Capturing (animated) screenshots

dragonbait · Post by **dragonbait** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 4:15 pm

Since i've been trying to access and open picture files from the old bard's tale games, which I have been able to do just by using the print screen/capture screen button, (which basically freezes the picture at the point of capture) I have really been wanting to know how to capture (animated) screenshots. (like when you're in battle and you see the picture of the enemy and he moves his head or swings his sword etc. Is there a program that i could do that with? or how is that done? Example below.

origen · Post by **origen** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 4:43 pm

Hey, if you could find a way, that would be great. I wanted to put the animated original BT graphics in my Bard's Tale mod, but I couldn't get that to happen.

dragonbait · Post by **dragonbait** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 6:47 pm

I realize that i need to rephrase what i had written above. I've been unsuccessful in opening picture files from the old bard's tale games, but have been able to capture screenshots though they are not animated. There must be a way to do it somehow, as the picture above is a GIF file. I was able to just copy this from a website and save the file. When I open it up on my computer it still has it's animation.

dragonbait · Post by **dragonbait** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 11:10 pm

Well so far i've downloaded a program called SnagIt and so far i've been able to capture a battle in DW fighting a group of thieves. I was able to capture animation on the thief's eye movements and such as it is was in the DW. It saves as an AVI file at this point so i guess if i can find a way to loop the animation and convert the AVI to GIF that would be great. However I run into the same problems that i ran into regarding copying screenshots/videoshots of the bard's tale games as i am running windows XP and am not able to copy screenshots via the printscreen button. Maybe if i install SnagIt onto my laptop which currently runs windows 95 (where i am able to get screenshots of the bard's tale via printscreen, hopefully i can get it to work on that. Well i'll just have to find out and see. I'll keep you posted. And if anyone has any better way of doing this it would be greatly appreciated. 8)

Rickstavern · Post by **Rickstavern** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 12:57 pm

Here is a capture I made using better screenshots (http://publicspace.net/windows/BetterSc ... index.html)
and animation studio.
First one is DOS version running through dosbox with 2x filter on. Smooths it out a bit.

Second one is from the Amiga version running under winUAE. Colors seem a bit off on it tho.

It's a little clumsy, but it works. What you really need is software that can automatically capture over a period of time, but I've never seen any.

Translating that into a DW image... no idea.

dragonbait · Post by **dragonbait** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 5:50 pm

Well the SnagIt doesn't work on windows 95, so i'm kind screwed there as it doesn't do what i need it to do in windows XP either. That's some really smooth animated artwork on the guild picture with the fire. More smooth than i remember playing the actual game. I'll have to try that out. I wish i hadn't gotten upgraded to windows XP a few years back as it doesn't seem to work very well with these older games. Thanks for the input. 8)

Rickstavern · Post by **Rickstavern** » Sun Sep 24, 2006 7:21 pm

For older games use dosbox http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/

Work for most anything from the pre-95 days. It is a command line program, so I highly recommend you get a front-end for it, too.

I use D-fend to create game profiles. http://members.home.nl/mabus/

dragonbait · Post by **dragonbait** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:38 pm

Awesome. I was able to capture animated screenshots of the bard's tale II. I put it through the dosbox and used "Better Screenshots" which is a really easy to use program. Your right about the colors being a little off as the picture i took (bard's tale II hunter character pic) was a little more blueish than the original picture's greenish tint. I'll post it here after i put it up on my website soon. Thanks 8)

Growler · Post by **Growler** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 3:48 am

That Irfanview program can also do various screenshot caps--incl. auto-saves at preset intervals.. the fastest (mebe) being 1 screenshot per second..

dragonbait · Post by **dragonbait** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 4:35 am

Here is my first animated GIF pic. 8)

origen · Post by **origen** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 5:13 am

Can you import an animated gif into Devil Whiskey? Or do you have to do it as seperate files?

I never used animated pictures, so I do not remember.

Rickstavern · Post by **Rickstavern** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 6:32 am

No, you cannot import directly.

The process would involve isolating the animated portions of the image. For the picture of the hunter, the animated regions are the head and left hand.

When you have each of the animated portions isolated, you have to work out things such as frame order, frame speed, etc. an assemble them using the picture creation tool provided in the mod kit.

It is possible to to do this for all of the animated pictures from the Bard's Tale games, but it would be a lot of work. You will also need image editing tools such as photoshop and animation studio to make it easier.

I'll see if I can get one image done. I just want to see what it will take.

Rickstavern · Post by **Rickstavern** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 4:41 pm

Gave it a try.

I can get a picture with one animated section working. If I add in a second animated section, the picmake program appears to skip over making the first section and only makes the second section. The resulting picture is invalid and causes DW to crash. If I add in a third section, the picmake program begins to crash.

So, there appears to be an error here. You can make pictures with one animated area, but most of the BT pictures I saw used two or more sections.

We would need some developer input...

Just another item on the long, long list.

Rickstavern · Post by **Rickstavern** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:04 am

No reply from Shifting Suns.

I wish I had an example to work from.

origen · Post by **origen** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 11:44 am

Shocking.