Hi all,
I've been contemplating a lot recently about recording and uploading Lemmings videos to my Youtube, so I decided to check out OBS. This wasn't recommended to me by anyone. Rather, from what I can gather in the forums, most seem to be using OBS to record, hence why I know about it. Initially, I had problems with a black screen for the display capture, but thank goodness for video tutorials on how to fix this. It's just like the person in the tutorial said, the problem is that my laptop is choosing my NVIDIA GPU rather than the Intel GPU to render it. Once I followed the steps to fix it, I was able to get my laptop display to show in OBS. I did a couple of video recording test runs with OBS, and it works swell!
It was much easier to setup than I thought it would be, so I absolutely agree, OBS is very easy to set up, only takes a few minutes. I did have a problem figuring out how to start recording when I'm in NL and how to stop it after a level is solved, but that's an easy fix thanks to another OBS tutorial I saw, which is simply assigning a hotkey to them. I currently have start recording to F1 and stop recording to F2. Only thing I don't like is that F2 is also the key to bring up the level select menu. So, what would you suggest as hotkeys for starting/stopping recording?
With this, I may be jumping on the wagon of recording/uploading videos of Lemmings to my Youtube soon. For one thing, my Youtube channel can certainly use more content. All that's currently on there are about 10 videos, most from way back in 2008. However, don't expect me to record videos of any other games, as my channel will mostly be limited to Lemmings videos. For another, since this community seems to think that I'm one of the better solvers of Lemmings level packs (not trying to toot my own horn here, just simply what I gathered from the feedback and praise from others I've gotten on my own
My Solving Abilities topic), I'm sure this will be much appreciated, not only by the community, but also for pack authors of packs that I'm covering. Not to mention another forum member covering packs via video
This is where I would like your input: the format my Lemmings videos should take. In order of preference, I can do 1) silent ones, where I simply upload my solution of the level, 2) post-commentary, where I upload my solutions, as well as give my thoughts/feedback on the level, or 3) blind playthrough of a level pack, either with or without commentary. Since I currently live with my elder folks, #1 is the easiest for me, since both #2 and #3 will be quite difficult for me to do in peace. The only way I can get around that is by recording late in the evenings. Of course, I could video edit, but as I'm not very good at it and prefer to avoid doing it, that's pretty much out of the question. At the same time, I love giving feedback, as you can tell by the huge posts that accompany when I post my replays, so I can certainly do #2 or #3. If I decide to go the audio commentary route, do expect a lot of fumbling and a lot of pausing in between voicing my thoughts, as I'm not very good at quickly thinking on my feet, but I don't mind, as I've seen from the other videos of LPers that we all get stuck in articulating our thoughts from time to time. Obviously, some are naturals at it, but we all seem to run into a block in our thoughts every now and then.
Also, for recording audio, do any of you use anything else in addition to OBS? Or do you just use OBS? From what I can gather, most seem to say that the audio recording is not so good with OBS. If that's the case, what software do you recommend for recording audio? At the same time, in my own video recording tests, the audio with OBS isn't too shabby, so I might just use OBS only for the audio too.
In regards to streaming, I think that's pretty much out of the question, since I prefer to solve levels in peace, as well as figure out the solutions on my own. Nevertheless, I might give it a try just for the experience. Now, I do have a question, and that is are Youtube and Twitch streams the same in that only the person recording can be heard, while the rest can only interact via chat? Are there advantages/disadvantages of Youtube vs Twitch? The other problem, of course, is finding a good time for people to make the stream, but of course I would announce the date and time in advance. I'm just not sure if late evenings are fine for people, since that tends to be the best time for me to record.
Along the same line, I wonder if I would be a welcome addition to joining a Lemmings stream and providing help if the person is stuck on a level. The problem I see with this are with packs that I haven't myself played yet. In this case, I can probably just not join, since nothing will be spoiled for me this way. It won't be a problem if it's a pack I already played, since nothing will be spoiled for me anyway.
Finally, as to when I announce that I have videos up, I might just wait until I have a full rank of a pack uploaded first before providing my link. I might also wait until I get a newer laptop in about a month or so before recording and uploading videos. My laptop has a problem in that it's pretty much a nose cam due to the awkward placement of the integrated webcam on the bezel of the laptop. With the newest Dell XPS model, the webcam placement is finally in the right location, and so with that I might also do webcam capture videos as well in the future. Also, the audio quality might be much better as well, given that the speakers will be in a better location and supposedly the speakers are higher quality than they are in the current Dell XPS laptop I have.
Looking forward to doing this soon!