SCREENSHOT Requests

[Shahed]

Hi everyone !

I have a request.

Can someone with a TOP end rig, please take the following screenshot for me ?

Settings

• Widescreen mode.
• 1.02 Movie Cam enabled (would be ideal but not required).
• MAX settings.
• TIMURID Khan's Guard.
• Charging, lances down.
• One or 2 men in focus.
• Extreme Close up shot showing all detail, face masks etc.
• Preferably banners disabled.
• No interface showing.
• Arid, Northern Iran-like landscape.
• Or arid steppe.
• No enemies visible
• Sunrise.
• Cloudy weather.

You can see in my current sig an example of what I mean. However that shot is a little too high up, it would bebtter a bit lower from horse level. If I can have more than one shot i.e a sequence to choose from and if more than one person does it, even better.

Let your creativity flow !

Many thanks to anyone who can do this.

Salute !

[Shahed]

Le BUMPAGE !

[Whacker]

I'd do so, but you'll have to wait a few more weeks, the laptop ain't exactly "high end". Maybe post some pointers how to get a good screenshot? I know I am not artistically inclined at all... am guessing there are probably quite a few others who aren't. So got any tips?

[Shahed]

Thanks for the offer mate.

Well there is a list there, in my first post.

If you look at this sig, this is a perfect screenshot.
NOTE: blur is induced, orignal shot is clear. You can see all the detail, the eyes, mask, links in the chainmail. etc...



Hmm... pointers on how to get a good screenshot .... ??? I don't understand.

[Whacker]

Hmm... pointers on how to get a good screenshot .... ??? I don't understand.

I mean like literally how do you do it? Load up a custom battle with a single unit? Multiple units? How do YOU personally set them up? Do you set them up all way back against your rear border and then charge them forward? Do you stagger them? Camera angle suggestions?

[sapi]

If no one else has done by the end of this week, I'll have a shot at it.

Bit busy at the moment, though

[Shahed]

Oh I get it. That's a good idea. About how to... I'll have to put it in words. Bascially you just ... take the shot. UGH! Well ... using your questions:

how do you do it?

Press the Print Screen button, next to pause on the keyboard. It's saved to M2:TW/tgas folder.

Load up a custom battle with a single unit?

That's a good question. You can do it many ways, but the simplest is to load a custom battle with the units you want, terrain, weather etc. The best way is to do it during a campaign game, or modify your files so you start with the units you want to take shots of. Then you march out with those units and find a natural battle, this is the best way, because you get everything, but it takes longer to set up.

For purposes like the above screenshot request you should just load a custom battle. You only need the units that you want in the image, in this case 2 units of Khan's Guard is enough, with one enemy Armored Swordsman or something small that does'nt show easily, as the request says no enemy visible.

How do YOU personally set them up?

I have'nt done it for ages since I fried my GFX card, I post requests usually at the TWC and get my screens from there. This onboard card I have now is useless. If I were to do it myself I would do it the long way, setup a campaign mod, then launch a campaign. I believe most of the screenshot artists (like Crypel, the legend) do it this way. the following is the result that can be achieved, these are Crypel's screenshots.

NOTE: Those shots are SO PERFECT, I ISSUE A CHALLENGE to anyone to improve them.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

NOTE: For my screenshot request you do NOT have to have this quality. I'm a newb so anything is fine.
I'm learning anyway. It does of course help, the better the quality of the base image, the beter the end result.

Do you set them up all way back against your rear border and then charge them forward?

It depends on the shot. If you want it natural deploy as natural. If it is staged, deploy in the manner you have in mind. That sounds a bit obtuse, you know what I mean ?

Do you stagger them?

Depends on what result you want. to achieve a roaring charge result with many units you would stagger the units. If you mean stagger the camera, then yes, you always take a sequence of shots. Like a photographer you take hundreds and then you select one.

I have posted requests before and received over 100 shots for ONE single shot that I wanted.
NOTE: You do not have to do that, just a few screens 5-6 is adequate.

Camera angle suggestions?

Also depends, the best camera angle is the one that gives you the best shot at that time. if you want panorama, go high and aim low. If you want extreme close up, go down to man level aim high as if you were looking from the round up on the object.

Hope that helps, fire away if you have any other questions.

[Shahed]

If no one else has done by the end of this week, I'll have a shot at it.

Bit busy at the moment, though

NP mate. Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it.

[_Tristan_]

The following is the result that can be achieved, these are Crypel's screenshots.

NOTE: Those shots are SO PERFECT, I ISSUE A CHALLENGE to anyone to improve them.
[.

I can't believe these shots were taken in game...MY comp is not state of the art but it lets me play with almost everything on high and the result is nowhere near that... Those have been reworked, haven't they ? Please tell me they have... They look so much like some oil paintings...

[Daveybaby]

Yeah theyve been reworked afterwards in photoshop or somesuch. Still bloody stunning work though, both the original composition and the added effects are amazing.

If i had a high end rig i would have a go myself.

[Shahed]

Thanks for the offer Dave.

They are all worked at different levels. The 1st two are least reworked.

That is the whole point. A) Excellent base screenshot. B) The quality of image editing.

To edit an image like the 3rd one will take an average person days or possibly even weeks. That's pure talent right there, and it probably took him very little time. I'd hazard a guess at 20 hours but it could even be 20 minutes if he worked on the concept first for many hours, then he applied the concept on this shot.

Art.

[Shahed]

Le BUMPAGE !

[Durallan]

I would but I don't have a widescreen monitor. Highest I can go is 1280x1024.

[dummyaccount15]

Greetings,

Long time lurker - first time poster. I joined the Total War saga a bit late with Shogun "War Lord Edition" being my first. I've enjoyed every Total War game (Vanilla) and expansion ever since.

Until reading this post, I'd never taken a single screenshot! I've decided to use this request as an excuse to start. I'll take any feedback that anyone can give. Most important right now are: Is my video card good enough? How do you get rid of the playback box in the movie player?

The link to the screenshots will be in my next post seeing as I can't post URL's yet...

[dummyaccount15]

Here are my efforts so far. About half of them have obstructions and need to be cropped. I've set the angle of those shots to include a lot of extra unneeded sky so nothing is lost in editing.

-dummy

[Shahed]

Hi mate unfortunately I have not been able to look at them even till today. Will post back when I have. THANKS very much for the shots!

[Ars Moriendi]

1.02 Movie Cam enabled (would be ideal but not required).

How do I do that ? I tried searching the forums and google for some pointers, but all I got was "-movie_cam" switch from RTW (tried it, didn't work) and cinematic editor tutorials (too complicated, all I want is some better angles for screenshots).

[Shahed]

Well to do that you have to enable the movie cam. You can get much better shots with it. It takes a few hours to get usd to but after that it's the best thing about TW since Shogun (slight exageration). Caliban's basic tutorial is a good start if you want to use that. This is what cinedit can do:

Image courtesy of Inquisitor (.com)


5 Second movie with sound. (<-link)

I've posted the following requests on .com and TWC, if anyone here wants to give it a shot:

Screenshot 1 DONE !

• CAM:1.02 Movie Cam enabled.
• GFX: MAX settings.
• Banners: DISabled.
• Terrain: South European map, Andalusia, Arid Spain type
• Weather: Clear
• Lens: Close range so you can see nice graphical details.
• Time: Afternoon.
• Set: Spainish Tercio Pikemen. NOT using swords, using pikes. Line of them advancing. Fighting Portuguese Dismounted Conquistadors
• Heavy canon fire flying over their heads or landing closeby.

Screenshot 2 DONE !

• CAM:1.02 Movie Cam enabled.
• GFX: MAX settings.
• Banners: DISabled.
• Terrain: SandyDesert
• Weather: Clear
• Lens: Extreme close range, only one man in focus.
• Time: Afternoon.
• Set: Bedouin Camel Archer shooting the bow towards the camera.

Example: Screenshot by RavenVW (.com)



Screenshot 3

• CAM:1.02 Movie Cam enabled.
• GFX: MAX settings.
• Banners: DISabled.
• Terrain: Scottish Highlands
• Weather: Cloudy
• Lens: Close range, showing 2-6 men.
• Time: Midday.
• Set: Gothic Knights & Scottish Highland Nobles fighting together side by side as allies.

Example: Screenshot by Bafka (.com)


Screenshot 4 DONE !

• CAM:1.02 Movie Cam enabled.
• GFX: MAX settings.
• Banners: DISabled.
• Terrain: Black Forest.
• Weather: Heavy Fog, Winter.
• Lens: Close range, showing 2-6 men.
• Time: Sunrise.
• Set: Tsar’s Guard with armor upgrade (face masks etc) charging with Lances down. Preferably no enemy visible in screenshot.

Example: Screenshot by MagyarMatt (.com)


Screenshot 5 DONE !

• CAM:1.02 Movie Cam enabled.
• GFX: MAX settings.
• Banners: DISabled.
• Terrain: Rocky Desert or SandyDesert
• Weather: Clear
• Lens: MediumRange, enough to see 2 or 3 FULL UNITS i.e 80 plus men visible .
• Time: Afternoon.
• Set: Papal States Crusader Army including Crusader Sargeants, Fanatics, led by Knights Hospitaller, and Knights Templar marching towards the camera.

Screenshot 6 NOT NEEDED !

• CAM:1.02 Movie Cam enabled.
• GFX: MAX settings.
• Banners: DISabled.
• Terrain: Any, winter.
• Weather: Clear.
• Lens: Close range showing approx 6 men.
• Time: Afternooon.
• Set: Norse War Clerics in a city with buildings in the background fighting Dismounted Polish Knights.

Example: Screenshot by Mortain (TWC)


Many thanks in advance for your help if anyone is up to it !

[dummyaccount15]

Hi mate unfortunately I have not been able to look at them even till today. Will post back when I have. THANKS very much for the shots!

Since posting those I've started using the movie cam. I should be able to bang out some better shots now.

[Foz]

Yeah theyve been reworked afterwards in photoshop or somesuch. Still bloody stunning work though, both the original composition and the added effects are amazing.

If i had a high end rig i would have a go myself.

Well it doesn't have to run well necessarily. As long as you can suffer through the poor frame rate you're likely to get, you should still be able to get amazing shots by maxing settings. The main difference is how much your in-game performance will suffer - the shots should come out about identical even if you are getting 3 fps, lol. It may be more difficult to position the camera really well though if your performance becomes too poor.

Also I noticed that some people are getting the pause logo on their shots. It's probably not even necessary to pause the game anymore to get good shots. I'd actually recommend playing with the fine-grain time controls: you can probably run the important part of a battle at 0.1 or so and have plenty of time to maneuver the camera while not having to constantly pause the battle either. That also might be a worthwhile working solution for people with cards that will bog down at max settings - if time is only moving at 0.1, the choppiness should be MUCH less noticeable since everything in the frame will move a lot less in the space of a frame.

[Ars Moriendi]

A high end computer is not required to take great screenshots - it doesn't really matter if it's crawling at 5 fps when maxed out on details, you're not making a movie just taking stills.


Khan's guard charging at sunrise :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A few more from the same battle, just for fun :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(there was a funny screenshot thread once, maybe we should revive it ?)

[Foz]

Since discovering the cinematic editor I've been playing around with a brief replay and seeing what I can do with it. Perhaps some of the info will help aspiring screenshot takers. One thing is that if you change the config file to avi = 0 instead of avi = 1, the game will render tga screenshots instead of AVI video. It seems to do 30 per second, and takes longer to do them than an equal length of video, too. Not recommended for more than a few seconds at once, but if you have a specific place where you want the shot to come from, bounding a few seconds in the vicinity and letting the game take ~100 tga's is a great way to get a selection of shots to pick from. This is especially interesting if your camera track has some motion during those few seconds, as you'll get pics from the camera as it moves along.

I've also had success getting good screenshots by pulling them straight from ripped AVI video. The editor produces uncompressed AVI, meaning you get a sequence of still frames that are completely untouched and are essentially a screenshot each. You simply open up a video editor that lets you grab a frame (I've been using VirtualDub as it is free and easy), navigate through the movie until you see a frame you want, and grab it for your screenshot. I figured this is worth mentioning because some people might think they have to use the editor to line up a screenshot and take it using print screen, or simply might not have thought to take the pic from rendered video. In actuality any of the automated rendering options at our disposal are quite a bit more useful than manually taking screenshots, and the ability to have 100s of potential shots available in either case I mentioned above is really handy in finding the best possible shot.

[Foz]

Here are some shots I just snagged from a custom battle. Perhaps you can use them for request #4, Tsar's Guard charging (in specified conditions of course).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Foz]

Here are some possibilities for the Bedouin Camel Archers shot requested. I personally like the 4th one the best. I tried a few more directly from the front, but they turned out like crap. I think it's because the pictures just look bad if you view something at an angle such that it appears noticeably shorter than it in fact is... in this case, a bow.

Also, note that I'm not shopping these at all - I figure you'll want to do that yourself if you decide to use one.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Shahed]

BEYOND COOL ! Excellent shots guys ! Thanks a lot !
Woking em as I type, literally.... it's going to be a long night.

[Foz]

BEYOND COOL ! Excellent shots guys ! Thanks a lot !
Woking em as I type, literally.... it's going to be a long night.

Glad you're enjoying 'em

While I'm here, can anyone give me a step-by-step on how to get gothic knights playable for Scotland and make them look like HRE still? There's more to it than just the EDU file, which is the only part I'm really familiar with. I'm sure it involves copying unit meshes and such around, but not sure exactly what I have to do. I think it's the easiest way to approach one of the above screenshot requests if I can just put both under my control as Scotland to get the shot(s) I want.

[Shahed]

Hi Foz !

I think the easiest way is to load a custom battle on Scottish Highlands, choose either HRE or Scots as your own faction, deploy as close to your ally (the other faction) as possible and rush on over to them, then march overlapping them and mimick their moves. Give the enemy a similarly slow unit so hopefully you get in your position first. It is tricky because you may not get there first.

About the unit change, might be an idea ot learn how to do this anyway but for the screenshot I'd say you'll probably make quicker progress with a custom battle HRE + Scots as allies. I have'nt done that myself but can point you to this thread where I think I saw a mention of how to change factions for a unit. There was also a thread in the modding forum if I'm not mistaken. Whacker was also modding in some units for the Byzantines, I don't think he finished but was looking into it about a month back.

[ninjahboy]

hmmm maybe i should start using this, might be a fun lil thing to break out the photo shop again :P

[Ars Moriendi]

Conquistadors, Tercios and cannonballs... (19 screens)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

and a few more just for fun (3):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Question : how do I remove the fps / time display in Cinematic Editor ?

[Shahed]

JEEEEEZ.......

Speechless... this is why I have been part of this forum for years.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it greatly. Those are absolutely STUNNING.
Those MUST go into the Cineditor screenshot thread in the main .com forum. TOTAL carnage.

BTW some of them are not showing up, just an FYI, maybe broken links.

Thanks again to you as well Foz !

In between making sigs for others I made one for myself from one of your earlier shots.
I'll also post this to the Broken Crescent mod forum for the public once I've managed to get it just right:


If either of you want me to have a go at one for you I'll do it.
Might take me a while to get to it because I have a backlog, but I will if you want me to.