Screen Capturing

This is a quick tutorial on how to record videos of your PMS gameplay.

The software mentioned below are not necessarily what am used to.
I have picked these because they are free or have little restrictions/requirements compared to others.


1. Screen capture

Recommended software - Android emulator (any) and Bandicam (unregistered)

It's possible to do a direct screen capture on your phone, but your options are limited if unrooted and/or run an old android OS.
Your pc should be much more powerful anyway (I hope), so an emulator is a fairly accessible option to all.
I won't cover the emulator here, since there are other threads that talk about them.

The free version of Bandicam allows 10 minutes of continuous video capture, and adds a watermark. Both are manageable.

http://www.bandicam.com/



There are two recording options available: Game Recording (based on DirectX) and Screen Recording (where you specify an area to record).
I recommend using the Screen Record, and record an area slightly larger than your window. This will allow you to crop out the watermark later on.

Example:

If you don't mind the watermark, or if you don't want to do any post-processing, then just select Game Recording.
Most of the default settings are fine, but I would suggest some tweaks to the format to allow easier post-processing.

Format settings:

Now, hit that red button and start recording! Your videos will be found in the outputs tab.


2. Post-processing

Recommended software - Virtual Dub (or avidemux, if you have issues with VDub)

This is a quick tutorial on how to process some video clips, so you won't find any details on fancy video editing, etc.
You'll probably want Adobe Premier for that (or WMM, which is free).
Also, I'll only be showing how to make an animated gif. If you want a video with audio and full compression, you'll need some codecs. I might add this in later.

VDub:

So, open up VDub and load your video. The default should look like this, with two frames showing Input and Output.
Use the navigation bar at the bottom to go through your video.
I'm assuming you have extra video at the start and end of your clip. Let's crop them out by selecting only what you need.

Marking your selection:

Use the mark in/out buttons shown to make your selection. Then go [ Edit > Crop to Selection ]

Now for some processing work! Go to [ Video > Filters > Add ] to get up a list of filters.
At the very minimum, we'll be cropping out that watermark. So in the list, select the [null transform] filter.
Once added, you are given the option of cropping the frame.

Cropping:

Drag the borders in to crop out the watermark. And that's it!
Depending on how your video is, you can add other filters.
My emulator window is a bit big, so I like to apply a 2:1 reduction (high quality) to limit the output filesize.

Vdub with filters:

Now that you've applied some filters, you can see the difference between input and output.
If you're happy with the output, then go [ File > Export > Animated gif]

After a bit of processing, you'll now have a small animated gif of your video.
I suggest you upload it to imgur, so you can embed it in forum posts.

Question, when you use anything to record.. Does it literally record what it sees including the fps? Or is the recording set to whatever the fps cap of the program is? Asking because bluestacks runs terribly on my alienware, I noticed your using Andy, I might have to switch for the sake of recording.

When you start recording, it will add to the load.

So if your emulator is capped at 30 fps, but your machine is struggling and only hits ~25 fps, then by using a video recorder you could make it worse (e.g. 20 fps). The recorded video will only have the 20 fps, or vary wildly inbetween.

That's what I figured. My specs on the alienware are pretty solid, I think bluestacks is just poorly made. I thought you recorded via your phone at first lol.

Derp wrote:That's what I figured. My specs on the alienware are pretty solid, I think bluestacks is just poorly made. I thought you recorded via your phone at first lol.

I did at first. But I have my phone rooted, so I didn't think I could help most people.

I just downloaded Bandicam about an hour ago, lol. It works fine.