Hi

I wonder if it's possible to change the default .tga demo_capture to .jpg.

I'm not talking about making screenshots. My harddisk doesn't have enough free space to deal with de tga stream, even I have 25 gig free space left.

Thanks.

i think the time taken to compress to JPG would delay frame capture too much

try reducing your capture resolution to reduce the filesize of the TGAs, try some of the below resolutions that are good for video capture for example:

-width 1280 -height 720
-width 1152 -height 720
-width 960 -height 720
-width 768 -height 480
-width 640 -height 480

Sorry for offtopic, but I have no other choice.
Oldman, where can I catch you? You don't respond to emails and your message box here on qw.nu forum is full.

Actually, this doesn't matter, since the capture isn't done in realtime... You can change to using jpeg/png by changing the screenshot format (sshot_format) used: http://ezquake.sourceforge.net/docs/?vars-screenshot-settings#sshot_format. This was introduced in 1.8 so if you're using a build from before that it won't work.

I already tried this before posting the topic... it only changes the screenshot format for taking screenshots (when I press F12). It will NOT change the format for demo capturing. Not on my pc anyway.

I use Ezquake 1.9

this possibility was i looking for also.
i hope its viable.

Hmmm wtf... I'm pretty much certain I changed the code to use the sshot_format var... hmmm! Let's check

Aha! Found it... My commit message:
"Fixed so that when capturing a movie as frames, files aren't always saved as .tga, but uses the format set in the "scr_sshot_format" var instead so that the player can choose."
Code proof (woops, need to make this safe):
http://ezquake.cvs.sourceforge.net/ezquake/ezquake/movie.c?r1=1.15&r2=1.16&sortby=date

cvar_t scr_sshot_format = {"sshot_format", DEFAULT_SSHOT_FORMAT};

I'm pretty sure I tried it myself when I changed that code... So sound suspect that it doesn't work, going to try it when I get home.

So "sshot_jpg" should work for demo capturing according to you? Well, in my case it only changes the screenshots... I checked it again.

Anyway, I used a smaller resolution and the tga size went from 3.8 MB to around 900 KB. Then I converted the tga to jpg's with ACDsee and made the movie. Quality is a bit less, but perfectly watchable. I'm uploading the match (Reload vs Venom DM2) to Stage6.com right now. I hope it comes through... Then I might post it in the movies section.

i've freed up some message box space so you can msg me :-)

Ok, tried it myself and checked hte current code... which had an obvious bug in it... Obviously I never tried my code out the last time I touched it ... Fixed in CVS now. That is, it will use sshot_format when capturing now also.

What is CVS??

Anyway, I made a movie already by lowering the resolution, then convert the tga's to jpg's.

Here's the movie on stage6.com:
http://stage6.divx.com/user/klaasklapper/video/1481974/QuakeWorld---Reload-vs-Venom-DM2

You need the divx webplayer for this:
http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/webplayer/

CVS = Concurrent Versions System... Used to store the ezQuake sourcecode. The fix is in the latest development source code is what I meant.

OK, I am still confused. So How can I capture demos in other formats? or are you saying that will be in the next release?

EZQUAKE MANUAL
"Settings


demo_capture_codec


Determines which codec will be used as a video codec. E.g. "xvid" or "divx"
should give good results.

Note that to capture encoded audio/video streams you have to have
proper codecs installed."

How can I capture in mpeg4?

These seems like FOURCC names:
http://www.fourcc.org/indexcod.htm?main=codecs.php

It will be in the next release, yes... Or you can run one of the alpha builds of 1.9. http://www.student.uib.no/~tli081/qw/ (non-stable development build). In this build sshot_format also chooses the demo capture format.


1. Install some compression codec such as xvid http://uk.geocities.com/xvid2ch/files/xvid-1.1.3.zip
2. set demo_capture_codec to "xvid"
3. demo_capture start 30 bla.avi <-- Will capture 30 seconds of video to bla.avi... Only works when playing a demo.

If you want to edit the AVI-file you should capture with a lossles codec (Arithyuv/HuffYUV/Lagarith...) or uncompressed. After editing recompress to xvid. And don't forget to compress audio.

Direct xvid is ok for a quick lol.avi, tho