Movie Tutorial (Updated)

Disclaimer: Written by Hype, not me. Source

Most tutorials seem outdated so I thought why not make a new one.. (and as I get messages on a daily basis asking me how to do things, I can just link them to this now!;D)

Programs that you will need:

- Enemy Territory - www.rtcwfiles.com
- Virtualdub - www.virtualdub.org
- Sony Vegas 7.0
- Megui - http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui
- AviSynth - http://avisynth.org/AviSynth30
- MP4Box - www.videohelp.com/tools/mp4box

*You need never to use programs such as Adobe Photoshop, ignore tutorials that tell you to resize or do anything else inside of Photoshop*

This tutorial will be more about telling you how to do things rather than the boring background knowledge behind it all like in other tutorials. If you are interested in this information, then feel free to research yourself using the google search engine.

This guide is mainly intended for the people who have no clue, who don't even know how to make an avi, or are tired of making crappy clips using fraps razz

Ok, first thing I will say that you have to be motivated and dedicated to make a movie, if you are busy with other things then do not bother. Good movies can take two, three, four or even more months to make. Also, choose good songs that will work with your movie, I think music choice is one of the most important things about a movie, and the better the song .. the more creative you can be.

So with that said, let's start .. the first thing I will talk about is quality.

Quality..

Quality consists of two factors .. your config and your graphic settings. I have seen people say "But my computer sucks" and "I can't even get 50 fps" .. none of this matters. If you have a bad PC, then it will take you longer to do things but the outcome will be the same (you don't need to be able to get 50fps .. to record at 50fps!!!)

The config:

The best thing to do here is research cvars yourself like I did.

I made a tutorial a while back here - http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=tutorial&mode=item&id=25 on how to tweak your FPS using cvars and graphic settings. Basically apply the opposite (like you want to get worse FPS) to improve your quality. The tutorial tells you how to get better performance over quality .. you want vice versa.

Or you can always be a lazy git and go find somebodies movie config razz

I believe that are some public configs around by the likes of ender and ag0n (check their xfire profiles maybe?).

The graphics:

Now, I have a GeForce 8800 XT but I was working with a crappy GeForce 6600 GS whilst doing my first movie, so it doesn't matter too much if you have a bad graphics card. Of course, worser graphic cards will have limitations, etc.

Basically, you want to open mess around with your BIOS by going into the control panel of your graphics card.

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/7503/gfx1rj4.jpg

Make two profiles like I have done, one for the game (better performance, better fps) and one for the moviemaking (better quality, worse fps).

What I did was just research every setting by typing it into google and seeing how it effects the performance of your graphics card. As you can see, the quality in my movies is pretty good so I'd recommend you doing the same.

However, I'm not going to be a total cunt and tell you to do everything yourself. Here are the best settings for nVidia GeForce cards ..
- Set your Antialiasing as high as possible
- Set your Antisotropic Filtering as high as possible
- Use "High Quality"
- All optimizations should be turned off when you select "High Quality"
- Turn off vsync and enable it in ET only using r_swapintervals 1
- Use Trilinear for better quality
- Use "Supersampling" for the best result
- Turn on Triple buffering, this only has an advantage when you have vsync on (and it is on in ET so that's fine)
- Clamp the negative lod bias to make sure the mipmap level does not go below 0

Bare in mind, these are just for GeForce nVidia cards, try to research your own if you have an ATI card or anything else...


You may also want to check out programs such as aTuner and Rivatuner as they can also be quite beneficial.

Recording and Saving..

Ok, once you have your highly detailed config and all your graphics recorded, get to recording!

Pick a resolution you wish to record at, I recorded at 1280x720 and left that as the final resolution but you can choose any r_mode you wish (use r_mode -1 and r_customwidth and r_customheight for custom resolutions like mine).

Type /cl_avidemo XX in console and this will create screenshots in your etpro folder for you to merge together. The FPS you choose to record at is entirely up to you. I used 1000 FPS and used an external program to merge together all the screenshots but you use any fps you like, try 200 .. your ET will lag so don't worry about it and don't forget to do /cl_avidemo 0 when you are done, it's best to bind these to some keys.

Taken from my config -
bind q cl_avidemo 1000
bind w cl_avidemo 0
bind e cg_Drawroundtimer 1
bind r cg_Drawroundtimer 0
bind a exec cam/cam
bind s cl_freezedemo 1
bind d cl_freezedemo 0
bind z wav_record
bind x wav_stoprecord

Open the first screenshot in virtualdub and it will open all your screenshots.

Set your FPS in the video -> framerate. If you wish to resize because you used a very high recording resolution, then go to Filters -> resize (Lanczos3) and resize to the final resolution that you want your clip to be.

Also, if you are low on hard drive space then you might want to use HuffyUV ( http://www.divx-digest.com/software/huffyuv.html ) codec which will make your AVI alot smaller in size with minimum loss.

Now save your AVI. You now have your high quality file with the framerate (that you recorded at, not the final) and resolution (final) set.

Editing..

You want to import this avi into Sony Vegas which is free to try for 30 days but will then require registration (i'm sure you know what to do:>)

It may seem confusing to begin with but once you get the hang of the program, it's great. The main utilities of this software are the Filters (effects that you want to use) and the Transitions (switching between different clips in different ways).

There are also many plugins you can get for this software for some nicer effects and transitions.

Editing is something you really need to work with yourself and tests your creativity skills. Get the hang of keyframes, try it yourself .. import a clip and drag it to your timeline, select a Filter and drag it on your clip and this will open up the menu .. at the bottom you will see keyframes, for example you may want to start a clip off as black and white and then 2 seconds later, make it go to colour ( http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/1143/filteriv9.jpg ).

You can also use Adobe After Effects but it is ALOT harder to work with than Sony Vegas so if you're new to this thing, I do not recommend it. I only used it in my movies for text as it has some pretty nice text transitions.

Motion Blur..

Like I said, I will not bore everybody by explaining what this is, feel free to check out other tutorials for the background information.

If you did not use an external program to create motion blur (such as image.exe or it's a wrap like I used) and merge your screenshots together, then pay attention..

Whatever FPS you recorded at, Sony Vegas will now create motion blur based on your final FPS. There are 2 ways of doing this, Resampling and SuperSampling. Resampling can be accessed by right clicking your clip in the timeline and enabling or disabling it for each clip whereas Supersampling can be selected by going to View -> Video Bus and right clicking the Bus Track and choosing Video Supersampling.

For example, you may have recorded at 200 FPS and want a final framerate of 25 (25 or 30 is pretty standard). I would recommend that you go to supersampling and set it to 8x as 200/25 = 8 and this should create a nice blur for you.

Rendering and Encoding..

Make sure you install XviD or x264 .. these are the 2 most popular codecs (also you may want an audio codec such as FAAC).

When you are done with your project, it's time to render and then encode. Render the sound and video separately as "Uncompressed" or using "HuffyUV" codec (video only).

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/3209/vegasxw7.jpg

Let it render .. it can take a while. If you don't have the patience, just encode using XViD or x264 in this stage and forget about megui (not really the best option if you want the best result though).

So, I'm assuming you want the best result and let your clip render uncompressed, giving you a large file (most hated 2 was 48gb).

Now, update your megui and import all the profiles..

I've uploaded my script for megui here - http://files.filefront.com/hypeavs/;11254294;/file .. edit it to your preference. Load this script in megui as well as the .wav file you created whilst rendering (make sure the script file is in the same folder as the uncompressed avi and wav files that you are going to encode). Also, change the file format for the video to "RAW"..

Now for the encode config, the best thing to do here is read megui's tips (hover over the setting) for more details about it and research yourself what each setting does .. or you can just use the HQ-Insane profile or something.

You can also use Zoning (I didn't) if you want to up your bitrate level for certain parts of your clip as they may require a higher bitrate for whatever reason (more detailed colours, sharper image, colours such as red, etc). If you're a total noob and can't be bothered then just use the HQ-Insane profile and use a bitrate from 3500-4500 (higher resolution and framerate clips require a higher bitrate, as Most Hated 1 and 2 were both 30 FPS and 1280x720 High Definition, a bitrate of around 4500-5500 was used, if you're using a resolution of something like 800x600 then maybe something around 3500-4000 would be more appropriate).

This process of encoding can take very long (Most Hated took about 4 days Very Happy) but if you want the best result, you have to do these things. Of course, you could skip the whole megui thing and just encode in Sony Vegas by selecting Xvid or x264 there.. but this won't give you the best result but will be alot quicker.

Making the final .mp4 or .mkv file..

Now, you should have your video and audio files in a format you've never seen before (.264 or .aac extentions), what you will need now is MP4Box and a makemp4.bat (mine here - http://files.filefront.com/makemp4bat/;11254433;/f) .. make sure everything is in the same folder, open the makemp4.bat with notepad and change the file names and fps to what you've chosen, save it and double click the bat file. This will create your final .mp4 file .. encoded and done.

http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/9184/makemp4yk6.jpg

Finishing off..

I understand that if you're very new to this process, this will all seem confusing but try to give it a go anyway, any questions you have .. feel free to post in this thread and i'll try myself to help.

I'll also try to update this tutorial as I'm sure it's not 100% perfect, any feedback is of course much appreciated.

Good Luck!