LFS Record v2.0.10 beta ======================= Disclaimer : ------------ This software comes with no warranty whatsoever. If something breaks because of this software, the author can not be held responsible. Beta software disclaimer ------------------------- LFS Record is currently in it's beta testing phase. All of the planned features for this release are there, but there are still a few bugs that need to be sorted out. Requirements ------------ *Windows XP or up *.NET Framework version 4.0 or up. *A copy of Live for Speed (http://www.lfs.net/?page=downloads) What is LFS Record? ------------------- LFS Record is a video capturing tool for Live for Speed (www.lfs.net). With it you can control the camera inside LFS in any way you like, except it is limited to the so called "Shift+U mode"; the free camera mode of LFS. You can still create follow-cams though. LFS Record is meant to be used with an offline LFS. That means it will not be of much use to you as a live-camera tool. LFS Record works best with replays, or just plain free-camera mode, with no cars moving around (eg. for scenery captures). Key features ------------ *Record Live for Speed footage at any FPS, any available resolution and at the highest quality *Timeline animating of cameras, null objects and a replay control *Full 3D path editing with linear or bezier spatial interpolation (using linear temporal interpolation) *Keyframe easing *Layer parenting *Property binding *Create Null layers from replay data (MCI / car data) *Export as After Effects project *Import audio for easy syncing Missing features ---------------- Maya script export No sound recording (this will probably never be implemented due to the nature of how LFS Record captures footage. See below "How LFS Record captures footage") Known problems -------------- If you are playing back a replay with many cars, it may seem glitchy and jerky at times. This is a side effect of the way LFS Record plays back the timeline with a replay. It's a long story to explain, but it comes down to your computer not being able to keep up. The thing to remember is that when you record your sequence, it _will_ be smooth. Recording is done in a way that your computer is given all the time it needs to complete the instructions from LFS Record. Notes about FPS --------------- Although you can set the playback / recording FPS to anything between 1 and 100, if you record from LFS you will get the best results using an FPS that gives you a whole number if you divide 100 with it. That means that the following range of FPS values give smooth car motion : 100, 50, 25, 20, 10, 5, 4, 2, 1. This is because the physics engine of LFS runs at 100Hz. If you record a moving car at for example 30 FPS, its movements will not be smooth. How LFS Record captures footage ------------------------------- LFS Record does not capture LFS footage live. Instead it sets the state of the camera (and optional replay) for every frame of your animation individually and then saves a screenshot of LFS. So you end up with a collection of screenshots in your LFS/data/shots folder that you can then load into your video editor. This has the advantage that you can record at any available resolution and at the highest quality, because the screenshot recording process just takes it step by step and will wait at each step until LFS is ready, before taking the screenshot. It also has the advantage that your video footage is of the highest quality possible; you end up with raw, uncompressed screenshots. The downside is of course that the higher the resolution, the bigger the screenshot filesize will be. The increase in filesize can go rapidly at HD and higher resolutions (eg. @ 2560 * 1440 -> 11.1MB per image @ 25 FPS = 277.5MB per second). The same "set LFS camera & replay state on every frame" method is also used for regular playback of the timeline. Please note that this may not always result in a totally smooth animation while playing back; frames may be skipped. This does not however affect your final recording. The recording will always be exactly as you describe it on the timeline, pixel perfect, time after time. (hint - because the animation is pixel perfect every time you record the same animation, you can do nice tricks like record a scene once with and once without cars. Then using difference matte in your video editor, you can extract the surroundings from the cars, leaving you only with cars on a transparent background. Or in other words, you now effectively have one layer containing only the track and one layer containing only the cars.) Did you notice already how LFS Record is a bit like how After Effects works? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Those familiar with video post production software may already have noticed similarities with LFS Record's features. In fact, the idea for LFS Record arose out of the desire to have LFS camera paths imported into After Effects and the likes, to allow for compositing of objects in 3D space, onto LFS video footage. In other words, you can put objects into the LFS world, that aren't there in LFS. This can be achieved because LFS Record creates camera paths that can be imported into post production and 3D editing software that allows you to overlay graphics on top of video footage, perfectly aligned with that same footage. You can even create null objects from LFS replay data, and import those resulting paths (from the cars in the replay) into AFX as well. That way you can overlay objects that exactly follow cars in the footage (or you could leave out the cars from the footage, and use the nulls to put something else in their place - your imagination is the limit). Of course, you must use the usual compositing techniques if you want to add objects that appear behind LFS-world objects. Remember you're putting 3D objects onto 2D video footage. Some explanations to go with the features ----------------------------------------- I think eventually I will make a wiki page for this, otherwise this text document will become even bigger :) For now, just some links to very basic "how to get started" videos : http://www.lfs.net/LFSRecord/vids/1_Views.mp4 http://www.lfs.net/LFSRecord/vids/2_Menu_Items.mp4 http://www.lfs.net/LFSRecord/vids/3_Connecting_To_LFS.mp4 http://www.lfs.net/LFSRecord/vids/4_Creating_Animation.mp4 http://www.lfs.net/LFSRecord/vids/5_Using_Replays.mp4 http://www.lfs.net/LFSRecord/vids/6_Using_Replays_Part_2.mp4 http://www.lfs.net/LFSRecord/vids/7_Recording_Replay_Data_V2.mp4 Before you record any footage ... --------------------------------- Please open your project settings dialog first, to setup the resolution that you want to record at, if you want to record using LFS full screen mode. That way you can simply press record and then LFS will automatically switch to full screen mode before recording begins. On the same project settings dialog page, take notice of the stop-recording hotkey that you must use to stop recording while having LFS in full screen mode. The default is * (same as start recording). Remember, screenshots will be saved in your LFS/data/shots folder. If screenshots with similar names already exist in that folder, they will silently be overwritten (screenshots will have the name of your project with the corresponding frame number appended). Key shortcuts ------------- ctrl-N New project ctrl-O Open project ctrl-S Save project Space / Return Start / Stop playback Num 0 Stop playeback / To start * Start recording * Stop recording HOTKEY (can be changed in project settings) Delete Delete any selected keyframes PageUp One frame back PageDown Advance a frame Home To start of timeline End To end of timeline Hold CTRL while moving a LookCamera to move the point of interest at the same time. Hold CTRL while changing a value for smaller changes. Hold SHIFT while changing a value for tiny changes. Hold SHIFT before selecting to add to the current selection. Connecting to InSim ------------------- To connect LFS Record to LFS's InSim interface you must first enable InSim in LFS. You can do that by typing "/insim 29999" into LFS (or any other valid port number). Then in LFS Record, open Project -> Project Settings -> Insim and enter the IP and Port and optional Admin password of your LFS client. If you run LFS on the same computer as LFS Record, you can leave the default IP address of 127.0.0.1, which means 'a local connection'. A locally running LFS normally does not require an InSim admin password, unless you explicitely have set one inside LFS or LFS's config file. LFS Record is meant to be connected to a locally running LFS and not an LFS client running across the internet. It will work, but a) it's rather pointless and b) the network traffic rate can be quite demanding because of many update packets per second, that need to arrive without much delay. Using an LFS client on a local network will work just fine though. So if you have two computers at your disposal you can use one for LFS and the other for LFS Record. What happened to LFS Record V1.0? --------------------------------- It was a very, very simple version that allowed me to create simple camera paths. It was not release worthy. I have found a bug in LFS Record, can I report it somewhere? ------------------------------------------------------------ Yes. Please report bugs via the following thread on the Live for Speed forums : http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=72001 . Where possible and applicable, take screenshots, or make a video to illustrate the bug, and be as elaborate as possible about how to reproduce the bug and / or when it occurs. Do not assume others will be able to understand your bug with a screenshot and some words only. Final words ----------- I hope LFS Record can be used to create nice footage for LFS videos :) If you would like a feature that is not included, feel free to let me know and I'll see if it can be added. Credits ------- *LFS Record was made by Victor van Vlaardingen *Live for Speed is a racing simulator made by Scawen Roberts, Eric Bailey and Victor van Vlaardingen (www.lfs.net) *LFS Record uses the InSim.NET library, which was made by DarkTimes (http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=68564) *LFS Record uses parts of Prism 4.0 (formerly known as Composite Application Guidance) (http://compositewpf.codeplex.com/license) Contact ------- http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=72001