If you'd like to make machinima in Second Life, or if you simply want video of your avatar to share with friends, you need either hardware or software that does video capture. Today's column covers software video capture. This writer has tried four programs that range in price from free to $350.
The classic video capture software used by many Second Life machinimagraphers is Fraps (www.fraps.com). This writer has used it for about two years. It's simple, basic, and it works. It's also cheap - $37 for the full version. You can use it for free but are limited to shooting for 30 seconds at a time. This picture shows the Fraps screen for video capture settings on a Windows 7 system.
PlayClaw (www.PlayClaw.com), a newer contender for Fraps' leader position, costs even less - $29.95. It has some advantages over Fraps, such as being able to specify which core(s) it uses in multi-core CPUs and what level of compression to use.
The free video capture program is WeGame (www.WeGame.com), but this writer was unable to test it. Although it installed, it crashed every time he tried to run it. The problem might be that it was installed on Windows 7 64-bit. WeGame's requirements page only specifies 32-bit systems, so if you have a 64-bit system, you may be out of luck.
Camtasia (www.camtasia.com) is in an entirely different league from Fraps, PlayClaw, and WeGame. Those three simply perform video capture; you'll need other software for editing the video and posting it to the Web. Camtasia is a complete package that includes all of this, but for a much loftier price - $299 for the PC and $149 for the Mac; students can get a substantial discount: $179 for the PC and $99 for the Mac. Unlike the first three, Camtasia is a complete package. If you don't already have video editing software such as Final Cut, Premiere, or Vegas, this could make it a more compelling buy for you than it is for this writer, who uses Premiere Pro.
If you're interested in learning more about making machinima in Second Life, here are a few websites with helpful information:
- Torley's Guide to Making Movies! - wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Movie_help
- Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences - www.machinima.org
- Machinima.com forums - www.machinima.com/forums
- Machinima Artists Guild - slmachinimaarts.ning.com
Fraps, PlayClaw, Wegame, and Camtasia are all Windows programs; to learn about Mac and Linux video capture programs as well as additonal Windows programs, visit wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Movie_Recording
Comments
I was surprised that iShowU, iShowU HD and their Pro version counterparts weren't mentioned. As a Mac user, I was never able to use Fraps, and found this capture tool as a great alternative. I've used it in all the projects I've filmed myself. In expensive, starting at $20 USD, up to $59.95 for the pro version, it is the way to go for Mac machinimists. https://www.shinywhitebox.com/
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