Here's the thing, we'd like to record a trailer for our upcoming game that isn't a bootleg of an actual iPhone (our cameras suck), but rather capture the gameplay directly from the emulator on the mac. We've purchased iSimulate and Screenflow, however our macbooks (the cheapest ones) can't handle the game very well and the framerate drops unpredictably. The result isn't smooth compared to what the game looks like on the iPhone. How do you guys do it? Is there any way around this?
The frame rate drops out even when the emulator is just running by itself? Yet it runs fine on the phone? That seems a little strange. I use Quicktime (on a MacBook circa Jan. 2008) to record me playing my games in the emulator, and then use Quicktime Pro (purchased a long time ago) to crop the recording to be just the iPhone screen. From my experience Quicktime uses less resources than other screen capture programs, so maybe it will help your frame rate.
Indeed, I know it sounds crazy that a dual core / 2gb ram equipped macbook can be outperformed by an iPhone 2g, yet when running on the emulator the game gets laggy as soon as there are more than 3 zombies on screen - while the iPhone can handle as many as 15 with a reasonable framerate. I've been looking for another way around, eg. record a stream from the iPhone on the mac with VNC but from what I've read it requires jailbreaking the iPhone and the framerate is very low due to wifi upload anyway.
That sucks. You know those mini hd recorders are crazy cheap nowadays. It might worth the small investment for future projects too. I have shot some iphone videos with it, and the key is a tripod and some decent lighting. I also think people prefer to see human fingers interacting with the game too.
dont run it from the emulator. make a native mac build instead. we use a native windows build and recorded with FRAPS. the creators of minigore did the same thing with one of their videos, and even used an xbox 360 controller to handle the dual stick action.
Trailer Phil, While we had the ability to use the emulator, we chose to actually show the game being played by someone. I actually prefer actual device game play trailers. You are able to see nuances and technique of game play. Ours was unique in that we use accelerometer controls. If you are worried about camera quality, you can easily rent an HD camera. We have a Cannon XH-A1 at Soma and most pro camera stores rent the same quality. Here is ours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoGyRfmtDCQ&feature=player_embedded Cheers
I make movies from our game running in Unity (or i guess the iphone simulator) using iShowU HD Its an awesome app. I think its $30-40USD.
We use Snapz Pro for mac. Absolutely brilliant capture app. Couldn't be happier with it. The selection tool for capturing / cropping is second to none, gives you a full zoomed-in enlarged pixel magnification view of the edges as you move your mouse so you can get it edge perfect on the emulater / frame.
you can try Screenium. I used it for my game n so far its great http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpLLyUTVZb8
Recording gameplay tools Hi Flickitty, I want to create a video/trailer for our iPhone/iPod game. How do I create a native mac build? Thank you
Hi, I would like to know how to create a trailer by recording from the ipod/iphone and not from the emulator. Flickitty mentioned there's an option to create a native mac build. What does it mean and how do I do that. Cheers
I've also Snapz Pro with great results. It's my understanding (I might be wrong, though) that Snow Leopard has video screen capturing built in…
