Video Tutorial Setup

Video Tutorial Setup

Hello,

For the video tutorial makers here I thought it might be good to start a thread
to see what you have found to work well for recording your tutorials. (Screen
capture program of choice, output resolution, frame rate, compression, codec
etc... do you like your workflow?)

I haven't settled on any of the above yet but if I get some tutorials up and
have some feedback from any users I will post that information here. I am
currently going to try to use Screenium or Camtasia (both not free) since I
already own them and possibly iMovie or Motion for any post processing of
the tutorial videos.

Feel free to post your own experiences in this thread. Thanks to all of you who
already post any tutorials for sharing your knowledge with the rest of us.

:icon_thumbup:

Cheers!

I've only done one video tutorial, but it was pretty straight forward. I wanted to create a tutorial that required no editing or post, so I used Quicktime - which has a built in screen capture and it uses the built in microphone on your computer. One trick before recording any screen capture is to change your actual screen resolution in your Mac Settings to whatever is closest to 1280x720 (in the case of my non-retina MacBookPro it was 1280x800). This is necessary for Quicktime because it will automatically capture at the resolution your screen is at which can be huge on some computers, and then you have to convert it before upload.

Another reason to do this is for the sake of readability. I have noticed on some video tutorials that capture at a high resolution and then resize at conversion is that text can be hard to read because it is now so small. If you capture at 1280x720, that problem is eliminated (I guess you could capture at 1920x1080 as well, but 1280x720 appears more universal at this time).

Have a plan before you record so your actions can be pretty direct.

I personally like talking tutorials over silent ones, but I understand that may not work for everyone. Some steps are not absolutely intuitive for the viewer, with a voice over I KNOW what or why they are doing something. In silence, I sometimes need to watch the tutorial over a few times to figure out what they were doing - Especially if they are doing a lot of keystrokes.

I made the choice of doing a lot of mouse work (instead of quick-keys) so the viewer can SEE what tool(s) I am selecting and I would be verbal when doing keystrokes like copy and paste. I personally think this is important even if your capture software shows the keystrokes because Cheetah offers customization of your keys.

Re-watch tutorials that you like - emulate some of the things you enjoy.

Most of all - Have fun!!!!

Cheers

I use screen flow. It has fantastic features but it's expensive.

Good tips on screen capture, thanks.

Some video tutorial ideas

Great topic; an essential tool for learning the 3D craft.

I think I am a fairly typical Cheetah user in that I find 3D exponentially harder to learn than Photoshop or Bryce. The chief shortcoming with Cheetah has always been the lack of a manual. I have bought both Tonio Loewald’s Learn 3D book (PDF version) and Andrew Heyworth’s videos. Both are good.

But I have found it worthwhile to make my own videos, 62 so far, focusing on specific tools, scripts, techniques, or effects. As much as I usually prefer text and pictures printed on paper, the videos work better for two reasons:

First, most of the effects I try to achieve require a long sequence of actions, using multiple tools, and with precise settings.

Second, I am an amateur, using Cheetah sporadically over the years. I need to review the videos to remember what I learned some time before. What seemed obvious and easy in 2012 is barely a faint memory now that I need it in 2014, but it comes right back after watching the video.

So here are a few tips that might accelerate the learning process:

I have a 13” MacBook Pro, 1280 X 800, OS X 10.6.8. I use the free QuickTime 10 player to make the screen recording and QuickTime 7 Pro version ($30?) to do simple editing. A Blue Snowball microphone is cheap ($40?) and excellent. The Mac is silent — no fan noise. I prefer a mouse to a touch pad.

Preparation is critical. After figuring out all the actions and settings to be described, I write step-by-step notes, numbered 1-2-3 ... for a “script” so I don’t skip something and have to re-do or edit the video. Cheetah is full screen, with materials and the animation tools hidden if not relevant to the subject. I avoid keyboard shortcuts and use the menu commands so everything is visible. The Cheetah .jas file is set to show the objects from the best angle, close up, usually with the grid turned off and using a material that heightens visibility — pure white or a black-on-white wireframe. The final render is done ahead of time, or I splice it in when editing.

The voice track is invaluable in noting details that might be confusing, such as settings or anything that was difficult to figure out. This is the whole point: it sometimes takes me hours of frustrating trial-and-error to get something to work. Once recorded, it’s now a skill to be used efficiently.

I keep the original .mov files. The quality is excellent when played back full screen, and they are not huge files, around five to eight MB per minute. Quicktime 7 can convert them to MP4 files, but I don’t need that. I suppose you could use iMovie, but I keep it simple.

Give each video a descriptive title and also keep the related .jas file with a matching title, so you can refer to it or possibly re-use it for another video.

Thanks to all of you on the forum who freely contribute your knowledge. I have posted some pretty good materials at http://www.emit.org/c3d/1-4.html. Maybe I will post my videos down the road.