User:Torley Linden/Vidtut process

Help Portal:

The following is kinda technical — looking for easier help? See Torley's Guide to Making Movies!

How my video tutorials reach the world. A behind-the-scenes glimpse at the step-by-steps:

Capture

Record raw footage inworld using Camtasia Studio. I like its ease-of-use, non-intrusiveness, highlighting features, and picture-in-picture mode. I usually:
- Set Second Life screen resolution to 1024x768 in Sizer — the actual dimensions are 1032x802 in Windows XP due to window chrome.
- Scale SL UI to 1.200.
- Set audio volumes.
- Use the DivX codec with these settings (subject to change):
Or, if video consists mainly of webpage (outside of SL), "flat" stuff, use TechSmith's lossless Screen Capture codec.
When recording is done, gather raw footage into a template folder and rename it with the title of the tutorial.
Note: I frequently get asked: "How do you get that yellow circle?" It's a Camtasia effect! Open the Camtasia Recorder and go to Effects menu > Effects Options. Also make sure in Effects menu > Cursor, that "Highlight Cursor & Clicks" is on. I leave Camtasia's sounds turned off because SL has its own UI noises.

Production

Load "Video Tutorial Template" in Sony Vegas, containing basic outline and track setup. (Continues to be revised over time.)

Drag-and-drop movie clips on master video track. Trim ends and crossfade into each other as desired.

Drag movie clips on Sony Sound Forge, use Batch Converter to export "(MASTER)" versions in stereo.

Drop the WAVS back into Vegas in the "MASTER" voiceover track, in-sync with the video. This may be replaced by a live audio processing plugin chain soon.

Move around ending bumper to fit.

Use "Video Event Pan/Crop" at appropriate places in the timeline to provide zoomed-in focus on UI elements. I prefer smooth zooms with a 1-sec. interval.

Ctrl-drag to copy text media template to appropriate places in timeline and customize it. (Sometimes I customize start + end titles at this point too.)

Reword captions as I go along. Stretch text media if some needs to last longer. Other settings, like Placement, can also be changed to provide optimum visibility.

Fade and trim ends as appropriate.

Add some extra gloss (transition effects) — I like to experiment, sometimes obviously, sometimes more subtle, with different techniques in each vid.

Re-watch vid to make sure everything's in its right place. Polish anything else stray I find.

Encoding

Render vid to "QuickTime 7" with these settings:
- Project tab:
  Video rendering quality: Best
- Video tab:
  - Quality: 95% (near lossless)
- Streaming:
  - Optimization: Fast Start

When the render's done, open in QuickTime Player and export with these settings (NOTE: I switched from "Main" to "Baseline" profile because the latter works on iPods, and have since boosted video bitrate to 1152 kbps):

Publishing

Note that some of this is deprecated as of 2008-09-24, and a future revised process may be forthcoming.

Upload to TubeMogul

TubeMogul's a timesaving video batch-uploader: with one upload, your video gets distributed to YouTube, blip.tv, and about a dozen others.

Fill out Video Upload form thusly:
- Title
- Description =
MORE ENLIGHTENMENT @ http://secondlife.com/video

Friendly greetings! You can learn Second Life in a fun and fast fashion! The enthusiastic Torley is your host, taking you on a tour through tips, tricks, and techniques that'll increase your confidence and make you smile. :) Whether you're a newcomer or longtime Resident, your inworld experience will benefit from these video tutorials.
- Video Category = "Howto & Style" or "Education"
- Tags = secondlife second life video tutorial tip trick game world 3d online virtual avatar screencast help machinima love sl (these sometimes get varied to reflect specific content).
Click "Upload a video", select the MP4, and upload it. Video usually goes live several minutes later.
On YouTube, update the "Second Life Video Tutorials" playlist, reprioritizing the new addition as "1" so it shows up on top.

Upload to Amazon S3

These are the high-quality downloadable versions.

Use S3Fox and drag-and-drop the MP4 into the uploader.
Right-click the "vidtuts" folder, select "Edit ACL", enable Read for all (green checkmarks), check "Apply to subfolders" (useful for multiple vidtut uploads), then click "OK".

Update the Second Life Podcast

Add a new item with Feed Editor, duplicating a previous entry and editing these fields:
- Required Fields
  - Title
  - Pub Date
- Optional Fields
  - GUID (same as "Enclosure URL")
  - Enclosure URL
- iTunes Fields
  - Duration
Ping it.

Blog about it

Open up template, craft blog post in Windows Live Writer, and if it's a TotW, set it to publish in the future on Saturday.
Include supplemental pictures, word explanations, and other relevant content addendum that didn't make it into the video. Related resources links always a plus.
Test pre-published link to assure quality.

Showcase it

Log into blog-like tool.
Copy-and-paste earlier blog posting into WLW (to strip style irregularities), then back into this, and publish it. Note: This tool can't publish in advance yet, so this is done nearer to the time or shortly after the aforementioned blog post appears.
Check for any significant content inconsistencies, most notably that embedded videos don't work, so I'll need to replace them with links like this:

WATCH THE VIDEO

<img height="16" src="http://torley.s3.amazonaws.com/Getvidtut.png" width="16" align="absMiddle" border="0"></a><strong><a href="http://vidtuts.s3.amazonaws.com/****">WATCH VIDEO</a></strong>

Wikify it

Update Video Tutorials with the newest, most likely a new "#" above all the previous TotWs.

Add it to inworld movie player

Go Here and edit the script in the following format:

[TITLE], [URL]

(This is currently only being done for the Tip of the Week.)

Afterwards

While uploading's happening, work on accompanying blog post or fill in other info that could usefully be multitasked.

Shortly after uploading's done, I sometimes watch the vid to make sure things turned out alright, then I post to the blog or otherwise further communicate about my new vidtut.

Embrace incoming feedback from my beloved community and use lovely ideas to fuel future vidtuts.

The above is subject to iteration, but hopefully provides a wealth of insights into how I do what I do. :)

Additional answers

See my FAQ!