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Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 22 2008, 03:52 PM

I really want to use Google Earth during my games but we rarely game somewhere with a ready net connection. I particularly like being able to do the "We have satellite recon" and show them falling out of the sky into whatever remote godforsaken place they have to go to this week.

Google Earth can do this... for 400 dollars.

No thank you.

So any suggestions? Good cheap/free program that will let me record what I'm doing on my desktop as a video? Some other method I'm missing?

Posted by: vladski Apr 22 2008, 04:58 PM

Well, if you know where your characters are running before the game, jsut use Google Earth and do a screen cap of each zoom step in to your target.

Download and use http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/capture.htm if you don't already have a screen grabber of your own. I have been using AnalogX's Capture program for a good 7 years or so and it works on everything from Win95 to Vista. It's safe, tiny and very easy to use. I give it a 10/10 as an indispensible computer utility.

You could then:

1. Display these pics in a slideslow format, or

2. Make one large animated gif out of them using any of scads of free, downloadable animated gif programs. Then jsut display it in a Firefox or IE window.

I'll take a quick swing around the internet to see if there any Google Earth-type downloads for housing offline available for free. But, I'd say don't hold your breath, as the the TON of maps it takes to create such a database to house on your own computer is pretty daunting.

Vlad

Posted by: raverbane Apr 22 2008, 10:45 PM

I luv Google Earth and use it alot in my games, as well.

I tend to use an old--tech solution.

'PrtSc' + Windows Paint + cntV. Rinse, Repeat

Posted by: CanRay Apr 22 2008, 10:52 PM

I had a job in which this was, literally, part of the techniques I had to use to migrate from an old database to the new one.

Posted by: krakjen Apr 22 2008, 11:16 PM

Hmm, Couldn't you do that for free by using Google Earth (free version) + FRAPS?

Posted by: Caine Hazen Apr 23 2008, 01:12 AM

there's always http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_World_Wind which is a good open source alternative. I believe you can do a server for this as well... something I've thought about doing before.

Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 23 2008, 03:42 AM

FRAPS?

I might do the animated gif all else fails, but it just seemed like there should be a cooler alternative to holding my video camera in front of my screen.

Does worldwind do video? I was looking at it last night and wasn't getting much love.

Posted by: krakjen Apr 23 2008, 05:20 AM

FRAPS is a software made for recording video from games.
But actually any 3D source will do.

You wanted to do a movie in your original post...

Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 23 2008, 05:42 AM

Ah! cool beans man thanks, I'll look into this.

Posted by: krakjen Apr 23 2008, 05:47 AM

More info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraps.
Seeing as the free version is limited, you may want to look into the alternative open/free version: http://taksi.sourceforge.net/
Audio is not yet supported but I don't think you need it for google earth

Edit: Speaking of audio, if you have too much free time, you can record some cool mission briefing to go with the video...

Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 23 2008, 05:56 AM

That's exactly what I was thinking of doing . Use some basic mixer controls to tweak my voice a little...


A guy could have a lot of fun with this.

Posted by: krakjen Apr 23 2008, 06:15 AM

You should post it here when it's done :3

Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 23 2008, 06:21 AM

We'll see, it'll be pretty ghetto unless I go get an copy of AfterFX or something.

Posted by: CanRay Apr 23 2008, 12:38 PM

More Ghetto than pulling out an Atlas and saying, "This is some satelite shots of..."?

Posted by: DocTaotsu Apr 23 2008, 01:08 PM

You know, if I had my 4 ft to a side atlas with me I would have no problem doing that

I meant ghetto as in "crappy voice overs and bad acting"

Posted by: CanRay Apr 23 2008, 01:09 PM

That's not Ghetto, that's Self-Posted YouTube.

Posted by: Caine Hazen Apr 23 2008, 04:19 PM

I'd dig through the http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/. The program is designed for educators to make video for classes. Plus you can do a custom set of data or images or models and share your version (running almost in a server mode).

Actually the more i look the more I want to try some of this... which sucks for having too many projects and too much work to do