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Making Videos

Below is a comparison of the two main ways to make WoW videos, followed by tips, YouTube tutorials, and other info that you may find useful when making your videos.

If you're thinking about making your own WoW videos and have questions, feel free to contact me.

Want To Make WoW Videos? Here's How

My Set-up

• On my Mac:
  • Mac OS 10.4.11. I'm not using Leopard (even though I've bought the upgrade and have it sitting here on my desk) because I'm worried that upgrading will cause my video-making apps to go screwy. I've heard from some people who have had this problem, so it looks like my paranoia may be justified. However, see "Special Consideration for Mac Users" below, for info about how to deal with Leopard.
  • Parallels 3.0 build 5162.0. This is an older build of Parallels. I accepted the automatic upgrade Parallels offers a while back (the one that's supposed to make Parallels work well with Leopard, which I don't use) and it jacked up my Model and Map Viewer programs, so I contacted the company to get the previous build and reverted back. No serious problems since.
  • World of Warcraft. I've got WoW installed in the PC partition as well as on my Mac proper. The PC version won't actually run (it complains about the 3D engine and then quits), but it will run enough to allow me to get the patches periodically so I can use the latest models in the Model and Map Viewers. I play the game with the Mac version and can use it to get background shots as well.
  • Snapz Pro X 2.1.2 is the screen capture program I use. It's Mac-only, so what I do is start up Parallels, open the Model Viewer app (for example), get the model doing what I want, then use Snapz Pro X to capture the animation that's going on in the Parallels window. It saves the .mov file to my Mac's desktop where I can use it immediately in After Effects.
  • After Effects CS3. Great program.
  • Photoshop CS3. Great, great program.
  • iMovie 6.0.3. This is not the latest version of iMovie. I never upgraded because I'm comfortable with this one and because I've heard that the latest version is better for quick editing of home videos than it is for the kind of thing I do. I don't use iMovie to make the final version of my videos anymore because the resulting quality is so bad. I use it to quickly slap together my clips so I can work out the timing of the whole thing. When I'm happy with it, I switch to Premiere Pro to make the final version.
  • Premiere Pro CS3. Yes, the fact that I use iMovie to put together my video once then have to put it together again in Premiere Pro does mean that I'm doing the work twice. But I've found that while Premiere Pro does output videos in much higher quality than iMovie, Premiere Pro just isn't simple enough for me to use it as my slap-stuff-together-to-see-how-it-looks application. Besides, after weeks of working on a video, the extra hour or so I spend re-laying it out in Premiere Pro (remember, I already know exactly how the clips fit together and how long each should be) is really a drop in the bucket.
  • WoW Model Viewer, whatever the latest Mac version is. This app is buggy, some of the models cause it to crash, I can't view any of the spell effects, and not everything is displayed properly on every model. But it is often much easier to open this app to get a quick shot of something than it is to open Parallels, wait for it to start up, then open the Model Viewer there to get the same thing. If I can't get the shot I want in the Mac version, I'll use the PC version no problem, but I always try to get the shot on the Mac first.
  • WoW Map Viewer, latest Mac version. This app has problems too. It doesn't display the ground properly (it looks like it's made of plastic rather than having whatever skin the ground in that area is supposed to have), it doesn't display things like fire properly, and it's a memory hog which slows down other apps I'm running. However, it is good for quickly getting interior shots that don't have the ground or fire in them, and like with the Model Viewer, it's always quicker to use this Mac app if I can.
    
    
• On the PC in Parallels:
  • World of Warcraft. As mentioned above, I have WoW installed in both my Mac and PC areas on the computer.
  • WoW Model Viewer 5.09. This has many advantages over the Mac version. I can animate the top and bottom portions of a character separately, making a character walk and wave at the same time for instance. It's got tabards and does a better job with mounts than the Mac version. And it's got a far wider range of gear I can put on characters than the Mac version. However, if I let it run for more than a couple of minutes, it will lock up and crash. So I typically start up the app, get my model into position, take the shot, then shut the app down before it can freeze. Lame, but it works OK.
  • WoW Map Viewer 0.6.1. Works relatively well. It displays the ground and fire properly, so I can use it for exterior and interior shots.
    
    
• Keeping things organized:
• The first thing I do whenever I start a new video is create folders to keep everything organized. I create the following folders:
  • "aep". This is where I save all my After Effects files (which end with .aep)
  • "backgrounds". This is where I save the background images or movies for each scene.
  • "clips". This is where I store each individual element I put into the scenes, things like the characters, objects, etc.
  • "finished clips". This is where I store the finished video of each scene when I decide I'm happy with it.
  • "pre". This is where I store all the files that Premiere Pro creates when I make my final video.
• I make sure to name each file according to a system to make it easy to find and use them later. A typical video of mine will have 50 or more scenes, each with quite a few images and video clips that go into it, and if I didn't have a naming system, I'd never be able to find anything:
  • Each scene is numbered sequentially using two digits. So the first scene is "01", the second is "02", etc..
  • All elements associated with each scene have their filenames begin with the scene number. That means that the background for the first scene will be called "01_bkg.mov", a character in the first scene will be named (for example) "01_elf.mov", an object in the first scene will be named "01_table.psd", etc.
  • This system makes it easy to keep multiple shots of the same element separate. For example, in "Code Monkey", I had tons of shots of the ape. By naming them "01_ape.mov", "02_ape.mov", etc., I can always quickly find which shot of the ape was used in which scene in the video.
  • Keep filenames short. Most of the time, I'll just name the main characters in a video "him" and "her" so that their shots are called "01_him.mov" and "01_her.mov". As long as I know who they refer to, and I use the same name each time, there's no need to call a file "01_skullcrusher_scientist.mov" if I can avoid it. :)
  • Sometimes you'll have multiple shots of the same element in a scene. In that case, just add a short descriptor to the filename so you can tell them apart, maybe something like this: "01_him_standing.mov" and "01_him_dancing.mov".
• When the video is done, I used to just delete all the source files, figuring I'd never need them again. Big mistake. I wish I'd kept the source files for all my earlier videos so I could redo them at higher quality, or reuse them whenever the need arises. What I do now, is I've bought an external hard drive and when I'm done with a video I move all the source files onto the drive for long-term storage. Video files are large, and you'll have a lot of them, so be sure to get a big hard drive, which is thankfully pretty cheap nowadays.

Video Tutorials

Video	By	Notes
Oxhorn's Great Tutorials
Overview	Oxhorn	A general overview of the tools you'll need to make your videos (mostly PC info, but important to know for everyone).
Screen Captures	Oxhorn	The basics of using Fraps and WeGame screen capture programs.
In-game mods	Oxhorn	The basics of getting in-game WoW shots using some recommended game mods.
Model Viewer - Pt. 1 Model Viewer - Pt. 2	Oxhorn	An overview of all the options available in the WoW Model Viewer, and how to use them.
Map Viewer - Pt. 1 Map Viewer - Pt. 2	Oxhorn	An overview of how to use the WoW Map Viewer.
Motion in AE - Pt. 1 Motion in AE - Pt. 2	Oxhorn	A bit more confusing than his other tutorials, this one shows you how to make characters move around the stage in After Effects. Stick with it, because there's good info there.
Color Keying - Pt. 1 Color Keying - Pt. 2	Oxhorn	I include Oxhorn's keying tutorial for completeness sake and because there are bits of good info on using AE in them (stuff about masks, opacity, etc.), but I use a different method to key out background colors than he does, and I think it's better. You'll find a walkthrough of my AE keying method elsewhere on this page.
Shadows - Pt. 1 Shadows - Pt. 2	Oxhorn	Part One shows you how to make the disc-shaped shadows that the characters have in WoW. Part Two shows you how to make shadows that look like they're actually cast by the characters.
Color Correction	Oxhorn	Great tips on changing colors to make foreground and background elements look more natural together.
Rendering in AE	Oxhorn	Shows you how to render your video in After Effects, turning all your individual elements and special effects into a video clip you can use in Premiere.
Rendering in Premiere	Oxhorn	Shows you how to render your final video in Premiere, turning all your individual clips and audio into the final video you'll post on the Web.
After Effects
3D Text	TrackEditor99	Extrude your text to make it look 3D.
Basic Fire	TrackEditor99	Shows how to make a screen full of animated fire. The techniques used to make the fire could also be used to make fog or smoke.
Image/Movie inside text	TrackEditor99	This trick puts an image or a video clip inside some text, which you can then animate to move across the screen or do whatever you want.
Fireworks	TrackEditor99	Make basic fireworks explosions in After Effects.
Kamehameha Energy Blast	Damonstration	Shows you how to make an energy blast special effect like the Kamehameha blast in Street Fighter. The video is long (17 min) but moves at a good pace. It's not for AE beginners, but it's definitely not too complex for anyone who's spent a little bit of time using the program.
Motion Tracking	vfxpro	I wish I'd used this on a couple of my videos to make things easier. I did it all by hand. :(
Screen Shake	iTziAero	Make the screen shake like when a giant is walking by or a big explosion has just gone off.
Shine Effect	TrackEditor99	This effect makes it look like someone is shining a light from behind your text (or whatever) out at the viewer. It's a cool effect, one that we've all seen in movie titles for years. Apparently there's an AE plug-in out there that you can buy that will let you do this, but this YouTube tutorial shows you how to do it for free.
Snow	TrackEditor99	How to make sweet-looking snow, which will be great for those times you want to shoot a scene outside Ironforge in the snow but the in-game snow refuses to fall.
Underwater Text	cyrusmir	Shows you how to make your text ripple and distort like you're looking at it underwater.
Water Ripples	TrackEditor99	This is actually a two-part tutorial, with the second part available here. It shows you how to add ripples to a surface so you could, for example, make it look like you're dropping something into a pool.
Photoshop
Lava Planet	TrackEditor99	Shows you how to create an image that looks like a planet covered in lava, complete with cool glow. WoW videos won't typically have a lava planet in them, but the techniques can be used for other special effects.
Premiere
Chroma Key Tutorial	EdWorksProductions	Mentioned above, this video shows you how to key out background colors like they do with weathermen standing in front of a green screen. This is an important technique when you want to superimpose characters from the WoW Model Viewer on top of a WoW background.
Pixelized mosaic over someone's face	TrackEditor99	Like in the TV show COPS, this will put a pixelized mosaic effect over someone's face (or whatever you want).
Star Wars-like scrolling title	ppprod	Want to have a scrolling block of text like in the opening sequences of the Star Wars movies? This tutorial shows you how.

After Effects Tips

"I've captured my model in the Model Viewer doing what I want it to do, but how do I get rid of the solid-colored background that's behind it so that my video's background will show through?"

Just like how when a weather man stands in front of a green screen and then they "key" out the green and replace it with a weather map, you've got to get After Effects to do this for you. To do this, once you've imported your clip of your model into After Effects, you need to select the clip and then choose Effect --> Keying --> Color Range from the menus

In the top-left panel you'll now see the controls for the Keying effect you're putting on your clip. Click the top of the three eyedropper icons (your cursor will turn into an eyedropper), and then click on your clip any place where the background color you want to get rid of is showing. Presto! After Effects will remove all instances of that color from your clip and whatever is behind it will show through. So now you can put a background behind it that you've captured from the WoW game itself or from the WoW Map Viewer, or a photo, or whatever you want, and it will look like your character is standing in front of the background naturally.

You'll want to make sure that the background color you've got set in the Model Viewer is something that only appears in the background and not on the character itself. After Effects will key out all instances of the color you choose, so if your background is black and you key it out, all black will disappear from your clip, which will make shadows and other dark places on your character look transparent. So make your background pink or turquoise or something you know isn't on your model, and then when After Effects removes it, only the background itself is removed.

"OK, I've got the background color keyed out, but how do I move the clip across the stage?"

When you bring your clip into AE and drag it to the Timeline or the central viewing window, AE creates a new row in the Timeline at the bottom of the screen for the new clip. On each row in the Timeline, towards the left of clip's name, is a right-facing triangle. Click that to display the clip's hidden rows. There will be one named "Transform", and if you've done the Keying effect on your clip, one for "Effects" too. Click the triangle next to "Transform" to reveal controls for Anchor Point, Position, Scale, Rotation, and Opacity. These are all the things you can easily make change over time for your clip.

For zooming, what you'll do is move the Timeline's time indicator to where you want your zoom to begin in your clip. Then click the little stopwatch icon next to the word "Scale" for the clip. You're setting a keyframe at this position to tell AE that at this position, you want the clip's scale to be whatever you've set (you can edit the values on the Scale row if you want to set it at something other than what it is currently). You'll see that AE has put a yellow diamond in the timeline to show where you set the keyframe.

Next, move the time indicator to the other end of where you want the zoom to finish. So if you're starting out at 100% zoom, but after five seconds you want the zoom to be 200%, move the time indicator forward five seconds and change the zoom by either dragging the control handles around your clip in the main viewing window to the size you want, or manually editing the Scale percentages to be whatever you want them to be at this point. AE will put another yellow diamond in the timeline to show this second keyframe. Now, when you play your clip from beginning to end (hit the Home button to move the time indicator to the beginning of your clip, then hit the Space bar to play it), the clip will stay the same size until it gets to the first keyframe, and then it will change in size until it reaches the second keyframe. Instant zoom!

You do the same thing with the Position row to set down keyframes to move things across the stage. Set a keyframe where you want something to start, set another keyframe where it should end, and AE will move it across the stage for you. You can set any number of intermediate keyframes if you want it to move up then down then right then left. Anything you want.

"How do I get a character to look like they're walking through a doorway?"

In After Effects, each clip is its own layer, so if you have the background (where the doorway is) on the bottom, with your character on top, the character will look like it's walking up to the doorway and then will walk right past it. Here's how you get him/her to go into the doorway.

The easiest way is to make a copy of your background in Photoshop and then delete or mask out everything except for the part of the doorway that would normally cover up a character going through it. Save this "coverup" version of your background and import it into After Effects. Move the coverup into position so that you can't tell it's even there, and then move its layer on top of the character. Now, when the character gets to the doorway, they'll move behind your coverup and it'll look like they went through the doorway. Movie magic!

This same trick is how you'd get a character to walk behind a tree or bush or have anything be "in front" of your character in the video.

Special Effects Without Using After Effects

Getting a character from the Model Viewer to animate over a WoW background

Tip from Bi0man22: Before talking to Bi0man22, I would have said that you absolutely needed a program like After Effects to get a character from the WoW Model Viewer to animate over a background from the WoW game itself. However, he showed me that's not true -- you can just import a background into the Model Viewer (in the menu, choose View → Load Background), then move your character around until it's in the proper spot doing the animation you want, and then capture the video. Moving the character around on the "stage" will still be tough, and you won't have nearly the same level of control as you would in After Effects, but if you don't have After Effects, this may be good enough.

Examples of how this looks like in a video can be seen in Bi0man22's "Shop Vac" video.

"Faking" Animation

Another tip from Bi0man22: What if you really do need to animate something that you can't get the Model Viewer to do? You can "fake" animation by making a series of still images and then putting them into your video one after the other in quick succession. Animation, after all, is really just a series of still images that go by so fast that our brains interpret them as continuous motion. If you show a series of images quickly enough and with smooth enough transitions between images, your viewer's brains may be fooled.

Unfortunately, full video motion is 30 frames per second, so if you were going to match that with your faked animation, you'd need thirty still images for every second of your video, which is a lot of work. Most of my earlier videos are 15 frames per second and they look OK. You'll have to decide how many frames of still images you want to use to make your animation look smooth.

Bi0man22 uses faked animation in his "Shop Vac" video, but he also has a video made completely with this technique for you to check out.

"Green screen" effects in Adobe Premiere instead of Adobe After Effects

I use After Effects to key out background colors and composite the various elements of each shot on top of each other to make a final version. But After Effects is an expensive program, and I'm often asked if you can do that using some other program. It turns out that you can do something similar using the "keying" effects in Adobe Premiere, both Pro and Elements. Since Elements costs $99 compared to $999 for After Effects and $799 for Premiere Pro, this may be a better option for you.

This YouTube video by EdWorksProductions takes you through how to apply the keying effect to your video in Premiere so that you can make a background color disappear.

Special Consideration for Mac Users

iMovie
I've used iMovie to edit together most of my videos. It is dead simple to use, comes free with Macs, and has just enough power that I've been mostly very happy with it. However, there is one major problem with it -- iMovie requires all the video it handles to be in the native DV format of camcorders (iMovie was designed primarily as a way to edit home movies). This means that when you capture video and import the .mov file into iMovie, iMovie converts your .mov into the DV format, resulting in pretty serious quality loss.

Then why did I keep using it, you ask? For one, since I was just goofing around with these videos, I didn't figure the crappy video quality was that big of a deal. Secondly, once you post a video on YouTube, YouTube does its own conversion of your video, which results in crappy video anyway, so the bad quality of my originals was never much of an issue.

In the end, you'll have to decide how important the video quality is to you. Now that Adobe has put out their CS3 apps for the Mac again, I'm usiing Premiere Pro, which results in far superior video quality but is tougher to use. If/when Adobe ever gets Premiere Elements out for the Mac, I'll probably switch to using that.

Model/Map Viewers
Mac users should feel a debt of gratitude to a guy named Sailesh, who ported both the Map and Model Viewers to work on Macs. Without him, I doubt I ever would have gotten this far with my videos. However, because it's just one guy and it's not his full-time job or anything, the truth is that the programs are buggy. Not all of the models render properly, the ground doesn't display properly when viewing maps, etc. In addition, there are features in the PC versions of the programs that aren't in the Mac versions, like the ability to animate a character's top and bottom independently so that they can, for instance, walk while talking.

Parallels to the rescue! If you've got one of the newer Intel-based Macs, you can buy Parallels which will let you run Windows in a window on your Mac (you'll need a copy of Windows in addition to Parallels itself). With this setup, I've been able to mostly use the Mac versions of the model and map viewers, but whenever I needed something the Mac versions couldn't give me, I would fire up Parallels and use the PC versions, capturing the action with my Mac video-capture software just like normal and then editing it on my Mac.

It was a little rocky getting there though. Parallels 2.0 didn't support 3D hardware acceleration, so the Map Viewer didn't work at all and the Model Viewer worked slowly. Then they came out with 3.0 which did include 3D hardware acceleration. Like an idiot, I upgraded while I was in the middle of making a video and under 3.0, the Map Viewer suddenly started working but the Model Viewer died. Parallels came up with an update but I waited to finish the video before applying it just in case they both stopped working. But happily, now both are working great, and I'm never going to update Parallels again. ;)

Here's a tip if you don't have Parallels but still need to use the PC versions of the viewers to get some shots. If you absolutely have to, you can do the following: On a PC, run the viewer you want. Use Fraps to capture the video. Fraps will leave you with a giant .avi file which is useless on your Mac. You can find a free/cheap converter to convert the .avi to .mov (I used AVI to MGEG Converter, the free version of which will allow you to convert a maximum of five minutes of video at a time, which is plenty). This results in badly degraded video quality, but it's better than nothing. You can email yourself the converted file and get it on your Mac (I've also used Internet Explorer to FTP the files to my Web site and then downloaded them from the Mac). Once it's on your Mac, you can use it like any other file.

Leopard (Mac OS 10.5)
I heard from a fan named Cathy who was using Leopard and was having difficulty with the Model Viewer in Parallels. The models were flickering so much they were unusable. I couldn't help Cathy because I was too chicken to upgrade to Leopard in the first place, but Cathy kept digging and finally figured out what the problem/fix was. She found this fix on a Parallels forum:

1. Right-click on the Windows Desktop in Parallels. In the dropdown menu, choose "Properties" (in Vista, this is option is called "Personalize")
2. On the Properties display, open the "Settings" tab and click the "Advanced" button.
3. Open the "Troubleshoot" tab.
4. You will see the "Hardware acceleration" slider there. Put the slider on the graduation line right before the maximum acceleration level mark.