Jump to content
LaunchBox Community Forums

Missing ScreenShot Tool + Missing Video Tool


Recommended Posts

How to Install:

Download this: MissingMediaTool.zip

Extract it to Launchbox/Plugins/.

Go here and download the windows package, http://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html

Extract it to Launchbox/Plugins/MissingMediaTool/. Rename the folder to "ffmpeg" (all lower case). There is 3 .exe in the package. ffmpeg.exe, ffplay.exe, ffprobe.exe. The path to these exe's should be "Launchbox/Plugins/MissingMediaTool/ffmpeg/bin/".

Go here, download and install this, https://sourceforge.net/projects/screencapturer/

 

1.thumb.png.aac29863d2ae9c2c3838f557fbb34c16.pngThings to note:

If its red, you dont have it, if its green you do. If you do have a video then this plugin wont record gameplay for that game. If you do have a screen shot, then screen shots will be disabled for that game.

Scale: If you plan on cropping your video set this scale to "Off". If playing game in full screen, set scale to 640:480 to reduce the size (picture and megabytes) which will bring the video more in line with what you find at emumovies. (Searching through the clips I have downloaded from emumovies Iv only found 640:480 and 320:240, so that is all I have added, if you want anything else, let me know and I'll add it)

Gamepad hotkeys, these are the screenshot hotkeys. If using a keyboard the keys for screenshots are "Control" + "Capslock" (Why capslock? because I have no idea which keys any emulator uses but capslock isnt going to be used... surely?, again if any better suggestions let me know). If using a gamepad your have to navigate with keyboard to the "Gamepad hotkeys" on your first start up. You can have either a 2 or 3 button combo to take the screen shot. To have a 2 button combo, select your 2 buttons and let the timer run to zero. If you want to disable the gamepad after you have set the hotkeys, go to Launchbox/Plugins/MissingMediaTool/Include/Script/ and delete Gamepad.ahk.

Save folder: if you are saving your videos/screenshots to the plugins folder, make sure to put your videos/screenshots into the launchbox directory before you start this plugin and choose the same platform again. The plugin wont pick up the media inside the plugins folder and will overwrite any games videos/screenshots that have been done previously.

The only issue here I still have is framerate. My machine can only record at 30 fps. Im not sure if putting the fps higher will spit out a clip with the higher fps. If it doesnt and your willing to test I'll create a simple to use plugin to get it working. If you record a game and the video playback is to fast, lower the framerate.

 

 

 

2.thumb.png.041cfa7903a2129c4f62142ade747af8.pngImages.

When you crop an image, it wont remove the original image, you have to delete it. 

Once you get the crop to exactly where you want it, turn auto crop on and any image taken after, will be cropped automatically.

When taking a screenshot, I havent tested to see what happens if you spam the hotkeys... As you can record and take screenshots at the same time, I imagine nothing happens. But maybe give ffmpeg a second before taking another screenshot.

3.thumb.png.45444981ad40466f395eddbb9497cd0d.pngI think I covered most of this in a post below.

Scale: This scale will only turn on if using crop. If you crop your video to, lets say 520x360, and you scale 640x480, your stretch your video and it'll look bad. Your want to scale lower than your crop.

When your ready to create a video, you press "create video", as the video is being created any key presses wont register on this screen. Its just a simple... if this create video variable = true, then this listview key press event is ignored. Its so you cant press any buttons til the video has been created. You can still alt+tab away from this screen no problem.

 

Iv uploaded 25 psp video clips and a few screen shots to the game media section that was made with this, if you wanna check them out.

Unless I get any complaints, I think iv finished with this plugin.

 

Edited by jayjay
  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks guys. 

 

I have to say this because it would of been excellent if it worked.

It was my missing video's that first gave me the idea, I started working on that first. But realised that it might be possible to make an automatic screenshot tool. The way it works is...

You would choose a platform.

The plugin would create the list of games with no screen shot.

 

It would automaticially start the first game.

 

Then using autohotkey, have it repeatedly send the "start" button for 10 seconds or so. Then have it hold down right for 10 seconds or so, as you guys prob know using ahk you can simulate any key press. The idea being, simulate key presses to get from a games title screen into the game.

 

It would then automatically take a screenshot or multiple screenshots. Then automaticially exit the game.

 

The plugin would then automatically play the next game missing a screenshot and it would repeat this til completion. 

 

So basically you would click a couple of buttons and watch game after game start, get passed the title screen, move about a bit, exit the game and accumulate screen shots without any other input.

 

Obviously it wouldn't work to well on platforms such as Wii or Windows etc but I tested it on Nes about 30 games. Successful screen shots was only about 50%. I ended up with some screenshots that were paused, some still at the title screen etc. Would of been cool if it worked with better success rate. 

 

Anyway I'm waffling... 

 

The missing video's... Its out of my skill level to make something to.record a video. I have searched a little for a script that can do it but haven't found anything yet.

 

My fall back idea is to make a plugin that creates a list of games missing a video. And use the Windows 10 gamebar or maybe OBS along with the plugin to basically create a tool similar to the missing screenshot tool but for video's. It won't be exactly the same but will still reduce the amount of work it takes to complete a platforms missing video's. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Hey jayjay,  amazing plugins, thank you for sharing. I plan to try the video one shortly but meanwhile have a small issue with the screenshot grabber...

It works great to grab screenshots for most of my platforms but not for Dolphin or PPSSPP which both result in a just a black screenshot being added to the game. Any ideas why? I am using LB 9.1 so I guess that could be the issue but it still works for other emus which makes me doubtful.  

Many thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi, a couple of weeks ago I was trying this plugin , I couldn't make ir work with the autohotkey script so I replaced it with another one I Made with autoit, I was testing it with retroarch and always got a black screen, even when simulating a print screen key press and pasting the clipboard, I don't know why it happens. Try using the print screen key while playing to see what Is copied to the clipboard.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It could be an issue with resolution but im not sure. Im in the process of a complete overhaul of this plugin. Its going ok so far. But it will take me some time to get it done. Im hoping I will only need ahk for gamepad navigation and a couple of other menial things. Will see how it goes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is what I have so far:

1.thumb.png.b2408cb760e4ba4694c9856f37283baa.png

If its green, you have it, if its red, you dont. Press Play or play next to launch a game and recording will start. After exiting the game press video to edit.

2.thumb.png.15039db217fc1ee1bb54b35e61caec36.png

Press "start cut" and "End cut" to create a clip  and press "add" to add the clip to the bottom. Press on the new clip at the bottom to add fade in or out or move the clip left or right. The clips are stuck together from left to right. So the left most clip is first and the right most will be last. Theres also a "play all" which will give you an idea of what the video will turn out like. It will show you the main video but it will jump from clip ones position to the next clips position and so on. In the interest of keeping read/writes to a minimum, I dont want to cut and add fade to each clip just to preview it. The issue is when pressing "play all" there is a flash of the beginning of the main video and also you will have to use your imagination of what the clip will look like with fade.

Heres a few psp clips iv made with it.

https://youtu.be/6eDpNnjb5ok

https://youtu.be/l02dwbn-Lwk

https://youtu.be/c1H299wBOdA

The reason im posting this is because iv run in to an issue, the issue being..

Im using ffmpeg to capture,cut,fade and crop the video. When recording the main video you will get the settings that you ask for, if you choose mp3 for audio format your get mp3 etc etc. BUT when adding fade or cropping... if i try to apply the same settings to fade or crop, ffmpeg has a hissy fit and errors out, its one of those, you fix one error it throws another error and on and on. The only way I have managed to get a complete video is by allowing ffmpeg to choose its own settings. So a main video that has 320kbps audio bitrate becomes 128kbps bitrate, framerate of 60fps becomes 30fps and so on.  I think what happens is, is my system isnt capable of encoding the clips to higher settings so ffmpeg refuses. If i force ffmpeg to record a framerate at 60fps I get a video that is out of sync and playback is super fast. But basically these settings become useless. But saying that using these clips in BB, they look alright. Also something else to take into consideration, if not cropping the video you will get something like a 1 minute video clip at 20mb or so.  

Anway way my specs are:

amd 6300 3.6

gtx 960

16gb ram

With the last couple of days dealing with all these errors has me questioning if its going to work on other systems, so Im hoping some of you guys could test what I have so far. And give me some feed back. If it ends up throwing lots of errors for others it means ffmpeg will need to be configured per system. Which is to much for me to take on. ffmpeg is vast. Also are these clips good enough to use for BB?

If your willing to test it heres how to set up.

Download this and extract it to your plugin folder MissingMediaTool.zip

Go here and download the windows package https://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html


Extract it to Launchbox/Plugins/MissingMediaTool/and rename the folder to ffmpeg (all lower case). Its portable so no install.

Another thing that might be an issue is recording the audio, took me ages to work this out. Go here and install this  https://sourceforge.net/projects/screencapturer/
Now start the plugin from launchbox tools menu.

The settings are:

Play, play the game on the top left of screen.

Images. Dont work, so no screen shots at the moment.

Video, edit and create video.

Play next, play the game on top right of screen.

Note... keep an eye on the red and green. if the video is green and screenshot is red, it will still play. If your not paying attention you could create a video for a game that already has a video. I do plan on not having it record if a video already exists.

Audio format, pointless.

Audio bitrate, pointless.

Volume, thats recording volume. 4 is right for me.

Resolution or should that be aspect ratio. That you can change. Primary screen resolution is whatever your primary screen is.

Frame rate, pointless. If you get playback of recording thats to fast or audio out of sync, lower the framerate.

Hide mouse, if enabled the recording wont capture the mouse, disabled and it will.

Gamepad doesnt work at the moment so you will have to use the keyboard. Arrows to move, enter to select.

File name. If you want to save the clip the same as the game title or the same as the rom file name. In the interest of sharing your clips, game title would be best.

Save folder, at the moment leave this as plugin, if you change it to default, which is launchbox/video/"platform" you might get an exception. Instead, with plugin selected the clip will be saved to launchbox/Plugins/MissingMediaTool/Media/Video/"platform". The reason for this and the main reason I started this plugin is so we could separate the missing clips from getting lost in the launchbox directory and we could share the clips with everyone else.

So start it up, hit play next, record some gameplay. exit the game normally, go to video. and hit play.

The arrows...  single arrow is back/forward 1 second, 2 arrows 10 seconds, 3 arrows 30 seconds.

Everything else I think we covered or is self explanatory.

Crop

 When using crop you cant crop just the title bar like so:

crop1.thumb.png.9e17c95097387f6c9e82668df87b4db8.png

it has to be something like:

crop2.thumb.png.e24015cd171ee66522be5ec28b7d5608.png

So far iv only encountered an issue when trying to crop just one side.

Select the middle empty buttons to change the colour of font or border.

When your ready hit Create Video.

You will get a few command prompts, when a command prompt has finished, close it and the next one will open. Keep closing them until you get a pop up of your finished clip. I have left the command prompts open so you can see if it encounters any errors. When you get the finished clip pop up, you can choose to save the clip or delete it. 

And I think thats it. If no one test this I have written this essay for nothing lol. 

Edited by jayjay
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/9/2018 at 2:51 PM, jayjay said:

If no one test this I have written this essay for nothing lol.

This looks amazing, thank you for sharing and definitely not all for nothing :)

I will have a play with it and will report back. 

Hopefully later this week but getting busy now in the run up to xmas.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dont know how I didnt catch it. But I didnt hide the window correctly when taking a screen shot. Which can make the emulator lose focus for a split second. Iv updated the MissingMediaTool.zip in the OP. Wont lose focus when taking a screen shot now. Silly mistake.

Edited by jayjay
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...