Call of Duty Movie Making Tutorial - By -{DHC}-Rezner

[rudedog]

Here is a step by step guide for making a movie for Call of Duty.
In making my first movie I found the video quality to look like shit.
So I did some research and came up with this method.
If you just want to record yourself running around killing people
and dont care what it looks like this tutorial is not for you.
I made my flick with clan members being directed while I
flew around in spectate acting as a camera.

This tutorial emphasises on video capture, editing, and sound of the best quality I have found
18 seconds of footage makes a 8mb file so try and place your camera , record shorter
shots and edit out needless frames.
Dont run around for 5 min and expect to do anything with it


You can check out my 18 seconds and get an idea on how it will look Here (http://www.codfiles.com/file.info?ID=20512).
Theres a checkerboard pattern over the movie
that I have yet to figure it out but overall it looks great..

Heres a list of the programs you'll need

Paint Shop Pro 8 (http://www.jasc.com/download_4.asp?prod=K-PSP8-USDIR)
RAD Tools (http://www.radgametools.com/down/Bink/RADTools.exe)
DDClip (http://www.softlab-nsk.com/ddclip/ddcpr351.zip)
WinRAR (http://www.rarsoft.com/rar/wrar320.exe)


First step is an easy way to record your demos in game

Open C:Program FilesCall of DutyMain
Copy and Paste this into the bottom of your config_mp.cfg using Wordpad

seta demo_start "record; set demo_tog vstr demo_stop"
seta demo_stop "stoprecord; set demo_tog vstr demo_start"
seta demo_tog "vstr demo_stop"
bind BACKSPACE "vstr demo_tog"

Backspace will now toggle your recording on and off
Each time creating a new .dm_1 file
Starting from demo0000 and up


Once you have recorded a few demos its time to convert them to screenshots
Open up your C:Program FilesCall of DutyMainDemos folder and note the names of your recordings


To load your demos bring down the console(~) and type

/demo demo0000
(0000 being name of demo)

Select what demos you want to keep

Now that you have your footage we can now covert
Bring down the console(~) and type

cl_avidemo 30

Then load your selected demos one by one


This will start the screen taking process creating 30 screenshots a sec.
and place them here C:Program FilesCall of DutyMainscreenshots

Second part involves converting the TGA files in your screenshots folder to JPG files

Create a folder called "SS" for your converted screenshots wherever you like
Open up Paint Shop Pro 8

Go to:
File/Bath/Process

Look in: C:Program FilesCall of DutyMainscreenshots

Save Options:
Type: JPEG-JFIF Compliant

Folder: C:Program FilesCall of DutyMainscreenshots

Now click once on shot0000.tga in the file selection window and hit Alt+A

Hit Start and go take a piss this may take awhile

After thats finished go and delete every TGA file in your screenshots folder



Next step is to edit all your demos into one movie

If you know exactly where your cutting your scenes you can use Windows Picture and Fax Viewer
and just scroll through the screenshots (with your right and left arrow keys) moving and deleting where needed.
This way of editing may seem non tech but its the fastest and easiest way

Each set of screenshots will be sequencial... say you have three groups of shots in your movie

First group would be shot0047 to shot0098
Second group would be shot0234 to shot 0250
Third group would be shot0018 to 0034

In order to make the video with RAD Tools
the screenshots in the group must go in order
for us to make a list of files to build from.

Make a new folder within C:Program FilesCall of DutyMainscreenshots
and name it "Movie" and move all your final screenshots into it.

Erase all JPG's out of the screenshots folder if your sure you've got the ones you need




Open up Rad Pro Tools

Look in: C:Program FilesCall of DutyMainscreenshotsMovie

Here you will make different "list files" out of the sequencial files of each group

Click the "List files..." tab

It will start with group one

"Treat as sequence?" window will pop up asking if you want to make
a single animation out of shot0047 to shot0098

Click Yes

Now the List file editor opens with shot????.jpg*47-98

Click "Add..."
and do the same thing with group 2 and 3.

Make sure your three groups are in the correct order
as they will appear in your movie.

Hit Close and Save as Movie.lst

Now back at the main RAD Tools screen. Its time to actually make the movie

Click once on your Movie.lst file and Click "Bink it!" in the bottom left corner

Three steps here:

Refer to this pic on where to place the values

http://www.codadmin.com/nuke/modules/htmlarea/upload/admin_22.gif



First: Your movie must run at 30 frames per second just like the 30 fps taken from the demo

Second: Your movie as is runs at 1024x768 you could leave it that way but youll have a huge file when your done
experiment with the size if you like. My movie runs at 475x300.

Third: Uncheck the Compress audio box. Doesnt work.

When thats done just hit "Bink"

Now go flush the toilet from the last time you were in there, cause this too, may take awhile



You should now have a great looking video with no sound.

My sound was added to the movie using DDClip.
Its very easy to use so im not gonna get into it too much.
It basically allows you to insert a sound file into any frame of you movie you want.

Any questions on how to use DDClip can be asked Here (http://forums.theantitrust.com/viewtopic.php?p=8696#8696)

I used the sound found in the pk3 files of CoD

To extract them go to your C:Program FilesCall of DutyMain folder
and open pak1.pk3 and pak2.pk3 with WinRAR

In the sound folder youll find every sound from the game.


Now hopefully with not too much trouble from DDClip you should have a wav file thats totally insync with your film.

Open up Rad Pro Tools

Single click your "untitled.bik file and click the "Mix in sound" tab

Under "Sound file to mix" browse for your movies soundtrack wav file

Click "Mix"

and your done


A big thanks to : -{DHC}-Rezner


Reznerwr@hotmail.com


dutyhonorcourage (http://www.dutyhonorcourage.org/)

[Skip_Foreplay]

Wow, that is a greatly detailed thread! Thanks for that.

Not to steal your thunder, but there is another way to record video on COD/COD UO that does not involve working with your demo and is alot less stressful. There is a program called Fraps that can run in the background and record clips. You can find the program here:

http://www.fraps.com/

Hope this helps!

[TankHunter]

Fraps cost money, with using your videos from cod you can paste the SS's directly into windows movie maker and then insert your sound in the very same manned described above. I made a small movie of one of my buddies TKing me and sent it to him as a joke. Another way to capture the SS's but the count may be off is to simply hold down the F12 key, the typematic settings can be adjusted for the 30fps. No conversion necessary or money spent

[Dooku]

Fraps cost money, with using your videos from cod you can paste the SS's directly into windows movie maker and then insert your sound in the very same manned described above. I made a small movie of one of my buddies TKing me and sent it to him as a joke. Another way to capture the SS's but the count may be off is to simply hold down the F12 key, the typematic settings can be adjusted for the 30fps. No conversion necessary or money spent

But if you do use Fraps it is possible to take a video and use TS to record your voices directly into the game using it's audio capturing capability :) (and of course Fraps only costs like $15 :P

But that is a good tutorial. Also if you use something like Imageready then you edit individual screenshots you can then edit them (change faces, add images or effects) in photoshop and then save them as .avi to send them to your friends (or convert to .mov to stream them)

[xShiftYx]

Nice tutorial :)

But while in spec mode how did you get rid of the big SPECTATOR word that appears at the bottom of the screen in the middle?

[Dooku]

Nice tutorial :)

But while in spec mode how did you get rid of the big SPECTATOR word that appears at the bottom of the screen in the middle?
In one of the ".iwd" files it is possible to remove items located on the HUD. I'm not sure which file it is in, but If memory serves it is just a case of changing a 1 to a 0.

[green screen]

Wow! You have the patience to type it all down! I must say it's a very detailed tutorial. Very helpful to those who have been wanting to do it themselves. A big big thanks to you buddy! Kinda useful for me too.