Screen recorder for game trailer

I use IShowU for mac osx http://shinywhitebox.com/ishowu-v1/ . It's cheap enough and does a good job. Although on my older mac mini, it struggles a little with HD resolutions.

I've just bought a Apple TV box and when you enable mirroring and have it plugged into a HDMI recording device, you can get nice smooth HD recordings.

 

Recently I've been working on getting gameplay footage together for our next game. I used a piece of software called Reflection http://www.reflectionapp.com/ to airplay the app on my mac. The thing is the app comes with a built in recorder. It's not perfect, runs at a steady 29.5 fps at the ipad res or whatever res they let you set it at.

As for controls and not being able to see cursors, you don't have to worry about it because you're using your ipad.

I've also tried just running the game in the Corona emulator(that's the game engine we're using) and then using Quicktime to screen record. For that, I used a controller app that connects with my ipad to control whatever on screen. It's a little more niche though...and quite frankly the app I bought for like 17 bucks or whatever is a massive steaming pile of crap. I even got into a giant argument with the dev...he hasn't fixed it yet.

If you want to know what that is shoot me a message...but otherwise I used Reflection.

 

I just posted this on another thread. I know the OP is using a Mac, but in case any PC users happen upon this thread...

http://www.amazon.com/AVERMEDIA-Broa.../dp/B006T8QCYA

I use this capture card with my iPad. It's the most hassle free method I've found so far. Looks beautiful, no dropped frames. Uses the VGA adapter for the iPad. Records 1920 x 1200 no sweat. I'm using it for a Daredevil Dave trailer.

For the Mac, I've used Screenium to capture the screen, but capturing from the device looks way better, in my experience.

 

If it's an OpenGL ES game, I think I've heard of at least one thing that actually lets you collect a OpenGL call trace and then replay it in a browser in WebGL... (or it's the other way around?) I don't think it works on iPhones, but I'm actually working on something like this specifically for iOS.

Edit: it seems that if you just want screenshots, there's a Core Graphics function that you're allowed to use:
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/12/15/apple-relents-and-is-now-allowing-uigetscreenimage-for-app-st/
You can probably extend it to video capture with some work, but I'm not sure what its performance is like.

 

There is an awesome api for cocos2d developers for gameplay recording, check it out http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/archives/1942

 

This isn't a software capture approach exactly, but it's what we've used in the past. We set the game to run at a lower constant speed (a quarter speed) and then play it in the xcode simulator, capturing from within the simulator. Then later when we're putting together our trailers, we work with the captured footage in software (in our case After Effects 5.5) to speed the game footage back up to in-game standard speed, and insert it into a device frame.

Not the clearest explanation, but that's what we did, because we couldn't find acceptable alternative solutions. You can see the results in our trailer for Lol-a-Coaster released earlier this year.

Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel

 

Shame but looks like Display Recorder was recently removed from the App Store. Decent little app for just this sort of thing. Shame. Not sure what Apple has against that.

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Cricket Words: http://bit.ly/cricketwords

 

I also use Reflection to airplay from my ipad to the computer. Its not great, but it works alright.

 

I used iShowU + Simulator too but my results are quite 'choppy'

Some time ago I tested the Elegato 'Game Capture HD' box. They sell it as a game recording device for the Playstation and XBox 360. It is a box with an HDMI input+output and a USB port. You connect the iPad ( via the Apple HDMI adapter ) to the HDMI input and connect the USB port to the Mac. The recording software records the iPad screen. I used my MacBook Air to test it ( which is a little below the recommended hardware specs ) but the results are promising ( 720p, good frame rate and quality ). Will test it with 1080p when I have the time.
The box is very handy but quite expensive - nevertheless I wish I had it two month ago. Would have saved me a lots of time

 

On our Macs we use ScreenFlow when recording our game from Unity. It allows us to crop the size of the video and remove the cursor as well. If you visit the Wizard Ops website you can see our main trailer which used ScreenFlow to capture the gameplay (not going to post the trailer here because I don't want to spam this thread with videos).

The major drawback is that it's not really cheap but you can download it from the Mac Store if you have any extra iTunes gift cards laying around.

 

BTW - Eli Hodapp has already tested this "magic" box, and you can read about this (guess whare...) on TouchArcade , here is a link to this article:

WWDC: Elgato's Game Capture HD is Blowing My Mind Right Now​

-=Agnes=-

 

The past week I've tried to learn about as much as I could about video capture of apps to make a simple youtube video

Recording the simulator on my mac:
Quicktime: Slow's simulator performance, occasional artifacts when uploading to youtube, if the resolution wasn't high enough I couldn't get 720p to work on youtube. don't bother Free
Screenflow: Great performance, a tiny bit sluggish with Retina simulator, great features and easy to use, $99 (not cheap)

Recording off of device (no jailbreaking of devices)
Reflection: Amazing, took me 1 minute to set up the airplay thing will pop up only after you launch reflection. Faster than capturing off my simulator (but no mouse cursor depending on if you want that) $14 bucks cheap! get it! (make sure your mac and iOS device are next to your wifi, sound lag will happen if the connection isn't optimal) Mac only
Elgato: If I had money sitting around I'd get this. PC/Mac USB and portable. It's supposed to be the best solution $180

 

I know this is a bit of overkill, but when I only had a slow laptop to work with, it chugged and spluttered if I tried to capture video. To overcome this, I simply ran the (deterministic) program once, recording all input, then ran it a second time, replaying the inputs and writing out screenshots for every frame. Then I simply compiled the screenshots into a video.
I also recorded the audio from the first playthrough and attached it to the video at the end. It worked well. I'm not saying this is something you should do, I just thought I'd mention it in case it gives people ideas in similar situations.

 

We bought this card to capture HD footage and never looked back: http://www.avermedia.com/avertv/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?Id=565
Not expensive at all and easy to use:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_UYUwzVXmg

 

It's about $140 on amazon, great if you have all your video editing stuff on windows, but not on a mac.