Solved Scene Animation Recording

[spooky9611]

I am pretty new but watched a lot of tutorials and read a lot of forum posts but there is still one question open.

I am using VAM1 desktop version on Win11 PC so far. When I use the 'Begin Record Mode' button in Scene Animation and start the recording by pressing 'Space' I can see that recording was started. I then stop it with 'Space' but: where is this recording saved/ stored (within VAM/ on PC filesystem?) and what does it contain? So far I couldn't find it neither in forum nor in tutorials.

Would be great if someone could shed some light on this.

 

[atani]

The data is recorded on your scene JSON file when you save your scene.
This is now a tool mostly ignored compared to the plugin Timeline that gives you a lot more control over recordings.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

That means Scene Animation is considered a legacy feature. I think saving animations that way could end up with a very large json file. Large scene files may fail to load the next time.

 

[spooky9611]

Many thanks for your quick replies.

I understood it is recommended to use Timline plugin for animations.

 

[Hipper]

asco's Timeline was recommended to me for animation in July and since then have learned to do what seems to me good work. Here's asco's tutorials which I found very helpful: https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/ascos-timeline-tutorials-1-5.31540/

I'm not saying it's easy but in three months I am now able to make little story backed films which is what I wanted to achieve. Of course there's a lot of room for improvement and plenty I don't understand but Timeline is the basis of all I do.

 

[spooky9611]

Thx for your hint Hipper!

I am still struggling with the so called 'recordings' in built-in and Timeline animation. I am used to find a recording somewhere in a file. But I cannot find anything like that. And if I do more than one recording, how can I select recording 1, 2 or 3? I am probably stuck in 'legacy IT' and not familiar with this new type of recording.

 

[Hipper]

What I want is videos I can 'enjoy'! Like porn videos that can be downloaded except VAM gives me the possibility of being in complete control of the outcome.

I use only VAM Desktop for the moment. I imagine stories then set up different scenes in Timeline that when combined complete the story. I then record each scene by playing it practically full screen and using the Microsoft Snipping Tool to record what it sees on the screen (I haven't tried the often recommended OBS Studio yet). Of course I need to hide the UI - I get rid of the main UI pressing F1 and then set Timeline running and click 'U' to get rid of that UI. I record about three or four different views for each scene. Then I use a video software (Nero Vision) to edit, combine and add Audio to get the complete video.

Nero can also slow and speed up the video which I often find better then making fast movements in VAM because they don't go the full distance (for example a finger going in and out a vagina works in VAM at a repeat of one second but if I did that at 0.5 seconds in VAM the finger doesn't go in as deep. I therefore record from VAM with the one second timing (and of course slow down any other movements) and then double the speed in Nero.

It's true that the Snipping Tool has no adjustments for frame rate etc. - it only uses 30 fps - but it seems to me that it is the bit rate that is more important then fps. Mostly the quality is good. Poorer quality seems to be when I make a screen copy of a scene where the VAM camera is taking in a large view. If I close in on something the quality is better. My videos are 1920 x 1080.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

If you have a current Nvidia GPU, the Nvidia App can record flat (2D) video at the same resolution you're running vam at, and with no loss of frame rate in game.

 

[spooky9611]

Ah, sorry, it is not about recording to mp3 - I did this successfully with the Eosin

Video Renderer for 3D VR180, VR360 and Flat 2D & Audio + BVH Animation Recorder​

plugin.

It is about the recording in Timeline or built in animation. They both have a 'record' button.

I understood so far the recording from built-in animation is stored in the scene (only one) and can be replayed. If I do another animation and record that the first one is overwritten. But where are the animation recordings from timeline?

 

[SlimerJSpud]

Did you look in Saves/PluginData? One of those folders might have the saved animations, if they got saved to a file.