Camtasia Question

[tdewitt274]

I have a friend that has finally warmed to the idea of Fantasy Grounds. We have started to do adventures in a face to face environment. He is interested in also making the transition to a f2f->fg2 configuration, but will need some help (he's a non-techie). So, I figured the best way is to do screen captures and pass them along. Depending on how they turn out, I could upload them on YouTube as "training documents". But, one step at a time.

I'm thinking about purchasing Camtasia Studio 8 and was wondering if someone could help me with one last question. I did put the below question into the TechSmith folks, but I also wanted opinions of people that may use the program.

Here's the question I have:


"I was wondering if it was possible to bring multiple Camtasia 8 camproj files into a new Camproj. For example, I will be recording two monitors. I would like to edit down the "left" monitor and the "right" monitor into two detail projects. Then, bring both into the "summary" project. In the Summary, I can increase the size of the clips as needed to get the right perspectives (ex, the left is "admin" and the right is "user") to show the experiences that happen on both sides in real time."

Thoughts?

I'm aware that doing a screen capture across two windows will increase the file size, but I believe that my GM/Player approach will bring down the final results in the long run. I know that ALT+Tab is also an option, but sometimes it's better to see the interaction happen side by side. Even if this isn't the best approach, I do some coding and it would make sense for some things to have this kind of interface.

Any feedback is appreciated!

Thanks

Todd

[Griogre]

The short answer is: I don't think you will get the effect you want if you want to see the text on the screen clearly.

The problem I think you will find with showing two screens is you are not going to be able to read the text unless your friend also has two screens in the same resolution. Camtasia has a really neat feature where it zooms in to where the action is so the text can become readable and you can actually adjust the area shown but with all the zooming that is going to happen on 2 screens is likely to defeat the whole purpose of the side by side comparison.

I believe that a better approach would be showing the either the host or player version, depending on what you are talking about, in a window and dragging in the other version from time to time into the recorded area to show the differences.

You might want to play around with Jing to see if it will do what you want instead of Camtasia. They are by the same guys but Jing is limited to 5 minute videos in flash but is very easy to use at the expense of being less powerful.

[tdewitt274]

Thanks for the reply, Griogre! Out of curiosity, what version are you running? Based on the Camtasia 8 tutorials, it looks like the video area is pretty flexible (zooming and panning). It may come down to downloading the free tutorial and messing around with it.

I did look at Jing, but I would prefer to have the editor as well. It looks like SnagIt may be a better option (unlimited duration) than Jing, although with a price.

Here's the reply that I received from TechSmith:

"You can import multiple Camtasia projects into Camtasia Studio, but first you need to produce the individual projects into an MP4 or other format, so they can be imported."
This isn't what I was hoping, but that's what I thought they would suggest. I'll have to look at the video resolutions and see how big I can make it to see if it is affected by the issues you are describing.

If anyone else has any ideas or suggestions, feel free to chime in!

Thanks again!

Todd

[damned]

im thinking you might be better off just running a session with him.
have your 2nd instance running on your computer so you can see what he says and just work your way around the screen...
mind you - making the video means he can go back and review whenever he needs it and you could make it available to others for learning too...

can you setup your second monitor and EXTEND the desktop.
open FG and load campaign, dont maximise window - but stretch it to appropriate size staying within one screen, launch second fg instance and connect to localhost and move to second screen and set to appropriate size.
then use your camtasia to capture both fg windows and you will see both gm and player experience at exactly the same time...
it will be a big file though!

[tdewitt274]

im thinking you might be better off just running a session with him.
have your 2nd instance running on your computer so you can see what he says and just work your way around the screen...
Good point. That's the way that I would be recording the video. I'm breaking him in slowly. He likes the idea of FG (his idea for me to run my game this way), but isn't ready to jump in just yet. He's currently playing in the f2f game. From there, I'll need to do other tutorials on how to make maps, set up campaigns, etc. I'll be passing along the links to existing videos as well. No sense reinventing the wheel! He has his eye on the Rise of the Runelords as a game he would want to run to get his feet wet (a tall task, even for me ;)).


can you setup your second monitor and EXTEND the desktop.
open FG and load campaign, dont maximise window - but stretch it to appropriate size staying within one screen, launch second fg instance and connect to localhost and move to second screen and set to appropriate size.
To Griogre's point, that will make the text quite small. From a YouTube perspective, the image will be scaled and have black bars on the top and bottom, really small windows. My thought was to approach it like a "picture in picture" and then scale up/down the images as needed. They had a good example (10 seconds in) (https://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-camtasia-8-06-apply-smartfocus-zoom-pan.html) of what I was thinking (disregard what they're talking about) and 2:48 in (https://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-camtasia-8-09-visual-properties.html) for the "video in video" that they suggested.

I think doing the "picture in picture" would keep the size pretty small on the output and help with the visibility. It won't be used all the time, as there really isn't a need except to show specific examples (ie, showing the how the Tower works). I'm not too worried on the overall pre-production size, I have a few TB drives sitting around.

[Griogre]

I have Camtasia 6, I don't use it much so I never upgraded it. Definitely try a demo for 8 but I've personally found that if your recording area gets too large you can't read the text without being zoomed in and if you are always zoomed in it kinda defeats the purpose of recording a large area.