Full Screen Camera View

[robdyck]

Is there a way to get a camera view to expand to full screen?  This could be helpful for creating screen recordings. 

[Chopsaw]

Interesting concept Rob.   You can dump a lot of things such as your Scroollbars and Statusbar or even your Toolbars if you have the hot keys you need to be able to do without them.  Also anything else you have docked can go away but full screen is a bit illusive.  I have been able to achieve it by stretching my screen to other adjoining monitors but not everyone has that luxury.  Maybe you need a recording app that has resolution settings ?

[robdyck]

Flashback Express allows a control of the recorded region. Bigger is better was my intent! Plus it'd be quicker than dragging that region. I prefer to use a screen recording because it's so much faster than a recording walkthrough...plus you can't preview a walkthrough. Nothing like getting halfway through and realizing its crap.

I'm trying to get decent exterior videos with little to no effort. It's not as easy as you'd think! Chief's 3d viewer is too poor to keep using.

Chief needs a screen recording tool built-in.

[Chopsaw]

Yes it takes a bit of work to set up a good walkthrough path but the nice thing about it is you can usually use the same or a slightly revised path to show updates and progression.

 

I did not realize that the Record Walkthrough feature did not have the same resolution setting that Record Walkthrough Along Path does.  A bit or a shame really.  Have you explored codec settings as a possibility ?

 

So Flashback Express does not have resolution settings for the recorded area ?  I have been using OBS for a while now and it may be a better solution although I have not tested thoroughly enough to know how effective the higher resolution settings are but it is set up as a bit more of a professional use software.

 

57 minutes ago, robdyck said:

Chief's 3d viewer is too poor to keep using.

 

I would definitely agree with that and in light of Dermot's recently revealed product development schedule I would not keep your fingers crossed for too long waiting.  However with a lot of work was able to get a walkthrough path recording that was almost 4K using my 1080 monitors, before chief released the most recent updates so I guess it just depends on what gets to the top of the list.

[HumbleChief]

15 hours ago, Chopsaw said:

...and in light of Dermot's recently revealed product development schedule.

Just stumbled upon this tid bit. Where might this be revealed please...

[robdyck]

16 hours ago, Chopsaw said:

Flashback Express does not have resolution settings for the recorded area

It does have recording region setting. Pretty simple to use, it shows a red border with handles and easy to drag to get just in side the camera window.

[robdyck]

I'd like a recording with decent visual quality and smoothness. I hate to admit it, but it seems the simplest way is to use a smartphone to record the screen while pressing control-alt-s to generate the spin. That did produce an 83MB file...a bit cumbersome but at least it wasn't twitchy and it only takes 30 seconds and much less loss of graphic quality! I just need a small tripod to keep it stationary!

A chief tool that would be the inverse of a 360 photo would be ideal. 

[Chopsaw]

2 hours ago, robdyck said:

I'd like a recording with decent visual quality and smoothness. I hate to admit it, but it seems the simplest way is to use a smartphone to record the screen while pressing control-alt-s to generate the spin. That did produce an 83MB file...a bit cumbersome but at least it wasn't twitchy and it only takes 30 seconds and much less loss of graphic quality! I just need a small tripod to keep it stationary!

A chief tool that would be the inverse of a 360 photo would be ideal. 

 

Rob could you post or PM a control test file with a saved camera.  What resolution are you hoping to achieve and what is your current screen resolution and recording box pixel size ?  I would like to see what OBS can do or maybe even play with the codec settings to see what can be done within the software and we can compare results.  Pretty sure there is a better way than using your phone.

[glennw]

7 hours ago, robdyck said:

I hate to admit it, but it seems the simplest way is to use a smartphone to record the screen while pressing control-alt-s to generate the spin

 

Rob,

You may already know that you can easily record a spin around the model with fairly good results - but I will run through it on case you aren't aware of a couple of things.

Set up your 3D view and in the camera dbx, make sure the Incremental Move Distance and Incremental Rotate Angle are set to small values like 4" and 1deg respectively.

The smaller these settings, the smoother the movie.

In the popup Walkthrough Options you get some additional options.

You may want a higher frame rate or less compression.

You can then Save Video As and change the recording format - .mp4, .mpv, iTunes .mp4).

You can now use the left and right arrow keys or Spin to record a movie.

This has to be better than recording the screen with a phone.

Here is a very basic quick one you demonstrate the smoothness in a flyaround using Spin.

It is about 7MB.

The beauty of this method is that it is all done quickly right in Chief - no toolbars, no clipping.......

Don't forget that Walkthroughs have their own default settings.

 

 

 

 

[robdyck]

13 hours ago, glennw said:

You may already know

You know how sometimes you get caught up in one thing and then totally forget the obvious? That's me on this one! I had been working on walthrough paths and completely forgot about this! Thanks for the reminder Glenn! Interestingly enough, I was out riding my bike yesterday and found myself thinking about different things in Chief that I know (or knew) about but have forgotten over the years and then I read this today! Awesome...and weird, but I'll take it. And, years ago, I used this tool quite often.