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xvertigox

How to record a Let's Play

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I'm wanting to record myself playing Doom in ether PrBoom+ or Gzdoom (boom preferably) and record in game sounds as well as from my microphone. I regestered my copies of Fraps and Hypercam for making CoD1 frag movies back in the day but I'm not sure how to get both audio inputs. Also it would be very preferable to be able to record it as a Xvid/x264/whatever codec instead of having it as an uncompressed AVI that I have to encode again. Does anyone have any suggestions as how I could go about doing this?

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Fraps is the way to go. However, only Vista/7 have a feature where you can record BOTH in-game sounds and your microphone. XP is a bit more complicated I believe.

Fraps only records into AVI, but you can use Windows Movie Maker to make the file smaller and save it as something else.

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Ok, I'll use Fraps then. Thanks for the info.

Fraps only records into AVI, but you can use Windows Movie Maker to make the file smaller and save it as something else.


I'll use Vegas to edit it and use virtuadub to encode it.

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xvertigox said:

I'll use Vegas to edit it and use virtuadub to encode it.

Why not just.... encode it in Vegas? Do multiple jobs with one program? I doubt VD really has any useful rendering techniques that Vegas wouldn't.

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i actually found that let's plays also make the most boring videos.



*gun to mouth*

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I'm not going to do actual Let's Play but rather I want to do reviews of wads where I'm playing it for the first time + recording it. I'm not sure if it'll be good or not but it'll definitely be fun for me so I'm gonna give it a shot.

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Step 1: Be funny or otherwise interesting.
Step 2: If you cannot complete step 1, shut up!

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Cyraptor's ones he did for Doom II and Doom 64 (on SA) were pretty fun but on the whole i like watching UV-max speed runs the most.

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fraggle said:

Step 1: Be funny or otherwise interesting.
Step 2: If you cannot complete step 1, shut up!


This is the crux of the whole thing. I think I'm fairly entertaining and that the idea of doing cold reviews of wads as videos is novel enough to be interesting so we'll see how it turns out. If it's just shitty then I won't continue.

Edit: This is also to improve my own skills. When you have to articulate ideas for somebody else they become clearer to you in the process so reviewing maps for hypothetical people will be useful for me.

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PRIMEVAL said:

Fraps is the way to go. However, only Vista/7 have a feature where you can record BOTH in-game sounds and your microphone.

Thats entirely wrong.

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xvertigox said:

I'm not going to do actual Let's Play but rather I want to do reviews of wads where I'm playing it for the first time + recording it.

Sooooo... a let's play. Got it.

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Xeros612 said:

Sooooo... a let's play. Got it.


Kinda but not really. Think newstuff reviews with video. AFAIK LPs are more about actually playing the game where as I'll be focusing on reviewing. That means examining stuff in more detail and having more editing i.e some minimalist effects when applicable and cutting stuff, not necessarily having one solid playthrough. I just need to get a decent mic and I'm good to go :] Hopefully I'll have the pilot video done within a few days.

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Technician said:

Doom makes for some of the boring-est let's plays.

Aren't all let's plays kind of boring?

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DoomUK said:

Aren't all let's plays kind of boring?


Depends on why you watch them, I think. I like to watch LPs of games I'm thinking of getting because they're like honest reviews. I don't trust big game sites game reviews anymore, too much of a conflict of interest due to advertising (Gamespot etc). You can get a decent idea of the game when you see the first 10 or so minutes being played.

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Is there a way to layer my voice onto a prboom viddump?

Oh and my ThinkPad has one of the retarded soundmax things that won't let you record audio from your computer, so you have to use a Virtual Audio Cable or a real one to connect mic to speaker. Would Fraps somehow get around this?

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yellowmadness54 said:

Thats entirely wrong.


Not at all. I HAVE Fraps on my XP, no feature to record external devices. I have Fraps on my Lappy (7) and it has that feature, a checkbox to be exact. Now, I'm not sure how to record an LP on my XP at the moment as unmuting the USB Mic that I have doesn't work. I think it's due to how I have my computer set up for making music rather than recording voice.

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40oz said:

i actually found that let's plays also make the most boring videos.

I'm a zombie video

*gun to mouth*


What the...?

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C30N9 said:

What the...?

Basically:
>state negative opinion on LPs
>post example of a bad one
>imply it's an example of all LPs

DuckReconMajor said:

Is there a way to layer my voice onto a prboom viddump?

Oh and my ThinkPad has one of the retarded soundmax things that won't let you record audio from your computer, so you have to use a Virtual Audio Cable or a real one to connect mic to speaker. Would Fraps somehow get around this?

1. Record video with FRAPS, record commentary in post.

2. FRAPS utilized stereo mix for game audio, so if your OS and sound card block stereo mix, FRAPS won't work around it.

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That LP isn't really boring... just really bad lol. He's trying too hard to be funny and failing miserably.

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Xeros612 said:

1. Record video with FRAPS, record commentary in post.

So I can't get around buying Fraps? And what is post?

Xeros612 said:

2. FRAPS utilized stereo mix for game audio, so if your OS and sound card block stereo mix, FRAPS won't work around it.

Oh. Would it be able to record from both Virtual Audio Cable and a microphone?

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Heh. This reminds me of when I had made a "live" recording of a Doom game back in 1996, for some joke tapes I was exchanging with a cousin of mine at the time.

Don't think it was anything fancy though: it was merely a "flat" cassette recorder placed near my computer speakers, and me yelling stuff like "Reporting to base....I see nobody OH WAIT THERE'S A GUY WITH A SHOTGUN *BANG* OH DAMMIT HOW COULD YOU FUCK ME UP LIKE THAT WITH A SHOTUNG? *BANG BANG* GIMME DAT! Ah good now I have a shotgun..BUT WAIT WHAT IS GOING ON? THERE'S A GUY WITH A POWERFUL AND ASS-KICKING MINIGUN!!! *BANG* AH GREAT! NOW I HAVE A POWERFUL AND ASS-KICKING MINIGUN MYSELF!!!" etc. etc.

And all of the above in Greek ;-) Pity I can't find the tape or even a fragment of that recording anymore.... though I could try to do a fair recreation with video this time, I guess.

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DuckReconMajor said:

So I can't get around buying Fraps? And what is post?Oh. Would it be able to record from both Virtual Audio Cable and a microphone?

Post = post production. Editing & rendering. There are a few alternatives for recording, but most either suck (see: Camtasia, Hypercam, Camstudio, etc.) or do what FRAPS does only crappier (see: dxtory). FRAPS only has audio "input" options for 1. Stereo Mix and 2. external audio, i.e. microphone.

If you've got a cable splitter, you could hook up a 3.5mm mic and a bypass audio cable, but getting the right audio mix would be nearly impossible. Virtual audio cable obviously would rule out the splitter option.

Best bet unless you find some workaround to enable stereo mix? Capture speaker audio and yourself with a microphone. Not ideal because you'd have to do the audio mix purely by ear and unless you've somehow got yourself a stereo microphone, that's a monaural audio source for your video. Not the end of the world, but obviously a lower quality audio track even if you've got a good vocal mic.

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Technician said:

Doom makes for some of the boring-est let's plays.

40oz said:

i actually found that let's plays also make the most boring videos.

What the heck? Lots of people being wrong recently. 0_o

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