Exporting AGS games to video?

Dave Gilbert · Thu 01/02/2007 18:37:54

Hi all,

I am in need of some help, and quite urgently.

I need to create at least five minutes of HIGH QUALITY video footage from a game to be used as B-roll during a presentation. The industry standard is a piece of software called Fraaps, but that doesn't work with AGS for some reason. I found another software called "Windows Media Encoder", which works for the little videos I placed on youtube, but for anything bigger it slows the game down to a stuttery crawl.

Is there a nice way to do this? I know I've seen good quality videos of AGS games before, but darned if I can figure out how it's done.

Thanks much,

-Dave

m0ds · Thu 01/02/2007 18:42:31

Dave, there's a long method, not sure if you'd want to consider it. That is, connect your PC to your VHS or DVD recorder, record the visual output onto one of these formats. Then send it back into the computer & capture into Adobe Premiere, Windows Movie Maker etc.

Personally I don't have any other suggestions. I thought Fraps workedwith AGS, I had it downloaded especially for that purpose but I deleted it earlier today, so I guess I'll never know.

TheCheese33 · Thu 01/02/2007 18:53:00

FRAPS doesn't work with AGS because of the engine itself. As far as I know, it doesn't work with games that aren't FPS's. The Source and Doom 3 engine are good examples of engines that work with that sort of thing.

I'll look into finding an alternative, but until then, I'd consider doing what the first person suggested.

m0ds · Thu 01/02/2007 18:55:01

Apology accepted

Dave, what format do they need this in?

TheCheese33 · Thu 01/02/2007 18:56:26

Sorry, m0ds.

vict0r · Thu 01/02/2007 19:00:23

Ah google..

I'm not completely sure if this is what you are looking for, but seems like the right thing!

Gregjazz · Thu 01/02/2007 19:12:01

You could use something like CamStudio, put the game in windowed mode, and then capture a selected area on the screen. It gets good frame rates the smaller the area is (which is why you'd window it in either 320x240 or 640x480), and the audio capture syncs up nicely.

Ishmael · Thu 01/02/2007 19:33:07

Camtasia Studio maybe?

Dave Gilbert · Thu 01/02/2007 20:00:31

Yeah, 320 x 200 isn't really any good because they are going to project the video onto a big screen and it will look very ugly. Exporting it to VHS and then re-importing it could work, albeit very time consuming. Any other suggestions?

vict0r · Thu 01/02/2007 20:05:43

Hmm.. This seems to be more right than the first I posted! Screen recording device

scotch · Thu 01/02/2007 20:13:09

Your game is 320x240 if you capture it in a window or full screen, it makes no difference, and it'll look identical projected as a full screen video. So there's no problem with capturing a window and then scaling up to whatever resolution they require with a video editing/encoding program. It's the best you can do, and it would generally look better than going via VHS.

m0ds · Thu 01/02/2007 20:29:42

QuoteIt's the best you can do, and it would generally look better than going via VHS.

I disagree. If you were to capture it via a screencap program at 320x200, scaled up it would look pretty terrible. If you captured it to DVD/VHS then sent it back in, it would capture it at 720x576 or whatever the standard American 4:3 pixels are.

Therefore you'd be putting a 720x576 version of the game onto a projector, rather than a 320x200 version, and it would generally look better. Editing software like Premiere would help make the difference between 320x240 to 720x576 look more comfortable.

Saying that though, the game is low-res, so what do they expect? Can you not explain to them that the low-res means it is unlikely to look "great" when it's blown up on a project screen?

scotch · Thu 01/02/2007 20:36:20

With a video capture device you'd be capturing the same pixels as if it was scaled up from 320x200 with a nearest neighbour scaling filter, the only difference is you'd also be getting the degradation associated with DVD or VHS.
I should have made it clear to use a nearest neighbour filter rather than a bicubic one, because bicubic looks terrible on pixel art.

Nikolas · Thu 01/02/2007 21:28:01

Dave:

Try Camtasia Studio 4

I have 3 and it works with AGS. Also it has a 30 day trial without watermarks or anything so you can actually do your job with that. I've used it with AGS and it does work (unless if you use 1000s of layers, like Linus Bruckman did, and then it records few frames per minute...).

Note: I know that v 3 works fine, no idea about 4 which is out now. If 3 is unavailabl I'm usre there are ways to get it...

IT also has plenty of editing abilities... The full package does cost, but anyway with 30 dfay trial you're free to do whateveryou want really! No watermakrs!

Dave Gilbert · Thu 01/02/2007 21:28:47

Thanks, Nik! I'll give it a try.

mätzyboy · Thu 01/02/2007 22:34:41

What Scotch is saying is making sense. There is no point in pretending there is more relevant info in the data than what is there in the original resolution. Enlarging will only give distortion and noise...

m0ds · Thu 01/02/2007 22:44:08

Edit - wait, I know what I did and on reflection I don't think it was what I said..lol!

Vince Twelve · Fri 02/02/2007 00:12:38

Dave, I don't have any specific suggestion for the video problem, but big congratulations on that nomination (edit:) and being asked to speak at GDC! That's extremely cool. I went to the GDC and awards ceremony several years ago and it was really fun. Good luck!

Kweepa · Fri 02/02/2007 00:33:33

Yes, congrats Dave!
scotch, the game is 640x400 (or 480) in some parts (dialog text, etc), so presumably that's why 320x200 is no good.

Snarky · Fri 02/02/2007 02:16:08

Congratulations, Dave!

I've used Camtasia to capture AGS games for presentations before, so unless something changed drastically in the last few versions it will work. It also has a nice feature to highlight mouseclicks by making the cursor flash or adding a click sound to the soundtrack. And you can choose to capture only the client area of a window, so that you don't get the windows bar and frame.

TBL happens to run in 640x480, but scotch's point is still true: it doesn't matter whether you scale it up on your computer before capturing it to video or afterwards as you're projecting. You will never get a higher resolution than the graphics were made in. (It could affect whether it appears pixellated or blurry, though.) However, because MPEG compression has a tendency to remove details in pixel art, capturing in pixel-doubling mode may mean a clearer picture, not because of the resolution, but because of the codec. So I would capture even a 320x200 game in 640x400.