Best Way to capture an AGS game into video.

[rich]

Hi, does anyone know the best way to capture an AGS game into video? I know it can be done well because I've seen a ton on YouTube.

I would like to capture footage from my own game to create a sort of trailer for YouTube.

Now, I've tried to use Camstudio, and it sort of works, but it's clunky. I have to manually move the capture window over my game window and make sure it's pixel perfect or it will look completely wrong. Another problem it has is the compression looks bad. Finally, it records the actual windows mouse as well as the in-game mouse which looks really annoying and professional.

Anyone have any other ideas? I'd much appreciate them! Any sort of built in AGS feature or some plug-in, module, etc.?

-Rich

[jetxl]

Camtasia might not be the best editing tool but I never had much problems with recording.
Set the recording screen at 320x240 (0,0). change your game so the cursor is hidden. set the game at full screen. if it looks negative set it on windowed. Produce video as avi.

[Fade to White]

There may be better solutions, I have used the camstudio codec with virtualdub's screen capture before and got decent results. However, part of your problem may be that you're not selecting the right options in CamStudio. Firstly, if you have camstudio's lossless codec properly installed, and selected  in options > Video Options, it shouldn't have bad looking compression, because it's a lossless codec. Also, to get rid of the windows pointer, select 'Hide Cursor' under Options > Cursor Options.
I agree that positioning the window can be a pain, but try tweaking the fixed region settings, and you should be able to get it to consistently line up.

[Mr Flibble]

I use a great program called Screen Movie Studio, which has a feature for you to set an exact capture area so even if you have to run the game in a window, you won't have to include the menu bar in the video. The only problem is that it has a small water mark in the top left corner, but to counteract that I'd just take an extra ten pixels or so on the top and bottom of the video, and edit a black bar across them.