nexusletum on 21/3/2014 at 05:12
Quote Posted by Woodsie_Pagan
also i hate when people cut there videos all over the place,every time i see a cut in a video i figure they are running to ttlg to check out the walk through lol,i see it happen a lot,cause usually right after the cut they do exactly what they were suppose to but before cut they had no clue
Honestly, a lot of the cuts you see are them cutting out the multitude of tries to figure it out. Then they keep the last take from that point in. I do this a lot because most people don't want to watch someone screw up over and over. People will get frustrated watching that for more than 5 minutes. Heck people will get frustrated with someone fiddling around trying to figure out something for 5 minutes. At its core, we are trying to entertain. Are you actually, legitimately entertained watching someone fail to complete a puzzle for 20+ minutes, or would you rather they cut to the point where they figure it out? There's no middle ground between those two. On the other hand, if you do enjoy watching people struggle to do something, you might enjoy watching speedruns being streamed on Twitch. A lot of those guys fail to complete a run quite often when they try to get the record.
Quote Posted by Woodsie_Pagan
so my final thoughts i rank supreme ghost about as high as i do for taco bell being good Mexican food
That's hardly fair. Just because it's not what you think is the biggest challenge doesn't make it terrible. It's hardly an easy task either. It doesn't require any more skill to do your way either IMO, just takes more time to do it.
Quote Posted by Woodsie_Pagan
one last thing ,here is a situation i will give and you all tell me what you view is on it,,if a person is supreme ghosting and say they miss a jump,and say they had to save/load state 5-10 times to get the jump right,, would you concider that person a supreme ghost ?
and if a person completed a mission on supreme ghost and used say 100 load states,do you think say if you did it with no saved,ofocurse figuring both you and the person had no game gliches,that the results mean you both did it?
Yes and yes. They achieved the goals set before them, one went above and beyond. Is one more admirable than the other? Yes again. It is awesome and amazing if someone can Iron Man Supreme Ghost a mission, particularly a Fan Mission. It requires a lot of knowledge of the map, game engine, and proper equipment use. The key factor here is the knowledge, you will not be getting successful first time blind runs here, which some people prefer above all else. But doing it your way doesn't devalue the save state run in the same way someone speedrunning a game doesn't devalue someone else just playing the game normally, but quickly.
But to put it simply, Deathstalker Deceased has done Iron Man runs and he's had times where it taken 27 tries (20+ hours) to finish a mission just Iron Man. You throw in Supreme Ghost to that and that person won't be posting videos for easily a month at a time. That's an awful lot of time to devote and an awful lot of time for you to have to wait to see something worth watching. It's not something I'd be able to do that's for sure.
downwinder on 21/3/2014 at 08:47
nexus,i read everything you posted,i think you missing my point,you said ohhh they say cut video to put out stuff to save time,from figuring it out
then couldn't i say why not learn the mission first then record it so you know how to give the best experience to the viewer
i just think this so called hardest thief runs are not so hard when you get unlimited trys and also can cut out hours of mistakes.
and as far as what people like on youtube ,i am sure its about 15 min vids unless they real fans of something
when i see most playthroughs it just makes me want to load up mission and say this is how its done lol
klatremus on 21/3/2014 at 13:44
@Woodsie_Pagan:
Again, I totally agree with you that Supreme Ghosting with no saves is much harder than with saves. Still, that is not the way I want to play because I would probably have to replay the first part of each mission 100 times. I agree it would probably make me a better and more cautious Thief player, but it wouldn't make good Let's Plays.
I don't understand what you mean about movie cuts. The two movies I have up so far have one cut in each video. I recorded one video over two days and the other had a restroom break in the middle. Assuming that players look at walkthroughs during those cuts is rather strange. I can't speak for other players but I know
exactly what I'm gonna do for the entire mission before I sit down to play. I have a printed loot list (that I made myself) and a few notes on the order of things to do.
Other than that I understand most of your points and agree with quite a few of them. I think it's mostly a matter of different players simply enjoying different playing styles.
Quote Posted by Woodsie_Pagan
so my final thoughts i rank supreme ghost about as high as i do for taco bell being good Mexican food
Is this what we call constructive criticism?
downwinder on 21/3/2014 at 14:46
klatremus so you know i was not talking about you but other youtubers i seen,i posted this many time on this board :)
when i am talking about cuts ,i mean i will be watching someone try to figure out a section in a mission then you can tell they have no clue what to do as i done the mission,so then all of a sudden there is a cut in film and next thing you know they head for area they need to get to,to pass the part ,like god spoke to them during that cut in film lol
i happen to like your playthrough cause that mission is such a bastard,it took me a long time and ofcourse a walkthrough to win it as so many things were out of the box compared to most fan mission,i was spoil them,but when i was watching to i found myself talking outloud say ohh do this here and no go that way :)
and my taco bell comment was random,just kinda fit with wording,not ment toward you
i would never come on here to insult your hardwork
klatremus on 21/3/2014 at 15:10
Don't worry, I didn't take anything as an insult. I do not take offense easily. But I did think you meant my videos for some of your comments. First, you were talking about Supreme Ghost. As far as I know nobody else records supreme ghost runs on YouTube. Plus this thread is specifically about my youtube channel, kinda hard not to think these comments were directed (at least in part) at that.
Like I said earlier however, I do appreciate your input. It's interesting to hear different players' views on their favorite (or most challenging) Thief style.
Keep taffing :thumb:
Tannar on 21/3/2014 at 16:01
Also, regarding the movie cuts, the ghosting rules do not allow you to go to TTLG or any other source for help. You are not allowed to use walkthroughs or lootlists (unless you make it yourself from your own experience) or seek any other form of outside help. So while that may be right and that is happening in some Let's Play videos of Thief, it isn't happening in any ghosting video. This is, of course, based on an honor system but the ghosting community is pretty small and everyone is well known to each other and we take this stuff seriously.
nickie on 21/3/2014 at 17:14
Must say I'm enjoying your Calendra's Legacy LP, klatremus. Fascinating watching your ghosting as I'm a 'knock everyone' out type of player - when I'm allowed of course.
smithpd on 23/3/2014 at 00:21
I enjoyed very much watching your supreme run in Calendra's Cistern. As you know (I am Peter Smith at Eidos), I have read many of your written reports, but it is nice to see your supreme style in action, along with the commentary. I look forward to Calendra's Legacy.
These LPs bring back some memories. I played Calendra's Cistern when it first came out, and I beta tested Calendra's Legacy. That was a privilege. I am pretty sure I ghosted them both by the normal ghosting method. I don't remember exactly how I got past the zombie after the fight in the shrine.
I am amazed at your recording a 4+ hour video in high resolution. If you would care to release your trade secrets, I'd like to know about your method. What software did you use for screen capture and video editing, what codecs and resolutions did you use (time and space), and what hardware for processing? Also, what are the file sizes at various stages, and how do you upload the presumably huge video file to YouTube?
I've done a few short videos, never uploaded to YouTube, and they were demanding enough.
klatremus on 23/3/2014 at 03:28
Good to hear from you Peter :D
Glad you enjoyed Calendra's Cistern. It's been a joy to replay a few of these oldies with the updated engine and textures. Almost like playing a brand new mission. I am really looking forward to the remaining Legacy mission.
I use Fraps 3.5.99 for recording. I use a blank 500GB WD hard drive for any temporary recordings. At 30fps with full 1920x1080 I can get a maximum of 5hrs gametime before I run out of space. That has been enough so far. My raw Cistern file was 480GB I think. I use Freemake Video Converter 4.1.1 as my encoding software. It's free, easy to use and fast. You can record into multiple of formats and save edited projects or merge files into one without any hassle. I convert to MPEG4 using the h264 codec (already built into the software) @ 8,000kbps bitrate. That's the only settings I have to alter, as I keep the original resolution and fps. I have a basic Plantronics USB headset that keeps out background noise with clear voice recording. Encode to AAC audio at 48khz and 320kbps. One-pass encoding takes a little less than real time, so my 4.5hr Cistern file took about 4 hours to encode. My resulting file was 16.5GB. Took about 8 hours to upload and another day for YouTube to reencode.
Hope that answered your questions :)
Edit: Oh, and my rig is Intel QuadCore i5-750 2.67GHz, 8GB RAM, Win7 x64, ATI Radeon HD6970 2GB
smithpd on 23/3/2014 at 09:48
Thank you, klatremus. :) That information gives me some clues why the video creation has been a problem for me.
First of all, you may be interested to know that I found a recording (capture) program called Bandicam that makes much smaller file sizes than Fraps. I haven't optimized parameters yet, but I guess you might do 50 MB / minute x 240 minutes = 12 GB files for the recording instead of 480 GB. It has a variety of recording codecs including H.264, which comes with a CUDA algorithm (not required to use it), which means that Nvidia video cards can accelerate the calculations. You can try Bandicam for free. It has a watermark that goes away if you pay for it (I did).
My problem is a computer that is too slow. This can interfere with the recording. Videos look OK if I just walk around, but performance of Thief can be degraded. For example, in Black Frog's first mission, which has quite low FPS in the first place, I can no longer mantle in one place if I am recording at the same time. I am using a several-year-old Core 2 duo CPU with Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT. This is a good setup for playing Thief but not so good for video recording and editing.
I have been editing with VSDC Free Video Editor. This works well to add color (gamma) correction and other effects and to output with different codecs. Unfortunately, as I write this, it is chugging along at 3 fps conversion rate (with a 30 fps recording) using most of my 3 GB RAM, so that is only 1/10 of real time.
You helped me to realize that I needed to specify significant kbps output. The default for VSDC is 1600 kbps for high quality, which is actually quite poor quality at high resolutions. So with your clue I can now get good quality Thief recordings at the expense of low fps conversion rates.
I guess it is time for another computer if I want to do this.
