[b]Making CS Clips - The Short, Free, Easy Way[/b]
Lately, I've noticed a lot of people posting their Counter-Strike clips. Others wish to know how to make them and where to host them. This guide will teach you how to make Counter-Strike clips and host them so you can show them to friends or post them on forums. Note that this guide is made as basic as possible while still retaining some quality to your clip. You should have a basic knowledge of Counter-Strike and CS demos before you tackle the rest of this guide. This guide is not by any means meant to teach you how to make your clip with exceptional quality and editting. You can complete this entire guide without paying for anything except for Counter-Strike of course. All programs used in this guide are free to download. The links are here:
Installation for XviD is pretty straight-forward. For VirtualDub, simply put all the files from the .zip into a folder and run the VirtualDub.exe to open the program.
In order to get your gameplay into a recorded file, we must use Counter-Strike's built in recording system. To record a demo, while connected to a server, open the console and type "record mydemo" (without the quotes) where "mydemo" is the name you wish to name the demo (Fig 1). Once you are finished playing, open the console and type "stop" (without the quotes, Fig 2). Disconnecting from the server or quitting Counter-Strike will automatically stop the demo. The demo file will end up in your cstrike folder (Default is C:/ Program Files/ Steam/ SteamApps/ youremail/ Counter-Strike/ cstrike).
Before we watch the demo and extract the footage to make the video clip, we'll set certain settings within Counter-Strike to improve the appearance of the clip and make it a bit more clean looking than raw ingame footage. First thing we need to do is change the resolution to 800x600. This will keep the file at a reasonable size (Fig 3). Second, we will type in certain settings into the console to get rid of certain parts of the HUD and make the crosshair sized to the 800x600 resolution. The commands we will use are (Fig 3):
hideradar hud_saytext 0 voice_enable 0 hud_centerid 0 cl_crosshair_size medium
Now that we have all the settings set, in console, type "viewdemo mydemo" (without the quotes) where "mydemo" is the name of the demo you recorded (Fig 4). This will begin the playback of your demo. Find the part in the demo where you want your clip to begin and either pause it or complete the next section quickly. If the join team menu does not go away, open the console and type "slot1" (without the quotes. Note that opening the console may restart your demo and you might have to find the part in the demo again).
When you are ready to begin your clip, in console type "startmovie mymovie 90" (without the quotes) where "mymovie" is the name you want to use for your BMPs (this name is entirely irrelevant and won't affect the name of your final clip so just keep it simple, Fig 5) and press 'ESC' to quit out of the console. Things will be moving pretty slow which is normal, this process will output the ingame screen to .bmp files at 90 frames per second to your cstrike folder, all starting with the name you chose (ie: mymovie) followed by the number of the frame. Once you have reached the end of the segment you wish to make into a clip, open the console and type "endmovie" (without the quotes, Fig 6) and exit out of Counter-Strike.
Now that we have all our frames into .bmp files, we are ready to compile them all together into one video file. Open VirtualDub and click File > Open (Fig 7). Browse to your cstrike folder and select the first .bmp file of your sequence (ie: mymovie00001) and make sure "Automatically load linked segments" is check (Fig 8). This will load your BMP files into VirtualDub. Now this is the part that may seem a bit tricky. Go to Video > Frame Rate (or hit Ctrl+R, Step #1 of Fig 9). Select "Change to" and make it 90 and click OK (Fig 10). Now go to Video > Fast recompress (Step #2 of Fig 9). Go to Video > Compression (or hit Ctrl+P, Step #3 of Fig 9). This will bring up the Compression menu. From the list, select "XviD MPEG-4 Codec" and hit Configure (Fig 11). Make sure to follow this part correctly or your clip may come out bad quality. Change Encoding type to "Single Pass” (Step #1 of Fig 12) then click "Load Defaults" (Step #2 of Fig 12). Now click on the button that says "Target quantizer" so it changes to "Target bitrate (kbps)" (Step #3 of Fig 12) and enter 4000 as the bitrate (Step #4 of Fig 12). Click OK until you get back to the main screen and go to File > Save (or hit F7). Name your file and save it where you'd like. Open your .avi file and watch your newly created clip.
Head on over to http://www.putfile.com and click the Browse button and open your .avi (Fig 13). Select file type "Video", enter a Title and Category for your video and click "Upload Media". This may take a while so wait a few minutes. When it has finished uploading, a page that shows the URL to your clip will appear (Fig 14). Sending the URL to your friends or posting on forums will link viewers directly to your clip.
[b]Miscellanious[/b] If you want cut off the parts of the clip that shows the console, simply go into your cstrike folder and preview your BMPs and delete the ones that have the console in it accordingly. Adding music, effects, colors, widescreen etc. will require more work and will not be covered in this guide. For more help check out Saeed's Movie Making Tutorial thread (http://gotfrag.com/cs/forums/thread/177982/ ). The codec settings used will make for about 30mb/min. Putfile only allows 25mb video files meaning your clip will have to be under 50 seconds in length so keep that in mind. Once you have finished making the .avi, I highly suggest deleting the BMPs because those will take up many gigabytes of space on your harddrive.
[b]If your clip comes out choppy[/b] Try using startmovie 30 instead of startmovie 90 and skip the step where you change the frame rate from 30 to 90 in VirtualDub (skip fig #9 and #10). I've noticed that Putfile has a problem with playing 90 fps clips.
Either way, it looks very informative. If I had the attention span to read more than three words at a time at 2 AM, I would most likely praise you for it.
peddle cds to heavy metal fans who don't even get it~
#10 you can't render .wmv clips from VirtualDub, VideoMach, or pjBMP2AVI. Vegas is required and Vegas is not free.
#9 he was complaining because last night I couldn't post it (wouldn't get through the filter) so I made a thread asking for help finding the banned term and people kept posting it and saying it worked fine so I had to make a thread with random letters in it and edit the comment to get it through the filter. I nuked the other thread.
regardless of the many threads about this topic, this is the best one i've seen so far. people need to start appreciating the time people put into it. gj
#26 VirtualDub is better in my opinion because its waaay better for compression in addition to not putting the watermark on your clip (the little "VideoMach" at the top). Another thing I wanted to add is I'm not even sure if startmovie 90 is necessary for this guide because I don't think VirtualDub does frame blending, only Vegas.
Guide: Making/Hosting Clips
Lately, I've noticed a lot of people posting their Counter-Strike clips. Others wish to know how to make them and where to host them. This guide will teach you how to make Counter-Strike clips and host them so you can show them to friends or post them on forums. Note that this guide is made as basic as possible while still retaining some quality to your clip. You should have a basic knowledge of Counter-Strike and CS demos before you tackle the rest of this guide. This guide is not by any means meant to teach you how to make your clip with exceptional quality and editting. You can complete this entire guide without paying for anything except for Counter-Strike of course. All programs used in this guide are free to download. The links are here:
VirtualDub 1.6.11 - http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/virtua..
XviD 1.1.0 - http://www.koepi.org/XviD-1.1.0-30122005.exe
Installation for XviD is pretty straight-forward. For VirtualDub, simply put all the files from the .zip into a folder and run the VirtualDub.exe to open the program.
[b]Step 1 - Recording your demo[/b]
Fig 1 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Fig 2 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
In order to get your gameplay into a recorded file, we must use Counter-Strike's built in recording system. To record a demo, while connected to a server, open the console and type "record mydemo" (without the quotes) where "mydemo" is the name you wish to name the demo (Fig 1). Once you are finished playing, open the console and type "stop" (without the quotes, Fig 2). Disconnecting from the server or quitting Counter-Strike will automatically stop the demo. The demo file will end up in your cstrike folder (Default is C:/ Program Files/ Steam/ SteamApps/ youremail/ Counter-Strike/ cstrike).
[b]Step 2 - Make BMPs[/b]
Fig 3 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Fig 4 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Fig 5 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Fig 6 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Before we watch the demo and extract the footage to make the video clip, we'll set certain settings within Counter-Strike to improve the appearance of the clip and make it a bit more clean looking than raw ingame footage. First thing we need to do is change the resolution to 800x600. This will keep the file at a reasonable size (Fig 3). Second, we will type in certain settings into the console to get rid of certain parts of the HUD and make the crosshair sized to the 800x600 resolution. The commands we will use are (Fig 3):
hideradar
hud_saytext 0
voice_enable 0
hud_centerid 0
cl_crosshair_size medium
Now that we have all the settings set, in console, type "viewdemo mydemo" (without the quotes) where "mydemo" is the name of the demo you recorded (Fig 4). This will begin the playback of your demo. Find the part in the demo where you want your clip to begin and either pause it or complete the next section quickly. If the join team menu does not go away, open the console and type "slot1" (without the quotes. Note that opening the console may restart your demo and you might have to find the part in the demo again).
When you are ready to begin your clip, in console type "startmovie mymovie 90" (without the quotes) where "mymovie" is the name you want to use for your BMPs (this name is entirely irrelevant and won't affect the name of your final clip so just keep it simple, Fig 5) and press 'ESC' to quit out of the console. Things will be moving pretty slow which is normal, this process will output the ingame screen to .bmp files at 90 frames per second to your cstrike folder, all starting with the name you chose (ie: mymovie) followed by the number of the frame. Once you have reached the end of the segment you wish to make into a clip, open the console and type "endmovie" (without the quotes, Fig 6) and exit out of Counter-Strike.
[b]Step 3 - Making the .AVI File[/b]
Fig 7 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Fig 8 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Fig 9 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Fig 10 - http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9426/1..
Fig 11 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Fig 12 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Now that we have all our frames into .bmp files, we are ready to compile them all together into one video file. Open VirtualDub and click File > Open (Fig 7). Browse to your cstrike folder and select the first .bmp file of your sequence (ie: mymovie00001) and make sure "Automatically load linked segments" is check (Fig 8). This will load your BMP files into VirtualDub. Now this is the part that may seem a bit tricky. Go to Video > Frame Rate (or hit Ctrl+R, Step #1 of Fig 9). Select "Change to" and make it 90 and click OK (Fig 10). Now go to Video > Fast recompress (Step #2 of Fig 9). Go to Video > Compression (or hit Ctrl+P, Step #3 of Fig 9). This will bring up the Compression menu. From the list, select "XviD MPEG-4 Codec" and hit Configure (Fig 11). Make sure to follow this part correctly or your clip may come out bad quality. Change Encoding type to "Single Pass” (Step #1 of Fig 12) then click "Load Defaults" (Step #2 of Fig 12). Now click on the button that says "Target quantizer" so it changes to "Target bitrate (kbps)" (Step #3 of Fig 12) and enter 4000 as the bitrate (Step #4 of Fig 12). Click OK until you get back to the main screen and go to File > Save (or hit F7). Name your file and save it where you'd like. Open your .avi file and watch your newly created clip.
[b]Step 4 - Uploading Your Clip[/b]
Fig 13 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Fig 14 - http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a241/mx..
Head on over to http://www.putfile.com and click the Browse button and open your .avi (Fig 13). Select file type "Video", enter a Title and Category for your video and click "Upload Media". This may take a while so wait a few minutes. When it has finished uploading, a page that shows the URL to your clip will appear (Fig 14). Sending the URL to your friends or posting on forums will link viewers directly to your clip.
[b]Miscellanious[/b]
If you want cut off the parts of the clip that shows the console, simply go into your cstrike folder and preview your BMPs and delete the ones that have the console in it accordingly. Adding music, effects, colors, widescreen etc. will require more work and will not be covered in this guide. For more help check out Saeed's Movie Making Tutorial thread (http://gotfrag.com/cs/forums/thread/177982/ ). The codec settings used will make for about 30mb/min. Putfile only allows 25mb video files meaning your clip will have to be under 50 seconds in length so keep that in mind. Once you have finished making the .avi, I highly suggest deleting the BMPs because those will take up many gigabytes of space on your harddrive.
This is the outcome I got making a test clip using settings/instructions from this tutorial: http://media.putfile.com/Making-Clips
Tutorial by: mxma1-s1ntax
[b]If your clip comes out choppy[/b]
Try using startmovie 30 instead of startmovie 90 and skip the step where you change the frame rate from 30 to 90 in VirtualDub (skip fig #9 and #10). I've noticed that Putfile has a problem with playing 90 fps clips.
#9 he was complaining because last night I couldn't post it (wouldn't get through the filter) so I made a thread asking for help finding the banned term and people kept posting it and saying it worked fine so I had to make a thread with random letters in it and edit the comment to get it through the filter. I nuked the other thread.
But otherwise very good writeup. I made a little clip and <3d the quality!