Demo to video

[Moon[Drunk]]

OK I want to make a video preferable in Darkplaces, but I guess FTE could work too, and I would like some advice from people who lately has some experience with this. A step by step guide from demo to video would be perfect...

I have searched the forum and found this sticky thread where Darkplaces is mentioned but looking at the last (unanswered) post by Mr. Burns where he more or less asks the same question as I am doing right now I think this is something that needs to be explained further.

[Spike]

in DP, there's a load of cl_capturevideo_* cvars. apparently configure it how you want and then use:
cl_capturevideo 1; playdemo foo.dem
I *think* it'll use avi by default, but with no real compression. I don't know any of the details.

FTE uses capture* cvars to configure it.
capturedriver avi; capturecodec ""; to configure it to write an avi with no video compression (you can try h264 if you have x264vfw installed, or other fourccs if you have vfw-compatible encoders installed)
capturedemo foo.dem bar.avi; to then capture the demo
(note that capturedemo will adjust playback timings, removing the need to record in realtime so you can use more cpu intensive encoders, or just finish faster).

in both cases, you can then use some external tool like ffmpeg to transcode it to use a real video compression codec.
alternatively, both engines support raw .tga output, which can also be fed into an encoder, but using many input files instead of a single one is generally more messy.

[Baker]

In the console type cl_capture and then press TAB. Should show you a list of commands.

I don't know if I would recommend using built-in DarkPlaces video capture though. Unlike ezQuake or JoeQuake that use a "real codec" that compresses video, DarkPlaces does uncompressed video or very poorly compressed video as far as I have ever been able to tell.

Like in under 10 seconds and you'll be hitting a few GB, no kidding.

I'd probably use video capture software instead with DarkPlaces. I haven't been paying attention to recent video capture software but apparently Fraps is still one of the better free alternatives Are there any Alternatives to Fraps [Solved] - Performance - Apps General Discussion


(Apparently I said the same thing as Spike, haha. Just slower at clicking submit.)

[Spike]

I actually have a plugin for fte that directly uses ffmpeg. recording straight to .mp4 with x264+aac is quite simple with it. it should also be possible to use in-engine rtp streaming too, both playback and capture. screw fraps
but yeah... video encoders and patents and distribution and gpl and paranoia and gah. thankfully I don't live in the us or germany, but it limits where I can upload it to, and whom I can really distribute it to. plus there's apparently still a few issues. and I'm lazy, hence why I didn't mention it earlier.

[dfsp_spirit]

Fraps never worked fine on my machine, although I have seen it work on the PC of a friend. All the videos it takes on my machine have like 5 fps, and it makes my machine very slow.

Although I'm an open source fan, I am now using Mirillis Action (which is commercial and closed, like Fraps). I tried many free screen capture tools, and they were all absolutely terrible. They had bad performance, would not capture in usable formats, would not work with directx games, would not work with openGL games, came bundled with trashware in the installer, or all of the above. I was also unable to get them to output formats suitable for Youtube export.

[Henry]

Free yourself from engine specific settings, commands and cvars.
Use the engine your are most comfortable with for playback the demo. And use engine independent recording software. That is the most logical way.
You will need to edit your recorded video file(s) anyway!

Baker linked to several fraps alternatives if you do not want to use it.
After that use virtualDub or ffmpeg to edit, cut, merge, transcode, compress or whatever your video file to bring it to a nice small size to be able to upload it to youtube or somewhere else.

All those software tools are freeware and work fine.

[Seven]

Hello Moon[Drunk],

I am very excited about your thread and question...
I am looking forward to what you will show us. Cant wait.

I personally also use 3rd party programs when creating gameplay clips:
- Fraps to record .avi clips when playing darkplaces.
- virtualdub to edit & create the final video. Xvid codec to make its size very small.


But if you want to go with Darkplaces for recording, these are the cvars to adjust the recording properties:

[B][COLOR="Lime"]cl_capturevideo[/COLOR][/B] is "0" ["0"] enables saving of video to a .avi file using uncompressed I420 colorspace and PCM audio, note that scr_screenshot_gammaboost affects the brightness of the output)
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_demo_stop[/B][/COLOR] is "1" ["1"] automatically stops video recording when demo ends
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_fps[/B][/COLOR] is "30" ["30"] how many frames per second to save (29.97 for NTSC, 30 for typical PC video, 15 can be useful)
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_framestep[/B][/COLOR] is "1" ["1"] when set to n >= 1, render n frames to capture one (useful for motion blur like effects)
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_height[/B][/COLOR] is "0" ["0"] scales all frames to this resolution before saving the video
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_nameformat[/B][/COLOR] is "dpvideo" ["dpvideo"] prefix for saved videos (the date is encoded using strftime escapes)
[B][COLOR="Lime"]cl_capturevideo_number[/COLOR][/B] is "1" ["1"] number to append to video filename, incremented each time a capture begins
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_ogg[/B][/COLOR] is "1" ["1"] save captured video data as Ogg/Vorbis/Theora streams
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_ogg_theora_bitrate[/B][/COLOR] is "-1" ["-1"] video bitrate (45 to 2000 kbps), or -1 to use quality only; higher is better; setting both to -1 achieves unlimited quality
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_ogg_theora_keyframe_auto_threshold[/B][/COLOR] is "80" ["80"] threshold for key frame decision (0 to 100)
[B][COLOR="Lime"]cl_capturevideo_ogg_theora_keyframe_bitrate_multiplier[/COLOR][/B] is "1.5" ["1.5"] how much more bit rate to use for keyframes, specified as a factor of at least 1
[B][COLOR="Lime"]cl_capturevideo_ogg_theora_keyframe_maxinterval[/COLOR][/B] is "64" ["64"] maximum keyframe interval (1 to 1000)
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_ogg_theora_keyframe_mininterval[/B][/COLOR] is "8" ["8"] minimum keyframe interval (1 to 1000)
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_ogg_theora_noise_sensitivity[/B][/COLOR] is "1" ["1"] video noise sensitivity (0 to 6); lower is better
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_ogg_theora_quality[/B][/COLOR] is "48" ["48"] video quality factor (0 to 63), or -1 to use bitrate only; higher is better; setting both to -1 achieves unlimited quality
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_ogg_theora_vp3compat[/B][/COLOR] is "1" ["1"] make VP3 compatible theora streams
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_ogg_vorbis_quality[/B][/COLOR] is "3" ["3"] audio quality (-1 to 10); higher is better
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_printfps[/B][/COLOR] is "1" ["1"] prints the frames per second captured in capturevideo (is only written to the log file, not to the console, as that would be visible on the video)
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_realtime[/B][/COLOR] is "0" ["0"] causes video saving to operate in realtime (mostly useful while playing, not while capturing demos), this can produce a much lower quality video due to poor sound/video sync and will abort saving if your machine stalls for over a minute
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_capturevideo_width[/B][/COLOR] is "0" ["0"] scales all frames to this resolution before saving the video
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_minfps_force[/B][/COLOR] is "0" ["0"] also apply quality reductions in timedemo/capturevideo
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_brightness[/B][/COLOR] is "1" ["1"] brightness of video, 1 = fullbright, 0.75 - 3/4 etc.
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_fadein[/B][/COLOR] is "0" ["0"] fading-from-black effect once video is started, in seconds
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_fadeout[/B][/COLOR] is "0" ["0"] fading-to-black effect once video is ended, in seconds
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_keepaspectratio[/B][/COLOR] is "0" ["0"] keeps aspect ratio of fullscreen videos, leaving black color on unfilled areas, a value of 2 let video to be stretched horizontally with top & bottom being sliced out
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_scale[/B][/COLOR] is "1" ["1"] scale of video, 1 = fullscreen, 0.75 - 3/4 of screen etc.
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_scale_vpos [/B][/COLOR]is "0" ["0"] vertical align of scaled video, -1 is top, 1 is bottom
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_stipple[/B][/COLOR] is "0" ["0"] draw interlacing-like effect on videos, similar to scr_stipple but static and used only with video playing.
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_subtitles[/B][/COLOR] is "0" ["0"] show subtitles for videos (if they are present)
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_subtitles_lines[/B][/COLOR] is "4" ["4"] how many lines to occupy for subtitles
[COLOR="Lime"][B]cl_video_subtitles_textsize[/B][/COLOR] is "16" ["16"] textsize for subtitles

Best of luck,
Seven