Home Technical Talk

Screenshots & Presentation Help/Thread of Knowledge

polycounter lvl 8
Offline / Send Message
Endfinity Jon polycounter lvl 8
There's a TON of unique steps that each of us takes to finish a piece, but in the end, there's one universal and final step we all take - Screenshots. However you reach the end, your work can be pushed farther or made worse by how you decide to showcase it.

Unfortunately, there's never really been a good resource on how to maximize your presentation. I've read all over the place and continue to find mis-information or lack of information altogether. I'd love if we could turn this thread into a resource of knowledge on the subject.

I just came off of the very sad demise of 38 Studios. Among other things, the last pieces I worked on were screenshots for our marketing/press pack. Because they've been released officially, I can link you to them:

http://www.38watch.com/forums/showthread.php?2786-You-guys-deserve-this

I got the word from Curt to leak them, fun little night indeed.

Either way, as I work on some art tests/new pieces I've come to find myself working on presentation again but this time with less control than I had with our modified Unreal Engine at 38. For instance, we had console commands to refine and tweak settings to get the highest quality look. Looking in UDK standard, I don't really know the best way to maximize settings to my advantage.

There's the obvious:
  • setres 1920x1080 (etc)
  • togglescreenshotmode (remove hud)
  • Call up your camera either via kismet console events, snapping to it at level load, or just shooting from in game. Here's where an eye for composition can make or break you.
Then comes the infamous - tiledshot 2, 4 (etc)

You can also call up "rc" (remote control) and make tweaks to a bunch of things, from post process, lights, assets, and settings, right there from in game.

Tiledshot is great for shooting a high res image and once you've shrunk it down to a manageable size, you've essentially anti-aliased the entire shot. However, from my understanding, tiled shot shoots before your post process chain. What that means is any post process you have in the scene (depth of field, bloom, tonemapping) is lost. Well...that's crappy. *Tiled shot also kills your light shafts* I used the "shot" command and have them in the image, but the tiledshot command removes them completely. Ouch!

Is there a solution to getting a high res image out and still maintain the post work you were doing? I'm wondering if someone smarter than me (probably all of you) can shed some light on that.

I'm hoping we can compile a list of helpful console commands and tips to maximize the look of our scenes. I don't know if any exist, but something that would maybe reduce mipping, improve shadow quality, increase draw distance, make things look awesome, etc.

Hopefully we can get some good info into this thread! Thanks,
~Jon

Replies

  • Endfinity Jon
    Offline / Send Message
    Endfinity Jon polycounter lvl 8
    Here's a little extra info on a quick process and setup for how I do screens.

    Firstly, I place the camera in the scene. I open kismet with the camera selected and make a new Matinee. Matinee will usually give your camera a movement and a FOV track. I usually kill the movement track because sometimes the first keyframe doesn't play nicely. Instead, I typically press the little camera icon to look through the camera and move it around until I've found the composition I'm looking for.

    I'm including pictures, but please note that I'm working on a test at the moment so please excuse the artsy depth of field making the content tough to see (sorry).

    Here's the placed camera and the matinee sequence:

    Camera.png



    Camera3.png



    Finally I set up a simple sequence in Kismet. The sequence is based around a console event. The console event calls up the camera. I've named the event "screenshot", so in game, I type - ce screenshot - and I'll snap to my camera. There are other ways to do this, but I enjoy this control especially once I add several cameras in, I can just call each one up with thier own command (screenshot 2, 3, 4, etc).

    Camera2.png

    Well, there ya go, that's a quick look at some simple screenshot prep work I do.

    ~Jon
  • blankslatejoe
    Offline / Send Message
    blankslatejoe polycounter lvl 18
    Awesome Jon, although this is mostly UDK specific, so you should probably ping a mod to get you to move it.

    As for tiled shot alternative: well, you could use 'set res x y' to set the game to like 1600x1200--and then use the regular shot command to capture that. That's big enough for most web and video purposes. Tiledshot is really designed for use with print marketing materials: posters, cardboard cutouts, etc. Unfortunately, yea, it strips away the post process chain, doesn't work with UI, and etc.

    Oh, also, you should post those screenshots directly in the thread!
  • Eric Chadwick
    Thanks for starting this! Added to the wiki here. Some other relevant links there.
  • Endfinity Jon
    Offline / Send Message
    Endfinity Jon polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks for the tips Joe! Funny seeing you here :)

    Are you talking about manually setting the x and y resolution with a different command other than "setres 1920x1080"? I think I recall one that you could adjust the x and y, is that what you're talking about, and if it is, do you remember the command?

    The reason I find tiled shot to be so effective is that when you reduce the size of your shot, you've got a significantly cleaner and crisper shot. Essentially, blending the lines when you reduce to fake a nice anti-aliasing pass.

    I tried to fake a tiledshot 2 by saying "setres 3840x2160" but the window will not extend beyond the native screen size. If that would have worked, I could have used the "shot" command and BAM, would have had a nice large image WITH all the post process intact. Is there a way I can change the output of the screen size in say, the UDK config settings or an ini file?

    Another question to be asked: Is there a way to run an anti-aliasing on your image in Unreal before using the shot command?

    Thanks,
    ~Jon
  • Endfinity Jon
    Offline / Send Message
    Endfinity Jon polycounter lvl 8
    For the record, the "shot" command WILL keep your post process work.

    I tried a few more things this morning. Firstly, I tried to edit the ini file. I hit control f, found the system settings, and made my resolution double the size of the shot I wanted (3840x2160). From there, I opened the game, gave it a try, and found out that the window won't extend past screen size (it did make it larger than the standard though).

    After that didn't work, I tried to use the remote control "rc" command. This is an awesome command, you can edit most everything in your entire scene, so if you've not tinkered with it, I suggest giving it a shot.

    Either way, in the rendering tab, I tried to extend the frame beyond screensize and it didn't work either. As shown in the screen below.

    Camera4.png

    The reason I was trying to extend the frame to double size other than using tiledshot 2 was because I thought that if it would work, I could just use the shot command and BAM, everything would work out!

    Moral of the story: We're going to need an anti-aliasing solution that won't remove post process work. So far, you can have a high res image without post work, or a standard size image with it...you can't have both. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this a bit more and hopefully, offer a solution.

    ~Jon
  • Eric Chadwick
    Old school solution... render 2x, then scale 1/2x in Photoshop. Or any tool that resamples nicely.
  • Endfinity Jon
    Offline / Send Message
    Endfinity Jon polycounter lvl 8
    Eric, How would I render 2x?

    Is that a command?

    If that's the case, does it keep your post process in tact?

    Thanks much,
    ~Jon
  • Eric Chadwick
    I meant use tiledshot, and set it to output 2x your intended resolution. Then downsize in an image editor, like Photoshop or XnView. The "antialiasing" you get from downsizing won't be as nice as native AA, but it should be decent, depending on the resampling filter you choose. Photoshop only has a couple filters, but XnView has a bunch of them (Mitchell is nice).
  • cptSwing
    Offline / Send Message
    cptSwing polycounter lvl 11
    (i think he didn't notice your previous post which outlines the problem ;) )

    EDIT: but doesn't tiledshot ignore post effects and the like?
  • Eric Chadwick
    Oops, duh. Hahah, sorry!

    One solution I used recently in a custom engine is to simply make a panorama. I took screenshots in a sequence, rotating the camera 1/2 the frame width each time (so what was on the edge of the frame is now in the middle of the frame). Then I used Photoshop's Photomerge to blend them together. Here's an example. I didn't downsample this one though.
  • Endfinity Jon
    Offline / Send Message
    Endfinity Jon polycounter lvl 8
    Morning fellas!

    That solution you're talking about Eric is something we were going to do at 38, essentially, make a custom camera rig that would shoot 4 individual shots that would allow us to KEEP our post process but also have a large hi-res image.

    I'll mess with that and let you know what I find.
  • Eric Chadwick
    Photomerge is fickle, it'll spit out crap results if you're not militant about your sequences. If just one shot is an outlier, the perspective gets all screwed.

    Of the different layout modes, Cylindrical seemed to work the best.

    Photomerge_layouts.jpg

    Beware you'll need a ton of RAM, and a bit of patience. Also, best to experiment with downsized shots first, to figure out which options to use. There are other pano tools out there, but this one's just dead easy.

    Another Photomerge, from Rage, crosshairs in the middle of each shot.

    Rage-CaptialPrime_01.jpg
  • cptSwing
    Offline / Send Message
    cptSwing polycounter lvl 11
    that's a pretty good idea though!
  • whw
    If you're intent ongoing down the photostitch route, have a go at Hugin:

    http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

    I find allows more control as it's possible to set up reference points on two or more photos to get the best possible match.
  • Endfinity Jon
    Offline / Send Message
    Endfinity Jon polycounter lvl 8
    When you shoot, how are you moving your cameras?

    My thought would be to use the shot command, then move the camera over in one axis only (say x) and do another shot. Finally, move the camera up in z and do the same thing for your next few shots, moving one axis at a time.

    I figured that by rotating the camera on pivot, you may end up getting a strange perspective skewing...?
  • Eric Chadwick
    Motion gives you parallax, which causes tons of errors. Pure rotation is the best for panos.
  • Endfinity Jon
    Offline / Send Message
    Endfinity Jon polycounter lvl 8
    I keep thinking there's going to be an amazing tech art genius that comes in and tells us we can render post process with tiledshot, can extend the image past your screensize, or turn on anti-aliasing at the push of a button.

    I must be dreaming...
  • Ace-Angel
    Offline / Send Message
    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    Nope, unless you have access to the source code and create plugin-esque extension, it doesn't exist.
  • DeadlyFreeze
    Offline / Send Message
    DeadlyFreeze polycounter lvl 17
    Has anyone tried the cinematic capture method?
  • Endfinity Jon
    Offline / Send Message
    Endfinity Jon polycounter lvl 8
    I have not messed with that yet. Will play around with that tonight and/or tomorrow and post my results. Could be interesting, thanks!
Sign In or Register to comment.