[SOLVED] How do I Record Live Video of my Game?

I'm nearing the completion of my first game and I would like to upload a video of it to YouTube, but I don't know how. I'm not sure if Unity has a built-in feature for video recording. Are there any good video recording programs to use for Windows 8.1? I would prefer ones that are free and can record in decent quality (at least 720p). I read about Fraps, but it is not compatible with Windows 8. Any ideas?

Thanks,

- Chris

 

Camstudio for pc is free. Make sure you download and install the codec that goes with it. Unsure if it is compatible with windows 8 yet.

 

I've used OBS (https://obsproject.com/) and it works fine with both Unity and Windows 8.1.

 

Debut free version is good. It also allows you to record a defined area of the screen : http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/

 

I use Active Presenter on Win 7 64bit.
To record my own Blender Tutorials.
It has really nice quality too.
But I don't know if it will work well on WIn 8.1.
Probably because I don't have Win 8.1 yet.

 

Debut looks great! It looks like it's exactly what I need!

I looked at the website for Active Presenter and I did not find anything about system requirements, so I don't know if it will work on Win 8.1. Overall, Active Presenter looks pretty good, but I'd say that @Freddy888 was dead on with Debut. Who knows, nothing stopping me from having more than one!

- Chris

 

@Blue Bean : Best way to figure out is trial and error . Debut locked itself into a 0 day trial mode for me

 

Trial mode? I experienced no such thing when I downloaded and installed it the other day. Are you saying the free version is just a trial? Anyways, trial and error is the best way to learn.

By the way, you had a little whoopsy with my name there. Lol. It seems like @Blue has doesn't much to contribute to the Unity forums, considering he/she has a whopping 0 messages!

- Chris

 

Just make sure you tell it you're not using it commercially, or else it will lock you to the professional mode .

 

@Blue Bean Apps I've been running the free version for a couple of years and it's still going fine. Glad you found it useful, have fun

 

Thanks for the heads-up!

- Chris

 

Bandicam is like $20 and works awesome. Recent update made the UI 100x better.

 

As I've said in my first post, I want software that is free to use. Maybe once I start earning some money from my first game, I will look into some higher quality programs, but for now I'm starting cheap.

- Chris

 

Try OBS (I linked it earlier in the thread). It works just fine for me with Win 8.1 and Unity. And it's free

 

I tried that out a bit the other day, and found that I prefer Debut. With Debut, you can start recording the second you open it up, pretty much, which is very nice! It also has a simpler interface. Debut and OBS are my top two choices.

- Chris

 

i am using FastStone Capture on my windows 8.1 laptop.
it is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool and screen video recorder. Built-in screen recorder saves videos in WMV (Windows Media Video) format.

30 days trial and 19.95 $ to buy it

 

Can it save to other formats, such as mp4, flv, avi, etc.? I want to upload the recorded video to YouTube and elsewhere, but as far as I know, YouTube doesn't accept wmv formats. Also, how limited is the trial version? Are you at least capable of recording a few minutes of video with the trial version? I tried using Debut the other day and before I could even record anything, it locked me out telling me to purchase it, so Debut's trial version is completely worthless... Well, you get what you paid for, right?

- Chris

 

Are you sure you downloaded the free version. Like I said it's been running for a couple of years for me for free.

 

Camstudio is utter crap! I installed it and all this malware came along with it and it took forever to remove all of it! I'm not necessarily blaming the makers of Camstudio for the unwanted malware, but I blame their installer! I had to use Spybot AND Malewarebytes to THREE times to finally get rid of the damn malware, so it was a complete waste of a day!

Helpful warning to people who want to use Camstudio... DON'T USE CAMSTUDIO!! Only use it if you are good friends with malware...

- Chris

 

What site did you download yours from? I downloaded through sourceforge. As common practice I run installers downloaded from the web through my virus and maleware programs to ensure that nothing got attached to it and found nothing before and after installing camstudio. Maybe one of the more recent versions does indeed have something attached to it as I am still running an older version.

 

I downloaded it from its website at www.camstudio.org. It looks like the malware is tinkering with the wireless router, so I'm using the internet at my school right now since the I'm having to reset the router... I hate people who are cruel enough to do this...

- Chris

 

I did download the free version. It let me record one video before it started forcing me to pay for it. Unfortunately, I used that one free recording just to see how it would work, so it was a complete waste! However, I really like how Debut works, so I am considering buying it. I'll try to tinker with OBS a bit more before I spend any money.

EDIT: Looking more into it, I'm actually not sure if I got the free version because I went to www.nchsoftware.com/capture and there was a link all the way at the bottom of the page for the Windows download and I clicked the link and it started the download immediately. I'm not sure if it downloaded the free version because it said nothing about what it was downloading asides from the file name being debutsetup.exe

Did you download it from sourceforge?

- Chris

 

Not from sourceforge. I believe I downloaded from the link on their website :



Found at : http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/

 

I looked at it just now and it is the download for the mac that is free, but I downloaded the one for Windows, so my theory is that this malware only comes up in the Windows installer and not the Mac. Looking at user reviews, a lot of people say the same thing about the installer bringing malware, so it's not just me.

- Chris

 

Maybe they added it after I got it. I don't remember getting any junk with it. Nothing shows up in my scans anyway.

 

I just installed it from where you got it from and I chose to use it for non-commercial use and this is what I got when I tried to record:



At least this is different from the message I got before...

Apparently, they made the free version incapable of doing anything after you got yours... What's the point of the free version!? Stupid Debut makers...

- Chris

 

Well that sucks.

I had a google and found this : http://www.videolan.org/

There's instructions for video capture here : http://www.wikihow.com/Screen-Capture-to-File-Using-VLC

Never tried it myself, though I might take a look at it for the editing part.

 

Fraps works just fine in Windows 8.1. Not sure where the op got that it was incompatible. Fraps, CamStudio and Bandicam all work great under Wimdows 8.1 and I've used all three. The real challenge is getting the videos on YouTube without it hosing the quality. Sorenson Squeeze is the best app I've found for this but it comes at a steep price tag so I never purchased after my trial expired.

 

MSI Afterburner will record video and you can overclock your video card while you are at it (even if it isn't an MSI card). It's free.

 

I'm assuming you're referring to the Video Capture - Predator. If you've used the video capture, how well does it work for you? The screenshot they give you is horrible quality and it doesn't show that actual program in work.

- Chris

 

I've already looked into Fraps and found that it is not free. I'm a one-man-army right now as an indie developer, so I do not need any professional products as of yet. Plus, Fraps isn't free and I'm tight on money, so I'm looking for free material.

- Chris

 

I haven't used it too much and I'm probably not too picky. The following video is from an iRacing online race replay. The only editing that I did was to cut off the side monitors in iMovie (I was racing with triple screens).

 

You can stream your game on Twitch and upload the finished video to Youtube.

 

I know how and where to upload the fished video, but I need a program that allows me to make the video.

- Chris

 

You can use OBS to stream to Twitch and Twitch will automatically create a video for you and you have the option within your Twitch admin panel to directly upload it to Youtube. You also get the added advantage of streaming live to your fan base.

This is your best free and legal option in my opinion.

 

Thanks. I will look into that.

- Chris

 

If you're going to use obs then just use it to stream directly to a file. Then edit and upload it yourself

 

Yeah, that's what I would do no matter what program I use.

- Chris

 

If using an nVidia card, then ShadowPlay (included with the free GeForce Experience) is an awesome recorder. Hardware accelerated H.264 encoding, almost no impact on framerate. Not sure if it works with 8.1, still on 7 myself.