Video Recorder

[Darkelfguy]

Greetings everyone, I'm Darkelfguy from Morrowind Modding Showcases, most of you probably remember me from the Zini Interview we did a few months back. Anyway, Eldertroll contacted me on YouTube about the possibility of helping out with video release commentaries since WeirdSexy is taking a break/too busy at the moment to keep up with current releases. I would love to help out and make commentary videos for OpenMW version 0.34 and 0.35 if I can.

Here's a bit of information about my recording equipment:

Video Capturing: Fraps (for in-game recording) and Bandicam (for desktop recording)
Audio Mic: CADU37 with Pop Filter
Video Editing: Lightworks PRO version 12.5

If you've watched any of my previous videos, you may have noticed a tendency for low framerates. That's because I normally record with MGSO 3.0, which is a bit hard for my somewhat aging system to handle. I've used OpenMW in the past though and I get a pretty solid 50~60 FPS with that, so I don't think it'll be a problem for recording release commentaries.

Anyway, I can get started right away if you guys so desire. I'm a little backlogged on videos for Morrowind Modding Showcases, Morrowind Modding Interviews, and Let's Mod Morrowind, but I should be able to get the first commentary video up in two weeks or so. Just let me know what features from each release need to be recorded.

[scrawl]

Thanks for the offer, it's really about time to get our version commentaries started up again.

Please note you may still get WeirdSexy to do the voiceover if you send him a script to read. That's what I did for the last two videos.

Just let me know what features from each release need to be recorded.

0.34:

The dialog for selecting the Morrowind installation has been rewritten and is now a wizard-like application. The main user-visible improvements are:
- you can re-run the installation, and the import of the Morrowind.ini file, at any time by selecting the "Run Installation Wizard" button in the launcher.
- you can now select the encoding ("Morrowind Content Language") of your Morrowind installation, as required for the correct handling of text encoding in OpenMW. Previously you would have to manually edit the openmw.cfg file.

- OpenCS: Added cell marker overlays. You can see them in action by selecting "View" on an exterior cell. Later on these will be used to select cells for certain operations.
- OpenCS: Objects can be moved in the 3d scene by dragging with the right mouse button. As far as I understand, the controls are still preliminary, this is just showing off that the backend works.
- OpenCS: The look of the user settings window was improved.

0.35:

- The hotkeys for cycling weapons/spells were added.
- XYZ rotation key support for NIF files was added (you can show this off with the "MW Containers Animated" mod)
- AI fast forward was added, i.e. when the player waits or rests, wandering NPCs will randomly appear somewhere else.
- Levelled list script functions were added. Not sure if there's a good way to show this off. Might want to leave it out.
- NPC head tracking was added, i.e. NPCs will turn their head to follow the nearest actor.
- An importer for vanilla Morrowind savegames was added. Not complete yet, a ton of state is still dropped, but it more or less works - you can import your character into openmw, and have a look around. Currently a command-line application. An import GUI in the launcher is planned for future releases.
- Notable bug fix: the volume of ambient sounds has been fixed, very noticable e.g. near lava pits or the Ghostgate.

[raevol]

you may still get WeirdSexy to do the voiceover if you send him a script to read.

If he's willing to do it, please keep WeirdSexy as our voice! He's really top-notch.

[Okulo]

May I suggest a different format than before? I'm just throwing an idea out there, so take it as you wish.

I think it would be great to have a kind of dialogue thing going on, where one of the developers shows off the updates to someone else and they would talk about each feature. The other guy would ask some questions which might pop up in the minds of the public. Introversion does this with the Prison Architect videos and it seems to be a lot of fun to watch than a scripted update video, especially if the two people have some good chemistry.

[Zini]

@Okulo: I can see why some would find that interesting. But it is a lot more time and effort and frankly it might not work for everyone. Personally I would rather see the video done by a professional grade presenter than by a developer, who is typically anything but good at presenting things. IMO both Darkelfguy and WeirdSexy fall in the professional grade presenter category and we should leave the task to them.
Of course if any of the other developers really wants to do such a duo presentation I have no problem with that.

Regarding WeirdSexy's voice overs: I don't think that's such a good idea. Again more work for everyone involved and also Darkelfguy would probably prefer to do the complete joy, right? From his videos it can be seen (or rather heard) that he has both a good enough voice and good enough recording equipment for the task.
Don't get me wrong. I would love for WeirdSexy to return and make more videos for us. But having him doing the voice overs for a guy who is perfectly capable of doing them himself seems kinda wasteful.

[scrawl]

Regarding WeirdSexy's voice overs: I don't think that's such a good idea. Again more work for everyone involved and also Darkelfguy would probably prefer to do the complete joy, right? From his videos it can be seen (or rather heard) that he has both a good enough voice and good enough recording equipment for the task.
Don't get me wrong. I would love for WeirdSexy to return and make more videos for us. But having him doing the voice overs for a guy who is perfectly capable of doing them himself seems kinda wasteful.

I am open to both approaches, but why would you not take up the offer? Spreading out the work is what teamwork is all about, right?
No offense to Darkelfguy's narrating abilities, I can see he's talented, but WS's voice has always been a signature of the MrOpenMW channel, and changing it would probably upset a few people.
Anyway, whoever's doing the work should have the final say on this.

[Zini]

WS's voice has always been a signature of the MrOpenMW channel, and changing it would probably upset a few people.

It's YouTube. Something will always upset someone.

Anyway, whoever's doing the work should have the final say on this.

Agreed. It should be Darkelfguy's decision, if he want to do the voice over himself or not.

[Darkelfguy]

Thanks for the offer, it's really about time to get our version commentaries started up again.

Please note you may still get WeirdSexy to do the voiceover if you send him a script to read. That's what I did for the last two videos.

0.34:

The dialog for selecting the Morrowind installation has been rewritten and is now a wizard-like application. The main user-visible improvements are:
- you can re-run the installation, and the import of the Morrowind.ini file, at any time by selecting the "Run Installation Wizard" button in the launcher.
- you can now select the encoding ("Morrowind Content Language") of your Morrowind installation, as required for the correct handling of text encoding in OpenMW. Previously you would have to manually edit the openmw.cfg file.

- OpenCS: Added cell marker overlays. You can see them in action by selecting "View" on an exterior cell. Later on these will be used to select cells for certain operations.
- OpenCS: Objects can be moved in the 3d scene by dragging with the right mouse button. As far as I understand, the controls are still preliminary, this is just showing off that the backend works.
- OpenCS: The look of the user settings window was improved.

I'll get started recording the features for OpenMW 0.34 right away, hopefully I'll have a video ready by the end of next week (probably Friday or Saturday, depending on how backlogged I get). I notice that list doesn't really include anything that would be recorded in-game for OpenMW, so we're mainly recording the OpenMW launcher/install then?

Regarding WeirdSexy's voice overs: I don't think that's such a good idea. Again more work for everyone involved and also Darkelfguy would probably prefer to do the complete joy, right? From his videos it can be seen (or rather heard) that he has both a good enough voice and good enough recording equipment for the task.
Don't get me wrong. I would love for WeirdSexy to return and make more videos for us. But having him doing the voice overs for a guy who is perfectly capable of doing them himself seems kinda wasteful.

Thanks for the vote of confidence Zini, but I do think it might be a good idea to get WeirdSexy if he's available. He's sort of the established trademarked voice of OpenMW, and it would be a bit odd to switch voices after all of the work he's done for the project. Plus narrating is rather a time-consuming process, if I can off it on to someone else I will. I'll send WeirdSexy the finished video and, if he wants to, he can add the voice-over and upload it to the channel.

[scrawl]

I'll get started recording the features for OpenMW 0.34 right away, hopefully I'll have a video ready by the end of next week (probably Friday or Saturday, depending on how backlogged I get). I notice that list doesn't really include anything that would be recorded in-game for OpenMW, so we're mainly recording the OpenMW launcher/install then?

That's correct, there were no new OpenMW game features in 0.34.

[WeirdSexy]

GREETINGS FRIENDS OLD AND NEW!

I think I can probably ease slowly back into video making now. However, you all likely would have to pester me! I am out of the habit of doing these now

Unfortunately, I am not at all familiar with recent development, especially regarding OpenCS. It will take me a while to get up to speed. Especially regarding OpenCS.

Plus narrating is rather a time-consuming process, if I can off it on to someone else I will. I'll send WeirdSexy the finished video and, if he wants to, he can add the voice-over and upload it to the channel.

Darkelfguy, nice to meet you!

When I was working with scrawl, he sent me a script to narrate which I recorded and sent back to him and he edited the video with it up-front. It seems that you are proposing I attempt to fit some narration on top of an already edited video. I foresee that being potentially frustrating.

We can try it that way and see how it works. We run the risk of me providing an awkward narration, though. Would hate for that to happen after you put in hard work recording and editing video.

What might be better is for us to agree on a script ahead of time and let me send you a voice-over recording before you start editing. If this process would become too much of a burden for you to remain interested, we can either try the above approach or I can try to produce the whole video from start to finish. But then you wouldn't get to have any fun! And I guarantee it will take longer than the end of the week for me to get it done.

I'm just throwing ideas out, so I'm open to suggestions.

Does anyone think it might make sense to do a single video for 0.34 and 0.35?