Howto:Creating FlightGear Promo Videos: Difference between revisions

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== Finally ==
== Finally ==
Everything else is up to the editor... ;)
Everything else is up to the editor... ;)
[[Category:Howto|Creating FlightGear Promo Videos]]

Revision as of 21:35, 17 January 2014

Contributors: LukeaFG, Osjcag, Trez, connect, sa7k

Examples

Content

Use the Next Changelog for the list of changes or updates to include in the video. Probably, promo videos should focus on feaures to be found in the release, not on optional aircraft, addons etc. (see screenshot guidelines).

Style / Appearance and Branding

Place the FlightGear logo in some corner of the video and a link to the official website, i.e. flightgear.org

I would probably make sure to add links (or even watermarks) to each video, so that "flightgear.org" is made very prominent - to make it more difficult for scammers to reuse such promos for their own purposes ... For the same reasons, we may want to use the terms "free" and "open source" to ensure that people cannot easily reuse the promo videos to sell rebranded versions of FG. And maybe each review you should have a date added, so that people know just how recent the promo video really is ? A semi transparent FlightGear logo in the corner of the video might help

Audio / Background Music

Use royalty free audio or ask for full permission, FlightGear is opensource your video should follow that as much as possible. Look up royalty free on google, there are many websites that feature royalty free music. MachinimaSound is a great site for royalty free music and it's made for content that features gaming.

Using the aircraft sounds also showcases FlightGear well.

Localization

We may still want to provide an option to localize/translate videos (I understand that's made possible for YT videos), to give even wider exposure to FG. I think YT videos can have text comments and audio translated for different audiences. Also, using the changelog to create a promo is definitely a very good idea! You can create an interactive transcript for YouTube in a .txt file in a different language which would be helpful.

Performance

Only record video if FlightGear's framerate is high (this prevents jerky motions... Example of what I mean here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW7ZrGpSCbk)

A good way to get better framerate is to slow the video down in the flightgear replay and speeding it up in the editor.

Format & Codecs

  • Container: mp4
  • Codec: h264 (for optimal quality)
  • Resolution : 720p or 1080p (progressive)
  • Framerate: 24 - 30FPS (30 is the maximum YouTube supports)
  • Aspect ratio: 16 ; 9 (any other ratios will have unwanted back bars in your video)

You should also consider encoding with webm, which is google's royalty free codec if you are just planning to upload to youtube.

Video Recording Software

Programs to record your video:

  • CamStudio (free) - Windows
  • Quicktime (free) - Mac | only captures the full screen
  • VLC (free, multi-platform)
  • Fraps (paid) - Windows | works great if configured right
  • recordmydesktop - Linux

MAGIX is a set of Applications that handles video and audio editing, it also has a recording software.

To install record my desktop on Ubuntu(and it's variations), Linux Mint and Debian open the terminal and type: sudo apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop

Video Editing Software

Programs to edit your video:

  • VirtualDub (free) - Windows
  • IMovie (free) - Mac | IMovie comes with every mac for free it costs 15 dollars to upgrade to the latest version though
  • Adobe Premiere Pro (paid) - Mac & Windows
  • Sony Vegas Pro (paid) - Windows
  • Kdenlive (Free) - Linux,Mac |Great editor with many functions

Finally

Everything else is up to the editor... ;)