This is somewhat directed right at Yoda, but there are probably a lot of methods. What are some good programs to capture game footage such as the NW videos found on youtube? Any good combos for the different platforms (win/mac/linux)? What do any of you use?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3xvT5vfWb8

Be sure to "watch in HD." The above video isn't of anything important, just a flight demo. Fun fact: the raw output file for the above video was 3 gigabytes.

The software I use is linux-only. You may have to build it yourself. This may not be what you are looking for in terms of usability but it is very flexible and capable of whatever quality your system can support.

If you are interested in trying it out, you can go here

http://nullkey.ath.cx/projects/glc

Best of luck.

It skips pretty badly on my machine, but that is one huge video file.

I like the fly-through at 0:27

In Linux I'd probably also use glc, in WIndows I find Fraps gets the job done with good results, for Mac, I hear Snapz Pro is what you want, but the last two are none free.

I've not had much (any) luck with any of the windows based freeware video capture programs out, most of them will record the desktop fine, but not full screen games.

Fraps is probably the best game recording software (unfortunately). Snapz Pro feels slow and you need to be in windowed mode. I haven't personally tried a linux recording app, though.

I've used Fraps with good results. Back in 2002/03 I made our (non-public) investor trailer thing using Fraps and Vegas Video, which later sold the game to Strategy First. These days I'd do the same thing, but with modern fraps and dump out to CineForm HD Intermediate before cutting everything together.

That's kind of the "expensive-software" solution on Windows. I'm sure there are lunix freeware type options too. Or Snapz Pro and iMovie or something.

Thanks, guys. I'll give glc a try and see how much it tanks my sad little laptop.

Incarnate: for all my editing needs I use Cinelerra. It's a little finicky, but once you get used to how it works, you can push things through pretty quickly.

Snapz Pro + iMovie = easy.

Of course, I only used the demo of Snapz, a couple years ago, and all this time I've been wishing I had money to burn on frivolous stuff like that. I love iMovie, though.

cinelerra is the best!

SnapzPro was kinda slow on my iMac, and I would notice consistent audio bugs whether I used the iMac or the work MacPro to test it out.

On the PC, Fraps is excellent, uncompressed video takes up a LOT of room, though - make sure you have a very large hard drive before you do ANY video editing. (Yes I have the non-free Fraps version and also have popped for SnapzPro on the Mac, Ambrosia SW is one of my favorite mac companies besides Panic SW.)

Snapz + iMovie is awesome, I used it to make http://philtopia.com/osu.m4v and http://philtopia.com/trainingday.m4v

Very nice, CrazySpence.

And since we're exhibiting, here's something I put together with cinelerra: https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mjaworsk/shared/Fusion-docs/slide/SLiDE_Experience.mov

Its mostly stills with camera pans, but there's some live footage in there as well. The hard part in making it was timing the music and such. It was made at a very low point in my grad school career after a spectacular failure in my equipment.

And what did I spend on the software? $0.00

Linux will set you free!!!