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Author Topic: Video recording  (Read 108245 times)

cameni

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Video recording
« on: December 15, 2013, 09:45:29 am »

Built-in video recorder

Outerra comes with a built-in raw video capture, that produces video files in Y4M format. These raw video files can be open by several programs directly, for example VLC or Mplayer. However, you don't have to use the raw files - after you quit the application, a dialog box offering automatic conversion of previously captured videos will appear. It will convert raw video files into compressed Webm (http://www.webmproject.org/users/) format, suitable for direct upload to YouTube.

The bin/video/videomaker.exe tool will be automatically launched upon exiting Outerra, whenever there are some raw video files captured, and offer to convert them. Note that the input files (*.y4m, *.wav) will be deleted after a successful conversion.
If you want to use the raw files instead, just press cancel in the initial dialog.

Video compression parameters to use can be altered in the bin/video/video.cfg file. For the list of possible options, see http://www.webmproject.org/docs/encoder-parameters/

For the best results:
  • set the active audio input to capture sound from the audio card, usually named as "stereo mix". If you don't see such a recording device listed, it may be necessary to right click in the recording devices window and check "Show Disabled Devices".
  • it's best to change the disk to which the Y4M videos are being captured, so that it isn't affected by disk transfers from other parts, like model loading and terrain data streaming. To redirect where the Y4M and WAV files are written, please edit the eng.cfg file, changing the "videos_dir" to point elsewhere, e.g videos_dir = "e:\videos\"
  • for stable recording, lock the fps to the display's refresh rate (or to the half of it) of your display running at 60Hz (you can do it in the graphics config via Vertical Sync setting). In this mode the recorder simply takes each frame and writes it to the disk, whereas in the unsynchronized mode (default one) it picks frames that are closest to the desired recording frame position. Unless your frame rate is quite high it can produce jitter.

Note: on ATI cards it's currently not possible to sync to the half of the display refresh rate due to a bug in their OpenGL driver.


Using external tools (Fraps ...)

Outerra by default blocks 3rd party programs from injecting into the rendering loop, since these programs are notoriously unstable when they have to work in the setup that Outerra uses (OpenGL 3.3+ context and separate app and rendering threads). They often cause intermittent crashes that look like an instability of Outerra itself, so we decided to prevent them from hooking into the rendering pipeline.

However, if you want to use these third party programs, you may change the default behavior by running outerra.exe with -allowext argument from the command line.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2013, 10:39:31 am by cameni »
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ZeosPantera

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2013, 01:52:19 pm »

Report sent. Haven't had a crash in a long long while. But 30 seconds into my first try of this new recorder .. Kersplat.

I unlocked fraps and will see what kind of output that grants.
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cameni

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2013, 02:57:24 pm »

Hm, video capture tasks take extremely long on your system ... do you have vsync locked or not?
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ZeosPantera

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2013, 03:17:35 pm »

No Vsync but I do have my OT data folder on a slow-ish USB2.0 external hard disk. So that might be causing the slowdown.

On a sidenote.. Fraps seems to record quite well.

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cameni

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #4 on: December 16, 2013, 04:40:06 am »

That slow disk is most likely the cause. But you can also redirect the video path in eng.cfg (videos_dir).
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SpaceFlight

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #5 on: December 16, 2013, 05:38:56 am »

The video recorder records fine in Y4M format here.
The videomaker tool does not start at exiting OT though, after capturing video, and it crashes right away if i try to start it manually.
Vsync is turned off and the video card is Ati/Amd.
Maybe my video.cfg needs tweaking?
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cameni

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2013, 06:07:31 am »

Oh I see videomaker crashes when run standalone, without a path argument - I'll fix it.
But try to run it with the video directory path as a command line argument.
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SpaceFlight

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #7 on: December 16, 2013, 09:41:27 am »

Tried that, but doesn't seem to do anything. Could be that i used the wrong path argument though.  :D
I'll patiently wait for an update.
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cameni

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #8 on: December 16, 2013, 10:12:24 am »

But that crash fix probably won't solve your problem. Normally the videomaker is run with the path to the directory with Y4M videos. I didn't test it without giving it the path argument. Here's the fixed version of the videomaker: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2spgr2B2dvNSGJXdGxEM2FPQ3M/edit?usp=sharing

If it's not given the path, it tries to read the Outerra data path directory from the registry, and get the videos from under the "videos" folder there.
But as I said, it doesn't address the problem of crashing when spawned from outerra.
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SpaceFlight

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #9 on: December 16, 2013, 11:33:23 am »

Ok, how does the correct path argument look like for a certain harddisk drive?
I have Outerra on C:\ for example, and i changed the path for the video recording directory in the eng.cfg to a folder on F:\ drive.
Also, with the other version of the videomaker tool, i get a prompt now to execute it when exiting OT, but then nothing happens when i click "execute".
Same thing happens when starting it manually.

Edit: Never mind.
I figured there seems to be a naming convention with regards to the "videos" folder.
I changed the name of that folder to "Outerra_Videos", both in eng.cfg and on the drive and it did not work. Then changed it back to "videos" again both in eng.cfg and on the drive and it works now.  :D
« Last Edit: December 16, 2013, 11:45:35 am by SpaceFlight »
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cameni

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #10 on: December 16, 2013, 11:47:45 am »

If you put the video recording directory to say F:\videos, then you should run
videomaker.exe F:\videos

Videomaker basically then runs the VP8/9 video encoder vpxenc.exe like this:
Code: [Select]
vpxenc --codec=vp8 -p 1 -t 1 --rt --cpu-used=4 --end-usage=cbr --target-bitrate=2000 --undershoot-pct=95 --buf-sz=6000 --buf-initial-sz=4000 --buf-optimal-sz=5000 -v --kf-max-dist=999999 --min-q=4 --max-q=56 -o output.vp8 input.y4m
Followed by webmuxer call that muxes the audion and produces the resulting webm file.

It would be great if you could try to run it in the vpxenc command line (substitute the real input.y4m name) to see if anything fails there.
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jonslynn

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #11 on: January 07, 2014, 10:13:19 am »

I ended up with a 0 kb webm file, a y4m, and a big vp8 file.  I had just figured out how to make video files.  Now it is all screwed up.
I was hoping for clouds.  The old quality was good though.  Why did you guys do this?
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cameni

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #12 on: January 07, 2014, 11:22:26 am »

Why did you guys do this?
To simplify the video recording, since most users weren't able to do command line magic, or would not bother to.

y4m should be the big one, it's the raw video file.
vp8 is compressed video, using Google VP8 video codec.
Webm is then created by multiplexing the vp8 video and the captured wav audio file. What's the size of your wav file?
Assuming the VP8 was created ok, you could try running webmuxer from the command line to check what happens:

webmuxer.exe -i <video>.vp8 -ia <audio>.wav -o out.webm
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jonslynn

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #13 on: January 07, 2014, 12:39:22 pm »

Thanks, Thanks a lot.  You are so great.  Just fixes everything.
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jonslynn

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Re: Video recording
« Reply #14 on: January 07, 2014, 12:42:46 pm »

It was better before.  As far as I know.
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