Film Tips


You might want to create an Oblivion film or maybe a small film sequence for your mod
Its all possible.
By following this short tutorial/list you can start making your own films in minutes


First of all you need

Fraps or Gamecam (two of the best free in-game recording programs out there) you can also take Screenshots - I use Fraps because i think its easiest to use. Note that both these makes watermarks and you have to buy to remove these.
find them here http://download.cnet.com/Fraps/3000-18541_4-10441285.html - http://v2.planetgamecam.com/?locid=downloadv2

A Video editing program - I have Sony Vegas. but movie maker or Imovie will do although they're not very good - Here you need to find your own

A bink Converter Program. Rad Tools is what the wiki says you should use xD
here's a link http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Bink_Video_Tools


Now you have everything you need And you can get all of these things for free, (note that video editing programs are not free but you can use moviemaker or imovie which should come with your computer for either windows or mac


When you film In-game then you might want to know these few tips


"Toogle Menu off" You do this by Opening Console (? button (the uppermost button to the right on your keyboard below esc) then type "tm" without "" and then press enter - This toogles your health bar, sleep menu exit menu inventory menu of. In short - All the UI and things which would not be in the real world)

"Move around freely" You do this by opening Console and type "tfc" without "" - this makes you able to fly around without your character. Note that if your character is in first person then you will be able to see thoose hands even trough buildings so remember to go in third person. Also the world will still "act" like you were where your character was, so if you continue to fly then the world won't update as if you were the camera. If you want to film your character then you won't be able to move him only attack but he will stand still on the point he were.

"Toogle Collision of" You do this by opening the Console, click on your character and type "tcl" without "" - This makes you able to move in every direction you want to move. You can move trough landscape objects and so on. So it works like "TFC" but you can by changing your speed and athletics choose how fast you want the camera to move. You could also create some items that changes your speed and athletics so you wouldn't have to type the code whenever you wanted to change the your speed.

"God Mode" Open console, click on your character and type "tgm" without "" This makes you invincible this is effective if you are in tfc and want to film a battle and don't want to die

"My own little special tip" The tfc is good but, has its bugs. This is just a small tweak which gives a very good effect, even though its sounds a bit wierd - To do it, try to die, then before the exit screen comes up, open console and click on yourself and then type "Resurrect" without "" then press tm so you toogle's of menu. then go into third person, now you have an invisible character and your camera has a "natural" movement. I really like the effect and i think you shall try it out.

" Become Invisible" do this by opening your console and type "player.saa 0" without the "" - This makes your character invisible. You could also create an empty nif item that uses all the slots and therefor makes your character Invisible.

What you want to film is something you need to do in CS like making a manuscript.


Film Tips

Take lots of shots! Even more than you think you need to use, when you're editing then you would have wished you had that specific shot and then you have to go ingame and find that part and re film it.
Try to use the same rules of film in-game as you would in real life. If you don't know them then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematic_techniques
Try to make it as short as possible - nothing is as boring as seeing a long film with no story or a little story, so fill your clips with a lot of story.
Do only use Film in-game if its very necessary, It takes a lot of space to add films to games

Use this tutorial to show your films in-game
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/PlayBink



Thats everything i could write for now. If you have some other tips or comments, then post them below


Hope it helps you filmmakers out there

VERY GOOD!

Thanks!

I wonder is a script could be written to your use your "invisible me" tip to kill the PC and resurect all with one button push.
I had to do numerous takes to get the footage I wanted for my last "movie" (for my Hammer-Blade mod") and I wondered if somebody
had already made a set of Oblivion movie making tools via scripts to do the things you are talking about doing via the counsel.


For example maintaining the camera on the player's left or right side so that you can have the freedom to press all the buttons you need to to fight effectively for the camera. I had to do a lot of finger juggling to get that shot for my movie.

Indeed, it is an awesome find...thanks.


It could work like feint death. Any suggestions on a key, or just using B as well?


Maybe one of these? http://tesnexus.com/downloads/search.php?name=camera&scid=20&author=&mname=&desc=&size1=&size2=&downloads1=&downloads2=&udate1_day=&udate1_month=&udate1_year=&udate2_day=&udate2_month=&udate2_year=&ldate1_day=&ldate1_month=&ldate1_year=&ldate2_day=&ldate2_month=&ldate2_year=&page=1&orderby=name&order=ASC.

If you don't want to film your character then an easier approach for the 'invisible me' trick would be to make an empty armor nif that occupies all slots. That will make the character invisible as well. You could bind the armor to a hotkey for quick access. I always use 'tcl' for making films instead of tfc since with tcl and modding speed/athletics you can control how fast the camera moves.

True.., Tcl ensures you that you don't have flying arms when you forgot to step out of 1st person and allows you to view things after a certain distance.
tfc is only useful when you want to do scenic shots or of your own character.
The changed camera when you're killed is awesome though. Perhaps a little mod that add these and some ideas that might come?

you want the player to be invisible, just type:

player.saa 0

and you will disappear.

All those 3 have different results ...The first and last are more similar, but have have still slight differences. (especially with collision.)

I wasn't aware FRAPS is free. I had to pay for my copy (full version of course).

The free version limits the clips to IIRC 30 seconds and also adds a watermark to the clips - So the full version is much better if you can afford the small cost (Plus the full version allows you to save your screens directly to .jpg instead of having to convert from .bmp when you want to upload them somewhere !!

Thanks for all the Positive response guys
I will update the Guide with all your good tips now ;D

this is an extremely helpful thread, so thnx for it!

Bump for film makers

Small bumpy

There is also no audio recorded with the free version.

It's also helpful to set down the mouse sensivity to a low level, giving the "camera" a more stable movement

I actually think its better to record most of you footage and then bring sound afterwards it helps on some points of the process of creating the movie but still, it takes time if you want to add footsteps and such

First of all a bump so people can read the tips

But secondly, I have made a video to my mod Barbada Island And I thought I would share it with some people who are also interested in filmmaking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_DazKhClpw


some notes:

When you film It will take up a lot of disc storage for this one it took 83 GB of my harddisc when I recorded it on a HD resolution (in-game) so take that in mind

Secondly when I edited the movie I was editing it on a good screen with a nice brightness and contrast but when you go on a bad screen a lot of it will be too dark.

Lastly because it takes ages to upload videos to youtube I rendered the movie so it took less harddisc but I ended up with having a video, that on youtube, had a bit too bad quality


Please tell me what you think of the video not the content