The online racing simulator
Making LFS movies #2 (new tutorial)
(262 posts, started )
Making LFS movies #2 (new tutorial)
After having a little chat with Bob Smith, I was given a "go" on making this thread.

Seeing as SaM’s “Making LFS Movies” thread is getting way too big and isn’t being easy to navigate (and having lots of posts that don’t contribute to anything), and having lot's of replies scattered all over the thread. I have decided to write a new tutorial on LFS movie making. You can still find SaM's tutorial here

This post will be regulary edited to add stuff that I might have forgotten, or to answer questions that may be raised in the future.

Intro
First of all, you should make it clear for yourself : even if you’re making LFS movies for your own personal enjoyment, it’s the viewers who you’re showing it to, so make sure you show them a good one, not a “dog”. If you you post a bad video, and state that you don’t care about it’s quality, since you were making it for yourself, you will most likely be asked to keep it for yourself.

Recording the game footage
  • First, start up Fraps (Highly recommended screen capturing software, found at http://www.fraps.com/download.php ) . In “movies” tab, select Full-size and FPS you are going to record in (depends on your PC). Don’t go lower than 25 FPS. I also advice you to remap the video capture key to something that isn’t used in LFS, because default F9 key will show you tire temps every time…
  • Start up LFS, and go to Options > Misc>Limit in-game frame rate, and set it to “yes”. Once you do so, the option to choose the max. Frame rate will appear below the “limit frame rate” option, set it to match the FPS set in Fraps.
  • Start up the replay you’re going to use, press Shift+F twice to get rid of the HUD and the Messages. Edit : Shift+S removes mouse from the screen in one of the late patches (not really keeping up with LFS, so can't say since when exactly)
  • Play the replay and hit the button you assigned to capture the footage in Fraps (F9 by default). Hit the button again to stop recording. Your .avi files will be stored on your HDD
Now there might be a few problems with recording from multiplayer replays. The cars that just appear into the shot would appear out of thin air thanks to lag. This could be prevented by either making sure you have all the cars in the shot before starting the recording, OR
Quote from pik_d :I was playing around with some settings a few days ago and realized that "Multiplayer speedup option" in the options -> misc is the cause for cars popping into thin air. If you set this to "no" it won't happen (at least in my testing). Most people have it set to yet as that's default and of course more speed = better.

Improving FPS

It is possible that while recording your FPS drops to an unbelievably low rate, there are a few ways to prevent it.
  • You could always set the resolution and level of details lower in your graphics settings (Antialiasing seems to take a lot of system resources for example) OR you could be the victim of LFS AA + Fraps Waffen SS-like system torturing method. IF you're easily running high FPS, but when recording your FPS drops to unbelievably low rates do like this guy advised
    Quote from Shadowww :Disable AntiAliasing in game and enable it in NVidia Control Panel.

    OR
    Quote from bavorak :go to shift + F4 windowed mode and then record...works on XP....just a small advice for those who havent been forced to choose vista as their OS

  • Or if it doesn't work, you could use more advanced recording method (warning, this method might be sacrificing the game sounds). Here’s how it works
  • Start up fraps just like before but set the recording FPS to the FPS you’re getting while recording (let’s say you get 12 fps while recording, so stick with 10 in fraps to be on the safe side, and set 10 fps limit in LFS), also remove the tick near “record sound”.
  • Start up LFS, and in Options>Misc, limit the frame rate to 10 FPS
  • Load up the replay you’re going to use, and press shift + F twice (never forget to do that)
  • Play replay in .250 speed (F2 and F3 control the speed of playback), record the footage you want (yes, it will take 4 times longer, and it will look choppy due to 10 FPS, but don’t worry, it’s the way it should look)
  • When finished, start up Virtual Dub (found here http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/ ), press File>open video file and select your avi file, then press Video>frame rate and there, select “Change frame rate to (fps)”. You will be now able to input a new frame rate setting. The FPS we’re looking for is FPS you were recording in x4 (10x4=40). After you input the new FPS, press OK, and then press File>save as avi. Voila, your footage is now at normal speed, and has 40 FPS.
Live for speed can play sounds in x0.25 and x0.5 playback speed, if you recorded with sounds at those speeds, the sounds are still salvageable
This is how you do it :
Quote from Jens O. :in fraps, set the tick beside "record sound".. then, before recording in lfs, make sure your framerate in LFS matches the one set in Fraps (otherwise the sound and video might later not be synchron).

after recording, open your clip(s) in virtualdub and do the following:
- audio -> [x] full compressing mode -> [x] use advanced filtering
- audio -> filters -> add ... - add "input", "stretch" and "output"..
- close that add-filter-window and doubleclick the stretch-element in the filter-window... then set the speed you recorded at (e.g. 0.25 if you recorded in 1/4 speed)
after adjusting the framerate of the video just like Squid described you should have a perfectly synchronal gamesound - without a loss of quality.
one more thing, lfs disables the sounds when playing a replay at x0.125 speed, so if you record at this speed, this method won't work.

Quote from JO53PHS :Or Alternatively, you can use the Filters: Input --> New rate (then double the rate, or quadruple if you recorded at 1/4 speed) --> Resample --> Output

Those are the basic recording techniques, those should be enough to set you on your way. But just recording is not good enough, without proper camerawork, your movie is nothing but a frapsed replay…

Another way of improving FPS (not tested by seasoned LFS movie makers)
Quote from saumilsingh :TIP: If you want a quick and user-friendly way to maintain the framerate when recording in-game footage, just switch to 16-bit colours. In 16-bit mode, your framerate won't nosedive even with all the graphics and anti-aliasing settings turned up.

This way will however result in green smoke, so it's quite bad for drifting movies.

Camerawork

In the game, you are able to go into free camera mode, by pressing Shift+U, when in Shift+U mode, press Shift+F a couple of times to remove the hud and the timeline in the lower part of the screen. Spacebar toggles the finetuning options menu of the camera movement.

Basic controls are : Mouse aims the camera, while arrow keys move the camera around. V toggles between top-down view and your regular free camera view. If you set both views to point in particular directions, you can shift between them while recording…

The camera options menu
  • Hide keys : should be always in “yes” position. It hides autocross editor keys from the screen
  • FOV : Field of view, self explanatory (if it isn’t – play with the slider, you’ll get it…)
  • Invert mouse button look : also self explanatory…
  • View smoothing : This one is very important. General idea is “the smoother your camerawork, the better”, but the more smoothing you set, the harder it gets to keep track of the moving objects (especially in .250 speed, where the 2.5 second delay becomes a 10 second delay in camera movement). Just remember, the rougher your camerawork, the harder it is for the viewer to clearly see what’s going on (and if you can see what’s going on, but the camera is shaking all the time, it’s also very unpleasant)
  • Roll : Controls the roll of the camera. The main thing about this one, is to know where to stop, rolled cameras may be cool, but nobody wants to twist his neck while trying to see what you have filmed. Keep reasonable angles.
  • Height : The height of the camera position. Please note that the top-down camera mode is limited at 40 meters, while the regular mode is limited at 2.6 meters.
  • Follow car : does what it does, toggles the follow mode on or off…
  • Move speed : Controls the speed of the camera movement (which is controlled by the arrow keys). The main idea here is – you don’t want the camera to move too slow or too fast. There’s no “best setting” because each movie has it’s own pace and needs it’s own camera moving speed.
That’s it for basic controls.

There is also an addon to the custom camera view that allows you to focus on the car. There is no seasoned LFS movie maker's advice on that one, so no in-depth tutorial yet... here's the addon
Quote from burnsy1882 :A great tool for movie makers can be found from FireFox86. The tool will allow movie makers to make their own cameras and camera sequences. Links to the threads and website are here:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=51078
http://lfs.finalgear.com/carfocus/

Camerawork advice
  • Never let the camera go straight through an object. If it went through, you can either try the same shot again, or to edit it out during the editing process.
  • Don’t make sudden camera movements. If you want the camera to be moving, it should be in motion before you hit the record button, and it should stop after you stopped recording. If you have made such a mistake, you can edit it out later. Also don’t start turning the camera around all of a sudden. All the movements need to be fluid and smooth.
  • Don’t use standard cameras that can be found in the game, whether it’s TV view or the first person perspective. Replace TV view camera positions with your own using Shift+U, and if you would like to show what’s going on in the cockpit, go to “wheel view” and then hit Esc, go to options>view. Select draw : body, clocks and mirrors mode : real. You can adjust the camera, using the X, Y and Z offset sliders, and the pitch and rotate. This also can be used to put the camera on the quarterpanel, facing the tire for example.
  • Avoid high FOV, the less FOV, the more detail you can show
  • If you don’t know how to best show off the cars and the actions – google some official car wallpapers or refer to car movies or shows (Top gear and so on), you can see some good camerawork there.
Editing
If you’re going to edit a video, I assume you already know how to do that, and you have either Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas… If you don’t know how to do that, then you’re stuck with either Windows movie maker (found in your start menu) or a tutorial on how to use Vegas or Premiere (assuming you’re going to get any of these)

If you’re using Vegas or Premiere, don’t forget to deinterlace the video.(removing the horizontal stripes on moving images) You can do it by simply selecting “no fields/progressive scan” in the video quality settings toolbar.

Also, you should use the video resolution you used in LFS while recording, it will improve the quality of the video. Make sure to match FPS of the video to the FPS of the unedited raw footage you have (if you recorded in slow motion to increase your FPS, then match your video FPS to the FPS of the footage you have after speeding it up with virtual dub)

When you’re done editing in Vegas or Premiere, you can either compress and export the video from the software, or use a better method : export raw uncompressed movie (be ready for a very big video file) and open it with virtual dub. Go to video>full processing mode, and then Video>compression (I recommend Xvid codecs (found here http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/ ), and select compression level. Also, don’t forget to compress the audio by pressing Audio>full processing mode and then Audio>compression, selecting a codec there and setting the compression level
Quote from Shadowww :I suggest using 128kbps AAC or MP3, because then youtube doesn't recompresses audio, and that results in higher quality.

After that – press File>save as Avi. Virtual Dub does a better job on compressing than most editing software

Editing advice
  • If you’re using Windows movie maker DON’T USE ANY OF IT’S SPECIAL EFFECTS, because simply – they’re godawful. And also don’t use any of it’s transitions except fading through black or cross fading. And also, forget about the regular text overlay WMM has, you’re better off with a proper JPG with a text written with nice font
  • Everyone likes to see cars in LFS movies, so make sure to cut off the unnecessary bits when the car has passed (or is going to pass), and the camera is filming the scenery.
  • If you used a demo version of Fraps to record the video, it will have a fraps.com watermark in the top part of the screen. You can edit it out by simply zooming a little bit (not a lot though, you lose quality when you zoom in using editing software)
    OR you could use this method:
    Quote from anbiddulph :i dont know if this has been posted yet, but a good way to get rid of the fraps watermark is to crop it in virtualdub (filters, null transform, cropping)

  • If you are making a short video, make sure it’s action packed. You can allow yourself to have a lazy, slow paced intro on long videos though.
  • Syncronise the video to the audio. It’s not bad not to sync, but if you do, it delivers a ton of difference.
  • When editing the video, remember, there’s nothing wrong with using special effects or not using special effects. The main rule is – don’t go overboard. The picture should still be clear, and show what you want the viewer to see, and the special effect used must always fit the scene. A bit of color correction is always welcome. If you’re going to use vignette overlay (darkening the edges of the video), remember to constantly change it. You don’t want the whole video be covered in one and the same vignette.
  • Don’t forget, every video has a beginning and the end. Don’t cut off the video and audio feed when you want to end the video, edit it so it would feel natural (for example cars driving away and music fading, while slowly fading to black)
  • If you’re fading to blank, use either black or white colors, everything else looks unprofessional.
  • When you're done with editing, make sure you watch the whole video in the editing software and make sure it's just the way you want it to be, and check if there is no unwanted stuff in the video, that you forgot to take out, or that nothing is missing that you intended to put in...
Music
Music is a major factor in your video. It sets the tempo and the mood, so it’s a very touchy subject. Ofcourse music is something you can’t agree on with everyone, but these are the advices that will make life easier for you and for the viewer. These are the notes I have made for myself while making my videos, and watching other people’s videos.

First of all, you should remember not to use anything that will be forgotten in a few years… that means nothing you see on MTV in the charts is allowed (with rare exceptions from long living, and very popular bands like Prodigy for example). Usuallly the video doesn't age well if the music is getting old

Try to avoid songs that are not in English, they are generally not well received. As much as everyone may respect Russian (Spanish or Italian or Chinese… doesn’t matter) singers, their style is too distant from songs in English, which everyone is used to. I’d also recommend not to use anything with words in it, makes it easier to accept.

Avoid music that has been used in successful LFS videos before you, it’s not original.

Avoid car themed soundtracks… yes, seriously. If you’re making a video on drift, and you use Teriyaki Boyz music, you’re going to be burned alive. There are the main reasons : 1. The music itself is not good for action packed video. 2. The music is a soundtrack to a drift movie, which (by general beliefs) means you have no style on your own, since you rip such well known stuff off. And it’s not original at that.
You can however use scores, or music that hasn’t been featured on soundtrack CD’s. Scores usually are there to create a mood, and that’s exactly what you need music for.

Remember : style and rhytm of the music is a major factor. R’n’B and Hip Hop may go good with chilling out in the club, but they sure don’t fit cars racing or drifting. You may like Drum’n’Bass very much, and the video you are making suits it, but not everyone likes it and so on. Before selecting your music, analyze it, does it suit the action? Is the tempo right? What about the style? Is the music not too repetitive? What about explicit lyrics? (yes some people have problems with that.) Remember, the more extreme the music style, the less chances of it being accepted by the majority (Black metal for example)

Overall advice

One and only thing, apart from the technical stuff mentioned above : Keep your work original, be creative.

Have fun
Squid.

and we have this entry on how to properly name your video...

Quote from Mp3 Astra :Quick thing that's been on my mind lately:
How to name your video:

Trailer: Your video is a trailer if it's showing highlights of a longer video that you plan to release later. Or it is a trailer for LFS itself.

Teaser: Your video is a teaser if it is short and only gives away a small amount about the subject matter and you probably intend on releasing a bigger video later.

Promo/Promotional Video: Your video is a promo if you're advertising an event and/or product related to LFS. It will probably be a little longer than a trailer and teaser and it will need to give some relevant information to the viewers.

Compilation: Your video is a compilation if it is just general racing from many different servers and leagues.

Highlights Reel/Season Review: Your video is a highlight reel if it's the best action from one particular race or league. It's similar to a compilation but more specific in its subject matter.

Broadcast: Your video is a broadcast if it contains elements of live commentary and TV camera style views.

Analysis: Your video is an analysis if it's focussing on one aspect of a race or league, and will probably contain text or speech.

Feature Film: Your video is a feature film if it contains a storyline. You may want to release trailers and teasers beforehand.

Frapsed Replay: Your video is a frapsed replay if it has had no editing done to it and it literally just a standard LFS cam watching something. This is ok, if you're just making videos for 'teh lulz'.

good one
I got an addition for those of you who use virtualdub for cutting and would like to include the gamesounds although recording at lower speeds:

in fraps, set the tick beside "record sound".. then, before recording in lfs, make sure you don't use a variable framerate but set the same framerate that you use in fraps (otherwise the sound and video might later not be synchron, as I once noticed after I was just done with cutting an lfs video :schwitz.

after recording, open your clip(s) in virtualdub and do the following:
- audio -> [x] full compressing mode -> [x] use advanced filtering
- audio -> filters -> add ... - add "input", "stretch" and "output"..
- close that add-filter-window and doubleclick the stretch-element in the filter-window... then set the speed you recorded at (e.g. 0.25 if you recorded in 1/4 speed)

after adjusting the framerate of the video just like Squid described you should have a perfectly synchronal gamesound - without a loss of quality.

one more thing, lfs disables the sounds when playing a replay at 0.125x speed, so if you record at this speed, this method won't work.
Quote from Jens O. :...

Or Alternatively, you can use the Filters: Input --> New rate (then double the rate, or quadruple if you recorded at 1/4 speed) --> Resample --> Output

Jens and Joseph - added your guides
Nice guide, btw
And if you have a problem with smoothness of your camera(s) you can always make your own with TV Director and let it do the work for you
Good guide, and sums a lot up.
Quote from boothy :And if you have a problem with smoothness of your camera(s) you can always make your own with TV Director and let it do the work for you

Link and tutorial on how to use it please, And it's in the guide
If I get time, and if boothy can't be arsed, I will have a look at the TV Director manual and extract the useful bits. Then I'll add my own information; things have changed since the manual was made. And there are some (not so) entertaining bugs that are hard to work around...
Quote from squidhead :Link and tutorial on how to use it please, And it's in the guide

The best thread for beginners.


The only thing I can add is that there is a stage prior to all this which I took almost 80% of the time.

The documentation and planning.


Depending on the topic is chosen, the documents can be searched in magazines, films on this subject, and even videos on Youtube.

Planning can be in two senses. Make a video clip or a video with a good sense of music (music is more in the background).

A video clip is when the impact and pace of the video will parallel the music.

A sense of music video is almost the same. But music is not going to make the effects.

Later, I can go further with this issue.
Thanks I'l defenatly be trying al this Lynce already gave me one but he failed at the rest of it caus he didnt knew how to excplain hoty Vdub works

I have some music and stufs and want to see what I can make with it I am looking for quality so when I realse feel free to critasize
gonna try this, ill post a vid if im pleased with it
Was quite surprised to find this thread, but cool, definitely more comprehensive and helpful than mine! Plus it's good to start over with a clean slate/thread.
I wish you good look with trying to answer all questions that arise. As you can see I tried to do the same with my thread, but it will pile up within no time. I hope others can join in too on answering.
I will try to answer as much as possible, but then again, I haven't been in LFS for a year and haven't made an LFS movie for about 2 years, so I may not have answers to many questions.

Thumbs up.
TIP: If you want a quick and user-friendly way to maintain the framerate when recording in-game footage, just switch to 16-bit colours. In 16-bit mode, your framerate won't nosedive even with all the graphics and anti-aliasing settings turned up.
Very nice tutorial! It helped me alot with video making and make smoother videos .

Here is a test video with the tutorial. I was testing some stuff and yes I do know the headlights arent on :P. This is the result I get with your tutorial Squid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... &feature=channel_page
There may be problems with some Nvidia cards (or at least they were there, when I was making my last movie). I'm talking about this:

When you have AA turned on in the game, Fraps is only recording at 10 FPS (no cracked version, original bought software). Solution is to turn off AA in game and turn it on in Graphic card control panel in windows...

Also, to what Lynce said here, My personal opinion is that if you start with making vids in overall, it's better to try to do a video clip, cause there's much more chance people will like it (if you use that music effect). If you decide to do video with sense of music, you'll need to get viewers by something else, as in video clip the main atmosphere component is good synchronizing.
When I record I end the explorer process also, because it takes up alot of resources, and then just start it back up afterwards.
Quote from Itar (CZ) :There may be problems with some Nvidia cards (or at least they were there, when I was making my last movie). I'm talking about this:

When you have AA turned on in the game, Fraps is only recording at 10 FPS (no cracked version, original bought software). Solution is to turn off AA in game and turn it on in Graphic card control panel in windows...

Does the FPS or the quality change after you do that?
Not for the LFS at all, but when I recorded with fraps, with AA in game, it gave around 10 FPS and never more... with AA off in game and on in nvidia control panel, I was able to do 15 (most probably even much more, but I'm recording on 0.5x speed, so I have turned on maximal FPS in game to 15 FPS) while the game was looking the same.

Oh, forgot to mention graphic card I had... It was Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT.
Anyone?
Fraps and Vista x64 problem...
Quote from Itar (CZ) :Not for the LFS at all, but when I recorded with fraps, with AA in game, it gave around 10 FPS and never more... with AA off in game and on in nvidia control panel, I was able to do 15 (most probably even much more, but I'm recording on 0.5x speed, so I have turned on maximal FPS in game to 15 FPS) while the game was looking the same.

Oh, forgot to mention graphic card I had... It was Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT.

Maybe you've already tried it, but have you considered resizing the lfs window to a resolution slightly larger than you plan to distribute the finished product?
ie 720x480 resize lfs to 960x600, that allows you to scale the captured footage down to 80% or leave it 100% which is pretty handy to have that option.

I'd imagine the difference between recording at 960x600 over something like 1280x960 could be quite a lot, and if the AA related improvements youve uncovered make a decent impact, you could get a steady 24fps at x1.0 speed.


I only started looking at video editing about 6wks ago, i've always avoided the temptation because as far as i was concerned i had more than enough things on my 'job' description at Mercury and wasnt lumping video maker onto that list
I've only just thought to look here for suggestions, and while i dont think there was anything there i hadnt come to the same conclusion on on my own, its certainly a good thread and a lot of does need saying (ie go easy on the effects etc).


My tip for the thread, based on my own experience though its possibly just something within Premiere being the snobbish application that it is...

Pixel Aspect Ratio

Its a little f**ker, and it can end up distorting the finished product so it looks a little odd.
On your monitor, you're seeing & recording things at a ratio of 1.0, so you have a 100x100px square, it appears 100x100. If your videos PAR ratio is 0.909 (NTSC) or 1.09 (PAL) then you'll get a 100x91px rectangle or 100x109px rectangle, its 10% narrower or taller than how it should be.
Always check for it in the settings when it asks you about the movie you want to make, likewise check when your outputting it to avi/flv.

Might not be a problem on many video editting packages, but it really frustraited me for the first couple of weeks, why something captured at 4:3 wasnt fitting perfectly into a 4:3 scene... for a while i would stretch the video out of proportion, ie 70% wide, 80% height, to get the image back into proportion.

i'll post my finished video in a couple of months once its completed


Out of interest, does anyone fancy divulging their findings in terms of video compression for the various formats? I've found that finding something your happy with is almost as time consuming as making the video in the first place. Its constant back n forth with tweaking the compression, encoding it, playing the file & checking the filesize, then back to tweaking the compression again...
It'd be handy if someone with a little more knowledge and experience behind them would be willing to give some good ballpark figures for what to aim for.
Whether thats by saying aim for 500/kbps or say 640x480 ~5mb/min of footage, 720x480 ~7mb/min etc

From my own findings, im finding compressing to flv far more rewarding compared to avi (divx/xvid @780/kbps).
Im getting 16mb/min @ 720x480 using default divx 'home theatre' setting
compared to 9mb/min @ 640x426 for flv which looks much cleaner (if i could use 720x480 i would, but it wouldnt fit its intended location).
I've no idea whats considered reasonable, so i think it'd be handy if some kind of ballpark figures were included in the OP to give makers a rough idea what to be aiming for, esp if they can be given the details of how to acheive the best compression while retaining a high quality.

Making LFS movies #2 (new tutorial)
(262 posts, started )
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