Revised 4E Video Tutorials

[ShadeRaven]

Anyway, Human Male. It sounds a lot like my normal voice, only a little deeper and fuller. The love of my life says it sounds sexy, so there wasn't much thought in it after that. :P

So, does she get that look in the eye and give you that signal... "Go fetch the headset, hon...."

PS: Awesome work, incidentally...

[Xorn]

Completely redid the Player Quickstart (new voice, also). Please review and comment if you get the chance!

P.S. No comment, Shade. :P

[Xorn]

Well I'm definitely not going to do a YouTube set for these; with the maximum of 10 minutes per clip I'd have to split these up like crazy, while I can just put the whole video up on Livestream (and add links to download a WMV).

On another note, I've started fiddling with the WMV format I'll save them with, and it's 1024x576, and even with only 141 Kbps the text is still legible! (This translates to ~1MB per minute, which is tiny considering the quality!) I've put up a WMV link for the first tutorial but none of these are final yet. The other three will be like the Player Quickstart in the next day or two.

I'm interested if others think the WMV is good enough quality (I'm excited to keep the file size small) and then I'll keep the high quality upload on Livestream.

(Oh, and I finished the cartoon dungeon master intro for giggles.)

[Zeus]

Videos are looking sweet Xorn! Great work.

Maybe Smiteworks could consider hosting a channel at Livestream? A Livestream channel dedicated to FGII could be a great medium for advertising/showcasing products, running tutorials and how to guides, hell you could even use it host a mini VTT con just for FGII users.

From what limited exposure I have had using Livestream, its all doable from within the Studio, just cue up all your videos click stream and your off. 24x7 Fantasy Grounds II web TV!

[Xorn]

You're right about that. Livestream Studio is what makes it so awesome. I have found though, the uploading videos really doesn't turn out that well--it re-renders them on their server and always bumps them up to 24 FPS (cutting the quality in half) and usually resizes the video, too. That's why the Player Quickstart looked so fuzzy and blurry when I rendered it then uploaded.

So I have the offline WMVs (~1MB/min) now, and I'll also record a 1024x576 12 FPS 500 kbps feed (~3.8MB/min) on Livestream.

Even right now, on my FG2 channel, I have three of the tutorials playing on a continuous loop, plus all of them are available for on demand viewing. My biggest issue with LiveStream is the ads (although Firefox + Adblock Plus solves that).

I'm re-recording Hosting Games tonight (new title) with the same format as the new PQ, including the zoom-n-pan settings. I'll plan to remake the Campaign Management on Thursday, and a final cut of the example of play on Friday. (I can put up the example of play now if folks want to see it, but it's in the gnome voice and I don't have the clips trimmed and marked up yet, just a raw collage.)

Feedback so far (other than the voice) has basically been "great work!" both here and on PMs so I'm hoping these are ready for finalization by this weekend.

[Xorn]

Alright, I finished the possibly final cut of Hosting Games, and posted the WMV offline video already. The live stream recording got interrupted this evening (internet dropped a sec) and I don't feel like staying up an extra 30 minutes to re-stream it. I'll get the Livestream clip up in the morning.

Tomorrow is D&D night so it will likely be Thursday before Campaign Building is redone. Since I don't expect it to take that long (I moved a lot of what was in that to Hosting Games), I'll probably do the sample encounter video on Thursday as well, and be done!

[Xorn]

"Hosting Games" is finished and the stream has been recorded and placed in video-on-demand. I left out the "Welcome to the FG2 Hosting Games..." clip at the beginning when I rendered the WMV so I'm re-rendering now and I'll get that uploaded while I'm at work today. Thursday I'll finish the revised Campaign Management & Example of Play tutorials finished.

Any recommendations for the title of the Example of Play? I just don't care for that one and a little OCD birdie told me it should be two words and "feel" like the previous three titles. Maybe a take on the "D&D Encounters" theme, like... "FG2 Encounters!" Woot, I just named it!

Anxious for comments on the second clip, I moved a lot of stuff from the Campaign Management tutorial into Hosting Games, and really tried to boil it down to straight "here are your tools and how to use them" format.

[Xorn]

Fixed and re-uploaded the WMV clip for Hosting Games. Added a news ticker to the bottom of the autoplay feed (it doesn't show in VOD viewing), plus added some links to the channel page.

[Talen]

I just watched both of the redone videos - I always pick up something new, but geez, you've made me want to run the 2.7 beta update - I love the new functionality (the chat window effects especially).

[Thanin]

Great videos but man, theres no reason to hate your voice! Your normal voice is great for tutorials, much better than the pitch altered.