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[Montoli]

Say I was thinking about trying to promote a game via video on youtube, and wanted to turn some gameplay into a movie of gameplay footage?  Or maybe my audio guy just wanted a clip of gameplay he could rig up with UI sounds to test?  Or something like that.

What do people usually use for video screen capture?  Any recommendations?

[Charcoal]

http://fraps.com/

It just works and is cheap.

[siiseli]

Camtasia studio is nice.

[Mr. Yes]

I've always used CamStudio, which isn't perfect but it's free.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Say I was thinking about trying to promote a game via video on youtube, and wanted to turn some gameplay into a movie of gameplay footage?  Or maybe my audio guy just wanted a clip of gameplay he could rig up with UI sounds to test?  Or something like that.

What do people usually use for video screen capture?  Any recommendations?

i usually use fraps or camstudio

also as an aside in the future please check (using the search function) if there are other threads on this topic before starting one, this is probably the fourth topic asking this same exact question that i've seen ;_;

[Phil A]

If you're on MacOS X then Snapz Pro X works nicely.

[Montoli]

Thank you for the suggestions everyone!  Most helpful!

also as an aside in the future please check (using the search function) if there are other threads on this topic before starting one, this is probably the fourth topic asking this same exact question that i've seen ;_;

What, and rob you all of the chance to pad your post counts?  And rob myself of the chance to pad MINE?  I think not good sir.  I think not.

Also, while I believe you that there are (or were?) such threads, they're at least hard enough to find that my cursory searches turned up zilch, so I don't feel terribly bad about starting a new topic.  Specific tools weren't mentioned in any of the stickied threads, even the ones that suggest video capture as a good thing, no such threads were on the front page when I posted, and a quick search for "video capture" or "video capture software" yields surprisingly few on-topic results.

So yeah.  No remorse.  As a constructive direction to take this, maybe the fact that it's apparently a common question, (and eluded at least my cursory attempts at research) means that it is a good candidate for inclusion in one of the currently existing sticky threads?

Or better yet, possibly a new sticky?  "Tools you don't know you'll need yet but you will?"


-Montoli

[Klaim]

Alec did use another technique to get the videos of Aquaria. He made the game play in a special mode, in slow motion and automatic regular screen capture.

[Mr. Yes]

Actually, I found two related threads:

Recording Game Footage
Which screen-capture software should I be using?

But yeah, I agree, it should be in a sticky if it isn't already.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

no need to be so defensive, if you tried to search and didn't find anything that's not a problem, but they exist (mr. yes linked to a couple, above)

also who cares about post count, there are no rewards for it, it's stupid. i don't even think this forum should show post counts, it's just a distraction and leads to a 'vets vs newbs' mentality

i agree that it should be in a sticky, but the sticky probably should go in technical rather than business, because it's more of a technical question than a business question; i'd also prefer it to be combined in another sticky because there are already way too many stickies for every subforum (drowning out most of the normal posts)

[Montoli]

Actually, you could make an argument that if they exist, and are difficult to find via searches, then that is a problem, but may not be exactly what you meant.  Anyway, never claimed that they didn't exist, just said I wasn't seeing'em with my search.  [turns out "Screen-Capture" was the magic word I was missing, I was trying "Video Capture"]

(Also - the post count comment was delivered with tongue firmly in cheek; sorry if that wasn't more obvious.  Didn't realize that would strike what is obviously a sore point.)

As for sticky location, or otherwise, you bring up an interesting point.  On one hand, it can certainly be argued as a technical issue.  On the other, since sticky threads in this forum ARE business oriented, and this is entirely in the context of "what do you need to market your game well", I think there is an argument to be made for it being somewhere in here as well.  May I humbly suggest the How to start an indie game business thread, possibly as an extra link under "marketing"?  That thread seems like a good fit, since it already contains links to other Technology-forum-centric stuff such as discussions on DRM solutions.

Anyway, just my $0.02.

-Montoli

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

actually i just tried it, and one of those links is a result if you search for Video Capture as well as for Screen Capture -- it's down a bit, but it's there

[Montoli]

Yup!  On the last page, 8th from last result. :D  Definitely candidate for putting somewhere more prominent, if people are asking about it frequently.  (Although I suppose this thread will now be what pops up in search.)

Anyway, got my answer, so thanks again for everyone who sent links or other helpful replies!

[Craig Stern]

If you're on MacOS X then Snapz Pro X works nicely.

The Snapz site says that it makes a Quicktime movie. Is that the only format it outputs to?

[Tom Sennett]

I actually had to record something for work yesterday and stumbled on this site:
http://www.screentoaster.com/

Maybe not the ideal solution, but I found it to be pretty full-featured and output at high quality. And it runs in a web browser for free!

[Phil A]

If you're on MacOS X then Snapz Pro X works nicely.

The Snapz site says that it makes a Quicktime movie. Is that the only format it outputs to?

Yep.

I'd be interested in hearing about good video conversion tools actually (though maybe we shouldn't do it on this thread?). It seems that Quick Time Pro is the 'standard' way to handle different formats on Mac but I'm sure there are alternative programs.

[Overkill]

On Windows, I use a combination of Fraps for initial recording, and VirtualDub for transcoding to a format that takes way less disk space (and ideally, doesn't lose quality when uploaded to Youtube, still need practice with this though).

[Craig Stern]

Question: can anyone here recommend something that works with Vista x64? I've been using CamStudio, but regrettably it hasn't been updated to accommodate Vista x64's finicky new requirements for sound drivers, so I can't capture audio with it.



...of course, I do realize that this would require someone other than me to have been silly enough to buy a computer with Vista x64.

[GregWS]

Alec did use another technique to get the videos of Aquaria. He made the game play in a special mode, in slow motion and automatic regular screen capture.

Haha, when CamStudio wasn't working on my current project, I contemplated trying that method.  I think I may go ahead with it now.

Once you have all the screen caps, you just merge them all into a video then, right?

[Klaim]

I've bought Fraps recently to quickly make a demo video, it's easy to use but can kill the framerate if the configuration is not well thought. Requires a bit of testing to get it right.
The demo was not really heavy on graphic resources so I'll see with the game itself in few months.