Capture Demo

[hexed6]

For codec, most popular would be either divx or xvid. I prefer xvid myself.

Oh the gamma thing, it won't work in windowed mode, you can either use fullscreen and resize it in VirtualDubMod if need be, or you can run windowed and adjust gamma in VirtualDubMod.

[Canadian*Sniper]

divx and xvid is no problem. I'm interested in the built in dp recorder that Sajt mentioned.

[Mr.Burns]

Or just use DarkPlaces's built in video recording.

Hi Sajt, or anyone else for that matter, would you be kind enough to point me in the right direction for the built in video recording option you mentioned. I have a demo I'm looking to convert to an AVI/MPG, normally this would not be a problem, thanks largely to Baker, as I use QRack to do this but this is not an option this time as the recipient specifically wants to see the final result rendered through the DFarkplaces engine, and can't find the built option anywhere. I tried the Qrack capturedemo command just on the off-chance it may have been ported to DP but to no avail. Any constructive ideas would be most welcome.

Many thanks

Mr.B

[LordHavoc]

Bind a key (f4 or whatever is handy) to "toggle cl_capturevideo", you can hit this at any time to start/end recording of a snippet, you can record multiple snippets in one run (the numbering starts over if you quit and restart the engine however, so be warned).

The supported output formats are:
cl_capturevideo_raw_yv12 1 - this enables recording to a single raw .yv12 file, which can be read by certain programs such as mencoder on Linux, VLC may also be able to do this on windows, it's a raw file so you have to specify the width/height/framerate when opening it in such programs, this is the best intermediate file format for video capture because it is uncompressed but half the size of RGB (it is degraded to YV12 format, the standard internal format for MPEG encoders/decoders, and almost all other codecs also operate on YV12 or some rearrangement of its format, so the degradation is harmless), an example data rate of this format is 13MB/s for 640x480x30fps.

cl_capturevideo_raw_rgb 1 - this enables recording to a single raw .rgb file, an example data rate of this format is 26MB/s for 640x480x30fps.

scr_screenshot_jpeg 1 - this saves a series of .jpg files, VERY slow, and the artifacting can be very bad if you set scr_screenshot_jpeg_quality below 0.95 (1.00 would be best for later video processing).

otherwise a series of .tga files is saved (this is the highest quality output that darkplaces supports without using raw video formats), which is slower than raw rgb, but supported by more video programs.

Regardless of video format chosen, a .wav file is saved for each clip, this is also recorded non-realtime (so you can expect to hear a stuttery mess while capturing) to keep perfect sync with the video frames.

I don't know of any video encoders that support .rgb, mencoder supports .yv12, virtualdub and Adobe Premiere can open a series of .tga or .jpg images by selecting the first in the sequence and telling them to open all later images, bmp2avi, mencoder and bmp2avi can open a series of .tga images with the right commandline options. And pretty much any video program and load the separate .wav file and put it in the resulting video.

The other settings are:
cl_capturevideo_fps - output a video of this framerate, note that the engine will maintain this simulated framerate no matter what happens, so expect demos to play back slower, according to your CPU and hard drive performance.
(Note that an NTSC framerate would be 29.97, if you want to put it on a DVD or something)

scr_screenshot_gammaboost - this affects gamma correction when recording video - the gamma correction is done before conversion to YV12 or jpeg, to reduce the amount of degradation you get when compressing things, you really don't want to try to gamma correct the video after compressing it because the artifacts become highly visible.

scr_screenshot_jpeg_quality - when saving .jpg files it is very important to set this high (0.95 to 1 range) because the quality can be terrible otherwise.

And don't forget to type cl_capturevideo<tab> to see the cvar documentation.

Note that recording is done non-realtime, so you can record anything your computer is capable of rendering, no matter how slow, which can be useful for making super high quality videos even if you can't run it very quickly.

I hope this helps.

I have some plans for AVI output using the YV12 fourcc (I.E. codec, except it's actually a colorspace for raw...).

[Canadian*Sniper]

Thank you LH! I really appreciate this!

AVI output would be BOSS =D

[Canadian*Sniper]

Actually now I've hit another step stone. I thought I'd be able to find a YV12/RGB converter but I can't . What can I do to make a Windows Movie Maker compatable video file? (wmv, avi, mpg, m1v, mp2, mp2v, etc)

[Mr.Burns]

Darkplaces to Qrack demo making

I've managed to load your demo in to Qrack 1.6 and squirt it out to an XVid AVI file that could be loaded in to MM2. 3 Problems :

1. Even with the Xvid compression the first demo avi is well over 200Mb and the second over 400Mb. Even using FTP gtting it to you could be an issue. Not quite sure why a 640x480 image is so large as, for example, the .AVI demo I produced for TU was only 25Mb.

2. I don't have the wav files for the 3,2,1 fight sounds at the beginning of the match.

3. I've noticed that at times the sound is a fraction out of sync when dumped to avi . Does anyone know if the DP demos have any known incompatibilities with Qrack? IF so is there any means of overcoming it?


I haven't tried fraps yet but it did try another screen capture which did capture the entire demo but looked awful.

The frustrating thing is normally the process of recording to creating of Avi in Qrack would take a matter of minutes. However, I'm still tinkering but if any of the Quake guru's (cough, *baker*, cough :d ) want to chip in with some helpful advice here, to save me trearing out what is left of my hair, it would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

Monty

[Canadian*Sniper]

if any of the Quake guru's (cough, *baker*, cough :d )

Baker it's a goru, he just copy and pastes info from readme files, websites, IM conversations and his ass

[/meaningless flame]

[LordHavoc]

Actually now I've hit another step stone. I thought I'd be able to find a YV12/RGB converter but I can't . What can I do to make a Windows Movie Maker compatable video file? (wmv, avi, mpg, m1v, mp2, mp2v, etc)

I listed a set of programs that can deal with the supported output formats.

Repeating the list a little differently worded:
None exist for rgb.
Can use mencoder or mpeg tools for yv12.
Can use bmp2avi/Adobe Premiere/VirtualDub/mencoder for tga.
Can use Adobe Premiere/VirtualDub/mencoder for jpg.
These are only the programs I know support these formats, there are probably others.

I also gave instructions on how to open the .tga or .jpg sequences in Adobe Premiere or VirtualDub (select the first file and make sure the load additional frames checkbox is on).

[LordHavoc]

OK, it took over 12 hours of coding but I got direct AVI saving implemented in darkplaces, it saves Intel(r) 4:2:0 codec uncompressed video (13MB/s at 640x480x30fps) and uncompressed PCM audio, it properly saves multi-gigabyte AVI files (though I'm not sure if the index works properly in that case).

It plays flawlessly in Windows Media Player and VLC on windows without installing any codecs, as well as mplayer on Linux (and presumably VLC on Linux).

I have removed all other video output formats to reduce engine code involved, and I think this format is the only one that is necessary.

It is not recommended for distribution, or even for archival storage, due to its enormous size (nearly a gigabyte a minute at 640x480x30fps), but it loads nicely into almost any video processor (VirtualDub for instance).

Here's a new DP engine build with the new output:
http://icculus.org/twilight/darkplac...60916beta1.zip

There may or may not be minor sound sync issues, if there are I don't think there is much I can do about them.

P.S. I would like to thank Microsoft(r) for the sheer stupidity of the AVI format, which was clearly developed by their Department of Redundancy Department...

[Canadian*Sniper]

I love you

[Mr.Burns]

Thank you so much for your efforts and please excuse my ignorance of DP.. but there is piece of information I am missing, is there a readme or manual that tells me how to convert a demo CS recorded in darkplaces to said file format? In Qrack to get an AVI it would be simply capturedemo demoname in console, what's the procedure in DP?

Many thanks in eager anticipation

Monty

[LordHavoc]

Thank you so much for your efforts and please excuse my ignorance of DP.. but there is piece of information I am missing, is there a readme or manual that tells me how to convert a demo CS recorded in darkplaces to said file format? In Qrack to get an AVI it would be simply capturedemo demoname in console, what's the procedure in DP?

Many thanks in eager anticipation

Monty

DP's capturing isn't directly tied to demo playback, and consequently it's a little more hit or miss in terms of catching the first frame and stopping at the end if that is your goal.

bind f4 "toggle cl_capturevideo"

then just play a demo normally, and hit f4 to turn on/off video record any time you want, each time you turn it on it starts a new file using a naming scheme like gamedir/video/dpvideo001.avi then 002.avi, etc.

you can also use this with slowmo, so you might want these keys to seek forward in the demo at different speeds:
bind f1 "slowmo 1" - 100% speed
bind f2 "slowmo 0.2" - 20% speed
bind f3 "slowmo 5" - 500% speed (watch out, it's easy to miss what you're looking for)

you can of course do more keys, and you might want to wait for a good shot to come along and then hit f2 to watch it in slow motion, and this records into the video in slow motion just like you're seeing it

note: slowmo does not currently affect sound playback so an explosion is not stretched out into a slow rumble at 20% speed or anything like that (but I do want to do that someday).

[Mr.Burns]

Many, many thanks LordH, that's really helpful and genuinely appreciated. You're a star :d

Kind regards

Monty