Few opinions please on the videos

Doctor DooM · 12-01-2010 11:22AM #1

Hey guys,

I am trying to increase the quality of the videos before the next ranbat.

I've a few test vids here and I'd like to know a) which music you reckon is best for the title card b) which video effect is best (I mention which one is used in the title card) and c) which font you like the most for the title card itself.

I own the copyright to all the music so it's all good to use.

I'm using iMovie and truth be told it isn't all that flexible, I still have to use MPEG streamclip to crop and do the 16:9 conversion.

Here's the first vid: Just testing what can be done with presentation for names etc. However I'm considering the music and the font. No need to watch past the first minute or so.

The music's called sockcooker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG10MZ8R_JY

Visual effect test 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7pfRhmGGCE

Visual effect test 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7RJ4nt1hqc

Visual effect test 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD-WFtpisDc

See as it's you lot who "star" in the vids I reckon it's only fair to get some democratic opinion on it.

EDIT: Thanks for the offer of the watermark ropey, let me think about it!

EDITER: Thanks to Bush and Cunny for beating me up while doing this too.

Jim · 12-01-2010 11:39AM

Just regarding the first video Doom, I found the player's names and Tourny title very distracting during the actual fight. Its because the camera is shaking so it just looks like the titles are moving on the screen. Was the camera on a tripod etc at the time? Or is there any way to make it more stable.

And just feedback regarding the names etc themselves, I'd move them to either above the health bars or between the character name and the timer under it.

Doctor DooM · 12-01-2010 11:42AM

Jim wrote: »

Just regarding the first video Doom, I found the player's names and Tourny title very distracting during the actual fight. Its because the camera is shaking so it just looks like the titles are moving on the screen. Was the camera on a tripod etc at the time? Or is there any way to make it more stable.

And just feedback regarding the names etc themselves, I'd move them to either above the health bars or between the character name and the timer under it.

It's no longer a problem, that was due to anti shake thingamies. The vids should be as stable in the next ranbat as the last three vids above.

I'll see what we can do with the players names.

animaX · 12-01-2010 11:45AM

Jim wrote: »

And just feedback regarding the names etc themselves, I'd move them to either above the health bars or between the character name and the timer under it.

I was gonna suggest this too, to put the names above the health bar if possible. Also, i liked the intro music in the first video!

Jim · 12-01-2010 11:46AM

Doctor DooM wrote: »

It's no longer a problem, that was due to anti shake thingamies. The vids should be as stable in the next ranbat as the last three vids above.

I'll see what we can do with the players names.

Ah, good good!

In other news....first music is the best and the Highspeed effect is by far the best.

L31mr0d · 12-01-2010 12:10PM

First music is the best imo.

Might be easier also to put in the names as Annotations on the youtube videos, that way the user can enable or disable them at their leisure if they don't like them.

Placebo · 12-01-2010 12:22PM

Thanks for the effort.
I would recommend

No effects [think of the processing time and your own personal time]
No music [extra work again, will people actually listen? wont be in sync with rounds]

Simple intro title [X vs Y] - with link to our new site or boards/fighting
Speed up 10%

Doctor DooM · 12-01-2010 12:45PM

Placebo wrote: »

Thanks for the effort.
I would recommend

No effects [think of the processing time and your own personal time]
No music [extra work again, will people actually listen? wont be in sync with rounds]

Simple intro title [X vs Y] - with link to our new site or boards/fighting
Speed up 10%

The effects are applied by the camera so they're actually no effort at all on my part. Same with the music, it's literally drag and drop. I might as well have it there with the title card. It doesn't play throughout the rounds or anything.

If you think they detract from the videos that's a different thing.

I hadn't thought about a link to the forum. I will talk to darragh about a nice simple redirect like www.boards.ie/fight.

Doctor DooM · 12-01-2010 12:50PM

RopeDrink wrote: »

Well thats a bit too similar to how the other crowd do it (eSports.ie isn't it?) Have a mini intro of pictures of the 'players' and who they play as in a little VS Screen with a bit of music which lasts about 10seconds, also showing the website/event details, then just cuts to the fight.

Cold hard fact is that the more professional you want it to look, the longer it's going to compress - Ironically a lot of super fancy effects are NOT that hard to do once you make a template (I'm talking effects like that fancy Japanese SF4 tournament show - Those effects aren't difficult, but it will take a long ass time to compress movies outside of super computers unless you're willing to really shrink down the view size or quality) and certain other bits and bobs require a little added individual editing effort but outside of that, it really isn't that mundane unless you're on a tight schedule.

An unedited movie of a 3-5min fight, for me, takes <10mins to compress fully and be able to upload to YouTube. The ones I've uploaded this time, which have a little overlay supplied, take about an extra 10mins due to the transparancy being applied to every frame of the first 30'ish seconds, but still, 25mins isn't that long (Though thats coming from someone who used to have to wait over 3-8+hrs for one single 10-25min WoW Movie to compress for WarcraftMovies, of which uses lots of effects.

To add a fullscreen effect for the entirety of an SF4 Bout (Or bouts) isn't going to take a tonne of time - I wager you could let the thing just tick away while you get some sleep - Thats how I used to do it, anyways, though it's obviously down to whoever chooses to pump in that effort and what they feel is practical for them (primarily) and the viewers.

Throw us together a simple watermark so and I will mess around with it in iMovie. It doesn't appear to have the best facilities for multiple titles so far, so hopefully adding a title image will be different.

The videos above were actually much quicker than any I have done before- I'm getting better with video tools our lord Steve Jobs gave us. these vids took around 15-20 minutes each. Considering I literally knew nothing when I made the first few, I think thats ok.

Sabre0001 · 12-01-2010 02:38PM

RopeDrink wrote: »

Well thats a bit too similar to how the other crowd do it (eSports.ie isn't it?) Have a mini intro of pictures of the 'players' and who they play as in a little VS Screen with a bit of music which lasts about 10seconds, also showing the website/event details, then just cuts to the fight..

And did we like what 'the other crowd' did?

Glad the name somewhat stuck with you though...

Will check the vids out later when I have sound and a bit more time! Names would be better over the health bar - less chance of them getting in the way. Finding a colour can also be difficult as you don't want it to fade into the background (another reason why the red / blue bars were used).

As you know, it can take some time to get the videos up without anything fancy going on so just be careful not to add too much

Dreddybajs · 12-01-2010 02:52PM

I hate having people's names overlaid on the video personally, and would prefer music/effects kept to a minimum.

Cunny-Funt · 12-01-2010 03:34PM

Doom will you be uploading our full matches or was it only just effects testing?

Anyway:

Turn off auto focus.

Its generally a bad idea to use on board camera effects, its the light in take you should mess with I'd say. I dunno how many options your camera gives you though.

I should help out with the recording some time with my camera, was good years ago but now it wouldnt record at the same resolution as yours as its mini DV.

As for little intros, I like that kinda stuff, I liked what the esports lads did (sabre

gives it that more 'ligit' kinda feeling, as for names on the screen I agree with what people have been saying. One thing I've done in the past (i've no examples) but I tried to blend in the names to how its done in game, so it just looked part of the game.

I don't mind name's being there the whole time as long as their not in the way but looking at dreddies opinion maybe just have the names show for the 1st 5 seconds then fade out.

Farz you mention speed up the footage, what's happening is while the game plays at 60fps the camera is most likely recording at 25fps.

The last clips I made with my camera (although they were recorded directly onto the camera like a video machine - it still applies) I converted them to 50fps (60 would make it look too speeded up) it seemed to work out ok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpzNCwLedeI

But this is a lot of work, video editing is a hobby of mine so I enjoy it but that'll be waaaaay too much work for poor doom with the amount of vids he'd be uploading .

ayjayirl · 12-01-2010 04:22PM

L31mr0d wrote: »

First music is the best imo.

Might be easier also to put in the names as Annotations on the youtube videos, that way the user can enable or disable them at their leisure if they don't like them.

Yeh, good idea, or you could also just have them at the very begining of the fight and fade them out as the round starts. You would hardly forget would you?

Doctor DooM · 12-01-2010 05:16PM

RopeDrink wrote: »

You need to give me an idea as to what you want - Also, as 'easy' as I make it out to be, the one I made is tailor suited to my screen and recordings.

Example, to get an idea of the positioning for the logo, I had to take a screenshot of ingame play, boot up Photoshop and use that as a positioning template - Once done, converted that background image to pure blue (For bluescreening / transparancy) and voila, just a matter of spicing it up whatever way I wanted - Found a nice emblem, put it there, added the text, sorted.

What I might make may not slot into yours 'as well' considering it's a different format of SF4 and, from what I gather, it's being recorded via camera rather than a fullscreen capture program (FRAPS).

Either way, I've no problem making one for you to mess around with, just I'm not sure what you'd want on it...

A flaming emblem saying "INFERNO RANBAT" or wether you'd rather player names to be in (or out), website details etc etc

Help me to help you, dude.

I guess something vey similar with the words "inferno ranbats" woud be ideal. I'm still testing stuff anyways.

Maybe with a burnig Irish flag

ayjayirl · 12-01-2010 05:19PM

Doctor DooM wrote: »

I guess something vey similar with the words "inferno ranbats" woud be ideal. I'm still testing stuff anyways.

Maybe with a burnig Irish flag

Burning Irish Flag can't really be done...... Too many people have died for the privilege of our own flag! Not that I am that sensitive, but there will always be one.

Doctor DooM · 12-01-2010 05:27PM

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

Doom will you be uploading our full matches or was it only just effects testing?

Anyway:

Turn off auto focus.

Its generally a bad idea to use on board camera effects, its the light in take you should mess with I'd say. I dunno how many options your camera gives you though.

I should help out with the recording some time with my camera, was good years ago but now it wouldnt record at the same resolution as yours as its mini DV.

As for little intros, I like that kinda stuff, I liked what the esports lads did (sabre gives it that more 'ligit' kinda feeling, as for names on the screen I agree with what people have been saying. One thing I've done in the past (i've no examples) but I tried to blend in the names to how its done in game, so it just looked part of the game.

I don't mind name's being there the whole time as long as their not in the way but looking at dreddies opinion maybe just have the names show for the 1st 5 seconds then fade out.

Farz you mention speed up the footage, what's happening is while the game plays at 60fps the camera is most likely recording at 25fps.

The last clips I made with my camera (although they were recorded directly onto the camera like a video machine - it still applies) I converted them to 50fps (60 would make it look too speeded up) it seemed to work out ok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpzNCwLedeI

But this is a lot of work, video editing is a hobby of mine so I enjoy it but that'll be waaaaay too much work for poor doom with the amount of vids he'd be uploading .

Autofocus is only on in the first video. Also it is kind of a control- that is the camera with no effects.

Perhaps you could take a look at the cam on Sat and give some advice?

Literally everything I have ever done is on the youtube channel, I am a total noob

Few opinions please on the videos

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