As requested: ULTIMATE CSGO MOVIEMAKING GUIDE by PANIq - PART #2
Welcome to the second part of The Ultimate CSGO Moviemaking Guide by PANIq
In today's chapter we gonna focus on recording our frag and preparing it for editing.
I will show you two ways of recording that allow you to achieve high quality. The solutions will differ in filesize and speed of recording. Some of them will have limitations. During recording frags you do not need to use HLAE (unless you want to use killfeed modifications, but these are bugged and I won't bother with them) - we will use it when we will record cinematics.
Firstly, simply launch your game and once you're loaded up exec the moviemaking config you want to use. Now use shift+F2 to show demoui. Use it to load up your demo. You can load it up from any directory on any of your HDDs.
The demo should load up. If you still see some parts of the hud on the screen that you don't want (like your weapons) then just set cl_draw_only_deathnotices back to 0 and then to 1.
This is how your game should look like: crosshair + killfeed.
Next step is going to our action. If you know the time (tick) of it just use demo_gototick tick in the console to go there. If you need to find the frags use demo_listimportantticks. Whole log of events will pop up in the console, including ticks for each of them
Once you're there you might encounter the infamous "gliding" bug where players won't move their legs when moving. You need to either:
a) watch the whole round and then go to your tick again,
b) go to the previous round and watch it at normal speed untill the round ends,
c) restart the demo.
There's no 100% working fix for this but on of the ways always works.
Okay, we are pretty much set up for our first recording.
Recording:
- using startmovie:
If you're using my config and recording POV then change the host_timescale to 1 - otherwise you'll record without sound
First thing you have to enter is host_framerate - this will set the FPS you will be recording in. You can bind it to some key if you want to. (default is 0)
Now this is important: always use a framerate that you can divide by the FPS your movie will be rendered in. This way you get the best frame blending and smoothness.
(Example: final movie in 60FPS - multiplied 60 = 120, 180, 240, 300, 360 etc)
On POV demos I'd advise not going higher than like ~500FPS, unless the demo is completely lag free, otherwise the lagspikes might become visible in your movie.
The next 2 commands will make your game record the frag:
startmovie "directory\name" format - starts recording your action. If you enter startmovie alone in the console it will show all the info explaining on how to use the formats
I'd advise sticking to tga+wav (raw) or avi uncompressed format. Be aware that using avi in fullscreen may cause some issues.
If you enter only the name of capture so for example "startmovie movie raw" the game will record to your CSGO folder (not recommended for SSD users)
You can try binding this command but I'm pretty sure that the game will keep overwriting the old files once you start capturing new frag, so you basically need to type different name for each action
endmovie - simply stops the recording of your frags
- using external capturing software (fraps, dxtory):
In my config on F1 and F2 there are demo_timescale binds. To set up a desired amount of FPS you need to divide the capture FPS by the timescale you wanna use.
(Example: I have 0.1 and I'm recording in 30FPS = 300FPS)
All you gotta do then is just set your software to record to the folder you want, set the FPS, press F1, press the recording hotkey to start recording. Once you're done simply stop recording and hit F2 to go back to normal timescale.If you're using fraps then remember to enable "Force Lossless RGB capture" - otherwise quality will be bad.
As I explained above, I advise to not go lower than with timescale than 0.1, same goes for fps - try to avoid going higher than 500-600. Also the FPS in software should be set to a value that will never ever drop even 1 FPS, so if your PC can't hold steady 60FPS while recording use 30 and lower the timescale.
Now in order to have in-game sound you need to either capture the game at normal timescale and with host_timescale 1 or add the sounds manually in editing software.
WARNING: Unfortunately, due to the game engine being bugged, you can't record image and sound at once with GOTV demos using startmovie. You are required to use host_timescale 0, doesn't matter what way you're using.Without it demo starts lagging really bad after few seconds.
MAJOR UPDATE: THE ISSUE ABOVE HAS BEEN FIXED WITH THE NEWEST RELEASE OF HLAE. YOU STILL NEED HOST_TIMESCALE 0 BUT THE NEW COMMAND (MIRV_SND_TIMESCALE, SET TO 1.0) STILL GENERATES SOUND FOR RECORDING = YOU CAN USE STARTMOVIE ON GOTV THE SAME WAY AS ON POV.
Creating high-fps AVI file for editing (AVI files from startmovie do not apply, as these are high fps already).
To do this we will use VirtualDub. Launch it, click on file and select open video file. In the window that came up just simply select the first frame (or the file, if you used FRAPS or any other soft) of your footage and click open. Make sure that automatically load linked segments box is checked. The software should load up the whole capture you just recorded.
Next, go to video tab and click on frame rate.
If you want to have the sound included in your avi file go to Audio tab, click on "Audio from other file" and simply select the sound file. I do not recommend it though, as I had some really bad experience with AVI+Sound files such as really long project loading times and project lock-ups. Just take the file with sound, rename it so you know which sound is for which action and import it into Vegas separately.
After you've done everything, go to File tab and select "Save as AVI". Name the file, choose the location and click OK.
TIPS:
- You need to enter the FPS and Codec only once. The information is stored until you close VDub.
- You can save/load the encoding settings here
- You can set the VDub to turn off your PC once all the AVI's are finished. Useful if you have loads of them to do and want to leave the PC to save them when you're sleeping.
This is the end of the second chapter of my CSGO Moviemaking Guide. If you feel like supporting me for doing all of this job feel free to like my Facebook page, subscribe my YouTube channel, come by the Twitch stream or donate me some CSGO goodies.
If you feel like I missed something here or you have any questions ask them in the comments, I will try to reply ASAP.
Posted Jan 10, 2015, 4:50 PM UTC · edited