Game Help:Picture Taking & Movie Making

Introduction

This article, written for The Sims 2 game series, describes how movie clips are made using in-game functions, along with how documentation from the game’s folders can enhance your movie quality & movie making techniques.

The Camera

When playing a lot your Sims occupy, you would begin in LIVE MODE. This is the name given to the mode for watching your Sims perform actions and having time pass by from day to night and back. The camera functions similar to a film camera. It can zoom in or out, pan left or right, tilt up or down, and more. The camera’s capturing specifications can be manipulated out of game through the files present in the user’s (not Program Files) EA Games\The Sims 2\Cameras folder. Such files that the camera uses to portray the Sims’ world include the following:

BuildCamera.txt

This is the file used when the player views a top-down of the lot during Build Mode.

CASCamera.txt

This is the file used when creating a Sim through the game. It describes how the camera is positioned to view a Baby, Toddler, Child, Teenager, Adult, Elder, Pets, and more.

CeilingCamera.txt

This is the file used when the player views a top-down of the lot during Buy Mode.

CineCamCamera.txt

This is the file used when the player’s Sim experiences a life changing moment with cinematic viewing. Such events may include Sims growing up (birthdays), Sims going to university (College dorm arrivals), Sims moving to a new home, Sims having WooHoo for the first time, and more.

FirstPersonCameras.txt

This is the file used when the player chooses the Free Cam mode (see KEYBOARD FUNCTIONS below). It provides several parameters on how the camera moves with the player’s key strokes of mouse movements. The functions available are described later in this article.

LiveCamera.txt

This is the file used during the game’s Live Mode on a lot to show the actions of the Sims occurring. It is also used during Build Mode, Buy Mode, & Options.

LotSnapshotCamera.txt

This file is not used by the player. Instead, it is used by the game when taking a snapshot of the lot for the lot catalog. (Unconfirmed)

NeighborhoodCamera.txt

This is the file used when the player enters a neighborhood. The file sets parameters on the aerial view of the neighborhood when entered.

The following files need explanation as to their uses:

ContentViewerCameras.txt

PreRenderCamera.txt

SnapshotCamera.txt

Keyboard Functions

Key(s)	Function
	Removes your game’s User Interface so that you can see the full picture that the game’s movie recorder will film. This is good for preparing the shots you would like to take not only in filming, but for photographing too. Pressing the key a second time will show your game’s User Interface once again. This function works in standard camera viewing when on a lot.
	Temporarily capture a picture of everything you see on your screen. If you game is in full screen mode, this function will temporarily capture the entire view of your game. If you are playing your game in windowed mode, this function will temporarily capture the entire view of your game along with anything around your game’s window. You will need a third-party program (such as MS Paint, Adobe Photoshop, etc.) to paste that “Print Screen” picture onto the photo software’s blank canvas, and save it for viewing at a later time.
or	Rotates the camera from a fixed horizontal position. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to rotate the view vertically. In other words, the player’s perspective of the Sim’s world is right-side up, and cannot be view upside-down, nor in other directions.
	Removes your game’s User Interface & provides you camera movement with your Mouse. It will also make all objects that are solid remain solid, rather than fade out when approached at a close distance (such as for decoration, light fixtures, and more). This mode you would use in-game is called FREE CAM (or CAMERAMAN MODE). Free Cam has several functions that are related to your keyboard and mouse. The following are options that you can use while in Free Cam mode:
	Pressing the OR key will have your camera Zoom-In forward. As with traditional photographic lens, the further you Zoom-In, the flatter your subjects will appear, relative to the background. Your subjects will also appear truer to size and proportion, as a result of zooming forward. The disadvantage is that you would need further distance from your subject to see more. Pressing the OR key will have your camera Zoom-Out backward. As with traditional photographic lens, the further you Zoom-Out, the more depth your subjects will have, relative to the background. Your subjects will also appear rounder/distorted to size and proportion, as a result of zooming forward. The type of perspective you would experience is similar to looking through "fish eyes". The advantage is that you can film closer to your subject while filming other objects around the subject at the same time. Pressing the keys will have your camera move in the direction of the arrow. The UP (or & DOWN (or ) arrow keys will move your camera forward or backwards respectively while retaining the same lens perspective. The LEFT (or ) & RIGHT (or ) arrow keys will move your camera in their respective directions while retaining the same lens perspective. This left/right method is NOT to be confused with the term Panning. Panning is described in the Mouse functions section below. Pressing the key will have your camera rise upwards while retaining the same lens perspective. Pressing the key will have your camera fall downwards while retaining the same lens perspective.
	Framing the shot is a term used to describe how you position the camera. It describes the way your shot is positioned, how much zooming in/out from your subjects you’d like to see, etc. When you achieve the desired framing of your shot, you can press the following key stroke combinations to save the desired shots you’d like to record. The following combinations are as follows (using the Number pad on the right side of your keyboard will not work. Instead, use the numbers above the letters, below the Function keys): Saves your first framed view. Saves your second framed view. Saves your third framed view. Saves your fourth framed view. Saves your fifth framed view. Saves your sixth framed view. These frames are saved onto your lot’s profile for future use in your game. You may overwrite these frames by pressing the desired key strokes once again to save another view of a scene. However, you cannot go back to the previous frame. You would have to redo the previous framing to achieve the previous setup on the key stroke combination.
or	In Live Mode, pressing either key on your keyboard pauses movement from occurring. Pressing the key again will resume Live Mode actions.
or or	These keys will gradually increase the speed of the actions, along with the time that will pass on the lot.
	Begins recording video footage. The video will record based on the settings chosen in the Camera Options sub-section of the Menu Options. The following option can be used while Recording in Free Cam mode:
	Pressing the key will pause the recording so that you can change the view without needing to split the movie into different files. Pressing the key a second time will resume recording the scene.

Mouse Functions

If you play the game in full screen, and you have side-scrolling enabled, you can glide your mouse to the edges of the screen to move the camera left, right, forward, or backwards.

Right-clicking the Sim in standard viewing will result in the Live Mode camera locking its view of the Sim’s head position, and following the Sim’s head to the direction the Sims walks.

The distance will remain constant. Any changes from floor to floor of a lot is adjusted after the Sim reaches the determined floor. In other words, if a Sim, for example, walks up the stairs from the 1st to 2nd floor, the camera will continue to follow the Sim from the 1st floor until the Sim reaches the 2nd floor. In that case, the camera’s view will move up to the 2nd floor afterwards.

During Free Cam mode, you can perform the following functions with your mouse in hand:

• Gliding the mouse to the left or right will pan the camera to their respective directions.

Panning the camera retains the same lens perspective and will keep the camera in its fixed position.

• Gliding the mouse forward or backwards will tilt the camera upwards or downwards, respectively.

Tilting the camera retains the same lens perspective and will keep the camera in its fixed position.

Film Settings & Specifications

By pressing “F5” on your keyboard, you can access the MENU OPTIONS. Under the sub-section of CAMERA OPTIONS, you can set the size and quality of your movies, along with whether or not to record sound. When creating film clips, the game uses the following file found in the EA Games\The Sims 2\Config folder:

• VideoCapture.ini

This file is responsible for specifying how to record video footage from your Sims game. It contains several parameters that dictate how to compress the video, what data rates to use, and where to store the file after it has been recorded.

The game records with the following specifications from each option:

• Maximum Video Recording Time

This option is set in seconds using positive real numbers only (e.g. no decimal or fractions of a second & no negative integers).

• Video Capture Size (Width x Height)

“Small” means the video is recorded at a resolution of 128 x 128 pixels.

“Medium” means the video if recorded at a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels.

“Large” means the video if recorded at a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels.

• Video Sound Capture

“Disabled” means the video will not capture the sounds produced from the game.

“Enabled” means the video will capture the sounds produced from the game.

Note that it is currently unknown as to how to modify the quality of the sound captured from the game.

• Video Capture Quality

“Low” means the video will record at 10 frames per second (FPS) with data rate.

“Medium” means the video will record at 15 FPS with normal data rate.

“High” means the video will record at 30 FPS with high data rate.

“Uncompressed” means the video will record at 30 FPS with very high data rate.

There are other more detailed specifications, such as MinQ, MaxQ, and KeyInterval that determine the quality of the footage recorded. The data rate of a video recording is determined from a combination of the capture size and capture quality. The following nine combinations are what determine the data rate. “CS” denotes Capture Size, and “CQ” denotes Capture Quality:

• CS “Small” + CQ “Low”

At 128 x 128 pixels & 10 FPS, the data rate is 75.

• CS “Small” + CQ “Medium”

At 128 x 128 pixels & 15 FPS, the data rate is 150.

• CS “Small” + CQ “High”

At 128 x 128 pixels & 30 FPS, the data rate is 300.

• CS “Medium” + CQ “Low”

At 320 x 240 pixels & 10 FPS, the data rate is 150.

• CS “Medium” + CQ “Medium”

At 320 x 240 pixels & 15 FPS, the data rate is 300.

• CS “Medium” + CQ “High”

At 320 x 240 pixels & 30 FPS, the data rate is 600.

• CS “Large” + CQ “Low”

At 640 x 480 pixels & 10 FPS, the data rate is 300.

• CS “Large” + CQ “Medium”

At 640 x 480 pixels & 15 FPS, the data rate is 600.

• CS “Large” + CQ “High”

At 640 x 480 pixels & 30 FPS, the data rate is 1200.

It is currently unknown what the very high data rate is set at for “Uncompressed” Capture Quality.

The video codec used to compress the movie files is VP61. It is a codec developed by On2 Technologies, a company bought out by Google in 2010. For details on how VP61 compression works, consult the following link HERE. This codec can be found on The Sims 2 base game disk and is registered during installation of the game’s files.

All video files are given the base name “movie” and is denoted with a three digit number finishing the file’s name.

All video files are recorded in AVI format. They are store on the user’s EA Games\The Sims 2\Movies folder.

Modifying The “VideoCapture.ini” File

Certain parts of the file are easy to adjust. The following are lines from the file that can be changed easily:

• FilenameBase=movie

Changing the word “movie” will name all future recordings from in-game to the new word plus three digit numbers at the end.

E.g. If the word was “Jelly”, then instead of “movie001.avi”, it will be “Jelly001.avi”

• SmallSettings = size: 128x128
• MediumSettings = size: 320x240
• LargeSettings = size: 640x480

These refer to the video’s resolution at the given Capture Sizes. You can adjust their resolutions at the desired size for each setting.

E.g. If you’d like to record at 1024x768, you can adjust the LargeSettings size to the following:

LargeSettings = size: 1024x768

Afterwards, you change the setting in-game to capture “Large”, and the resolution will be chosen for recording.

• AllowAntialiasing=0

Changing the number from “0” (false) to “1” (true) will enable anti-aliasing during recording of video footage. Note however that not all video cards can accept this setting change.

Other parts of the file may require intermediate understanding of the line commands:

• PreferredCodec=VP61

This is the codec name used to compress the video files. Other codex can be used instead of VP61. The following are a list of codecx accepted by the game, however they require the codex installed using third-party installers. The exact name to use may vary from codec to codec. In general, the codex would end their files in “.ax” and could be found in their respective folders, or your computer’s system folders:

• DivXDec
• VP60
• VP62
• Xvid

If the name of the codec typed in is invalid, a message will appear before recording starts, stating that the game will switch to uncompressed recording.

All parts of the "VideoCapture.ini" file can be adjusted without need to close the game application. You can minimize your game, adjust the file using Notepad, MS Word, etc. & save the file before going back to your game.

Recording Your Movie

Keep in mind that the more compressed & smaller the video is, the less hard disk space will be taken by the movie file & the less impact your game will experience when in action. The disadvantage is that the video would be blurry & less desirable to see by most people. Likewise, the larger & less compressed the video is, the more desirable it is to use for editing & viewing. The disadvantage is the larger disk space the movie file will occupy & slower performance the game will function at. Also keep in mind that recording movies with sound enabled will reduce the performance of your game due to the data rate of recording going higher than without sound.

Useful Movie Making Cheats

• boolProp enablePostProcessing [true/false]

Enables the use of post processing cheats (see below); very useful for movie making (also see below). Please note that you must have a video card that can handle pixel shaders in order to successfully use this cheat. If you use the cheats and you don't have pixel shaders, the screen will most likely go partially dark, and will not come back until you turn off enablePostProcessing. If you turn on post processing, and you turn on cinematics, and a cinematic plays, you may also experience unwanted graphical glitches.

• bloom [r g b x]

“r g b” are color amounts for “red green blue”. “x” is the amount of bloom effect. Each letter is represented by a number ranging from 0.0 to 1.0, with 0.0 being the least amount of the item & 1.0 being the most amount of the item. This cheat adds a blur effect, like a sitcom flashback moment. You must have entered boolProp enablePostProcessing true for this cheat to work.

• vignette [centerX centerY X]

The last “X” is the vignette factor. The first two variables are represented by a number ranging from 0.0 to 0.5, with 0.0 being the least amount of the item & 0.5 being the most amount of the item. The "x" variable is represented by a number ranging from 0.0 to 1.0, with 0.0 representing a sharp edge and 1.0 representing the blurriest edge. This cheat adds a blur effect from the specified center. Using "vignette 0.5 0.5 0.5" should put some blurry bits at the edge of the screen. Vignette 0.5 0.5 1.0 is maximum edge blurriness. You must have entered boolProp enablePostProcessing true for this cheat to work.

• filmGrain [value]

The value is represented by a number ranging from 0.0 to 1.0, with 0.0 being the least amount of the item & 1.0 being the most amount of the item. This cheat makes the screen grainy. You must have entered boolProp enablePostProcessing true for this cheat to work.

• letterBox [value]

The value is represented by a number ranging from 0.0 to 0.4, with 0.0 being the least amount of the item & 0.4 being the most amount of the item. This cheat adds a letterbox effect to the view. You must have entered boolProp enablePostProcessing true for this cheat to work.

Disclaimer

This article is a work in progress. Any and all information provided herein can be edited when new information comes to light.