Introduction to camping (high-definition CS:S video, again!)
My previous HD CS:S video was just testing. Now here’s the real deal. Rendered with maximum resolution in CS:S, 1600 x 1200. Composed in AfterEffects in resolution 1920 x 960.
Download the video here (resolution 1920 x 960, 87MB): Introduction to camping
… or download small (640 x 320) version here
For playback download some codec pack. K-Lite Codec Pack is good.
Procedure for creating this video was a bit similar than the previous one. Although this time it was bit easier.
Download demo file recorded by Setti CSS SourceTV, playback the demo and save each frame in TGA file (instructions in previous video release). This will result into many gigabytes of video material if HD resolution is used. Record video footage as seen by different players. In this video there are 6 different views so I had to playback the demo 6 times. When I recorded the TGA sequence I started recording at approximately same tick always. That way it’s easier to synchronize different player views in the final composition.
Now I had around 60 gigabytes of HD video footage. Processing HD quality material isn’t easy for computer and lots of memory is needed. Thus I converted HD material to quarter of original size (1 / 4) which means 400 x 300 resolution footage. That material was initially processed in AfterEffects. When video editing was done I could just switch from low quality footage to high quality footage. Converting HD material to low-quality material was done with ImageMagic’s convert program by following command (yes, this can be done in Windows; note: by default program convert is Windows system tool, you need ImageMagick image processing package):
for %i in (*.tga); do convert -resize 400×300 %i small\%i
The command will go through all TGA files and execute convert for each picture and save them in directory called small.
For some reason video editing programs usually have very bad support for saving in divx, xvid and other popular video formats. AfterEffects was no exception in this case and exporting the video was quite difficult. Another thing which wasn’t easy in AE was editing audio (sounds). There is no real-time preview for audio and if you want to hear audio and see video you must select “make preview”. Making preview takes about 30 seconds and then you see 5 seconds worth of video + audio. Luckily I had very simple audio setup and it didn’t take long to put it in place. For setting up video export from AE takes about 2 minutes, then you press “start” and AE might inform you that “Error: exception in module 0×23523h. Video format doesn’t support this resolution. Failure in module 0×37403h blah blah blah”. Very uninformative error messages and it’s strange that only after you press “start” AE informs you that the video format you have chosen does not support the resolution. Then you have to take another 2 minutes to try other settings just to see it fail again.
Other than those familiar problems AfterEffects has been the best video editing program I’ve seen. There are lots of good features.
So, solution was again to save video as uncompressed avi (= very big file) and compress the video in VirtualDub which can handle video compression and editing very well. Uncompressed video file was 14 gigabytes (83 seconds, 1920 x 960). Compressed video is 87 megabytes.
Download the video here (resolution 1920 x 960, 87MB): Introduction to camping
My own review of the video content (about camping)
In the beginning k1ller (me) and Maksa camp corridor (as CT). It’s more like waiting there rather than camping. It shouldn’t be called camping at all. Then teamwork with me and Maksa starts which should be lesson for everybody. It’s not seen in the video, but when nobody comes at our way it’s clear that the enemies are trying to plant at B. I tell maksa in teamchat that they are probably going for B. Maksa starts to pull off running towards A site and continue at B. At A site Maksa takes down one enemy. I cover his back while he is moving forward. Then we reach section between bomb sites A and B. I say “hold this position!” in comm. We begin our camp there (one idiot was present at this time too but he left after a while).
Then on the other side of the map Circus Randale (only player on T who knew what he should do) got bomb from the sniper (migara) in the tower. Obviously sniper wasn’t going to plant and luckily he dies in front of CR who then takes the bomb. CR starts really rushing at bombsite B - very good example how bomb should be planted. In front of him runs some idiot who shouts continuously “go go go!” in comm. You can see PiG sniping when CR looks at right after entering the building. CR continues his rush to B where is is dropped by Maksa who is still camping at middle section between A and B. I am camping with Maksa.
Then Maksa drops some other guy who tries to rush middle section (I don’t remember who this guy was… stupid noob anyways because he wasn’t planting). Then there is left PiG and Walter. Walter has continuously shouted “go go go!” (heard in video) but after CR dies 10 m from bombsite he does not go for plant. He starts camping. Then comes PiG. He runs 0.5 m from the bomb and starts sniping at middle section. He has about 15 seconds time to plant. He does not plant. When there is about 2 seconds left Maksa jumps from middle section to check whether someone is planting at B. Then PiG kills him. After notification “target has been saved!” PiG starts looking for the bomb and 5 seconds after CT have won PiG finally starts planting (eh, wtf?!). At the same time the other idiot, Walter, goes shouting “go go go!” and rushes at middle section where I camp.
By camping I won, CT won. By camping terrorists lost. PiG knew Maksa would check B site before time runs out and he just camped B site to get one easy frag from Maksa. Walter camped too - he didn’t plant or try to kill Maksa and me in time. After time had run out he started to rush middle section just hoping to get one or two frags.
One round earlier I told PiG that “if you camp more you’ll get 1 day ban”. He had camped earlier too and he had been told atleast 5 times to be more active. After this round he was banned. That’s stupid camping. Camping seen by me (k1ller) is clever camping. I didn’t kill anybody, I didn’t see anybody - I won!
5 Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Eh not bad… PiG is pr0
Btw I know you r a quality freak but recording in 1080p HD is kinda useless, since most of us have 15′’, 17′’ and 19′’ inch monitors, 1280×720 would be fairly enough, you’d save space and time
(Nexttime “hidepanel all”, those dark lines are ugly xD)
And yeah, people are obcessed with rank more than ever… sad sad sad
Remember kid: the better your k:d ratio is, the bigger your penis is!
Comment :: June 20, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
Really nicely done. Video is very inventive.
Anyway, PiG is known to plant most of the bombs after timeout, but what can we expect from…PiG
Respect
Comment :: June 20, 2007 @ 3:14 pm
Yeah.. I meant the 1080p version for modern people. The small version (640×320) is for old-fashioned people
I used cl_drawhud 0 to hide all on-screen stuff. First time I recorded the footage it didn’t hide the black bars. Second time that I had to re-capture Circus’ footage cl_drawhud hid the black bars too (Circus is the one who tries to actually plant the bomb).
I also tried to use demo smoother to do cool editing but it didn’t seem to work the way it should have. Demo file was recorded with the old server and I had updated client so I think there were some bugs there.
Comment :: June 20, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
Haha, modern people… you mean more like rich ppl xD
Hmm, demo smoother works like it should, don’t blame the software when its the enduser’s fault
And cl_drawhud 0 doesn’t hide everything, just the HUD as it says k1ller, if you use hidepanel all then it also takes the borderlines away.
Anyways if you like to read:
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Demo_Recording_Tools
good stuff about how to use demo smoother and if that ain’t enough:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=365785
This is the best explaning tutorial, but takes a while to watch…
And that demo smoother looks like a very cool tool, I’m still fiddling around it and trying to figure out how it works xD
You see I like doing these movies too, but lack the time and footage so far (also ideias, but those will come once I start).
Cheers.
Comment :: June 20, 2007 @ 3:33 pm
Needless teasing there
The demo smoother didn’t work and cl_drawhud worked differently on two different occasions.
1. Demo smoother
Can you download any of the videos at http://css.setti.info/videos/ and check whether the demo smoother works or not? With my not-updated CS:S client I couldn’t get demo even play back properly (same version of SRCDS and client). It was impossible to fly around the map in free-flight mode. That’s why I used updated Steam CS:S client to do the recording. The demo file was recorded with previous version of SRCDS and I had newer version of CS:S client.
Demo was recorded on 2007-06-16 and on 06-12 there was Valve update with “Fixed the free roaming camera in SourceTV demos” and two days later “Fixed a crash playing back demo files recorded with the previously-released engine”. It sure isn’t the first time Valve fucks up things with non-compliant demo files. It’s fair assumption that something is wrong in the files or tools if I can’t get demo smoother to work.
Now if even that wouldn’t be enough, you can read more at Steampowered forums.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=365785 - “well you’ll be disappointed with the srctv demos anwyay. pretty sure you can’t use the demo smoother on them. at least the ones i’ve tried on my own server i haven’t been able to. it won’t let you make a selection. but you could do 3rd person stuff and maybe a stationary shot in free look or something.”
I very closely tried to follow one of the tutorials I found on some wikipage or at forums. At one point in tutorial something happened in tutorial which didn’t happen the same way for me.
So I blame the software.
2. HUD
What you say about HUD doesn’t make any sense. HUD stands for head-up display which very well can mean everything you see on the screen. I see atleast my name, my health and time left on the black panels on top and bottom of the screen which in my opinion are part of the HUD. First time I recorded the footage the command cl_drawhud 0 didn’t hide black panels. Then I needed to record Circus’ footage again and at that time cl_drawhud 0 command also hid black panels along rest of the HUD.
Your comment was initially lost in moderation because there were two links in your post. This blog software tries to recognize spam if there are more than two links. I now (again) installed Akismet plugin which should recognize spam better.
Comment :: June 21, 2007 @ 5:08 pm