NZFF

I downloaded the free version of Fraps for capturing visualisation videos so i can send them to clients.....obviously the free version has a 30 second limit for capture so id like to get work to purchase the full version.

I just wanted to check others opinion- Is Fraps the best way to go? I cant see anything wrong with it, its cheap and easy, but i thought it prudent to check.

Regards
Tim

Fraps is pretty much the standard for capturing video footage. One tip is to change your game resolution to 800 x 600 and record at 1/2 speed, then speed it up during editing. You get smoother results that way. Also don't record sound if you get stutters. Also put black bars above and below your edited movie to remove the fraps watermark and in-game messages (like 'brakes' , 'replay' etc).

I messed about a bit with Gamecam. It has a light version that's not time limited. Worth a look at http://www.planetgamecam.com/

Cheers
Matt

From your experience with Fraps and Gamecam, which is better?

Gamecam seems to have a few more features but those features are probably superfluous for what we will be using it for?

Seeing your tips Matt, I thought I might give this a go myself.

I have FRAPS installed (free demo) but can't find any way to record at 1/2 speed. How do you do this?

Also, what editing program do you use? Is it possible to add the black bars at top/bottom with Windows Movie Maker? I know I can do the speeding up part with this prog.

Cheers

Just run the sim at half speed! [R-]
You record as you normally would, when you edit, speed it up again.
Can't remember Moviemaker's workings, but you should be able to add bars as black rectangle objects.

I'd be interested to hear whether others have had better results from earlier versions of FRAPS, latest seems to be a little heavy on framerates I think.

I found Gamecam tricky to use, and when I finally got it sorted it wasn't worth the trouble for me, I was just trying to see what it was like.

Alex

Good thinking Charl- I'll try that out sometime. In the meantime I've just managed to knock this vid up quickly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Rc5CdRX1E

Good stuff Trolly.

Youll find that fraps is the best to use but there is one problem with the walk and follow in southern hem it doesnt work like it does in the north hem
charls is right with the slow down stuff but i always go to the slowest speed and then speed up with effect trans in what ever movie maker you have
irus walk and follow camera is another addon to have with fraps {its a must if you like flying down roads and things with no aircraft in site
i always run recording in full screen res at 29.9 flps and mostly at full speed and all my movies have turned out sweet
if it jars while its recording that usally sweet as it plays back in mw player{only} normally
then for youtube upload covert and format to 320 x 240 at mpeg4 format
sorenson squeeze is what i use for cropping and changing formats to whatever
i squeezed a full res movie of 1.24 gb the other day to 55mb mpeg4
massive change in size
hope this helps abit

I installed Gamecam last night and gave it a try, its not the easiet to use, quite heavy on performance as well, havnt checked the recordings as yet though.

Good idea about the slowing down, hdant thouight about that atso will give it a try. Where can I get the other two items you mentioned? Irus walk and follow?

Yeah i meant IRIS simulations walk and follow tool camera
just do a search for it ,,,its payware
sorenson squeeze is payware software too ,i use for movie making and is not to cheap ether ..sadly as we could all do with it to edit our formats and crop stuff
also i forgot to mention frap full version has lots of extras that can be played with
plus you can take sceenshots to jpeg etc instead of just bit maps

if you pay for them as full versions i can truly say you would not regret it ever ...
so just goggle them all and find out what they all do...

Sweet thanks for that. I use Sony Vegas for editing so the watermarks fraps leave arent a problem, but additional features are always welcome.