Windows Movie Maker Tutorial
From Tactical Wiki
This is a guide to using Windows Movie Maker for producing in-game footage. For an overview of producing videos of in-game footage from BF2/BF2142 and other games see the Video Production Overview Page
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[edit] Using Windows Movie Maker
An overall guide to using Windows Movie Maker can be found at Windows XP website: Get started with Windows Movie Maker
[edit] Add-On Transitions and Effects
Even though WMM does not include some of the more advanced features available in Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, or other video editing software there are several free custom add-on transitions and effects created by WMM enthusiasts and other users that enable some of these advanced features.
[edit] Using Add-On Transitions and Effects
These add-ons are implemented by including custom .xml files for use by WMM. Some of them are installed automatically with an installer, some need to be downloaded and copied to the proper folder. However, the majority of them (or at least the .xml code itself) can usually be found posted on a website, blog, or forum and then copied/pasted into a notepad document saved as .xml. The Windows Movie Makers Forums link below describes in detail how to find, include, and even create these .xml files.
Custom Transitions, Effects and Titles from windowsmoviemakers.net forums
[edit] Picture-In-Picture (PIP)
This add-on transition, like Split Screen below, is extremely useful for showing two simulatenous video clip sequences. Common applications are to show first-person (1P) Fraps footage on one side and third-person (3P) Battlerecorder footage on the other, two different players Fraps footage, etc. When applied, the output shows the full-size footage of one of the clips and a minimized version of the other usually placed in a corner of the screen (there are different transitions for different locations). Here is how to add this to your movie:
- Download the PIP (Picture In Picture) Transition and add it to your .../AddOnTFX folder.
- Start a new WMM project and Import the two video clips that you want to show simultaneously.
- Drag the two clips to the WMM Timeline and and trim each until they both start on or about the same frame and are the same overall length to sync them. The closer they are in length, the easier step 5 will be. Syncing can be tricky so take your time. Try to find a unique event in each clip that is easily identifable to use as a frame of reference. For Fraps/BR clips, these events could be server messages, explosions, tracers, etc.
- Place the clip that you want to be in the PIP to the left of the full-size clip.
- This is the most important step: Click and drag the clip on the right towards the clip on the left. You will see the blue transition bar on top of the left hand clip. Drag it as far as possible to the left without switching places. If your clips are exactly the same length, it will be easier to get them directly on top of each other. You may also want to zoom in the timeline as much as possible to assist in this as well. WMM will not allow the clips to be exactly on top of each other (there may be a 1-2 frame gap) but this is mostly unnoticable. It may take several attempts to achieve the best results.
- Switch back to storyboard view. You will notice that when you dragged the right hand clip on top of the other that WMM automatically applies the standard "Fade" transition between them. Delete the "Fade" transition and replace it with one of the PIP transitions from rehan.
- Play your movie in the WMM preview player to make sure you have achieved the desired result.
- Continue editing your movie as necessary, save it, and enjoy!
If you want to be able to change the size and placement of the PIP windows, you may want to consider downloading rehan's http://www.rehanfx.org/pipplus.htm PIP Plus Plug-In which has these features and more. At present, PIP Plus costs $8.00 and purchased through PayPal.
[edit] Split Screen
Split Screen, like PIP, is an add-on transition useful for showing simultaneous footage from different perspectives. There are a couple of different versions available. One is simpler but has an overal lower quality effect. The second is a little more complicated but looks much better in the end.
The first version is available in this thread Side-by-side Videos (Post #2). The final output of this transition when applied is a complete view of each clip side by side but each clip is "squished" vertically in order for them both to fit in a 4:3 aspect ratio movie. If you don't mind this squished perspective, this is the easiest way to do a split screen.
The second version avaible here: Rehan's Split Video does not "squish" each clip, however, it does cut-off each clip straight down the middle so a significant portion of the "action" part of the clip is lost. However, if an additional add-on effect is applied first, each clip is "shifted" to either the left or right side so the "action" at the center of each clip is preserved. The extra effect included with this method takes a little longer but results in a better final product.
Instructions for both versions can be found below (you may need to skip ahead depending on which version you apply).
[edit] Version 1 - Side By Side
- Create a new .xml in accordance with the "Side-by-side Videos" code as linked above and copy the .xml file to the .../AddOnTFX Folder.
- Start a new WMM project and Import the two video clips that you want to show simultaneously.
- Drag the two clips to the WMM Timeline and and trim each until they both start on or about the same frame and are the same overall length to sync them. The closer they are in length, the easier later steps will be. Syncing can be tricky so take your time. Try to find a unique event in each clip that is easily identifiable to use as a frame of reference. For Fraps/BR clips, these events could be server messages, explosions, tracers, etc.
- Place the clip that you want to be on the left on the right and the one on the right on the left (this is not intuitive but necessary unfortunately).
- This is the most important step: Click and drag the clip on the right towards the clip on the left. You will see the blue transition bar on top of the left hand clip. Drag it as far as possible to the left without switching places. If your clips are exactly the same length, it will be easier to get them directly on top of each other. You may also want to zoom in the timeline as much as possible to assist in this as well. WMM will not allow the clips to be exactly on top of each other (there may be a 1-2 frame gap) but this is mostly unnoticeable. It may take several attempts to achieve the best results.
- Switch back to storyboard view. You will notice that when you dragged the right hand clip on top of the other that WMM automatically applies the standard "Fade" transition between them. Delete the "Fade" transition and replace it with the "Side by Side" transition.
- Check your movie in the WMM preview player to make sure you have achieved the desired result. It may appear choppy because of the way the transition works but it will render perfectly once saved as a movie. If you proceed frame by frame you can check that everything is as it should be.
- Continue editing your movie as necessary, save it, and enjoy!
[edit] Version 2 - Move Left/Right & Rehan's Split
- Download the applicable transition as linked above. Download and install the additional required effect which can be found in this package: Neophyte's Downloadable Xmls .zip file (There are many effects in this downloadable!)
- Start a new WMM project and Import the two video clips that you want to show simultaneously.
- Drag the two clips to the WMM Timeline and and trim each until they both start on or about the same frame and are the same overall length to sync them. The closer they are in length, the easier later steps will be. Syncing can be tricky so take your time. Try to find a unique event in each clip that is easily identifiable to use as a frame of reference. For Fraps/BR clips, these events could be server messages, explosions, tracers, etc.
- Once the clips are synced save the current project, start a new WMM project by using "Save Project As...". For one project keep just one clip in one project, and copy the other clip from the timeline and paste it in the time line of the other (it doesn't matter which clip goes into which project per se).
- In storyboard view, apply the "Move left for 3 way split" effect to the clip in the project you want to appear on the left and save the project. Open the other project and apply the "Move right for 3 way split" effect to the clip in the other project you want to appear on the right. Save the project.
- Once the effect is applied to the clip in each project, save each project as a new movie file. I recommend using the highest level quality save setting possible (for .wmv, "Video for local playback (2.1 Mbps) is recommended - recording as DV-AVI yields overall better quality, but the slight difference in display size (720x480 vs 640x480) may cause difficulties)
- After you have saved each clip/project as a new movie file, I recommend saving each existing project and create a third "final" project. In this newest project, import both of the new movies you just created and drag them to the timeline. Place the clip that you want to be on the left on the right and the one on the right on the left (this is not intuitive but necessary unfortunately).
- This is the most important step: Click and drag the clip on the right towards the clip on the left. You will see the blue transition bar on top of the left hand clip. Drag it as far as possible to the left without switching places. If your clips are exactly the same length, it will be easier to get them directly on top of each other. You may also want to zoom in the timeline as much as possible to assist in this as well. WMM will not allow the clips to be exactly on top of each other (there may be a 1-2 frame gap) but this is mostly unnoticeable. It may take several attempts to achieve the best results.
- Switch back to storyboard view. You will notice that when you dragged the right hand clip on top of the other that WMM automatically applies the standard "Fade" transition between them. Delete the "Fade" transition and replace it with the "SPLIT: Vertical" transition from rehan.
- Check your movie in the WMM preview player to make sure you have achieved the desired result. It may appear choppy because of the way the transition works but it will render perfectly once saved as a movie. If you proceed frame by frame you can check that everything is as it should be.
- Continue editing your movie as necessary, save it, and enjoy!
[edit] Custom TG Effects
Content To be added.
[edit] Other Transition and Effects
Content To be added.
[edit] Tips & Tricks
If you have any tips and tricks for using Windows Movie Maker share them here!
