Recording Video

(RETURN TO MAIN PAGE)

This procedure assumes that you are using Nvidia’s Shadowplay feature on Windows to record video. We will use simple tools that come with Windows, but you can always get more advanced editing tools on your own (for example, VideoPad for the cheap or Camtasia or Final Cut Pro for the extravagant).

NOTE: Microsoft has recently fucked up their Photos and Video Editing applications. The new stuff limits to 1080p, which sucks. I’ll be updating this eventually. But you can use YouTube to trim video if needed. Or a cheap free video editor like Shotcut or iMovie. I recently bought VideoPad because I’m too lazy to move files between my PC and Mac, and I like being able to easily dethatch and slide audio to make up for stream lag or stream errors.

Why?

People on slow computers and connections can enjoy the full Debauche experience.
Not just for Second Life residents.
Choreos are too busy to enjoy their own work.
People with sound issues will get a smooth music track.
People unable to attend shows due to timing can watch the show.
There are no full sims in videos.
If the curtain doesn’t work, it will work in the video.
No waiting between acts.
No annoying annoying annoying television preacher hosts.
Videos never crash like a viewer. Or region.
YouTube, Vimeo, and Flickr don’t have a dress code.
You can wear all the facelights you want, you weirdo.

Schedule yourself off that day

Do not attempt to shoot while on stage. You will screw up. You need to be able to see the show chat and react:

Outfit fails
Alpha issues
Hoverheights
Crashes due to an overloaded system

Even if you have a second viewer or monitor or computer, you still can’t do both at once.

Let someone who isn’t distracted by a video shoot enjoy the moment on the stage. The audience deserve the best possible show, and they can’t get that when you’re not fully there.

If you disagree with this, YOU ARE WRONG.

When you’ve shot an routine before, and you’ve done it to your satisfaction, reward yourself with a little warmth from the spotlight then and only then.

Multicamera

If you like putting effort into your work, yes, you can use multiple alts to create a multicamera experience, using multiple camera views that you can edit between. However, keep in mind that every avatar generates a bit of lag, even if they’re an ARC of 1, alphaed out, or derendered.

Also, if the region is full, your camera alts are taking up space that others could have used to enjoy the performance.

Permission

It is important that you read the following document: Linden Lab Official:Snapshot and machinima policy.

You can take snapshots of pretty much anything and anyone. But you cannot take video without permission first.

Land/Region:
For Machinima, check whether the covenant for the land allows machinima. If it does not or doesn’t address machinima, then you need special permission from the land owner to capture machinima. If it allows machinima, then you do not need special permission from the land owner as long as you comply with any terms that may be in the covenant.

If a venue has not put this information in their covenant, ask them to. And be sure to screen capture their IM granting permission. And if they change their mind later, respect their decision.

Avatars:
For machinima, you must have the consent of all Residents whose avatars or Second Life names are featured or recognizable in the machinima. This includes avatars who are featured in a shot, avatars whose names are legible, and avatars whose appearance is sufficiently distinctive that they are recognizable by members of the Second Life community. Consent is not required if an avatar is not recognizable and is merely part of a crowd scene or shown in a fleeting background. Consent is not required for any snapshots.

An easy way to remember if you have been given permission to film an individual is to add them to a Contact List named Permitted. Color it a pale green. Then create one called Not Permitted and add anyone who has explicitly told you never to film them. Color it red.

Be sure to screen capture their granting permission and save it. And if they change their mind later, respect their decision and offer to take down any and all material including them.

If an individual or group explicitly denies you permission and you post videos anyway, they could report you to Linden Lab with a Terms of Service and Community Standards violation. However, reasonable individuals will just ask you to stop filming and take down the video… because we all know how everyone in SL is reasonable, right?

You also need to attribute and refer to Second Life and Linden Lab properly… learn their Trademark/Copyright guidelines.

EXAMPLE 1: You’re about to film group act. The venue has permission listed in the covenant and the emcee or host has said photos and videos welcome. They are speaking on the group’s behalf, so you’re good.

EXAMPLE 2: You’re about to film a choreographer’s act, but you can’t get into the venue because you’re banned. DO NOT USE AN ALT TO GET IN. Using alts to circumvent bans and banlines is a violation of TOS. Tell the choreographer, and offer to film them at another location. It’s no longer a you problem, and anything you say will just cause more drama. Let it go.

EXAMPLE 3: You’re about to film a group act. There are 5 dancers and you see 4 greens and 1 red. The one in red told you to fuck off and never speak to them or film them again. STOP FILMING. Politely tell the choreographer you cannot film because you do not have permission to film. It’s no longer a you problem, and anything you say will just cause more drama. Let it go.

This is why you should ever call a dancer a “mere mover rider” or “a simpering troglodyte fucktard” because they can shut you down hard.

Dedicated filming session

If the performers and you both have the time, why not arrange a dedicated filming session? I’ve been invited to film some stuff privately on low-lag sims now and then (just ask me). And I’ve been told that Petina does this with Monarchs so their performances. So, if it’s worth it to both of y’all, go for it.

Study others

The first thing you should do is watch videos that others have posted.

And not just of Debauche. Watch videos that R., Tristan Lyonesse, Blayies, Divine, Petina Auer, Avalief, AndyCam, Laura18, and other shooters capturing other groups. Take notes. Watch what they do and what they don’t do. Talk to them.

How do they frame the initial shot?
How much of the audio do they capture?
Is the music in sync and good quality?
Full screen or the application frame?
Lighting and shadows?
Windlight setting? Are the dancers visible?
Fade ins and face outs, or just the routine?
Do they keep the dancers in sync?
How much of the set matters?
How much do they move the camera?
Do they use shadows?
Do they disable physics, or is it bounce-a-rama up there?
When do they move the camera?
Do they add titles and credits?
Do all the textures render? Do all the particles appear?
Do they have any lag or other glitches on stage, but still post the video?
Do they cut together multiple takes of closeups and full stage shots?
When the camera moves, is it a natural flow and expected, or is it jarring and dizzying?
Is it a true capture of the performance, or is the capture a performance in and of itself?
Did the choreographer thank them in the comments or add likes to it?

The early days of television were just shooting full-stage plays… same with films, really. Broadcast media were just simple recordings of the theatre. And same goes for Second Life… just taking a full stage capture of a show lets the audience see the routine cleanly. It’s always good to get one of that. Once you’ve gotten the basic start-stop and lining up a camera settled, then let yourself play a bit and flow with the performance. Maybe splice them together in an edit. That way, you don’t need to worry about “Should I have done X this way?” Because we do repeat acts, so you’ll have more chances in the future (we hope).

You’ll notice that not everything I said was a good thing… missing textures, things not rendering. Because these things mean you’re not capturing what the choreographer and designer intends… maybe they’re mistakes on the part of the choreographer (bad outfit change strategy, failure to cache elements of the set or particles, etc.) and maybe they’re failures on the part of the person shooting the video. Learn from their mistakes.

Rehearsals

The best way to get an idea of how to shoot something is to watch it. Go to rehearsals and set your camera at full stage and then take your hands off the keyboard and mouse. Pull out a notepad and write up the moves and things you see and when they happen in the music. (You won’t have time to set up a stopwatch or look at your phone’s stopwatch feature).

These also will give you an idea of how something is lit so you know if you need to switch from midnight to daylight or sunset or some other setting.

Learn their styles

If you learn the styles and habits and dance moves and set designs that choreographers tend to do, you’ll be able to anticipate their moves.

Melli, for instance, does a lot of fancy footwork while on a slow rotation when in the round. Debauche tend to go full stage a lot. A few others love to walk or fly people into the audience.

Keeping in sync

It’s hard to keep all the dancers in sync. And a Sync Animations command will look abrupt.

My method is pretty simple: keep everyone in the frame and don’t zoom in too close or make any wild camera moves to cause the viewer to lose tracking.

Sometimes, a dancer will bleed off to the edge of a routine as I film, but as long as they don’t go too far off frame, they will stay in sync.

I’ll zoom in when a solo happens and everyone else stands still or watches, but timing that can be a chore.

Blah blah blah blah blah…

Some hosts/emcees give plenty of buffer time for you to start and stop filming. Geordie is the master of the dramatic pause, which not only allows you to start or stop recording with plenty of slop to chop out, but it gives the audience plenty of time to applaud without interruption.

Others, not so much (Do I have to name name name names names names?). They will ramble right up to the start of the routine, or they will crossfade the intro music into the routine’s music. Or, even worse, just as the music ends, they’re babbling over the final pose or movements.

If you have a decent 4K-capable editor, fade out the sound so future watchers of your video don’t have to listen to them talking over what should be the performer’s moment.

If you and the emcee/host have a good relationship, talk about it. Especially if you’re in that group.

If you don’t… in the end, if you’re a guest, you’re a guest. Don’t make commands and dictates. It’s okay to ask and suggest, but if they say no, do what you’re willing to do on your end within reason. (And you can always offer the choreographer to film at another venue or a dedicated session.)

Prepare Windows

Turn off all notifications on your computer. This includes Skype, Email, and other applications.

Click Start
Click Settings
Click System
Click Notifications & actions
Change Notifications to Off.

If you need email and messages, use your phone. Don’t clutter your recording computer with anything that might interfere with the capture (Discord, Facebook Messenger, etc.).

Norton! Bang! Zoom! Right to the moon!

Norton Anti-Virus can protect your computer from nasty things, but it’s a royal bitch to make it shut the hell up with its popups and banners.

Turn on Silent Mode for Norton AntiVirus for a day (right-click the icon, Turn on Silent Mode).

Then click Settings, Administrative Settings, turn on Full Screen Detection, turn off Norton Task Notification and Special Offer Notifications, and set Performance Monitoring to Log Only.

If it still disrupts your sessions, scream at their support team nicely.

(… freakin Norton!)

Set up the Firestorm interface

Then you need to go Fullscreen Mode in Firestorm to get rid of the Windows title bar and bottom tool bar:

Open Preferences (Control-P)
Click the Graphics tab.
Select the Fullscreen Mode checkbox.
Click OK.
Restart Firestorm.

This will remove the close box in the upper-right corner of Firestorm. You will need to use the menu option or Control-Q to quit Firestorm. Also, to switch back to the Windows desktop, you’ll need to use Alt-Tab.

I also recommend turning off interface sounds so you don’t get group and IM notification tones. BING BING BING BABYCRY BING APPLAUSE BING DAMN IT (You can also turn off gesture and other sounds if you don’t want applause and other baby talk getting in the video.) I have a Quick Preference for turning off the Buttons/UI noises… just create a checkbox for AudioLevelUI. Or you can turn off all sounds and just use Winamp or VLC or some other external player on the stream.

Use the shortcut Control-Alt-F1 to hide the Firestorm user interface.

Do NOT use the shortcut Alt-Shift-H to hide all HUDs. It will cause a particle storm in your viewer and won’t stop. Instead, remove all HUDs manually, or drag them off screen. (I made my Costume Assistant 95% transparent and dragged it to the corner. And to hide Performance Director… ugh, can someone else shoot my stuff please?)

Configure Shadowplay

The Alt-F9 shortcut in Shadowplay may trigger some gestures. It’s easiest to use Control-G and change those gestures to other shortcuts.

But when have I ever done the easy thing?

If you need to, you can change the shortcut or kill whatever gesture is triggered by Alt-F9. Heck, you can disable all of the shortcuts except for Alt-Z and Alt-F9 if you want to.

How to change the shortcut to Alt-Shift-F9:

Open Shadowplay with Alt-Z.
Click the gear icon in the far right to open Settings.
Click Keyboard Shortcuts.
Scroll down to Record >> Toggle manual recording on/off and save.
Click the shortcut so it turns green.
Hit Alt-Shift-F9. The shortcut in the box should change.

(I recommend that you disable all other shortcuts that you don’t need. Click each box and hit the Delete key.)

Click Back.

Let’s turn off all annoying Shadowplay notifications.

Open Shadowplay with Alt-Z.
Click the gear icon in the far right to open Settings.
Click Notifications.
Toggle off Notifications on top. All toggles will turn off.
Toggle on Recording has been saved to Gallery.
Toggle on Recording has started.

Record

Now you can use Alt-Shift-F9 to record video, and hit it again to save it.

Simple recording technique

Check remaining hard drive space to ensure you have plenty of room for videos and cache.
Set Fullscreen Mode in Graphics Preferences and Restart.
Instead of playing music through your viewer, use an external player such as WinAmp, VLC, or iTunes. (Second Life viewers will resync the connection to the music stream every 30 minutes, which causes a temporary pause in the music and will mess up your video.)
Turn off all SL Viewer sounds to get rid of applause and baby-talk and other noise… just use the external player.
Decide if you’ll derender the audience.
I suggest that you derender the curtain.
Disable Render Types for Trees, Water, Clouds, Sky, Surface Patch, Ground. (I use a Stream Deck button to macro this, but other free macro solutions are available.)
Cam around the stage, each dancer, any hidden parts of the set to cache textures.
Set your Windlight properly (usually Midnight).
Line up the screen so it’s level and catches full stage.
Remove all HUDs.
Hide the mouse pointer in the corner of the screen.
START RECORDING. Do this a few seconds before the routine starts so the banner vanishes in time.
When Geordie says “… those ladies of Debauche.” hide the interface.
Do any camera moves you want to.
DO NOT SNAP PHOTOS
Wait for the music to stop.
Stop recording.

Shadowplay will save the recordings in Desktop >> Libraries >> Videos >> Firestorm

SpaceMouse/SpaceNavigator

(Angel calls it a SpaceMoose.)

This 3D flycam mouse makes shooting a lot easier. Put it on your Amazon Wish List and ping R. (Say it’s your birthday. Or Christmas. Or you’re going to whip hosts who talk over a performance with the cord.)

Practice zooming in and out.
Practice panning left to right across a line of dancers.
Practice putting the camera full stage and parking it there.
Practice following a diva walking in and out.
Practice moving smoothly and slowly.
Make all your mistakes into moves… when you have a smooth technique, everything flows like water.

Use the bottom of the stage to frame the shot so it’s level.
Peek through the curtain and backstage to cache textures of the set and dancers.
It also helps find the center of the stage.
Mark the bottom of your monitor where the middle is.

After you learn all of the fancy things you can do, the thing you will learn is that the fewer moves, the better. Watch the videos of others who fly around a lot, make constant adjustments, and tweak this and that and such.

If you catch a rehearsal, you will know you’re not missing a move, so you’ll flycam to the right spots slowly, confidently, and be content to zoom in and out a little bit without too much disruption. (Says the idiot who will go into fast spin mode around shows in the round because she has no fucking idea what she’s doing in half of them. Cael’s Hot For Teacher was fun and great, but seriously, I had no clue what I was doing so I just yelled SPIN GODDAMNED IT SPIN!)

Simple Editing

If you hide the interface right after the host introduces the routine, you will have a good indicator when to chop the start of the video.

Open the file with the Photos application.
Click Edit & Create.
Click Trim.
Use the blue ball to shuttle the video forward and backward.
Locate a good starting point (when you remove the interface) and drag the left white ball to that time.
Locate a good ending point (before the host rambles on and on) and drag the right white ball to that time.
Click Save a copy.

Advanced Editing

Some people like to capture a silent video and then add the audio track themselves.
Also, some people like to add a title card.
To do advanced editing, you’ll need to do the following:

Open the file with the Photos application.
Click Edit & Create.
Click Create a video with text.
Give the file a name.

If things get out of sync, to use a custom audio track:

Click Custom Audio.
Mute the current audio track for the video.
Click Add audio file.
Select audio file.
Slide file to right start point.
Click Done.

To set a title card:

Click Add title card.
Give the video a title and click OK.
Right click the title card and click Edit, then click Text.
Enter a title for the video.
Select a style.
Click Background.
Select a background color.
Click Done.

And now let’s finish the video:

Click Finish Video.
Click Export.

YouTube

If you add a video of Debauche to YouTube, ask R. to add it to the playlist.

Music issues

After you post your video to YouTube, you will get an email telling you what copyright restrictions are on the music in the video. Most of the time, the publisher will let you use the music. However, there are some publishers like Disney and Don Henley/Eagles who are notoriously unfriendly with creative works that use their content. For those, you’ll likely get the video blocked. This shouldn’t hurt your channel because it will just apply to the video.

Adult content issues

Make sure that you mark your video not safe for kids. Even if you’re doing G-rated stuff in Second Life, it doesn’t take much for someone to take offense at something you post.

Also, for videos that show naughty bits or use music that is adult in nature (which is most of Debauche), you may want to set your video to 18 or older. YouTube’s bots and content censors will do this for you if you don’t, and if it happens too many times they may set your entire channel to adult-only.

X is better than Y

No. Stop it.

I’m not going to get into this kind of debate and judgement. Because we all have different preferences, styles, reflexes, and ways of looking at an routine. Me, Laura18, Ava, Katie, Alan Rocks, and everyone who takes the time and effort to film is already giving us something that is priceless and precious. Moments in time and memories that last.

(Within reason, I post any and all show links to the Debauche site. I mean, when your kid draws something in class, and you have no idea what animal it is… and it turns out to be you, you still put it up on the fridge, right? But if there’s an obvious outfit fail, the music is way out of sync, they’re an annoying git, etc… yeah, I’ll bin it.)

Examples of different expressions of directorial style:

For lighting, some prefer Midnight while others do Mid Day or Shadows or something else.

For perspectives, some do head-on full stage while others roam around or orbit. And still some prioritize keeping the group in sync while others let them go out of frame and desync.

For production, some like to add titles and credits while others let them stand alone as-is and put the information in the YouTube Description.

For audio, some include the host’s introduction and wrapup, whether it’s a routine of special meaning or I just couldn’t manage to dial them down at the end, while some do not.

For editing, some will combine multiple performances while others do just one shot.

For frame rate and resolution, okay… there’s differences. That’s just raw system power. Or the venue being lag hell.

We all have different approaches and motivations. And I think that kind of diversity is important.

So, you can say from a raw power perspective, I go full-bore overclocked to get 4K at high frame rate, cache the heck out of particles and outfits, and cam around a lot. I also like to post as soon as possible to I don’t have a backlog waiting for me. It only takes me about a minute or two to chop a video and then drag it to YouTube. And, no, I don’t expect people to drop everything and watch it right then and there… they just freaking did it, right… plus, it takes an hour or two to render into 4K for the full impact.

But sometimes, a full stage approach, a daylight lighting, or multiple takes edited, or having the titles and credits would add value when I don’t do them. Or an audio fadeout and a fade to black at the end. Because I’m lazy.

It’s not a competition. It’s a cohesion.

And if you think I’m the best, well, get better than me. nVidia

Compensation

So, how much should you charge? I don’t know.

This stuff isn’t free, right?

High-powered gaming computer (which needs to be replaced every few years).
Spacemouse (which needs to be replaced every few years).
Editing software.
High speed internet.
Time and effort.
Skills and talent have value.
Not giving a fuck when you get zero comments and three views.

Personally, I charge nothing. I have a good job, good savings, and enjoy the challenge of filming events.

However, I do have a price: respect, and that respect must be mutual.

(RETURN TO MAIN PAGE)