Tales from the 7th Fleet - Episode 1

[Gerron Vek]

Ok this is a new series I am trying out. I'm still learning some of the tools used to create these kinds of videos so comments are welcome. Special thanks to Augerson for helping me out on short notice.


Oh, and apparently there is already a show called Captain's log so I want to change the name. Any ideas? I temporarily changed it to Tales from the 7th Fleet but I'm not sold on that name.

[Anton Mercer]

I like the concept, but may I suggest starting with the actual Foundry missions from 7th members? That way your title "Tales from the 7th Fleet" will actually fit and you could make it a mini series before going on to other foundry missions. We have the Master Foundry List:
http://www.fleet7.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6913308&gid=84053
which you can use to easily find our members missions

Also, I do not know if you are aware of the DemoRecord feature that is present in STO. It's what Shack, myself, Lang, and a few others use to make most if not all the videos that are on the site. I created a guide for it( though a little outdated, but still giving the basics: camera movement, how to get to it and edit it, and such) here:
Part 1:

Part2:

(linked the actual player in case people want to watch them)

This tool will help alot with your first portion or "mission runthrough" and will actually let you take parts or sequences instead of having to do the whole mission through fraps. Hope this helps and can't wait for the next one!

[Morgan Shackelford]

I like it, well done! Best advice I can give you is keep doing it; it gets easier and you learn more as you go along. Using Fraps (or other recorder) is a good starting point, and if you can get into demorecord, it's a great tool.

I'm going to move this thread into a different forum so it doesn't get lost.

[Gerron Vek]

Thanks. Demo record was the next tool I was planning on delving into. I apprecuiate the links Mercer.


I wanted to get something put together to see how it worked together in practice instead of just in my head. Now that I've put this "pilot" episode together I can see where I need to improve. One thing I noticed was I need to turn off the in game music, especially since I'm providing my own


As to the name 'Tales form the 7th fleet' When I finally got that video together and posted it up I noticed another series called captains log in the sidebar of suggested videos. So I was kinda scrambling to find a new name for it. I'm not really altogether happy with the new title but I don't have any other good ideas at the moment.

What I was originally planning on doing was having a Captains Log episode every Tuesday. This would be the cinematic presentation that you can kinda see outlined in this pilot episode. Ideally the commentary at the end would be shorter and the cinematic a bit longer. I was then planning on doing a Captains log supplemental set of videos which would be less cinematic and more of a showcase of cryptic made content. Ideally played with some of you guys.

More to Mercers point about doing content made by the 7th fleet. Well I intends to do our content but not exclusively. As an aside the mission I just did was made by a Hunter who is a member of Fleet 7. My point with he series was not so much about doing content made by us but instead our characters and ships individual stories within Star Trek Online. When I renamed it 'Tales from the 7th fleet' I was actually starting to think I could do episodes based on other peoples ships. I would just modify the first graphic from saying USS Iapetus to whoever is doing the Log entry. That would take some work coordinating though.

I am also thinking about getting some people together and actually voice act my crew during the cinematic portion of the show. I'm not actively working on that at the moment though. baby steps first. I'm still learning the tools This is something I was planning on doing when my ship was the focus. If I do branch out into other peoples ships, and potentially factions, It would not be realistic to voice everyone's crews. It might not even be feasible to do it for just one crew since the whole affair would need to be scripted.

[Gerron Vek]

Mercer, I've watched your videos but it doesn't really go over how to take the demo recordings or how to actually start the Demo recording program? How is that done?

[Anton Mercer]

O_O ok first things first to actually take the demo record u type /demorecord (name of file u want).demo then it should reset ur game and have red DEMORECORD letters in the mid left of ur screen. When ur done demorecording just type /demorecord_stop. Now to play the demorecords the easiest thing is to use Rachel Garretts demorecord tool here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/stodemolauncher/
lot easier then using ur lancher!

HOPE THAT HELPS!

[Gerron Vek]

It does. I think I'm going to try and tackle Shacklefords "Unbecoming" mission next. I was looking at your missions Mercer and I'm not sure which one to try. "Old Past, New Future" Looks like a standalone mission but seems combat heavy. I can try that after 'Unbecoming' if you want unless you would rather I try one of your other missions. I think I want to try and do one of Evildeads missions as well since he made my ship patch

That should be the next 3 episodes. From there hopefully People will request a few missions.

I am also going to change the series name to 'Fleet Logs' and maybe do some Fleet news in addition to what I currently am doing. I remember tossing around that idea last summer but I never got around to trying it. We will see. I still need to get better at making these things before I do too much more.

[Morgan Shackelford]

Couple of things -

first, Soriedem of Podcast UGC made some great tutorial videos for demorecord. The first is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oERNQXr_cx8

From that link, you should be able to locate all the additional follow up tutorials.

Second, I checked on the foundry status not long after our short convo earlier this evening.

Foundry missions are offline and going through a republishing process. Like I said before, they usually pull them down after a patch; this is pretty standard. The foundry itself is also closed, so we cannot go in and republish them manually nor create new missions right now. It might be a week or two (possibly even longer) before this all gets worked out. This is pretty typical after a major content patch like this.

Sorry man. I really would like for you to keep reviewing the fleet foundry missions, I really enjoyed your first video. Maybe in the meantime you can just review some of the new cryptic stuff?

[Anton Mercer]

Yeah his videos and some of the other videos are updated with the new Demorecord tool which isn't too different than the original

[Gerron Vek]

sparrow794 wrote:

Sorry man. I really would like for you to keep reviewing the fleet foundry missions, I really enjoyed your first video. Maybe in the meantime you can just review some of the new cryptic stuff?

Hmm. I didn't know the foundry was down. I can do other stuff. In fact. I kinda have inspiration for something. Let me check on a few things.

[Gerron Vek]

Shackleford, Do you know if your foundry mission is up and running yet?

[Morgan Shackelford]

Gerron Vek wrote:

Shackleford, Do you know if your foundry mission is up and running yet?

The Foundry editor itself is still down. I tried to play through the mission to see what some of the problems were, and frankly, I'm impressed you made it as far as you did. The waypoints are completely out of whack and a bunch of other things aren't working. If I could take the mission down, I would, until I can get it fixed.

I'll keep an eye for when the editor comes back online so I can fix all the shit Cryptic broke in it.

[Anton Mercer]

sparrow794 wrote:

Gerron Vek wrote: Shackleford, Do you know if your foundry mission is up and running yet? The Foundry editor itself is still down. I tried to play through the mission to see what some of the problems were, and frankly, I'm impressed you made it as far as you did. The waypoints are completely out of whack and a bunch of other things aren't working. If I could take the mission down, I would, until I can get it fixed. I'll keep an eye for when the editor comes back online so I can fix all the shit Cryptic broke in it.

The wps being out of whack is an actual bug and you wouldn't be able to fix it if the editor were up. There are a lot of bugs with the published missions right now so I do not expect the Foundry editor to be up for awhile

[Anton Mercer]

Just FYI if not already known the foundry is back up Gerron so authors should be able to fix missions and republish.

[Gerron Vek]

Heh,  I had forgotten about this.  Surly they have fixed the Foundry by now.   Does anyone in teh 7th have a foundry mission I could use to make another one of these videos?