User:Yoshifan52/Sandbox/Recording process

Guides and explanations for the recording processes I follow for Inkipedia uploads, especially those that require group coordination. For those interested in helping or the simply curious

Recording equipment

I use an Elgato HD60 S via OBS; I have the card hooked up to my desktop PC and exclusively view its display via the OBS window, rather than through a monitor/TV/etc. My Switch is docked on my desk, I don't think it's possible to set up a capture card with handheld mode.

Screenshots of footage recorded via a correctly set-up capture card (extracted via VLC) are as high quality as screenshots taken directly with OBS (*to add: comparison pics)

To clip videos for the wiki as losslessly as possible, I use Simple Video Cutter (less accurate, easy to use) or LosslessCut (more accurate, difficult to use).

For S2 and S3 the Switch's built-in recording function may alternatively be used for most things, though the built-in trim function notably compresses already-compressed clips further and should be avoided.

Capture card setup

Prep:

• Ensure your Switch is currently on, and your capture card is currently hooked up correctly (differs per card; on Elgato cards a light might briefly flash when it's first connected. If needed I'm happy to provide tech support)

In OBS:

• Route the Switch's display through a dedicated scene
  • Click "Add scene" (plus sign in Scenes box)
  • Under the "Create new" option, enter desired name (eg Switch Capture/Splatoon 3 Capture)
  • Click "Add source" (plus sign in Sources box)
  • Select "Video Capture Device" in the dropdown menu that appears
  • Under the "Create new" option, enter its desired name (eg Capture card), press OK
  • In the "Device" section dropdown menu, select your capture card; mine is named "Game Capture HD60 S" here. If your device isn't showing up troubleshooting is necessary
  • A red rectangle should show up in your display area; video footage is only recorded when this rectangle is lit red. It can be deactivated by clicking on the margins between the scene area and the application's borders. To activate it, click on the scene area (which could be pitch-black, or display your Switch's display)
  • Right click on the scene area (within red rectangle) and select "Resize output (source size)" then click "Yes". This ensures youre recording at the correct resolution; no matter how you resize your OBS window, it will record at the correct resolution
  • In the Audio Mixer box, ensure "Desktop Audio" and "Mic/Aux" are muted via clicking the white speaker 🔊 icon. When these icons are red, but the "Video Capture Device" (or as named, eg Switch Capture) audio icon is white, OBS will only record Switch audio.
  • In the Sources box, select your newly-added video source, then the gear ⚙ icon
  • In the "Color Range" section, select "Full" then OK
• Ensure your screenshot/recording output is maximum quality
  • General
    • Go to File>Settings>Advanced
    • In the "Video" section, ensure Color Range is set to Full
  • Screenshots
    • Go to File>Settings>Hotkeys
    • Navigate to the "Screenshot Output" option, and enter your desired hotkey. Pressing the set hotkey when desired is the only option to taking screenshots within OBS
    • The "Screenshot Selected Source" screenshot hotkey option also works, but only when your Switch's scene is selected (highlighted via red rectangle)
    • Take a test screenshot and verify that it's output is .png (it should be)
  • Recordings
    • Go to File>Settings>Output
    • In the Output Mode box, select "Simple"
    • In the Recording tab, set "Recording Format" to mp4, and "Recording Quality" to either "Indistinguishable Quality, Large File Size" or "Lossless Quality, Tremendously Large File Size". I use the former; screenshots taken from videos of the former quality have been verified to be as high quality as screenshots taken via OBS
    • Take a test recording and verify that it's output is .mp4. Verify the sound is recorded properly if you're planning to record something with audio
  • You're almost good to go!

On your Switch: (accessible when viewing in OBS, no need to remove from dock)

• Setup resolution, color settings, margin size
  • Go to System Settings (sixth option in footer buttons)
  • Navigate to TV Settings
  • Verify/swap the settings to match the following:
    • TV Resolution: 1080p
    • RGP Range: Full Range
    • Adjust Screen Size: verify the teal arrows touch the corners of the OBS scene
    • TV Sound: Stereo
• You're fully good to go!

Testing

• The options here may not be one glove fits all; to ensure your card's output is up to wiki standards, try to take a S2/S3 screenshot that's similar to an officially provided one (S2 official screenshots link / S3 official screenshots link) and make sure the colors are the same
  • Your screenshots should be generally identical to officially captured screenshots. If not, troubleshooting for your card's color settings is needed in OBS
• Please note near-imperceptible differences in color output are completely fine

Extracting screenshots from capture card videos

VLC max quality screenshots (simple option)

• In VLC media player navigate to Tools>Preferences>Video
• in Video snapshots, set Format to png
• Open a recording in VLC Media Player
• Press Shift+S to take a screenshot
• If needed press E to advance an individual frame

FFmpeg max quality screenshots (advanced option; not necessary for most cases)

• This can take up an immense amount of hard drive space and typically eats up processing power; be careful with this please only attempt if you have cursory knowledge of command line processes
• Install FFmpeg
• Open CMD in the folder containing the video aiming to rip from (*
• To convert the entire video to its frames, create a folder in the same directory as the video file, enter in cmd ffmpeg -i filenamehere.mp4 -r 60 foldername/image-%3d.png
• I use this to extract from official trailers

Multiplayer recordings

S1 Win/Lose animation videos

Cosplay guide

• Players 1 and 3 dress up as Kaori:
  • Inkling Girl with second skin tone, orange eye color
  • Equips the Studio Headphones, White Tee, Pink Trainers
• Player 2 and 4 dress up as John:
  • Inkling Girl with first skin tone, blue eye color
  • Equips the Pilot Goggles, Zink Layered LS, Purple Hi-Horses
• Player 5 doesn't need to dress up, as they won't be in any recordings

Private Battle setup

• Participating editors must friend one another beforehand
• Any player opens a Private Battle lobby
• Battle settings: Turf War on Urchin Underpass
• Player 5 is on team Alpha, Players 1, 2, 3, 4 are on team Bravo
• Anyone on Alpha team may record the clip; whoever is recording must enable the color lock option in settings
  • The intent is for all clips to feature orange inklings

Weapons guide

Please equip the "basic" version of each weapon for the recordings;

• Shooter: Splattershot
• Charger: Splat Charger
• Roller: Splat Roller
• Slosher: Slosher
• Splatling: Heavy Splatling
• Blasters and Brushes share their animations with the Shooter and Roller class respectively; consider recording them anyway just as proof/before we're unable to

Gameplan

• Players 1 (girl) and 2 (boy) equip the same weapon of the same class; Players 3 (girl), 4 (boy) do the same for another clip per clip in two "sets"
  • eg. Players 1 and 2 have the Splattershot, while Players 3 and 4 have the Splat Charger
• Team Bravo wins the match
• A member of team Bravo records the win animations from the results screen
• Another Turf War with the same settings is run
• Team Bravo loses the match
• A member of team Bravo records the loss animations from the results screen
• Players swap to another weapon class

S2 Win/Lose animation videos

File:Octolings Player Settings Customization.png

The promotional characters cosplay goal (skintone/eye color specifics may vary)

Gear guide (disregard weapons)

Cosplay guide

• Player 1 dresses up as Surume:
  • Inkling Girl with fourth skin tone, orange eye color, haircut hair, skirt with black shorts
  • Equips the King Flip Mesh, White King Tank, Mint Dakroniks
• Player 2 dresses up as Cuttlefrsh:
  • Inkling Boy with third skin tone, blue eye color, slick hair, loose shorts with leggings
  • Equips the Squidfin Hook Cans, Black V-Neck Tee, Yellow-Mesh Sneakers
• Player 3 dresses up as promo octoling girl:
  • Octoling Girl with fourth skin tone, orange eye color, File:S2 Customization Octoling Female Hair 1 Front.png tentacurl hair, leggings
  • Equips the Black FishFry Bandana, Octoking HK Jersey, Red Power Stripes
• Player 4 dresses up as promo octoling boy:
  • Octoling Boy with third skin tone, green eye color, File:S2 Customization Octoling Male Hair 1 Front.png punk hair, loose denim shorts
  • Equips the Squidlife Headphones, Red Cuttlegear LS, Suede Gray Lace-Ups
• Player 5 doesn't need to dress up, as they won't be in any recordings

Private Battle setup

• Participating editors must friend one another beforehand
• Any player opens a Private Battle lobby
• Battle settings: Turf War on The Reef
• Players 1, 2, 3, 4 are on team Alpha, Player 5 is on team Bravo
• Anyone on team Alpha may record the clip
  • Uncertain on consistent ink colors can be achieved

Weapons guide

Please equip the "basic" version of each weapon for the recordings;

• Shooter: Splattershot
  • Consider using the Octo Shot Replica for the Octolings
• Charger: Splat Charger
• Roller: Splat Roller
• Slosher: Slosher
• Splatling: Heavy Splatling
• Dualies: Splat Dualies
• Brella: Splat Brella
• Blasters and Brushes share their animations with the Shooter and Roller class respectively; consider recording them anyway just as proof/before we're unable to

Gameplan

• All players on team Alpha equip the same weapon
• Team Alpha wins the match
• A member of team Alpha records the win animations from the results screen
• Another Turf War with the same settings is run
• Team Alpha loses the match
• A member of team Alpha records the loss animations from the results screen
• Players swap to another weapon class
• Repeat

S3 Fistbump animations videos

Output example / Relevant article

There's a dedicated thread in the Discord where we coordinate recording these, and I maintain a tracker spreadsheet noting which emotes have been recorded thus far. The simplest setup to consistently get fistbumps for recording requires 3 players in a Private Battle; the process takes approx. 2 minutes per fistbump.

Massive thanks to to Xev, Milchik, 6-Frisk, Fancyrat, Sourguppyworm and Superfry for helping coordinate and/or record so far :)

Cosplay guide

• Player 1 dresses up as VeronIKA:
  • Feminine Inkling with fifth skin tone, yellow-orange eye color, megalobraid hair, slit eyebrows, s1 style shorts
  • Equips the Fake Contacts, Tri-Shred Tee, Force ReBoots
• Player 2 dreses up as Hirooooo:
  • Masculine Octoling with eighth skin tone, red-blue eye colors, octolocks hair, classic eyebrows, s1 style shorts
  • Equips the Ocho OctoPhones, Seahorse Shoreliner, U Jellys
• Player 3 doesn't need to dress up, as they won't be in any recordings

Private Battle setup

• The Private Battle room must be opened by Player 2 (the Hiro cosplayer) for the ending screen to line up with Veronika on left and Hiro on right
• Battle settings: regular Rainmaker on Scorch Gorge
• Once the room is set up, send out an invite (pool is wikitest)
• Players 1 and 2 are on team Alpha, Player 3 is on team Bravo
• Players 1 and 2 equip the same emote per match to record both the left and right variants in one go
• Players 1 or 2 must record the clip; whoever is recording must enable the first color lock option in settings

Weapons guide

Please equip the "basic" version of each weapon for the recordings of Flip Out and Reppin' Inkopolis:

• Shooter: Splattershot
• Charger: Splat Charger
• Roller: Splat Roller
• Slosher: Slosher
• Blaster: Blaster
• Brush: Inkbrush
• Splatling: Heavy Splatling
• Dualies: Splat Dualies
• Brella: Splat Brella
• Stringer: Tri-Stringer
• Splatana: Splatana Wiper
• In the case of Reppin' Inkopolis, Blasters and Brushes share their animations with the Shooter and Roller class respectively, so there is no need to record them separately

Gameplan

• Player 3 descends anywhere on the map, preferably near the Checkpoint
• Player 2 inks a bunch of turf
• Player 1 gets the Rainmaker, travels to Checkpoint with minimal inking
• Player 2 jumps to Player 1
• Player 2 splats Player 3
• Player 1 dunks the Rainmaker
• Fistbump occurs on results

Notes:

• The in-match roles of Players 1 and 2 may be fully swapped with no issue
• Player 3's outfit and weapon do not matter
• Player 1 must not be splatted
• Don't use specials
• Player 3 cannot see the fistbump animation so they cannot be tasked with recording

Upload process

• Trim video clip to ~5sec (cut out the lead in zooms as well as the fade out squid graphic)
• Note: it's extremely difficult for this to be lossless
• Crop to 1000x700; inputting the following numbers into ezgifs crop tool custom fields is ideal: 425-465 84 1000 700
• Mute the cropped output

Singleplayer recordings

S3 Splatfest Idol screenshots

Day 2

Deep Cut (Splatsville)

Requires x100/x333 battle win

Squid Sisters collage process

Output examples ex1-1 ex1-2 ex2
Here are the steps I follow in GIMP:

1. Gather all the images you want to make a collage of in a folder
2. In GIMP, select "File>Open as Layers..." and navigate to the folder containing the images, select all the images, and press "Open"
3. Organize the images into layer folders, and label everything to avoid confusion later. I name my folders "callie" and "marie", and each image is labelled "callie 1-3" or "marie 1-3" in alignment with the guide image I have provided (Callie in Shiver's Team color is "callie 1", Marie in Frye's Team color is "marie 2" / for the single truck day 2 pics a photo of Callie in Shiver's Team color and Marie in Big Man's Team color is "callie 1")
4. Align all the individual layers so the idol's placement is generally consistent from layer to layer; it's impossible to align them fully, so just do your best. The way I do this is by lowering the opacity of each layer to approx. 45%, hiding all but two of them at a time, and gradually moving them to more or less align with each other. I typically use the bottom-most image in the layers box as a "base" image which I intentionally never move. Additionally try to somewhat line up both idols between their separate layer groups somewhat in the cases of their solo (two separate trucks) images.
5. Using the Rectangle Select Tool select a rectangular area that contains a tight area where the idol fits inside the selection box across all layers; how well this works depends on how well you've aligned the idol images cross-layer
6. Adjust the selected area to be a nice, even amount of pixels, round up if you must: the current area of your selection is noted on the bottom of the screen as "Rectangle: X x Y" when you are adjusting it. You can pull the selection to be larger or smaller via large rectangular tabs that show up when you click then mouse over near the selected rectangle's sides, or by holding down alt (to add) or ctrl (to remove). I worked with a 640x752 selection area for that Callie image
7. Note down the width of the rectangular selection, which should still be active. If not, hit "Edit>Undo" to go back to it, or make a new selection using the same process.
8. Select "Layer>Crop to Selection" for each of your layers (or layer groups if you took the optional step; this is quicker). Eventually this will trim your entire canvas, which is the goal.
9. Using the width of your selection noted in step 6, calculate how much wider your image should be with the following formula: [selection width]×[amount of images]=[target width]. Eg. if your selection's width was 300 pixels, and you have 5 images you want to make a collage of, the resulting number would be 300×5=1200.
   Note: if the calculation result exceeds around 2800, it would be best to vertically stack the images after a certain point.
10. Select "Image>Canvas Size" and input in the "Width:" field the result of the calculation made in the previous step. Make sure the "X:" field under "Offset" is set to 0, then press "Resize".
11. Using the Move Tool move each layer so each version of the idol is side by side, ensuring they're laid out pixel perfect. I zoom in here and there using ctrl+mouse wheel to make sure it's aligned right. It's possible to use the arrow keys to move them perfectly, but it's rather slow.
12. Once you're done aligning everything, select "File>Export As..." and type in your desired filename with the .png format, then press "Export". In the menu that pops up, ensure the "Compression level" field is set to 0, then press "Export".
13. Losslessly optimize your output files here.