RPTools.net

I have started creating video tutorials(with audio) for MapTool v1.3. In the end all features will be covered. I am breaking the tutorials into 2 groups. A Basic series, which is meant to take a completely new and lost user through to the level of using MapTool like you would a battlemap in a traditional face to face game. Then there will be an Advanced series which will cover all the many other features that MapTool has, one at a time or in small groups(whatever makes sense for a 2 to 5 minute video).

I have never done this sort of thing before, so any and all feedback would be much appreciated.

Here is the link to the website I am hosting the videos at.

The first 3 videos that are up there are the very beginning of the Basic series. So, they will be useless to just about all of you, unless you have never opened MapTool before. But, if you could look at them for feedback it would be helpful.

I expect there to end up being 6 to 10 videos in the Basic series and 20+ in the Advanced. Don't expect blazing speed in getting these out. I plan to pace myself at 1 to 2 videos a week(new or reworked old ones). I will post here when I post something new. My goal is to have all features covered by the time v1.3 is done or shortly after.

Those are AWESOME!
I am surprised you were able to get pretty good file sizes with those. I use the latest camtasia and I haven't found the best settng I am happy with yet.

Keep up the good work!

that's worth some RP Points if I ever saw something that was!

Great beginning Brad!

Couple little things. The Export Screenshot produces a PNG file and not JPEG. Also, if you decide to redo the first one, I would recommend actually doing the Add to Resource Library function. Explicitly point to the Resource Library pane that only has the Default in it. Then add a new one.

Glad you all are like the start. Phergus. Thanks for the Export Screenshot catch. I haven't used that option in a long time. Even with you pointing it out I am still remembering it as jpeg format. Funny. But, you are right. Also, I think I will change the part Add to Resource Library part to actually show it happening. That way they can see the indexing happening and see what it will look like before hand. That also got me thinking. I haven't actually talked about light or vision yet, so I probably shouldn't cover Fog-o-War yet either. Really I should probably wait and do both of those topics under Advanced Tutorials, if I am going to keep the number of Basic series videos in the single digits.

Thanks for the feedback.

Dorpond. I am using camtasia v3.1.2. While the Windows Media format had not real options. It just did what it did. The Flash videos did take some time messing around with. That format let you choose what level of quality you wanted to live with. What I ended up doing was taking a video and saving it at best quality and then saving quite a few more times with various different tweaks. Then listening to them one after another. With the first 2 videos I saved space by compressing the audio. Really I would like to have the audio one notch better, but for a couple MB of savings I thought what I have is good enough for a tutorial.

The shock came when I made my third video(NewMap). It was the first one with a lot of movement and screen change. Suddenly I had a 30MB video on my hands. For that one I had to search around and start messing with the jpeg compression option. Luckily the image stilled looked good by the time I got it down to 10MB. That is my target size. 10MB or less. Though I will go as high as 15MB if I need to. I figure people need to be able to browse and even with high speed connections, over 10MB files will just take to long to download.

My settings that got the 30+MB NewMap video down to 10MB were Audio: 11.025 kHz, Mono, 21 kBytes/sec and Video: 75% jpeg compression.

Yeah, it seems like the more movement I have and the more colors as a whole, the much larger the file gets. gets frustrating sometimes trying to predict the end result size. Some demos I made, I almost fell off my chair because the file size was completely unacceptable.

Great job though - keep up the good work.

Hey, if you want that sleuth on your front page to look better, sent it to me. His jaggies make the website look cheesier that it should be.

These are fantastic brad !

You might add another column to the page: version. That way people know which version the tuts apply to.

We can definitely figure out an RPCredits trade for this work

A suggestion for the first one, you have great content, but your MT is already set up. What you might do is start with a fresh version of MT so that when you say "Add to Resource Library" you actually add it, and can see the status bar show the indexing. That way people see what you are talking about instead of just hearing about it

Has anyone been able to see these tutorials on a Mac? I got the image OK, but the audio was just screeching static. I'm wondering if it's a Windows-only codec applied to the audio channel.

Nice videos, I look forward to any future videos you make =)

Way to go brad!!! Those are going to help in a great many ways.

Make sure to use those credits for Hero specific improvements.

Good idea. Actually, I think I will just start putting the version and build onto the end of each description.



Awesome. Definitely won't turn those down. Maybe a cred or two for each video that makes it out of development or something. Just PM me when I have something to spend.

Hmmm.... I would have thought that the flash .swf format would have been universal. When I was messing around with the audio settings I did change it from MP3 to Uncompressed, when I lowered it to 11.025 kHz. It seemed the best setting to minimize distortion, get descent sound, and save on file size. I wouldn't think that uncompressed would change compatibility though. Is there anyone else who knows more about this then me that could chime in?

I'll try it on my mac mini tonight for a second data point