The Process (LP status update)

In case anyone was wondering if I had a process when I record my Let’s Play videos… well, I do. And it is this:

  1. Plug everything in and capture the video using Camtasia.
  2. Load up the raw video and hack it into equal chunks of as close to ten minutes as I can get it.
  3. Watch each part to make sure it looks and sounds okay. Add effects if necessary. Make a few notes for the video’s title and description.
  4. Upload everything to YouTube.

In order to accomplish #2 I use this handy time calculator I keep bookmarked. So if I have 45-and-a-half minutes of footage, I know I’ll get five videos out of that segment at 9:06 a piece. I try to break the videos up within a second or two of that target length, making sure not to chop a sentence in half.

The most time-consuming part of the process (outside of playing the game of course) is watching the videos. It’s pretty boring, but nothing’s worse than uploading a video to find out the sound was mangled or somesuch.

Secret of Evermore is nearing completion. I have twelve more videos to process and upload, currently in four un-cut chunks of footage. I’ve also got to more somewhat long-ish games recorded and ready to process, so there’s no shortage of work to do on my end.

Mega Man X4 remains uncompleted. The reason is this: scripted videos take a lot more work than unscripted ones. Since I’m not recording live I tend to play each segment more than once, only using the “best” one. (Within reason, I mean. I’m not going for TAS-level perfection here, but nor do I want to put up a video where I lose an easy fight because my finger slipped or some crap.) Watching and re-watching the video in order to write the script takes a lot of time too, and recording a vocal track over the existing audio is always finnicky.

That’s not the reason X4 is so long overdue, though. Basically, I screwed it up. I recorded the game on Peanut’s computer a few months ago. When recording video with Camtasia you’re working with two different filetyps: the camrec and the camproj. The camrec is the raw video footage, where the camproj is that same footage plus whatever edits you’ve made to it. In my case, what I’d done is loaded up the camrec of an X4 level and chopped out all the loading screens. I didn’t bother rendering these at all, since I knew I’d be going back later to record voice, so I just saved them and tucked them away.

Well, when I built my computer and transferred all my stuff over from Peanut’s I managed to get my camproj files but not my camrecs. Which means I still have the timeline data for each level… but not the footage itself. So I had to replay the second half of the game. That has since been done, but I’ve started several other projects in the interim and I haven’t had much inclination to go back and finish.

Plus the game audio has a slight desync in the X4 series, and I don’t know what’s causing it. Which pisses me off.

I’ll finish it though, probably after the last Evermore video goes up, and then… the future! Thanks for watching.

3 comments to The Process (LP status update)

  • Man, that does sound like a ton of work. Thankfully my setup wasn’t quite so involved, but it had some problems with output lag which would make it pretty much unworkable for any kind of game that requires quick reflexes. Thankfully Hybrid Heaven doesn’t really need any.

    I think the setup I’m going to run for my next project will be easier to work with, but I need to actually get it set up first.

  • DragonShadow

    Def sounds like alot of work! MMX4 is not only one of my favorite games ever, but your LP is my favorite one of yours I’ve seen in a long time. Keep up the good work, and here’s to hoping it gets finished!

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