Ask WoW Insider: How do you make your WoW movies?
by Barb Dybwad 
Mar 2nd 2007 at 6:07PM
Welcome once again to Ask WoW Insider, wherein every week we choose a question from you, dear readers, to publish and solicit the collective wisdom of your Warcraft-loving peers. Today's question comes to us from Dennis, who wants to know what tools people are using to make machinima or simply record their experience in game: "Which programs are used to create lavish WoW videos such as WoW Mario or just to show a battle?"There are multiple solutions to this problem across platforms, so can you recommend your favorite to Dennis?
Please send your burning questions to Ask WoW Insider at ask AT wowinsider DOT com, and we'll choose one each week to publish and be answered by your peers.
Filed under: Machinima, Ask WoW Insider
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mike Nov 24th 2008 1:48AM
I'm stuck on how to remove the toolbars like skill toolbar at the bottom and get everything off the screen so I can make a clear movie. If anyone has an answer to my question email it to me at greendayrox_000@hotmail.com. And I know greenday suk now LOL no need 2 comment bout day
FreeThinker Mar 27th 2009 9:56PM
E.M. Free Game Capture, not only can it record dx games , but can record desktop.
http://www.effectmatrix.com/Game-Capture/index.htm
Joseph "F*ck you" Nathans Jan 23rd 2012 2:17PM
Press Alt-Z. That doesn't remove the problem with target names, however.
Gatowag Mar 2nd 2007 6:17PM
As far as making things on the iMac, Snapz Pro X is probably the way to go for the actual recording...
Then for editing on the iMac, there's the good ol' iMovie... for special effects and stuff that iMovie doesn't cover, I dunno where to go with that...
..... Now Windows is a completely different story .....
Marcus Oct 8th 2010 12:36AM
hi gatowag
Spartacow Mar 2nd 2007 6:26PM
I'll second Snapz Pro X for the Mac. (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/)
Numbinglyhot Mar 2nd 2007 6:49PM
So far I have used Sony Vegas and loved it. I was wondering who I would send a link to if I wanted my video postd on the site (if its ok with the admins of course). Think is a video I just recently made for people new to WoW. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5044104827323130335&hl=en. Thanks.
Numbinglyhot Mar 2nd 2007 6:50PM
As for the actual recording, FRAPS goes all the way!
Sÿn Mar 2nd 2007 7:25PM
Fraps is good, I like it, BUT, my normal FPS is 60 or so; when i use FRAPs ofc it drops, but in a BG it becomes rather unplayable...any tips on how I might improve it? Running a good setup, full graphical settings on.
Sorry if this seems irrelevant, just, as FRAPs was put as one of the things to use when making movies, I felt a question referring to it might be allowed? If not please delete =)
Kerni Mar 2nd 2007 7:29PM
Snapz Pro X + iMovie
I've recently started using Final Cut Pro and Motion both very nice apps.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Mar 2nd 2007 7:42PM
FRAPS performance suggestions:
1) FRAPS runs considerably better on a dual-core system - sufficiently well that I've been capturing HD-resolution video in cities with it. It's not so much cop on a single-core.
2) You absolutely have to record to a seperate hard drive to the one that your OS and WoW installation is on, if you want good performance. Not a seperate partition, note, but an actual physical drive. Otherwise, write delays will screw up both your video and your game.
3) Rod (one of the guys who make FRAPS) has mentioned a couple of times that you're best to turn "record sound" off for best results.
4) There's not a lot of reason to record above 30 FPS in the US or 25 in Europe, unless you're planning to use slo-mo later.
Hope those tips help! I'll try recording in a BG next one I get in, if I remember, and see if I can come up with any other tips.
As for programs used for WoW moviemaking, I'm amazed no-one has mentioned the WoW Model Viewer and Map Viewer (www.wowmodelviewer.org). EVERY top WoW filmmaker I'm aware of uses these - from Illegal Danish, to Edge of Remorse (which, I believe, used these exclusively - no in-game shooting at all), to The Anti-Elf Anthem, to The Return (where the shot at the end of the mass of warriors waiting to attack is created using WoW Model Viewer).
We recently knocked together a video for Fair Trade using WoW, the Model Viewer, and the Map Viewer, and it was a ton of fun to do, not to mention super-quick.
(Of course, there will be lots of tips for WoW moviemaking in "Machinima for Dummies" (www.machinimafordummies.com) - gratutious plug ends...)
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Mar 2nd 2007 8:08PM
Oh, we also use Final Cut Pro and Motion - which are indeed top apps. They're not cheap, though - about £800 for the bundle, last time I checked. Obviously we need them as a professional production company, but I can understand a lot of people not wanting to download them!
We've also been testing Sony Vegas for the book recently, and it's a pretty good editing package. I know that the incredible Sims 2 filmmakers Britannica Dreams (http://www.britannicadreams.com/) use Vegas for their movies.
I'm now waiting, after my ill-advised "EVERY top WoW filmmaker" comment above, for someone super-famous to pop up and say "no, just in-game for me, thanks". There's got to be someone - you don't get to make sweeping statements like that on the Interweb...
Derelict Mar 2nd 2007 8:00PM
I've found that GameCam outperforms Fraps by a wide margin when it comes to the fine rendering details (like text, spell effects, etc). It's likely their codec / coding that's the difference. In addition, GameCam offers a very wide distribution of resolutions, and will convert between screen and final resolutions, taking care of aspect ratios.
Once captured, I use Microsoft Movie Maker (free for XP users) to put it together. Or, if I'm going for more of a music video, I'll slap together some stills and videos, pick music, and use Muvee to create it.
D
Meldas Mar 3rd 2007 8:25AM
For Macs there is also an alternatove called iShowU.
EdgEy Mar 3rd 2007 2:15PM
4) There's not a lot of reason to record above 30 FPS in the US or 25 in Europe, unless you're planning to use slo-mo later.
Monitors use the same refresh rates wherever you are, and there is a reason to record above 30, for quality. Depends on your perception
cheezedog420 Mar 3rd 2007 3:12PM
I put camcorder down next to the monitor, and play WoW! ANd.. And then stop when I think I got something good enought... then I dump the whole damned thing on my computer, and show it too whole wide world.
See?! Eaasy Smeaazzzy making video the HOrde Way!
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Mar 5th 2007 9:21AM
EdgEy - Sorry, I should have clarified that a bit.
The reason I say 25 for EU and 30 for US is that the prevailing video standards are, respectively, PAL (720x576 @ 25fps) and NTSC (640x480 @30 fps). Ideally, I'd recommend that your videos aim for either these standards or, if your computer is powerful enough, HD standard (1280x720 or 1920x1080).
The reason I recommend this is that, whilst you're correct that higher framerates will produce a small improvement in quality, it's a very small improvement indeed in the eyes of the average viewer, for a huge increase in file size and encoding/decoding complexity. You'll double your filesize (obviously) going from 30fps to 60fps, and the quality improvement will barely be noticable to most people.
(The same argument can be made about resolution, although the improvement from 640x480 to 1280x720 is *much* more noticable. I'd still say it's definitely a tough call whether to release in HD or SD res).
Working to standard framerates is important if your film achieves any success, as people may want to screen it at film festivals, and non-standard framerates will give you problems there. Also, obviously, these standards are what most of your viewers will associate with "good quality" video.
You've also got to consider your eventual output medium. For most people, these days, it's likely that you'll be YouTubing your video, or otherwise making it available in Flash. YouTube certainly doesn't support 60fps (I'm not even sure if it runs at 30fps!), and from practical experience, even if you're encoding your own video, you'll be fighting for every last streamable pixel - and improved resolution will be much more important to your image quality than >30 fps. Hence, you're going to lose any advantage from faster FPS - and unlike larger image size, you don't gain any advantages (in fact, you gain cause problems) downsampling from higher framerates.
Editing packages are also generally set up to handle TV/video standards, and won't cope well with differing framerates (in my experience).
My understanding is that a 60fps target in computer games is mostly recommended to ensure that sudden slowdowns are less noticable. I could be wrong about that, though!
It's worth noting, finally, that these standards may change. I know that HD sometimes operates at 60 FPS, for example - so 60 FPS might become the standard in the future. But right now, bandwidth and processing concerns mean that SD-level framerates are a good place to aim for Machinima creation.
Hugh "Nomad" Hancock Mar 5th 2007 10:20AM
"You gain cause problems"? Kill me now.
You, in fact, "can" cause problems. Leave the gain alone.
MadCow Mar 5th 2007 10:08AM
lol @ cheezydog
one of my buddies does the same thing with his PS2 games, only he records the output straight to his camera while displaying on the tv.