Comic Maker Requesting Advice

Hi. I am the creator of the World of Warcraft based comics "Trigonometry" and "Gnomeregan Forever."

I've jumped ship to FFXIV and decided to do a FFXIV based comic. However, I've run into a bit of a problem. The game doesn't allow me to take screenshots fast enough to get a nice selection of shots for my panels.

So, I want to know what folks use to record the game for their videos. This would help me tremendously.

I personally use Potplayer. It's a Korean (English version available) video player, but it also has a powerful screenshot tool like burst screen shots, you set up a start and end time and the number of shots you want taken and it takes x amount of shots. It also has a video recording tool in it as well. It can be a bit daunting to get used to the tools though.

Since you brought up recording video specifically:

If you have a Nvidia Geforce 600, 700, 800, or 900 series card (like the 970 GTX) you can use Nvidia's Shadowplay which comes with their Geforce Experience program (the one that you use to download drivers with). It's still a bit buggy and may not capture sound if you're unlucky, but I think it's still in beta. It runs pretty light and doesn't really cause frame rate dips in my experience with it. AMD may have an equivalent, not sure though.

Another free option is MSI Afterburner, which is primarily an overclocking program, but it's built in video recorder is pretty good and has good quality. The program can also be set to take screenshots with your choice of button presses (like alt+/ or whatever you want).

If you have the game in Steam, or want to add XIV as a non-Steam game, you can use Steam's built in screenshot taker as well if you want just screenshots. May take them faster than the one built into the game.

Both recording programs can be used to record desktop (non game) footage as well.

fraps is free and can be set to take one shot per second

Thank you all! I'll check them out.

btw... I'm not worried about sound. I'll be using the program to capture good quality video or screenshots specifically for making a comic.

Video making (machinima) may be down the road but not until I can do it right. No low quality stuff for my fans :)

I second fraps for quick screenshots. No experience with video capture though sorry.

Wanted to say though please do share your comics here, I love MMO comics. ^-^

OOPS! Sorry Kaelah! Didn't see your reply.

Here are the links to my comics.

http://gnomereganforever.thecomicseries.com/comics/116
http://trigonometry.thecomicseries.com/comics/286
http://kachonacho.thecomicseries.com/comics/3

Holy Twelve, I made 405 comics??? Have fun reading them. Enjoy!

I concur with recommending FRAPs as I use it for multiple games as it's small and easy to use - the thing to remember though is the free version only saves images in uncompressed Windows Paint (.BMP) format and if you start taking lots of screenshots you can quite easily start chewing up a lot of storage space, so you'll need to convert them separately into a compressed format like JPG or PNG with another program like Irfanview. Purchasing the software removes that restriction and allows you to choose what format the screenshots take.

Another thing to remember about taking screenshots with an external program (not just FRAPs) is technically you are not allowed to do so under the Materials License in the ToS - you're not meant to use a third-party program of any description, even for taking screenshots, but I think in this case it's more of a case of 'don't ask, don't tell', so... I will say no more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Another thing to remember about taking screenshots with an external program (not just FRAPs) is technically you are not allowed to do so under the Materials License in the ToS - you're not meant to use a third-party program of any description, even for taking screenshots, but I think in this case it's more of a case of 'don't ask, don't tell', so... I will say no more.

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EEP! Guess I better stick with the in game screenshot function.

*sigh*

Why's it gotta be so slow? :(