to stop recording. Your .avi files will be stored on your HDD
Improving FPS
It is possible that while recording your FPS drops to an unbelievably low rate, there are a few ways to prevent it.
- You could always set the resolution and level of details lower in your graphics settings (Antialiasing seems to take a lot of system resources for example) OR you could be the victim of LFS AA + Fraps Waffen SS-like system torturing method. IF you're easily running high FPS, but when recording your FPS drops to unbelievably low rates do like this guy advised
OR
- Or if it doesn't work, you could use more advanced recording method (warning, this method might be sacrificing the game sounds). Here’s how it works
- Start up fraps just like before but set the recording FPS to the FPS you’re getting while recording (let’s say you get 12 fps while recording, so stick with 10 in fraps to be on the safe side, and set 10 fps limit in LFS), also remove the tick near “record sound”.
- Start up LFS, and in Options>Misc, limit the frame rate to 10 FPS
- Load up the replay you’re going to use, and press shift + F twice (never forget to do that)
- Play replay in .250 speed (F2 and F3 control the speed of playback), record the footage you want (yes, it will take 4 times longer, and it will look choppy due to 10 FPS, but don’t worry, it’s the way it should look)
- When finished, start up Virtual Dub (found here http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/ ), press File>open video file and select your avi file, then press Video>frame rate and there, select “Change frame rate to (fps)”. You will be now able to input a new frame rate setting. The FPS we’re looking for is FPS you were recording in x4 (10x4=40). After you input the new FPS, press OK, and then press File>save as avi. Voila, your footage is now at normal speed, and has 40 FPS.
This is how you do it :
Those are the basic recording techniques, those should be enough to set you on your way. But just recording is not good enough, without proper camerawork, your movie is nothing but a frapsed replay…
Another way of improving FPS (not tested by seasoned LFS movie makers)
This way will however result in green smoke, so it's quite bad for drifting movies.
Camerawork
In the game, you are able to go into free camera mode, by pressing Shift+U, when in Shift+U mode, press Shift+F a couple of times to remove the hud and the timeline in the lower part of the screen. Spacebar toggles the finetuning options menu of the camera movement.
Basic controls are : Mouse aims the camera, while arrow keys move the camera around. V toggles between top-down view and your regular free camera view. If you set both views to point in particular directions, you can shift between them while recording…
The camera options menu
- Hide keys : should be always in “yes” position. It hides autocross editor keys from the screen
- FOV : Field of view, self explanatory (if it isn’t – play with the slider, you’ll get it…)
- Invert mouse button look : also self explanatory…
- View smoothing : This one is very important. General idea is “the smoother your camerawork, the better”, but the more smoothing you set, the harder it gets to keep track of the moving objects (especially in .250 speed, where the 2.5 second delay becomes a 10 second delay in camera movement). Just remember, the rougher your camerawork, the harder it is for the viewer to clearly see what’s going on (and if you can see what’s going on, but the camera is shaking all the time, it’s also very unpleasant)
- Roll : Controls the roll of the camera. The main thing about this one, is to know where to stop, rolled cameras may be cool, but nobody wants to twist his neck while trying to see what you have filmed. Keep reasonable angles.
- Height : The height of the camera position. Please note that the top-down camera mode is limited at 40 meters, while the regular mode is limited at 2.6 meters.
- Follow car : does what it does, toggles the follow mode on or off…
- Move speed : Controls the speed of the camera movement (which is controlled by the arrow keys). The main idea here is – you don’t want the camera to move too slow or too fast. There’s no “best setting” because each movie has it’s own pace and needs it’s own camera moving speed.
There is also an addon to the custom camera view that allows you to focus on the car. There is no seasoned LFS movie maker's advice on that one, so no in-depth tutorial yet... here's the addon
Camerawork advice
- Never let the camera go straight through an object. If it went through, you can either try the same shot again, or to edit it out during the editing process.
- Don’t make sudden camera movements. If you want the camera to be moving, it should be in motion before you hit the record button, and it should stop after you stopped recording. If you have made such a mistake, you can edit it out later. Also don’t start turning the camera around all of a sudden. All the movements need to be fluid and smooth.
- Don’t use standard cameras that can be found in the game, whether it’s TV view or the first person perspective. Replace TV view camera positions with your own using Shift+U, and if you would like to show what’s going on in the cockpit, go to “wheel view” and then hit Esc, go to options>view. Select draw : body, clocks and mirrors mode : real. You can adjust the camera, using the X, Y and Z offset sliders, and the pitch and rotate. This also can be used to put the camera on the quarterpanel, facing the tire for example.
- Avoid high FOV, the less FOV, the more detail you can show
- If you don’t know how to best show off the cars and the actions – google some official car wallpapers or refer to car movies or shows (Top gear and so on), you can see some good camerawork there.
If you’re going to edit a video, I assume you already know how to do that, and you have either Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas… If you don’t know how to do that, then you’re stuck with either Windows movie maker (found in your start menu) or a tutorial on how to use Vegas or Premiere (assuming you’re going to get any of these)
If you’re using Vegas or Premiere, don’t forget to deinterlace the video.(removing the horizontal stripes on moving images) You can do it by simply selecting “no fields/progressive scan” in the video quality settings toolbar.
Also, you should use the video resolution you used in LFS while recording, it will improve the quality of the video. Make sure to match FPS of the video to the FPS of the unedited raw footage you have (if you recorded in slow motion to increase your FPS, then match your video FPS to the FPS of the footage you have after speeding it up with virtual dub)
When you’re done editing in Vegas or Premiere, you can either compress and export the video from the software, or use a better method : export raw uncompressed movie (be ready for a very big video file) and open it with virtual dub. Go to video>full processing mode, and then Video>compression (I recommend Xvid codecs (found here http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/ ), and select compression level. Also, don’t forget to compress the audio by pressing Audio>full processing mode and then Audio>compression, selecting a codec there and setting the compression level
After that – press File>save as Avi. Virtual Dub does a better job on compressing than most editing software
Editing advice
- If you’re using Windows movie maker DON’T USE ANY OF IT’S SPECIAL EFFECTS, because simply – they’re godawful. And also don’t use any of it’s transitions except fading through black or cross fading. And also, forget about the regular text overlay WMM has, you’re better off with a proper JPG with a text written with nice font
- Everyone likes to see cars in LFS movies, so make sure to cut off the unnecessary bits when the car has passed (or is going to pass), and the camera is filming the scenery.
- If you used a demo version of Fraps to record the video, it will have a fraps.com watermark in the top part of the screen. You can edit it out by simply zooming a little bit (not a lot though, you lose quality when you zoom in using editing software)
OR you could use this method:
- If you are making a short video, make sure it’s action packed. You can allow yourself to have a lazy, slow paced intro on long videos though.
- Syncronise the video to the audio. It’s not bad not to sync, but if you do, it delivers a ton of difference.
- When editing the video, remember, there’s nothing wrong with using special effects or not using special effects. The main rule is – don’t go overboard. The picture should still be clear, and show what you want the viewer to see, and the special effect used must always fit the scene. A bit of color correction is always welcome. If you’re going to use vignette overlay (darkening the edges of the video), remember to constantly change it. You don’t want the whole video be covered in one and the same vignette.
- Don’t forget, every video has a beginning and the end. Don’t cut off the video and audio feed when you want to end the video, edit it so it would feel natural (for example cars driving away and music fading, while slowly fading to black)
- If you’re fading to blank, use either black or white colors, everything else looks unprofessional.
- When you're done with editing, make sure you watch the whole video in the editing software and make sure it's just the way you want it to be, and check if there is no unwanted stuff in the video, that you forgot to take out, or that nothing is missing that you intended to put in...
Music is a major factor in your video. It sets the tempo and the mood, so it’s a very touchy subject. Ofcourse music is something you can’t agree on with everyone, but these are the advices that will make life easier for you and for the viewer. These are the notes I have made for myself while making my videos, and watching other people’s videos.
First of all, you should remember not to use anything that will be forgotten in a few years… that means nothing you see on MTV in the charts is allowed (with rare exceptions from long living, and very popular bands like Prodigy for example). Usuallly the video doesn't age well if the music is getting old
Try to avoid songs that are not in English, they are generally not well received. As much as everyone may respect Russian (Spanish or Italian or Chinese… doesn’t matter) singers, their style is too distant from songs in English, which everyone is used to. I’d also recommend not to use anything with words in it, makes it easier to accept.
Avoid music that has been used in successful LFS videos before you, it’s not original.
Avoid car themed soundtracks… yes, seriously. If you’re making a video on drift, and you use Teriyaki Boyz music, you’re going to be burned alive. There are the main reasons : 1. The music itself is not good for action packed video. 2. The music is a soundtrack to a drift movie, which (by general beliefs) means you have no style on your own, since you rip such well known stuff off. And it’s not original at that.
You can however use scores, or music that hasn’t been featured on soundtrack CD’s. Scores usually are there to create a mood, and that’s exactly what you need music for.
Remember : style and rhytm of the music is a major factor. R’n’B and Hip Hop may go good with chilling out in the club, but they sure don’t fit cars racing or drifting. You may like Drum’n’Bass very much, and the video you are making suits it, but not everyone likes it and so on. Before selecting your music, analyze it, does it suit the action? Is the tempo right? What about the style? Is the music not too repetitive? What about explicit lyrics? (yes some people have problems with that.) Remember, the more extreme the music style, the less chances of it being accepted by the majority (Black metal for example)
Overall advice
One and only thing, apart from the technical stuff mentioned above : Keep your work original, be creative.
Have fun
Squid.
and we have this entry on how to properly name your video...
.
.
