[Mongoose]

So when I saw SuperCoolAI's Let's Play of Blue Planet, I thought that I'd give it a shot myself, just for kicks.  Since it's my first time attempting this, I figured I'd start with a relatively short campaign, so I decided to go with the FS1 classic The Destiny of Peace.  Here, for your perusal, is the first mission.  Any comments, compliments, critiques, or general craziness is very welcome.

Before anyone says anything, though, I do realize that my voice becomes somewhat difficult to hear at times, particularly when I'm trying to talk over voiced lines.  Unfortunately, I can't edit my dialog separately, but I'll try tweaking the in-game volume settings for the next mission in order to try and compensate.  I'm thinking about uploading this to my YouTube account as well, so I can add subtitles for some of the more indistinct parts if anyone wants them.  I'll also be sure to not be stupid enough to talk over the briefing/debriefing next time.

(As a side note, XFire's built-in encoder is really good at providing decent quality in small file sizes.  The raw video I captured was a cool 4 GB, but the final .mp4 was all of 35 MB.)

[Goober5000]

Cool.

Can't you configure your video capture software to record from the game, and use a separate program to record from the microphone?  Then you can use VirtualDub or a similar program to mix them together later.

[NGTM-1R]

I think this is more Fanfic section material, personally...

[Mongoose]

I think this is more Fanfic section material, personally...

I'm not exactly creating fiction. It might be better off in GenFS or the Port folder, though; I wasn't entirely sure where to stick it.

Can't you configure your video capture software to record from the game, and use a separate program to record from the microphone?  Then you can use VirtualDub or a similar program to mix them together later.

The main problem with that is that Xfire records the raw video to its own proprietary codec in an .avi container.  When I opened it up in Avidemux, a freeware video editor I use, all the program displayed was a green frame; I'd imagine that VirtualDub would do something similar.  Xfire's included encoder does a great job with compression, but it's just a bare-bones utility.  What I could theoretically try is keeping the video stream as-is in Avidemux and just overlaying the audio, and then running the edited file through Xfire's encoder.  However, that would raise another issue: by using the WhatUHear option in Xfire, I'd be picking up my microphone's output in the speakers, and overlaying a separately-recorded vocal track from Audacity could lead to an offset echo effect.  Failing all else, I'll at least try cranking the in-game sound bars way down, so that my voice doesn't get lost in the mix.

Edit:  Wait a second...I can mute the microphone output in the Creative control panel, which could potentially solve the whole problem.  Time to get to testing.

Edit 2: Well, I thought I had it working right, but maybe not so much.  Hmm...

[NGTM-1R]

I'm not exactly creating fiction. It might be better off in GenFS or the Port folder, though; I wasn't entirely sure where to stick it.

Oh yeah, this is one of those inferior video LPs.

[FoxtrotTango]

I'm not exactly creating fiction. It might be better off in GenFS or the Port folder, though; I wasn't entirely sure where to stick it.

Oh yeah, this is one of those inferior video LPs.

You prefer the screenshots-with-commentary style?

[Mongoose]

I'm not exactly creating fiction. It might be better off in GenFS or the Port folder, though; I wasn't entirely sure where to stick it.

Oh yeah, this is one of those inferior video LPs.

With the exception of something as amazing as Boatmurdered, if I'm going to sit through someone else playing a particular game, I want to see and hear them actually play it, not click on a few screenshots and read a once-removed description of what happened.  We're dealing with real-time 3D environments here, not a static D&D map.  The whole Let's Play concept may have started out in the context of forum postings, but I view the jump to video recordings as a welcome one, as it allows the viewer to become far more immersed in the actual mechanics of the playthrough.

In other words, if you're just going to gripe about it, feel free not to watch. I'm making this primarily for my own satisfaction anyway.

[NGTM-1R]

You prefer the screenshots-with-commentary style?

Typically, yes.

With the exception of something as amazing as Boatmurdered, if I'm going to sit through someone else playing a particular game, I want to see and hear them actually play it, not click on a few screenshots and read a once-removed description of what happened. We're dealing with real-time 3D environments here, not a static D&D map.  The whole Let's Play concept may have started out in the context of forum postings, but I view the jump to video recordings as a welcome one, as it allows the viewer to become far more immersed in the actual mechanics of the playthrough.

A common misconception.

The Let's Play concept is to tell the story of the game, and if it doesn't have, to make one. (I recommend Jersualem's entries in the LP Archive to see what I mean.) The video setup is a corruption of it; if you were still trying to tell the story, the commentary would be superflous.

[Mongoose]

See, that's where we'd have to disagree.  I do see value in creating a story for a game which has none, which is one of the main reasons I found Boatmurdered to be such a fascinating read, and I could see a similar value in a game where the story is largely divorced from the gameplay, like some types of RPGs.  But for a game like FreeSpace, where the gameplay largely is the story, I see no real inherent value in trying to form a narrative out of events that could provide far greater involvement when shown visually.  SuperCoolAI's videos allowed the viewer to experience the progression of Blue Planet's plot while also displaying the fantastic set-piece missions that drove it along.  A textual description of the same could capture the former, but it would fail at conveying anything but the smallest portion of the latter.

But as I noted above, this discussion is largely moot, since I'm planning on finishing out this campaign regardless. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any good way to record just my voice in one program while recording just the game data in Xfire, so I'm probably going to be stuck with fooling around with volume settings.

[Kosh]

What do you use to record this stuff? Fraps?

[Mongoose]

It was Xfire's built-in video-recording functionality.  The free version of FRAPS only lets you record for 30 seconds at the time, and I don't exactly have the spare cash to purchase the full version.  Xfire did a decent job at not utterly destroying my framerate while playing, and the resulting encoded video was surprisingly high-quality for its small file size.

And yes, I probably should have done something more with this before now, but my mind is incredibly fickle. Maybe I can try another mission or two over the next few days.  Last time I checked, I couldn't figure out any feasible way of splitting out my voice from the in-mission audio, so I may just have to bite the bullet and turn down the in-game volume settings until I can actually be heard.

[utops]

@Mongoose
Where did you get voice acting in your copy of DoP ?

[Mongoose]

The original FS1 release did include partial voice-acting, but the FSPort re-release added in a few missing roles.