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Advice for someone thinking about starting SL machinima please


Emma Krokus
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My excuse is that there hasn't been a thread on video making in sl for a while...

 

So, I have a Windows 10 pc with Nvidia 960 GTV card, 8 gb RAM, CPU @ 2.80GHz and use the Singularity viewer.

I'd like to try making some short videos in sl play.

What free starter software would you suggest for a) filming and b) editing?

And do you have any tips for a complete newbie please?

I think it's possible to capture the SL UI on video (how do I do that?)...

 

Thank you!

Emma :)

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Lots of SL machinima makers belong to the Machinima Artist Guild where there is plenty of info and lots of things to watch from other folks. A good place to start.  http://slmachinimaarts.ning.com/

 

I don't know of any free software other than the trial version (watermark) of FRAPS which you can certainly use to learn with.  Looking in Google for free video capture software will likely find something if there is something.   Your computer will work fine. 

I film at window size 1600 x 900 which I think is fairly typical so if you have a big screen, don't try and film at full screen size. No need.   

 

You can start learning how to edit with free software but it will be quite limiting. Still it will give you an idea how you like the process. I don't know if Windows has a free movie maker software for Win10. It did for older versions of Windows.

 

The interface will show up automatically unless you turn it off :D  

 

Have fun. 

Oh, be sure and read the Machinima and Photograpy rules for Second Life. Generally it means you can only film on public Linden land, your land or where you have permission from the land owner and you cannot film any people that can be recognized without their concent.  

 

 

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If you are going to show any SL user interface then I wouldn't use the Singularity viewer.  It's not been updated since 2016 and is obsolete now.  The creator of that viewer doesn't support it anymore and there has been no word from him since June of last year and no word if he plans on updating it.  Use the official SL viewer or Firestorm which is the most popular viewer, otherwise you may confuse people who have never seen the old UI that the Singularity viewer has.  Your computer should not have any issue running either of them.

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Thank you very much for your suggestions Amethyst :)

 

As a side note:

Singularuty still is being updated. There are almost nightly aplha builds which have now incorporated Bento.

But I do take onboard what you say about showing a UI which is unfamilar to most sl users.

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When I started I did it for free. I used the free version of FRAPS to capture the raw footage. Free means you have the fraps watermark on the video in a corner I believe. Then I used the free Movie Maker that comes with windows to do the editing. At the time, I had pro tools on my computer because I also wrote music and so had that available to do the sound track to movies. 

 

If you search on Movie Maker on a windows computer, you should find it on your hard drive. Now I use the paid version of fraps, so no water mark, to do all of my capturing, and I do all my sound and editing on Sony Vegas. My computer that had pro tools on it crashed so I don't have that anymore but Sony Vegas seems to be ok to do the sound too though it's not as good as pro tools. 

 

Movie example:

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLyH57JEE21LmuMq-ZdrAIQ

 

The drag with the free Movie Maker that comes with windows is when I used it it had no abilty to crop the images. Maybe they have made it better in windows 10? So when I did it whatever I captured was pretty much what I ended up with in the finished movie. 

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doing it with 'free' software is difficult, especially editing. Windows Movie Maker is a cumbersome hack, but its doable for simple things. You will need a fly cam for any type of serious machinama work. I use a software based one, but seems the guy no longer offers it. Otherwises you will need a 3D mouse

 

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Emma Krokus wrote:

Thank you very much for your suggestions Amethyst
:)

 

As a side note:

Singularuty still is being updated. There are almost nightly aplha builds which have now incorporated Bento.

But I do take onboard what you say about showing a UI which is unfamilar to most sl users.

You need to be clear on why you are making a video, is it a "how to SL" vid, where a recognisable UI is a good idea, or a Machinima drama/comedy/music video, where the ui shouldnt even be seen.

 

Signularity is a problem, 9 times out of 10 when i hear " ...and i cant see mesh/my ass/stuff/the world" the sentance starts off with "Hi I use singularity and ..."

 

Singularity is basically the 13 yr old corpse of viewer 1, exhumed by Dr Frankenviewer and his lovely assistant, Igor, wired to a lightning rod and zapped back into some shambl;ing semblance of usable software, upgraded reluctantly with the bare minimum of mandatory compatability updates, in a sledgehammer and axel grease based insertion process that constantly threatens to make Dr Frankenviewer call out "Igor, bring me another viewer 1, this one has split!"

 

If you are doing tutorial vids, yeah SL or FS viewers, common and well known UI's, if making art... use Black Dragon, Niran is obsessive about offering the  best standard of graphics possible, rewrites shaders to improve on LL's lackluster work etc, it's a beautiful viewer for photography or machinima, it even has a special machinima sidebar on a hotkey to alter graphical settings more convieniently than using the preferences panel.

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