** Official Recording/Streaming Tips & Tricks Exchange **

For thumbnails here's roughly what I do...

I've got a GIMP project which contains a small-ish copy of our channel logo on a layer, plus a text layer with the number "88" (because it's the widest 2-digit number!) in a font we use.

When I first start a new series I go and find a nice copy of the game's logo (preferably on a transparent background) and add that to the project as well (quite often adding an outline or shadow or something to the logo to help it stand out) and make it a sensible size. I leave the background transparent...

Then once I'm done editing the video I find a frame I like in the editor; print screen it and then "paste as layer" into GIMP; I usually have to scale it up a tiny bit but once that's done I position the logo, episode number (updated to the current number of course) and game title logo on the image somewhere that looks good, and there we go!

(In the past we used to select one promotional wallpaper or background from the game and use that in every thumbnail, but more recently have switched to doing the above as it makes the thumbnails a bit more interesting looking)
 
arc@css said:
What do people use for their thumbnails? I've been using a 720p non-licensed image and paint.net for the title.
Click to expand...

I use Photoshop Elements 14. I got it with Premiere Elements 14 for about £65 which seemed like a reasonable deal to me.

I tried to use GIMP to start with but didn't get on with it at all. So I bought Photoshop Elements and it seems to work reasonably well for the price. Maybe one of these days I'll upgrade to the full version but for now the elements version is enough for me.
 
Cromulent said:
I use Photoshop Elements 14. I got it with Premiere Elements 14 for about £65 which seemed like a reasonable deal to me.

I tried to use GIMP to start with but didn't get on with it at all. So I bought Photoshop Elements and it seems to work reasonably well for the price. Maybe one of these days I'll upgrade to the full version but for now the elements version is enough for me.
Click to expand...

I went with Premier Pro, but to add something like Photoshop or After Effects will significantly boost the payments (monthly subscription). :/

I spent a couple of days last week tinkering with Blender, and watched several tutorials. Quite an in depth program.
 
uncle_rufus said:
For thumbnails here's roughly what I do...

I've got a GIMP project which contains a small-ish copy of our channel logo on a layer, plus a text layer with the number "88" (because it's the widest 2-digit number!) in a font we use.

When I first start a new series I go and find a nice copy of the game's logo (preferably on a transparent background) and add that to the project as well (quite often adding an outline or shadow or something to the logo to help it stand out) and make it a sensible size. I leave the background transparent...

Then once I'm done editing the video I find a frame I like in the editor; print screen it and then "paste as layer" into GIMP; I usually have to scale it up a tiny bit but once that's done I position the logo, episode number (updated to the current number of course) and game title logo on the image somewhere that looks good, and there we go!

(In the past we used to select one promotional wallpaper or background from the game and use that in every thumbnail, but more recently have switched to doing the above as it makes the thumbnails a bit more interesting looking)
Click to expand...

I'll take a look at GIMP. :)

In fact, I found a good tutorial channel for anyone that wants it. I'm very inexperienced when it comes to the graphics side of video construction, and thankfully this chap really explained things well at a pace that was right for me. Best I've found so far on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/user/tutor4u
 
Not tech-related, but how should I "reward" my early viewers that have stuck around since day 1? I have a few that have been turning up for pretty much every stream since the start, and I really appreciate their support for sticking around, making the beginning "grind" a lot more enjoyable.

I've got a lot more viewers now and although I want to grow, I feel as if they're being drowned out by all the new comers. I'm adding a "Q&A" section to maybe help filter out some of the repetitive questions to make chat less busy.

I already feel as if I'm loosing that "personal touch" which I enjoyed when I was smaller, being able to actually interact with chat etc. :( I don't want to feel as if they're being left out/behind, or maybe I just need to move on?
 
arc@css said:
What do people use for their thumbnails? I've been using a 720p non-licensed image and paint.net for the title.
Click to expand...

Some of mine, generic style really www.youtube.com/user/valkia

i7WMPe4.jpg.png
 
arc@css said:
I went with Premier Pro, but to add something like Photoshop or After Effects will significantly boost the payments (monthly subscription). :/

I spent a couple of days last week tinkering with Blender, and watched several tutorials. Quite an in depth program.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm thinking of up grading to Premier Pro because it supports rendering the video on your GPU which should be so much faster and will speed up the rendering time a lot. But for the time being I'm going to stick to elements for my editing needs as it seems to do everything that I need at the moment.
 
tcfreer said:
Monitor as in screen?

FYI - Ash if your having issues getting followers, don't worry. You've not been streaming long and it takes time :)

If you play ETS2, War Thunder, Wot or WoWs etc give me a shout I'll play a few with you and put a live stream on aswell see if we can't get a few people to start following :)
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Thought I recognised that name, I used to play wot as RedSox04.
 
Cromulent said:
Yeah I'm thinking of up grading to Premier Pro because it supports rendering the video on your GPU which should be so much faster and will speed up the rendering time a lot. But for the time being I'm going to stick to elements for my editing needs as it seems to do everything that I need at the moment.
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The standard codecs don't support GPU rendering so you'll only be speeding up effects which can process with CUDA (and there aren't many of them) and scaling.

You might see a speed bump, but don't expect it to be huge. It's certainly not something worth swapping from Elements to Pro for.
 
Cyanide said:
The standard codecs don't support GPU rendering so you'll only be speeding up effects which can process with CUDA (and there aren't many of them) and scaling.

You might see a speed bump, but don't expect it to be huge. It's certainly not something worth swapping from Elements to Pro for.
Click to expand...

Really? I thought you could use the media exporter program to export H.264 video accelerated by CUDA?

This video on YouTube seems to suggest it is just a setting when you export your media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VzI901n29w

Edit: Maybe that is just Apple ProRes. But the Adobe documentation makes a big deal out of it so I'd be really surprised if H.264 wasn't supported as it is one of the most popular web based video codecs out there.
 
i sometimes like watching people play just for chilling out.

Is there a thread with all the youtubers (inc link) and the games they play (will be playing) besides their names?
 
Need some help guys - I asked this in the perephils area but got no joy so I thought I'd try here?

Semi Narrowed it down to either

Razor Blackwidow Chroma Mechanical - £149.99
Razor Naga MMO - £69.99

or

Corsair Strafe Silent RGB - £149.99
Corsair Schrimiter - £74.99

Only issue is the Corsair stuff is Out of stock and I don't know if or when it will be back in stock.

What are your thought's?

It's replacing a Mircosoft Ergonomic intelligent keyboard and R.A.T V3
 
Surfer said:
i sometimes like watching people play just for chilling out.

Is there a thread with all the youtubers (inc link) and the games they play (will be playing) besides their names?
Click to expand...

There isn't - I suppose we could keep a listing in the first post of this thread or something (but at the same time the idea was to keep this focused on sharing tips etc. rather than promoting, so maybe we could make a separate thread for it?)

tcfreer said:
What are your thought's?
Click to expand...

Please don't take offence but this is way off-topic for this thread; if nobody replied in the peripherals section then give it a bit more time or otherwise maybe people genuinely don't have an answer
 
Cheers - none take at all, just seems very quiet in compaqrison to the rest of the forum and I was looking to buy them asap :)

Noworries though feel free to delete
 
So I just downloaded the Dxtory free trial to play around with and was wondering what codec you all use when recording with it? I download the Lagarith codec (or however you spell it) and it didn't really work. It only recorded 8 seconds of footage and when I tried to play it back in VLC nothing showed up. When I recorded with the Dxtory video codec everything seemed to work well.

Am I missing something? Also the mouse cursor seemed to jump around a bit in the video that I recorded which seemed a bit weird. The mouse cursor is really stable and smooth when I record with Fraps. Although thinking about it I have bought a new mouse since I last did my recording and it is much faster / more sensitive than my previous mouse so maybe that is the cause.
 
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