Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 7:51 pm

I decided to make a separate topic on this so we could discuss more details.

I think it would be helpful if some "screencasts" were available to show how to use CMUD. My problem is that I just don't have the time to put these together. I've thought about posting to a site like elance.com, but it really would take someone who is very knowledgeable about CMUD to do this project, so I think posting it here is a better solution.

This is a project that I am willing to pay some money for. So if you want money detail, contact me for more information. I'm still doing some of my own research to find out the going rate for this kind of work.

I haven't done a lot of research on the software tools to make screencasts, but I've seen some nice screencasts done with a program called "Camtasia" and I think there is even a free version available.

What I'm looking for is a bunch of short screencasts to demo various features in CMUD. Each screencast should be shorter than 10 minutes (most people don't have the attention span for anything much longer than that). Narration would be the best, but even doing plain text overlays to explain what is being done would be better than nothing.

I've thought of the following topics:

1) Simple example of creating a new session and logging into a MUD for the first time.
2) Basic trigger creation (like maybe a trigger for "you are hungry" or something), showing both the Settings Editor and how to do it from the command line.
3) zMUD Conversion showing the zMUD Import wizard, and using the Compatibility report to fix common issues.
4) Introduction to capture windows. Showing scripts to perform the #capture and #gag, and also showing the window docking interface and how you can arrange your various chat windows into a nice interface.
5) Introduction to using the mapper (might want to wait for the 3.x public version for this one).
6) Anything that highlights a particularly "cool" feature of CMUD, like maybe a new button demo using the new 3.x button features.

If you want to use software different from Camtasia, my requirements are that the final result should be a Flash movie, and needs to be high enough quality to see the text and what is being typed on the screen. I'm not looking for crappy YouTube videos here. Extra points for screencasts that can automatically zoom in to show a particular area of the screen (like the settings editor).

I'm not sure how easy it is to add the "voice over" after the fact. If this is easy, then a written script would be great and I could have Chiara do the voice-overs. But I don't even have the time myself right now to create the scripts.

If anyone wants to help with this project, let me know. Might be a good way to earn a bit of money if you are good at it. Or, if you wanted to donate it to help support me, that would be even better. But I understand that something like this takes a fair amount of time and effort.

Magician Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 430

I haven't done anything like this myself, but I've seen different sort of explaining videos of sorts. While reading your post, the first I got was using some sort of screen capture software and doing an interactive video, i.e narrator points somewhere in particular with mouse pointer and it's all captured etc. I'm not familiar with all this, but I suppose voice-over is something you add later or even simultaniously.

Hopefully I didn't sound too dumb... Anyway, food for thought I guess.

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:37 pm

It's trivially easy to add voiceovers after recording if you do it right. Record the raw video, add the audio in (and also edit the video if need be) and re-encode, and then convert to swf. Job's a good'un. I even have a small library of royalty-free music for just that purpose ;)

The quality of the video can be as high as you like, really. Using the software I have it's about 500 kilobytes for each second of completely lossless video, though, so it's pretty costly in terms of bandwidth and loading times, but I think you'd need the quality very high so you can read the text.

Also, Youtube's high-quality and high-def options can actually give a really nice result, so that might actually be a decent hosting option.

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:15 pm

Since I have plenty of bandwidth here, I think I'd rather host the files locally rather than relying upon YouTube. I also own a copy of Flash CS4 so if I got the files in raw flash format, it would be easy for me to add the voiceover or music too.

I'm open to other software options other than Camtasia. I just know that all of the Camtasia screencasts I have seen have been good quality. It seems well-designed for doing screen captures for demo purposes. But if someone is gung-ho about using something else, don't let me stop you. I mainly just want to get something onto the site to help potential new customers see what CMUD and MUDding is all about.

Wizard Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 1201

This is easy to do using Wink. You don't need a $300 piece of software to create screencasts.

See I made this one below in like 1 minute.

Trigger tutorial

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:19 pm

You're hired!

I'm not familiar with Wink, but the demo that you made is exactly the kind of stuff that I'm looking for. Your balloon titles are perfect, and the quality is high enough to read the text and see what you are typing. The pace of the screencast is perfect.

My only (minor and picky) suggestion is to start the initial "making a trigger" tutorial using normal zScript syntax first, then show a RegEx trigger as a second example. Then in a *separate* "Advanced triggers" screencast you can show an example using wildcards and using the Test tab to test the trigger and to click the "Get Help on Pattern Matching" link to the help system.

But if you did your current example in only a minute or so, then I'd really appreciate any help you could give on these topics. I think you are a good match for this because you know CMUD pretty well, but you also approach CMUD from a non-Guru user point-of-view, which makes a good fit for creating demos for new users. As I said, you put the text help balloons in just the right places.

So let me know what you are willing to help with, either post here or send me a PM/email. Thanks!

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:35 pm

I had just a little time to look at some of the options for doing a few screencasts. Wink looked to be pretty easy.

I didn't pay attention to the length of oldguy2's demo, but the length of that was about right I think. much longer and those who don't have the fasted internet connections will get tired of waiting. As for attention span... I've seen averages between seconds and 20 minutes, as for myself if window A is boring i'll go to window B and forget entirely about window A in 15 seconds flat. Smaller, more on topic, less bandwidth being wasted, easier to find help on exactly what you want.

Wizard Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 1201

I created a few more tutorials and put up an index page with a menu so you can load them.

If you want to check them out, click the link below.

Tutorials

Edit: Well 5 seconds after I upload it the server went down apparently. Just lovely...

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 11:33 pm

I get errors trying to load the page.

Wizard Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 1201

Yeah wait awhile. It appears that server box went down. Oh well it is a free host what can I expect.

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 1:24 pm

OldGuy2 I have to say that is excellent work. I downloaded Wink myself and will try taking a crack at a few as time permits, but your examples thus far have been really impressive. Hundreds of newbies everywhere can now quest easier thanks to you. I personally thank you, and I'm sure Zugg, Chiara and all the other gurus echo that sentiment as well.

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 4:54 pm

Yeah, all of those are *great*! Exactly what I was hoping for. I think OldGuy2 has set the bar nice and high. Other contributions are still welcome, but OldGuy2 gives some great examples of how to produce a good demo movie with Wink. The topics build upon themselves and the annotation text is well done. Notice how he explains where to click in the text, also circles the area to click with the blue line, and then shows the mouse cursor moving to the area to click. Notice how the typing is sped up so that it's readable, but we don't need to see every character typed slowly. Notice how his examples (like in the advanced trigger tutorial) are fairly simple, and yet still useful and probably recognizable to anyone who has played a MUD at all. His tutorials really don't need any narration at all.

The next ones on the list I'd be interested in seeing are the #capture window examples showing the drag/drop window docking and layout system. And maybe one on importing a zMUD session if you have any zMUD stuff lying around. The mapper stuff can probably wait until the 3.x version is public since the mapper works so differently compared to the 2.37 version.

As soon as I get the next Beta version of CMUD and TeSSH released, then I will create an area on this site to host the tutorials that are being created.

I am very touched by the amount of thought and attention that went into OldGuy2's work on this. We exchanged our share of frustrating posts in the past, but it's this kind of help from OldGuy2 and from the Gurus on this site (and other semi-Gurus) that really keep me going these days. It's easy to get depressed about the world, the economy, and some of the annoying email that I get on a weekly basis from people who are rude. When I see that there are still people who care about MUDs and care about helping other people, it gives me hope for the future. Thanks again.

Wizard Joined: 17 Jun 2006 Posts: 1201

Glad you all like them. I'll try to put together some more pretty soon. I have all my old zMUD stuff on my old computer so I will see if I can copy some old mud files or maybe create a new mud file before I do that will purposefully cause errors when converted with stuff like using quotes around %1 and so on.