Making movies of a sim

Somebody emailed today asking for a movie of my sim to see how the physics worked. I tried to do this with a freeware utility called Cam Studio several months ago, but it's apparently not designed for this type of thing, as it crashes my system when the OpenGL window opens. (Cam Studio works well otherwise.) How do you guys create those awesome sim movies? Programmers--- Are the AVI/MPG file formats nasty? It seems that you could create a DC to a file and swap the video buffer into it somehow a frame at a time... Or is that more trouble than it's worth? (Seems like it would be.) Thanks for any ideas! Todd Wasson --- Performance Simulations Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction Software http://PerformanceSimulations.Com My little car sim screenshots: http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm

[email hidden] (J. Todd Wasson) writes:

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> Somebody emailed today asking for a movie of my sim to see how the physics > worked. I tried to do this with a freeware utility called Cam Studio several > months ago, but it's apparently not designed for this type of thing, as it > crashes my system when the OpenGL window opens. (Cam Studio works well > otherwise.) > > How do you guys create those awesome sim movies?

no idea, but I know what I would do: run TV-out through a VCR. > Programmers--- Are the AVI/MPG file formats nasty? yep. > It seems that you could > create a DC to a file and swap the video buffer into it somehow a frame at a > time... Or is that more trouble than it's worth? (Seems like it > would be.) if you can get single frame picture files, you'll have no problem creating a movie from them. Adobe Premiere does it for sure. I think Pinnacle DV Studio will do it too, and I'm positive I've even seen a freeware thing that could do it. Virtual Dub, perhaps. -- Gunnar #31 SUCKS#015 Tupperware MC#002 DoD#0x1B DoDRT#003 DoD:CT#4,8 Kibo�: 2 gitaren er en sjingke

you could always stick a physics demo on the net? :)

>> How do you guys create those awesome sim movies? > >no idea, but I know what I would do: run TV-out through a VCR. > > Then use something (maybe Virtual Dub) to capture and save it as an AVI file? I don't have a video capture device though.... >> Programmers--- Are the AVI/MPG file formats nasty? > >yep. > Figured.. > >if you can get single frame picture files, you'll have no problem >creating a movie from them. Adobe Premiere does it for sure. I think >Pinnacle DV Studio will do it too, and I'm positive I've even seen a >freeware thing that could do it. Virtual Dub, perhaps. I just downloaded this and it would work perfectly for this, thanks. Not sure exactly how to go about making BMP's frame by frame though. Might have to make a replay mode, a serious PITB. Thanks for the ideas, at least there is a way to do it now. Was hoping for some magic "hit this button and you're recording" system, but maybe there isn't anything out there for that. Thanks, Gunnar. Todd Wasson --- Performance Simulations Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction Software http://PerformanceSimulations.Com My little car sim screenshots: http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm

>you could always stick a physics demo on the net? :) > Hehe... Sounds like that would be a lot easier than making a movie :-) Todd Wasson --- Performance Simulations Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction Software http://PerformanceSimulations.Com My little car sim screenshots: http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm

If you want to avoid dealing with AVI nastiness, there's a freeware win32 cmdline app somewhere on the net called tga2avi, which will convert foo###.tga to an AVI. So if you've already written a screen capture routine into your sim (which is quite easy under DirectX, I assume there's an equivalent under OpenGL), it's just a matter of making it run in non-realtime, spitting out each frame to disk. (except for sound of course). I haven't done much with the DirectShow stuff, but it might not be too hard to feed your screen captures straight to a codec--the advantages of just writing out the TGAs is that your sim doesn't become dependent on weird media dlls/drivers to run properly. "J. Todd Wasson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > Somebody emailed today asking for a movie of my sim to see how the physics > worked. I tried to do this with a freeware utility called Cam Studioseveral

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> months ago, but it's apparently not designed for this type of thing, as it > crashes my system when the OpenGL window opens. (Cam Studio works well > otherwise.) > > How do you guys create those awesome sim movies? > > Programmers--- Are the AVI/MPG file formats nasty? It seems that you

could > create a DC to a file and swap the video buffer into it somehow a frame ata > time... Or is that more trouble than it's worth? (Seems like it wouldbe.)

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> > Thanks for any ideas! > > > Todd Wasson > --- > Performance Simulations > Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction > Software > http://PerformanceSimulations.Com > > My little car sim screenshots: > http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm >

>If you want to avoid dealing with AVI nastiness, there's a freeware win32 >cmdline app somewhere on the net called tga2avi, which will convert >foo###.tga to an AVI. <snip> Thanks, Dave. I'll look into this. Todd Wasson --- Performance Simulations Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction Software http://PerformanceSimulations.Com My little car sim screenshots: http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm

<snip> >the advantages of just >writing out the TGAs is that your sim doesn't become dependent on weird >media dlls/drivers to run properly. > As opposed to BMPs, for instance? Thanks Todd Wasson --- Performance Simulations Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction Software http://PerformanceSimulations.Com My little car sim screenshots: http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm

I have made some very nice DVD's just using my digital JVD Camcorder shooting the screen then, capturing back throught firewire. Then edit and burn to DVD. Looks very good. "J. Todd Wasson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]... > Somebody emailed today asking for a movie of my sim to see how the physics > worked. I tried to do this with a freeware utility called Cam Studioseveral

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> months ago, but it's apparently not designed for this type of thing, as it > crashes my system when the OpenGL window opens. (Cam Studio works well > otherwise.) > > How do you guys create those awesome sim movies? > > Programmers--- Are the AVI/MPG file formats nasty? It seems that you

could > create a DC to a file and swap the video buffer into it somehow a frame ata > time... Or is that more trouble than it's worth? (Seems like it wouldbe.)

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> > Thanks for any ideas! > > > Todd Wasson > --- > Performance Simulations > Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction > Software > http://PerformanceSimulations.Com > > My little car sim screenshots: > http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm >

>I have made some very nice DVD's just using my digital JVD Camcorder >shooting the screen then, capturing back throught firewire. Then edit and >burn to DVD. Looks very good. > A friend of mine has a digital camcorder, maybe that'd be the easiest way.. I assume you could save this as an AVI or MPG file so someone could download it? Thanks! Todd Wasson --- Performance Simulations Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction Software http://PerformanceSimulations.Com My little car sim screenshots: http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm

[email hidden] (J. Todd Wasson) writes: > >> How do you guys create those awesome sim movies? > > > >no idea, but I know what I would do: run TV-out through a VCR. > > Then use something (maybe Virtual Dub) to capture and save it as an AVI file? > I don't have a video capture device though.... if you have a DV-camera you can stream VHS video through it and get encoding in real time. :) -- Gunnar #31 SUCKS#015 Tupperware MC#002 DoD#0x1B DoDRT#003 DoD:CT#4,8 Kibo�: 2 silence is FOO!

"J. Todd Wasson" wrote:

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> > Somebody emailed today asking for a movie of my sim to see how the physics > worked. I tried to do this with a freeware utility called Cam Studio several > months ago, but it's apparently not designed for this type of thing, as it > crashes my system when the OpenGL window opens. (Cam Studio works well > otherwise.) > > How do you guys create those awesome sim movies?

GPL has the advantage of having custom replay>avi convertors. I then use Adobe Premiere to stick it all together although you can use virtualdub (freeware) too. Why not just get a camcorder and video the stuff on the screen? Kev

On 11 Sep 2002 02:25:41 GMT, [email hidden] (J. Todd Wasson) wrote:

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><snip> >>the advantages of just >>writing out the TGAs is that your sim doesn't become dependent on weird >>media dlls/drivers to run properly. >> > > As opposed to BMPs, for instance?

You can write BMPs, whichever loader/saver you have. :) (Uncompressed) TGA's are just so easy to write... I have an option in my replay code to put out frames at a specific frequency (implemented as every x ms). Just use glReadPixels() and push out an image file. Ofcourse, this requires replays. :) As Dave said, the easiest thing is to not run realtime, but just run every step, and at every 'time>nextSaveTime' do an image dump. Then *afterwards* run something that creates an AVI. Adding this sort of stuff internally to your sim is quite a bit less flexible, I'd say. For example, I can create MJPEG movies here on my O2 if I want, or use some kind of Premiere-type application to generate AVI's. Too much hassle to put the same amount of options you get with AVI/MPG generation in your sim code. Waste of time and never as good... Other people indeed push out a TV-signal, recording that with some video card. Or put a camera in front of the screen... It's faster that way. Ruud van Gaal Free car sim: http://www.racer.nl/ Pencil art : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

[email hidden] (J. Todd Wasson) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

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> Somebody emailed today asking for a movie of my sim to see how the physics > worked. I tried to do this with a freeware utility called Cam Studio several > months ago, but it's apparently not designed for this type of thing, as it > crashes my system when the OpenGL window opens. (Cam Studio works well > otherwise.) > > How do you guys create those awesome sim movies? > > Programmers--- Are the AVI/MPG file formats nasty? It seems that you could > create a DC to a file and swap the video buffer into it somehow a frame at a > time... Or is that more trouble than it's worth? (Seems like it would be.) > > Thanks for any ideas! > > > Todd Wasson > --- > Performance Simulations > Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction > Software > http://PerformanceSimulations.Com > > My little car sim screenshots: > http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm

Hi Todd, What Im doing is using a class from a nVidia OpenGL SDK that creates an AVI from your OpenGL rendering context. It was very easy to detach and integrate in my game. You can select the output format, compression etc... not everything will work tough... If you're using OpenGL it's very easy.. if u're in D3D i guess u'll have to hack it a bit.. but the code was very clear.. ciao Stefano Casillo www.drivingitalia.com/netkar

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>Hi Todd, > >What Im doing is using a class from a nVidia OpenGL SDK that creates >an AVI from your OpenGL rendering context. It was very easy to detach >and integrate in my game. You can select the output format, >compression etc... not everything will work tough... > >If you're using OpenGL it's very easy.. if u're in D3D i guess u'll >have to hack it a bit.. but the code was very clear.. > >ciao > >Stefano Casillo >www.drivingitalia.com/netkar > >

Thanks, Stefano. Your video is the one I saw that made me first attempt this with Cam Studio :-) Glad you popped in to talk about this. I am using OpenGL, but am using straight procedural programming rather than OOP, so I can't use classes anywhere (PowerBasic compiler, not MVC++). PB is very close to C however, so perhaps the nVidia OpenGL SDK has something like this too? What would be involved in doing this with this type of coding style? Are you able to record the movie in real time? Thanks! Todd Wasson --- Performance Simulations Drag Racing and Top Speed Prediction Software http://PerformanceSimulations.Com My little car sim screenshots: http://performancesimulations.com/scnshot4.htm

[email hidden] (J. Todd Wasson) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

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> Thanks, Stefano. Your video is the one I saw that made me first attempt this > with Cam Studio :-) Glad you popped in to talk about this. > > I am using OpenGL, but am using straight procedural programming rather than > OOP, so I can't use classes anywhere (PowerBasic compiler, not MVC++). PB is > very close to C however, so perhaps the nVidia OpenGL SDK has something like > this too? > > What would be involved in doing this with this type of coding style? Are you > able to record the movie in real time? >

Well, that class comes with source code, and it is quite simple, just 3 functions.. init() shot() and end() something like that. I think it'll be easy to convert in straight C... download it and give it a go. Usually Im pretty bad reading someone else's code and I give up in 30sec.. but this one was _REALLY_ easy. You will not be able to record in real time. The speed is given by the speed of your video card in converting the OpenGL frame buffer into a GDI Device Context. With my old GF2 MX it was VERY SLOW (say, 0.5fps).. with the Gf3 I run at 2fps when Im recording. So you need a fixed framerate replay system first.. which I had already, so it was easy for me... ciao Stefano Casillo www.drivingitalia.com/netkar