i am far from calling myself a machinima person but i do like to video things in OpenSim

it’s one of those things that i really need to practice and be patient with becasue it can be useful. a video can help non virtual world users understand what you are doing. i think this would apply very well to even store owners in grids like InWorldz. we see commercials on television, so why wouldn’t we do the same for our endeavors?

for Enclave Harbour, video will be used to help get the concept across to teachers, parents, and students. the video currently up on the site was thrown together hastily (excuses, excuses) and needs to be redone and made much shorter! one thing i strongly agree on with subQuark is video length – the shorter the better. as he says, if you can sell a $60,000 car in a 30 second commercial then it’s hard to justify longer pieces (lol, the Enclave Harbour video is six minutes long! i could take a cat nap in that time!) z  z  Z  Z  =D

restraint is important to help make an impact. ever notice that many car commercials don’t even mention if the car has an engine or tires? both things are pretty vital to a car but many commercials play on your emotions – how you will feel with that product, not how it is made. if you have a clothing store in-world then you want to sell the “better experience” that the buyer will have by dressing in your creations. will they be seen as the coolest person at the next party, or as the most beautiful person at the next art reception? people want to feel more complete with the products they buy, so it’s all about them and not you (even though they buy your stuff)

creating a video of your virtual world whatever is pretty easy and, for the most part, can be done for free

i don’t have Adobe Premiere or After Effects or Sony Vegas and i just use what i can piece together. the only tools i use that cost anything are Fraps and the nifty Space Navigator mouse (which i wish i had checked out years ago!)

Fraps is a great tool to capture video with but it is Windows only =(  there is a trial version and i think it limits how long you can film and the full version costs $37 USD. Fraps provides free updates for life with the paid version. i think i have had Fraps for three years and they routinely release 3 to 4 updates per year

after installing Fraps, fire up your viewer and when Fraps is running you will see a yellow number in the corner of your viewer that shows your frame rate. US/Canada TV is shot at 30 frames per second (29.97 for sticklers), EU is at 25 fps, and movies are at 24 fps. to many people it would seem that a higher frame rate would be better for TV (it is for virtual worlds) but it actually means more data has to update per second! to offset the increased frame rate in the US, the resolution suffers compared to the EU. the NTSC system (US/non-HD) only allows for 525 lines of resolution whereas PAL (EU) has 625 lines. that’s one reason TV in Europe looks better than in the US

i like using 30 fps and i set my viewer to 1280 by 960 pixels for the inside part. i use Sizer (Windows only) to easily set it the size. the “inside part” is the area within the chrome of the viewer. to figure that out i just resize and screen capture the viewer and measure the inside part in Fireworks (Photoshop or Gimp would work too)

i use 1280 by 960 even though standard video is 640 by 480 because it is easier for me to see what is going on in the viewer (make sure to hide the viewer interface – alt-shift-f1 for Imprudence and to uncheck Show mouselook crosshairs in the advanced menu if need be). i also check Hide mouse cursor in video in Fraps. to reduce the video i record to 640 by 480 i use Virtual Dub – video > filters > add >2:1 reduction (high quality) and then i Save as AVI… out of VirtualDub because the raw Fraps video AVI file is humongous (not compressing while recording helps keep Fraps light on system resource use)

i’ll likely change to 1280 by 720 for a letterbox format (16:9) instead of the 4:3 i have been using

tweaking how you setup your viewer and your other tools is very subjective and i am no machinama meister; this is just the way i have been doing it – you’ll find what works best for you

since i am thrifty (hey, i may frugal but i am never cheap!) =p i use Windows Movie Maker to make the final WMV file that i upload to YouTube. Movie Maker is very limited but is super cinchy to use. when publishing the movie i set it to publish at the max size (2 mbps bit rate) since YouTube will crunch it down to like 300 mbps =(

if you are a Mac, iMovie would be similar to Movie Maker and Quicktime Pro is a bit like Virtual Dub

lastly, i love the Space Navigator for using the flycam and if you are looking at doing video regularly, i would highly recommend it but it certainly is not vital and you can showcase your work without using one