Movie making - How to

[FlatSpinMan]

I've just become interested in trying to make a movie using BoS. I'm doing some research to investigate how to do it, but there's some great work produced by guys here, so if you have any good hints or links that would help others, please post then here. I'll organize the thread as needed.

[DD_Arthur]

Do you have an Nvidia card in the 600 series or above, FSM?  If you do then the good news is you can use Nvidia ShadowPlay.

 

 http://www.geforce.co.uk/geforce-experience/shadowplay

 

I started using it recently to make movies of BoS and CLoD to get squadmates interested.  I tried Fraps and er....the other one but they're both a bit of a resource hog whereas ShadowPlay seems to have a very minimal hit on performance.  Also, if like me you're new to this and computer illiterate and....careful with money it makes it all very easy.

 

This little movie I made from one single mission a couple of weeks back;

 

 

BoS shares RoF's excellent track recorder system which most importantly has a rewind function.  For this movie I simply flew the mission with the track recorder enabled.  Then I reviewed the mission from all sorts of internal and external views and story-boarded what I wanted to do.  Important to keep in mind that with these vids I'm keen to show friends what these sims are capable of rather than create a movie as such.   Steven Speilberg I ain't.

 

I create a folder where I want ShadowPlay to store the clips I make.  I fire up my game and load the track. When I come to the scene I want to record I pause it and then un-pause just before hitting record in ShadowPlay.  I like to enable "Cinematic Camera" for external views and disable it for in cockpit scenes.

 

When I've got what I want I'm left with a folder of a couple of dozen scenes recorded by ShadowPlay.  I then fire up Windows MovieMaker which is a freebie in Windows7.  I upload the clips to moviemaker in the order I want them to appear and then let MovieMaker do its thing and stitch them together.  I then select save in high quality and lo and behold I have a complete movie saved in the My Videos library from where it can be uploaded to YouTube.

 

The movie above took longer to upload to YouTube than it did to fly the mission and edit it together!

This one was a bit more ambitious as a flew the same mission three times in three different planes but it's exactly the same technique.

 

 

For some reason ShadowPlay does not seem to like IL2 1946 and just dosen't want to play.  I've no idea why but its a pity. It does however work in CLoD BUT....the Maddox Games system of ntrks does not have a rewind function which is a complete pain in the rear end.  I made this last week.  It's the DangerDogz 'avin a go on our CLoD practice server which is a lot of fun but after reviewing the same track for the thirtieth time in order to get to just that right scene I found I was loosing the will to live!

 

 

 

Good luck!

 

[andyw248]

Here's a good starting point: http://www.flightsimmachinima.com/#its-all-about-the-story.

[FlatSpinMan]

Thank you very much, andyw and arthur. Those links and suggestions are really helpful. Unfortunately I can't use Shadow Play but lots here will be able to, I'm sure.

The link to Flight Sim Machinima has an interesting and helpful interview with Barfly that ends with handy info on uploading videos to Youtube.

I've also added a link in my original post that may be of interest to others.

[IIN8II]

I think the best thing you can do is just to mess around with your replays. Play with all the different typed of camera views as well as the zoom and camera angles. Try and recreate so of your favorite shots that you have seen in movies. Having smooth mouse movement when using the free cam makes for good shots. Looking forward to seeing your work!

 

N8

[Requiem]

I think the best thing you can do is just to mess around with your replays. Play with all the different typed of camera views as well as the zoom and camera angles. Try and recreate so of your favorite shots that you have seen in movies. Having smooth mouse movement when using the free cam makes for good shots. Looking forward to seeing your work!

 

N8

The free camera is enabled?? I thought it was still disabled...at least I haven't been able to use it when I've tried. This is the most important camera function for me and having it disabled is like making videos with my hands tied behind my back. I'm sure many other movie-makers out there feel the same way when I say there is such great utility when using the free camera. It gives you shots and angles you just can't replicate with any of the other cameras in the game.

[IIN8II]

The free camera is enabled?? I thought it was still disabled...at least I haven't been able to use it when I've tried. This is the most important camera function for me and having it disabled is like making videos with my hands tied behind my back. I'm sure many other movie-makers out there feel the same way when I say there is such great utility when using the free camera. It gives you shots and angles you just can't replicate with any of the other cameras in the game.

Sorry, I meant external free camera. I can't wait until the free roaming camera is available!

Edited April 10, 2014 by IIN8II

[FlatSpinMan]

What's the difference between a free roaming camera and an external free roaming camera?

[Panzerlang]

What's the difference between a free roaming camera and an external free roaming camera?

 

One allows you to pan around the plane (attached to it), the other allows you to wonder-woman around the map at will (if I have it correct).

[Requiem]

What's the difference between a free roaming camera and an external free roaming camera?

It's the camera you see Loft using in the livestreams where he moves the camera around the environment independently of it being linked to any objects, instead of the other cameras which are all linked to an object. It allows you to get perfectly stationary views at points in space while aircraft fly around. This view is critical for me to make BFM/ACM videos as it allows viewers to properly visualise the maneuvers they read about in the books because the camera is at a fixed reference point in space while the aircraft move independently around it. Not only that, but even when making theatrical videos it's one of the best camera views to use.

 

In RoF and BoS the key for it F11, but F11 doesn't work in BoS yet.

Edited April 11, 2014 by SYN_Requiem