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Other Tutorials / Bajur's guide to recording the game (for challenges, tournaments or whatever)
« on: October 10, 2016, 08:05:03 AM »
So I've seen too many gifs and videos of people recording their monitor with their phone camera, and it looks like ass. So here's my guide on how to properly record RA2 gameplay so you can share it with the world.
Step 1 - Download OBS:
You can find it at this webpage. click on the big "Download OBS Studio" button
Step 2 - Configure OBS:
So you're gonna have to edit the settings on OBS. It should start up looking something like this:
If there's anything in the "Sources" section, right-click it and click remove. Otherwise, right-click in the Sources section, mouse over "Add" and select "Game Capture". Just click OK, it doesn't need to be configured.
Also, left-click the speaker icon next to the mic/aux bars. It should turn red. Nobody wants to hear your microphone when they're expecting to watch RA2.
Next, click "Settings" above the exit button, and below Studio Move. Click "Output" to view the output tab.
Those are my settings. There are a few things going on here. Video Bitrate is, for all intents and purposes, the quality of your video. Bigger numbers mean better quality, but also bigger video files. I set mine to 5000, you can experiment going higher or lower. Keep in mind that I'm recording in 1080p in 60fps, lower resolutions and framerates require less bitrate.
You may not have the option for NVENC for your video encoder. Rule of thumb here is to open the list and, if you see any hardware options, choose them. Otherwise, go for software (x264).
In the recording section below that, you can change where you're saving your video files to (I'm saving mine to D:/Tutorials). I also set my recording quality to High, which actually makes it higher quality than the bitrate you provided above. You can select the top option in the drop-down list (same as stream) and edit the bitrate to have finer control over your video quality.
Set your encoder to the same as above
Now onto the Video settings
Set the top 2 settings to the maximum resolution your monitor allows. My monitor goes up to 1080p, so I entered the option of 1920x1080. Below that, the default framerate is at 30. I changed mine to 60, but beware that it doubles the size of your video file. If in doubt, leave it at 30.
Finally; the hotkey settings
Those are the only 2 hotkeys you need to change. I set them to the same thing, but you don't have to. Top hotkey starts your video recording, bottom hotkey stops it.
Step 3 - Configure your RA2:
There's no point recording in whatever resolution you've selected if RA2 runs at a lower one. You need to go into your RA2 folder and open ra2.cfg in notepad (or notepad++). Edit the FSDisplay and FS3DDisplay settings to match your own. They are the 4 lines below the first 2, as you can see in the picture below. In obs I set my resolution to 1920x1080, so for the width lines I change the number to 1920, for the height lines I change it to 1080.
Step 4 - Recording:
Open up your RA2 with OBS running, pick your bots and arena, start a match and press your record hotkey. Then just watch. When the match is over, press your record hotkey again. Pretty simple. I would strongly recommend using the Action Camera for recorded fights, which you can find in GTM's download section.
Step 5 - Postproduction and uploading:
So you have your video file, what do you do with it? Well, you could just upload the video file outright to a site like YouTube to share the video, or to gfycat to make a gif out of it. You could also open the video file in a program like Windows Movie Maker to add music in the background or to add multiple recordings together into 1 video, for example to make a challenge video out of 3 separate matches. If you don't know how to do that, you can google some windows movie maker tutorials, I'm not teaching you
So yeah, that should be everything you need. Please stop making crap videos and do it properly.
Addendum
OK so there's a couple other things you need to know. If you're on a seriously potato PC, OBS may lag your RA2 when recording, especially if you're on an older laptop. Try to record on a desktop, laptops are REALLY not made for video production unless you're dropping ungodly amounts of money on a laptop. If you don't have a choice, you can always fiddle with the Output settings in OBS, change the encoder preset to High Performance, and change the recording quality to "Same as stream". It's also worth fiddling around with different encoders to see which works best. You can also reduce your resolution from 1920x1080 to 1280x720.
If you're on a laptop, ensure it's plugged into a charger and its cooling vents are not blocked. Change your power plan from balanced to high performance in windows. Close down extra programs running in the background.
If OBS is still lagging after the above tips, you're best off pirating FRAPs I guess, but YMMV, I remember FRAPs as having a higher performance impact than OBS. Other alternatives you could look into include Camtasia Recording Studio, Bandicam, or even MSI Afterburner's recording features. Just make sure you pirate paid-for recorders so we don't have to see the bandicam watermark above your videos.
If you're looking to edit and render your videos for a more professional look, it's worth looking into (read: pirating) Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas. Make sure you're rendering to an MP4 file, with a bitrate of 12mbps for 1080p 60fps, or 8mbps for 1080p 30fps. Having a beautiful framerate and high resolution means nothing if you rape your footage with compression artifacts.
Step 1 - Download OBS:
You can find it at this webpage. click on the big "Download OBS Studio" button
Step 2 - Configure OBS:
So you're gonna have to edit the settings on OBS. It should start up looking something like this:
If there's anything in the "Sources" section, right-click it and click remove. Otherwise, right-click in the Sources section, mouse over "Add" and select "Game Capture". Just click OK, it doesn't need to be configured.
Also, left-click the speaker icon next to the mic/aux bars. It should turn red. Nobody wants to hear your microphone when they're expecting to watch RA2.
Next, click "Settings" above the exit button, and below Studio Move. Click "Output" to view the output tab.
Those are my settings. There are a few things going on here. Video Bitrate is, for all intents and purposes, the quality of your video. Bigger numbers mean better quality, but also bigger video files. I set mine to 5000, you can experiment going higher or lower. Keep in mind that I'm recording in 1080p in 60fps, lower resolutions and framerates require less bitrate.
You may not have the option for NVENC for your video encoder. Rule of thumb here is to open the list and, if you see any hardware options, choose them. Otherwise, go for software (x264).
In the recording section below that, you can change where you're saving your video files to (I'm saving mine to D:/Tutorials). I also set my recording quality to High, which actually makes it higher quality than the bitrate you provided above. You can select the top option in the drop-down list (same as stream) and edit the bitrate to have finer control over your video quality.
Set your encoder to the same as above
Now onto the Video settings
Set the top 2 settings to the maximum resolution your monitor allows. My monitor goes up to 1080p, so I entered the option of 1920x1080. Below that, the default framerate is at 30. I changed mine to 60, but beware that it doubles the size of your video file. If in doubt, leave it at 30.
Finally; the hotkey settings
Those are the only 2 hotkeys you need to change. I set them to the same thing, but you don't have to. Top hotkey starts your video recording, bottom hotkey stops it.
Step 3 - Configure your RA2:
There's no point recording in whatever resolution you've selected if RA2 runs at a lower one. You need to go into your RA2 folder and open ra2.cfg in notepad (or notepad++). Edit the FSDisplay and FS3DDisplay settings to match your own. They are the 4 lines below the first 2, as you can see in the picture below. In obs I set my resolution to 1920x1080, so for the width lines I change the number to 1920, for the height lines I change it to 1080.
Step 4 - Recording:
Open up your RA2 with OBS running, pick your bots and arena, start a match and press your record hotkey. Then just watch. When the match is over, press your record hotkey again. Pretty simple. I would strongly recommend using the Action Camera for recorded fights, which you can find in GTM's download section.
Step 5 - Postproduction and uploading:
So you have your video file, what do you do with it? Well, you could just upload the video file outright to a site like YouTube to share the video, or to gfycat to make a gif out of it. You could also open the video file in a program like Windows Movie Maker to add music in the background or to add multiple recordings together into 1 video, for example to make a challenge video out of 3 separate matches. If you don't know how to do that, you can google some windows movie maker tutorials, I'm not teaching you
So yeah, that should be everything you need. Please stop making crap videos and do it properly.
Addendum
OK so there's a couple other things you need to know. If you're on a seriously potato PC, OBS may lag your RA2 when recording, especially if you're on an older laptop. Try to record on a desktop, laptops are REALLY not made for video production unless you're dropping ungodly amounts of money on a laptop. If you don't have a choice, you can always fiddle with the Output settings in OBS, change the encoder preset to High Performance, and change the recording quality to "Same as stream". It's also worth fiddling around with different encoders to see which works best. You can also reduce your resolution from 1920x1080 to 1280x720.
If you're on a laptop, ensure it's plugged into a charger and its cooling vents are not blocked. Change your power plan from balanced to high performance in windows. Close down extra programs running in the background.
If OBS is still lagging after the above tips, you're best off pirating FRAPs I guess, but YMMV, I remember FRAPs as having a higher performance impact than OBS. Other alternatives you could look into include Camtasia Recording Studio, Bandicam, or even MSI Afterburner's recording features. Just make sure you pirate paid-for recorders so we don't have to see the bandicam watermark above your videos.
If you're looking to edit and render your videos for a more professional look, it's worth looking into (read: pirating) Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas. Make sure you're rendering to an MP4 file, with a bitrate of 12mbps for 1080p 60fps, or 8mbps for 1080p 30fps. Having a beautiful framerate and high resolution means nothing if you rape your footage with compression artifacts.
