Slow and steady: tips and tricks to successful runs [Videos]

[jimmijamjams]

Great series! Keep them coming.

I'm watching them so fast, they are only encoded to 360p on youtube when I start them

Haha, Give it time!  They're pretty tough to watch in 360p

Edit:
And thanks for watching

[Kasaris]

Really interesting videos  you have a really cool voice, which make it really easy to listen. 
I already watched your first run a while ago. Now I'll watch the second.
It's a really good introduction to the game.

[jimmijamjams]

Cheers! The second run is still going and I'll be recording some more today.

If the stars align and my blood sacrifice works I may even have an Internet connection on which to upload it.

[jimmijamjams]

New episode is up!

Cogmind [Alpha 1] | Run 2 | Ep 10 |

In this episode:

• I talk about some of the interesting changes for Alpha 1b
• I ram a Grunt to death
• I find a weapons cache guarded by a Behemoth and several Sentinels
• I die wishing I had kept my fight units

[jimmijamjams]

Just in case anyone thought I had fallen off the planet, I haven't!

I've just had a lot of work on lately and I'll be travelling for a few weeks very soon.  I'm looking to pick up the series and be more present on the forums once I get back mid next month.

Hope everyone is enjoying themselves

Catch you all later!

[CormacMccarthy91]

I was wondering what happened, figured your internet was still being quirky. Maybe when you get back do a run using the tiles with the ascii color scheme?

[Kyzrati]

Just in case anyone thought I had fallen off the planet, I haven't!

I've just had a lot of work on lately and I'll be travelling for a few weeks very soon.  I'm looking to pick up the series and be more present on the forums once I get back mid next month.

Forum activity has dropped off anyway now that we're past all the initial excitement, but I'm aware that a lot of people are playing in the background, just not as much to say for the time being

Activity will pick up again next month when I finish Alpha 2 and we start a tournament some time after that

[jimmijamjams]

I was wondering what happened, figured your internet was still being quirky. Maybe when you get back do a run using the tiles with the ascii color scheme?

That's a good idea!  With all my talk about about using it I haven't even tried it out.

Forum activity has dropped off anyway now that we're past all the initial excitement, but I'm aware that a lot of people are playing in the background, just not as much to say for the time being

Activity will pick up again next month when I finish Alpha 2 and we start a tournament some time after that

Excellent!  Bring on Alpha 2!

I had a quick question too.  I haven't checked it myself, but is the seeding fixed with Alpha 1b?  If so we should start up some regular (weekly?) seed runs.

[Kyzrati]

I had a quick question too.  I haven't checked it myself, but is the seeding fixed with Alpha 1b?  If so we should start up some regular (weekly?) seed runs.

Yep, should be fixed now! (Someone other than myself is welcome to test it and confirm, though, certainly before starting anything serious )

[jimmijamjams]

Just got home and had a quick look at the seeding.  It appears to be working in terms of the starting layout, placement of squads, and the layout of at least the first three maps I got to.  If I haven't seen anyone start some seed runs before I get back from overseas I'll be sure to start a thread myself

[Kyzrati]

Cool, sounds like it should be working then. I already tested it and that was my result--nice to have some outside confirmation though, especially with something so important.

The way shared seed runs normally work, whoever starts it posts an image of what the initial view of the starting map looks like (in our case it would probably make more sense to use the Materials 1 entry point), so that everyone can be sure they entered the seed correctly and are playing the same world.

Seeds can be anything, numbers or words--I like the latter option because it makes them easier to remember and type

[Reiver]

Make the screenshot the seed! 

[Kyzrati]

Haha, well you can embed a seed in a screenshot, yeah, though I think for the player that's potentially a bit more confusing/troublesome than just opening the options and typing in "jimmiseed", mostly because players aren't used to it.

I've seen games that encode their save data in screenshots, which is a pretty neat idea

[Reiver]

It's also a great way to authenticate them! Much of the data is lost in photoshopping, after all.

[Kasaris]

Hoy, Jimmijamsjams, I would like to know what is your recording software for the Cogmind videos and how do you configure it? I made a video of Cogmind a month ago (on youtube if you're interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WlOZB7OALk), but I wasn't satisfied with the overall quality. I'm pretty new to video stuff so specialized vocabulary kind of repulse me ahah

So how do you do it, in a simple way 

[jimmijamjams]

Hoy, Jimmijamsjams, I would like to know what is your recording software for the Cogmind videos and how do you configure it? I made a video of Cogmind a month ago (on youtube if you're interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WlOZB7OALk), but I wasn't satisfied with the overall quality. I'm pretty new to video stuff so specialized vocabulary kind of repulse me ahah

So how do you do it, in a simple way 

Hey, I didn't realise you were roguelikefr!  I've been subbed to you for a while and I watch a few of your videos (my french is very basic, but I do like your vids!).  I've already watched this video and gave it a thumbs up a month ago, you do a great job of explaining the game

I've tried both Bandicam and OBS .  I think I get better video quality from Bandicam (here is a clip of the 7DRL using bandicam), but the time lost to rendering made me move to OBS.  I'm not an expert at screen-capture software, but judging from your video you are using OBS as well so hopefully these settings are familiar.

My settings for OBS are:

Encoding:

• Source: Monitor Capture
• Encoder: x264
• Quality Balance: 8
• Max Bitrate (kb/s): 6000

Video:

• Video Adapter: Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600
• Bases Resolution: Custom - 1920 x 1080
• Aspect Ratio 16:9
• Resolution Downscale: None
• FPS: 30

These are the main settings I've changed and most of the rest I've left as default.  In game I use the 18/Wide font in full screen as I felt it came across best for recordings, but I'm going to experiment with the other fonts (I have a feeling 18/Termial will record better).  There are a few more settings I've left out, but if you'd like to know more I'd be happy to PM you.

I'm still not entirely happy with the quality of my videos either, but the trade-off for quality/file-size works well enough for my very slow upload speeds due to my location.  If file size is not a problem you might try upping the bitrate.  Recording this game can be tricky and Kyzrati talks about how he recorded the trailer on the blog.  It might give you some other ideas.

[Kasaris]

Hey, I didn't realise you were roguelikefr!  I've been subbed to you for a while and I watch a few of your videos (my french is very basic, but I do like your vids!).  I've already watched this video and gave it a thumbs up a month ago, you do a great job of explaining the game

Wow, I didn't know that, thanks a lot ! We're in fact a (very) small community : we mainly have a forum, a twitter and the youtube channel (and a blog but it hasn't been updated for quite some time). Many, many vids aren't from me (this one is!) but it's good to hear that people that are not totally french-speaker can enjoy the videos! Drop a comment on the videos or take a look at the forum sometimes ! Don't let the name roguelike.FR fools you : we're always happy to speak with anyone regardless of one's french mastery ahah

(If you want to improve your french -hey, we never know!- go to this subreddit(https://fr.reddit.com/r/French/), I used to hang out there like a year and a half ago and tried to help people sometimes^^)

I'm surprised that you can actually understand my ramblings in the video, my sound is quite low and I'm hesitating a lot as I speak...It would be awful to hear if I spoke in english  .

And nope, I don't use OBS but Camtasia studio! I just downloaded OBS this afternoon out of curiosity so I see what you mean with these settings. The major problem with camtasia is that it doesn't capture ... full screen applications >_< It is really easy to record then to cut and make something watchable in minutes but that is a major issue. So I record my entire screen with it (windowed mode set to my resolution) but it's far from perfect.

EDIT : After writing this, I tested Cogmind recorded in fullscreen with camtasia, and it seems to work... So forget about the previous paragraph. I don't know why it works...

I had this problem with OBS : when you select "sources" and go for "game capture", the screen just stays black and Cogmind doesn't appear in the recording. I don't know why you can't select in the properties but I see that you use "monitor capture" so I guess I'll use the same...

I plan to make more videos of Cogmind as I really like the game and want it to be more recognized, that's why I want the videos to be prettier. Maybe I'll be recording weekly seeds or tournaments when it'll happen.

Then again, I really like your videos 

[jimmijamjams]

Great to hear you've sorted out Camtasia and thanks for the reddit link.  I've already found a few resources that will be very helpful.

I'll look forward to watching some more videos from you in the future!

I've just done a channel update talking about my break from YouTube to concentrate on my studies.  You'll have to take up the reins of spreading the word on YouTube for the time-being

[Kasaris]

Even if camtasia seems to work, I'll try OBS, juste because and going for your settings to see what I can do.

Well you're putting some pressure on me 

Just out of curiosity, what are you studying?

[ironpotato]

And nope, I don't use OBS but Camtasia studio! I just downloaded OBS this afternoon out of curiosity so I see what you mean with these settings. The major problem with camtasia is that it doesn't capture ... full screen applications >_< It is really easy to record then to cut and make something watchable in minutes but that is a major issue. So I record my entire screen with it (windowed mode set to my resolution) but it's far from perfect.

EDIT : After writing this, I tested Cogmind recorded in fullscreen with camtasia, and it seems to work... So forget about the previous paragraph. I don't know why it works...

Just for future reference, the reason camtasia doesn't record full screen probably has to do with hardware rendering (ie. rendering on the gpu) in opengl/directx applications. Whereas Cogmind is written in SDL which is all software rendered, so that's probably why Cogmind works.

Anywho, love watching Cogmind runs, I'll have to check out your videos

[jimmijamjams]

After a long break I'm back to creating some more Cogmind content.  It was a very busy few months, but it's been great seeing the game grow from a distance.  Massive thanks to zxc for taking on the Weekly Seeds during my absence which I'm looking forward to getting back into.

I'm pretty rusty and trying to catch up on all the new content so you'll have to bear with me as I get back up to speed.

Enjoy!

Cogmind [Alpha 4b] | Run 4 | Ep 1 | I'm Back!
Cogmind [Alpha 4b] | Run 4 | Ep 2 | Fabrication
Cogmind [Alpha 4b] | Run 4 | Ep 3 | Lrg. Matter Storage Unit
Cogmind [Alpha 4b] | Run 4 | Ep 4 | Swing Of Things