Walking Target
2007-07-07 01:30:13
I missed this awesome text file the first time I was browsing the pack holymoly put together for movie makers. I though it would be good to repost it here as it contains lots of great advice.
n1 holy
n1 holy
Half-Life 2 Moviemaking Guide by {HE} holymoly-noway
Picking a soundtrack:
Try to not use songs already featured in Half-Life 2 Videos. I suggest watching a lot of CS:S,
DODS, Quake 3&4 Videos. Learn how they put frags to the beat and use songs that aren't by
Drowning Pool. I suggest adding in a slow song to offer some variety. In the end, just put
in songs that you like. You'll have to listen to them for a long time while you're editing, so
make sure they're not your very favorite songs. By the end you'll be tired of hearing them.
Frags:
Sequences are good. Also, don't recam very much. Too much recamming slows things down and ruins
the flow of the video. If you want a great video tutorial on Demo Smoothing and recamming, check out
the forums at http://www.infprod.de . They have a lot of links there and they're very, very talented
CS:S movie makers.
Custom Resolutions:
You may choose a custom resolution which is not listed in the in-game resolution options.
You can actually run the game at any resolution you want as long as it is in a window and not
fullscreen. Do this by right-clicking on your desktop HL2DM shortcut icon and adding this to the
command line:
-windowed -w xxxx -h xxx
example: -windowed -w 1280 -h 720
Visual Quality:
In your video card's desktop control panel, make sure you force the maximum resolution settings.
Even if Half Life 2 Deathmatch does not support your settings from the in-game video menu, you will
be able to improve visuals from outside the game by telling your video card to force maximum
anti-aliasing etc.
Use anX's Movie Config. The config contains extrememly useful settings which will let you record
up to 26 different TGA series without having to specify new names. You click the same key (F11)
and it will cycle to the next sequence name every time you press it. Also, you'll find hitting
1, 2, and 6 to be very useful in toggling the HUD, gun, and crosshair on and off. There's also a
shortcut key to remove the spectator bars which detract from the visual quality of the video.
I cannot stress enough the importance of rendering at the same resolution you record in. Every time
you compress images (either resizing or compressing) you lose data. The lost data obviously results
in a lower visual quality. If you're going to try and use the X264/h264 codec in the ecoding process
you need to make sure that your in-game resolution is divisible by 16 in both the width and height.
X264 is the best codec available freely, but is a CPU power hog. It also needs a good deal of free
hard drive space to buffer itself adequately and prevent stuttering and/or freezing.
Xvid is the other option to consider. It beats DivX's ass and takes a dump on Windows Media v.whatev
anX's webpage provides links to his encoding tools which are invaluable. His settings should not be
your settings, however. You will need to experiment with small clips and find what settings get you
the best file size vs. quality ratio. I found that bitrates over 5000 and a quantizer of 1 work well
and still keep sizes relatively small. Also, the deblocking numbers in X264 help make images sharper
the smaller they get. Negative is better than positive. Please also note that videos of 1280x720
resolution work best with default AVS script cropping numbers. Custom resolutions may require
different cropping numbers. There are sites available to help you figure that out.
Attitude:
You are not the shit.
Please also know that you can contact me at any time as long as you're active in the Half Life 2
community. I will not provide assistance to people who want to post videos on YouTube, Google,
or other low-quality websites. If you want to post on the web like that, just use Windows
Movie Maker with default settings. Better yet, use a free copy of fraps and make sure the
http://www.fraps.com watermark is at the top middle of your video the entire time.
- {HE} holymoly-noway
Contact: Instructor, http://www.hl2dm-university.com
http://www.hellselite.net
[email protected]
