And More: Share And Tell - The Open Broadcaster Software Logo, A Cinematic Adaptation (Production Logo, 'Ident') [4K-XAVC-S]

I just wanted to share a little 'intro' I made for the OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) project:

Feel free to Download and use this logo for anything you desire (following any rules set by The Open Broadcaster Software Project). Once I figure out how to offer a high-quality download link more directly, I will put it right here!

[The above video clip contains only Royalty-Free and First-Hand-created content and is Distributed here via the Creative Commons Attribution License (any use, even commercial, with attribution listed); the Logo/Intro itself is 12s00f long, so trim off my identifier after that point, to use it for anything you wish]



I recently Downloaded OBS to try recording with it again - I tried OBS only for a very short time a few years ago, barely touching it; but recently thought about it again and gave it a go and see how it works for recording gameplay (what I mean herein, is Offline ("Non-Streaming") Locally-Recorded gameplay clips)... And I love it! Although it has to be 'set up' somewhat before easy operation, after that, it seems to be able to produce great quality with little impact on performance. I was just using the 'default' x264 (H.264/AVC MPEG-4 Part 10) codec that seems built-in to the program, utilizing my own x264 settings that I found worked well for local recording with x264 over the past few years (found in previous articles here at the blog - just Search for "x264" on the right side there). I look forward to trying a GPU-Accelerated codec in the future, in OBS (I am not a Programmer, otherwise I would like to contribute towards this, as well).

[I plan on doing a 'TestRun™' article on OBS here in the future; but fitting with this blog, it would be more concerned with showing others how to use OBS to record gameplay locally on their system (just like using Bandicam or MSI Afterburner) and what kind of results to expect from it - for now,
enjoy this little logo...]

Behind The Scenes - The Creation Of The Above Thingamajig

Creating this Logo/Ident for OBS was an idea I had, because although I had seen a couple of past Submissions of Logos for OBS on their Official Forum, there was no "cinematic-style" logos done that I could see, so far - ones that could be presented in a Professional Setting, perhaps at the beginning of a Streaming Event that was utilizing OBS. This is more what I was 'going for' here - something that looked "professional" and then on top of that, I personally wanted it to be "Cinematic"...

I used programs I had purchased in the past few years, for the logo (mainly Corel's VideoStudio Pro x8 and CyberLink's PowerDirector 12 Ultra Edition), along with some Open Source Software for tweaking the various elements, such as The GIMP (Graphical Image Manipulation Program [although I think they just call it "GIMP" now]) and Inkscape, Audacity (an Audio Editor) and FontForge.

It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, to create an 'only twelve second long' production... I knew what I wanted in my head [the way it looks in the end, thankfully]; but what I wanted specifically couldn't be done, with any of the Software that I had available. So, when a situation like that arrives, I like to "forge my own trail" and figure out how to make it happen, despite not being able to do so easily, with the Tools at hand.

What I mean for instance, is the black OBS 'disc' that comes in from the lower-left. It seems like that would be easy to do perhaps, and at first I avoided Blender because I thought I could just use PowerDirector to have a "circle" of some Font (Wingdings or Webdings, etc) and apply the Logo to the Font face and manipulate it there – which seemed really easy in my head, five minutes work maybe.... The problem was, PowerDirector wouldn't apply the image properly onto the front face of a Font 'circle' character - it was always offset oddly. I even tried applying the Logo to a circle character in VideoStudio's NewBlueTitler, but it did the same thing - the logo got applied all 'wonky'. I surmised it was the Font itself that was offset oddly for what I wanted to do (it's dimensions/metrics) and so, after searching through a ton of Fonts to find a 'simple circle', it turned out I couldn't find one and had to create a font from scratch and create a circle character inside that font, to do what I wanted...

[I realized I could have just created a circle and manipulated it in Blender, but I liked the Automation of Font manipulation that was offered in the NewBlue Titler add-ins that came with a couple of the video editing applications I purchased (VideoStudio Pro and PowerDirector) - I thought it would be easier...at first]

So, I created a Font and drew out a circle. I saved the one-character Font and installed the Font into Windows and then tried applying the OBS logo 'disc' once again to the front facing of the circle – it worked! The thing is, the font came out looking 'blocky', the circle didn't have a nice roundness to it - it was more like an octagon. I figured it was the resolution of the Font being displayed, but that was something couldn't really be adjusted, so I went back into the Font itself and added nodes for the circle character I created… painstakingly making it more complex and 'round', by altering each node one-by-one, lining them up into a circle shape, until eventually, I had a better 'circle' to use. Then, going back into NewBlue Titler, I set up the Font, applied the facing of the logo and it matched up enough - and looked like a 'circle' enough - to start manipulating it how I wanted…

A 'flipping coin until it sits flat' type of movement, although more 'monolithic' in style, is what I wanted for the OBS 'disc' - and that animation was actually built into the NewBlue Titler Add-on in VideoStudio Pro, it was really close to what I was thinking. Great. I then wanted the Text that you see on the right side, desiring to emulate logos I had seen at the OBS Project website (the “Powered By...” ones). I settled on a Franklin-Gothic-styled font that was Royalty-Free [I do not know the Font that was actually used in the “Powered By...” logos at the Forum I saw in the past – in fact, I can't find them there anymore either].

The “space-y” background I wanted was a free one included in PowerDirector, but I tweaked the particle generators (more particles and added custom types) and changed all of the colours and levels to how I wanted [“space travel but classy” if that makes any sense lol] - I thought it would give a sense of 'going out there to everyone' that was befitting OBS. I brought down the Saturation a lot, to make it match the feel of the two-tone OBS logo and also not take away too much from the logo/text reveal... [I might share an early “daily” I had, where there was waaay too much Glare and Flares going on haha].

The right-side text was finished in VideoStudio, where the NewBlue Titler there allowed me to give it a nice Chrome finish (there is even a Chrome style Preset in there). The animation was also from the same NewBlueTitler there, tweaked slightly. [I had tried to get the Chrome style I wanted in GIMP and Inkscape, but couldn't get what I was looking for in those, for the moment, despite having used them in the past for similar 'chrome'-desired projects]. After all that, only a bit of lining things up, a bit of tweaking here and there, and it was almost done! All it needed now was an inspiring Backing Track…

Both video editing suites (VideoStudio Pro and PowerDirector) included an 'automated music generator' type of module within them [what a great thing, coming from always having to create my own Backing Tracks in the Old Days] and I found what I wanted in PowerDirector's version (even though Corel's offers more Tracks to choose from). Royalty-Free for Any Use, I tailored it down to a crisp, "majestic-yet-hopefully-still-'classy'-and-also-cinematic" 12 seconds, which was what my animation seemed to be settling on. A few more tweaks and timing line-ups later and what you see above is the final result... Slash-Whew!


I have my little Identifier/Disclaimer at the end, but just cut if off by Trimming the clip to 12seconds00Frames and use it however you desire. Enjoy it! And please feel free to let me know what you all think of it and if there are any Suggestions to further tailor it for The OBS Project (and public) usage.

Thanks to all the contributors of The OBS Project for your hard work and inspiration for this logo, my own Personal Project. I hope everyone can eventually enjoy and use this logo as they desire.

Diablo II - Getting Ladder-Only Runewords Working In Single-Player Mode, Without Any Addons [Updated for Patch 1.14d]

[This post is currently being uploaded as Text Only for now - I may add images and some screenshots to it Soon™]

[Update 2016-06: As of Patch 1.14, where the save game information is kept has changed. I have tested this process and all changes are noted within**, including relocation of Runes.txt placement. This process still works as of this Patch.]

[Update 2016-07-03: As of Patch 1.14d, the save game information has been reverted by Blizzard 'back' to the 'older' instructions. The section at the bottom, talking about creating the Subfolders and Runes.txt in the 'Windows User' location is not needed in 1.14D - the steps talking about creating Subfolders and the Runes.txt are still required overall though, but work once again for the 'Game Installation' location itself - tested this as of this Update ...date.] 

[Personal note at end †  certain Runewords are not working?]

I recently re-installed Diablo2, ready to once again enjoy days gone by of Monsters, Magic and Loot... I wrote an article last year, about getting the scroll-wheel to work for switching spells/skills (the 'Right Mouse' Secondary Skill functions) in D2, in Windows. That post is located here:
http://gametipsandmore.blogspot.ca/2014/06/diablo-ii-getting-scrollwheel-to-work.html

After setting up the mouse-wheel once again, I started up a Single-Player game and made a character for it [a Necromancer, as I love Summoners]. I had collected some Runes for Runewords in the past, archiving them for SinglePlayer with The Hero Editor, a small utility that can save items found in Single Player Mode, by Exporting them to files on a local system/disk (as Diablo 2 Item [.d2i] files), which can then be Imported at a later time, into a future Character in Single Player Mode [only] through the same utility [which was "written mainly by Shokaku and ZonFire99" according to the ReadMe file for it].

Using the Hero Editor, I imported past runes and gems into my new character, using the Horadric Cube to create higher Runes I needed, for creating some Runewords. After trying to create an Enigma armor, I found that it was a Runeword that was not craftable in Single Player Mode (when trying to create it, the item simply fills up with the Runes used and utilizes the bonuses from the single Runes themselves, not creating the 'Special Item' that the Runeword would normally create, in an online, BattleNet game).

Searching online for some clues as to what could be done, I found in a few forums, mention of Addons that could possibly be used to create Ladder-Only Runewords in Single Player games. For now, I went looking for ways to craft Runewords in D2 without Addons. What I found, were various instructions to create a Text file in a created Subdirectory of Diablo2, where the Single Player game would use it as a source for Runewords... great! The only issue was that there seemed to be some variance for how the Subfolders should be created/named, to make the Text file work (there were multiple versions of information on what the subfolders should be).

Experimenting on my own then, I found the path of folders that would need to be created within the Diablo2 directory, in order to get this Text file to work. Just to summarize again, what this will do is:

» Allow Diablo II to use Ladder-Only Runewords in Single Player games, by reading Runeword information from a Text file (with no outside Addons or Mods needed to do so)


To do this, here is the working folder structure to create in the Diablo II directory:

<D2 installation folder>/Data/Global/Excel/Runes.txt


The steps to create the above folder structure are:

• in the Diablo II directory, create a New Folder called Data
• in the newly-created Data folder, create a New Folder called Global
• in the newly-created Global folder, create a New Folder called Excel
• in the newly-created folder called Excel, place the Text file from my PasteBin here:
  http://pastebin.com/xGLWhmZ1(If you do not feel comfortable Downloading anything at all for this procedure, simply copy and paste the text from that website and paste it into a text file, one that you create in the Excel folder, within the Diablo II directory structure you just created via the above - be sure to name the text file Runes.txt)
• lastly, add "-direct" and "-txt" to the Shortcut Properties for the "Diablo II.exe" file that starts up the game. The quotation marks aren't added, only the commands, such that the Target line in the Shortcut should then look like this:
  "C:\Program Files (x86)\Diablo II\Diablo II.exe" -direct -txt
  (the above line assumes that it is installed into the C: drive of the system. If you installed Diablo2 into a different drive/partition, the first letter would be whatever your drive letter is of where D2 is installed - the main part to match is the end portions, the "-direct -txt" added to the end, which allows usage of the Text file used in this process)

That's it!

What should occur in theory is, Diablo2 will use the Runeword information from that text file, allowing Runewords to now function within the Single Player game mode (even ones that are "Ladder Only")!

After "cubing-up" some new Runes that I did not have [using a Hero Editor to save/import the ones I had], I created an Enigma Runeword armor. Then, to specifically test the procedure above with a "Ladder-Only Runeword", I attempted to create an Insight for my Merc - and it worked! Hopefully, this will help you utilize Runewords in Single Player, too.


Note: Although I talked about a utility called Hero Editor within this post, it is not a required aspect of the steps above [ie. I use it for Item saving, not Runeword creation]. Also, although an "Excel" folder is created, neither Microsoft Office nor Excel or any other Spreadsheet-type of application need be present on the system - only a simple Text file and a few New Folders created are all that is needed.




** Update for Patch 1.14:

The file structure has changed, for where the game saves your character files, as of this Patch.

While I am not a developer for Blizzard, looking at the effects this Patch will have with Windows, I assume this was done to create a maintainable save game system for people upgrading from Windows 7/8/8.1 to Windows 10, as upgrading Windows [or reinstalling the game itself, if needed] will then not affect your save games in any way and they can then still be found by Diablo 2 (Single Player, etc) [by using this new directory setup implemented in 1.14].

As of Patch 1.14, your save game information is now located at:

C:/Users/<YOUR USER NAME>/Saved Games/Diablo II/

Your saved games, maps and characters are all now within that folder above [assuming C: as your Windows Installation Drive/Location, or where Windows and Saved Games can be found].

To continue using Runewords in Single Player with Patch 1.14, simply create new folders within (the Data folder may already be present), so that your file structure looks like this:

C:/Users/<YOUR USER NAME>/Saved Games/Diablo II/Data/Global/Excel/Runes.txt

Placing the Runes.txt folder within the Excel folder, as shown above, will then allow you to continue using Runewords in Single Player with the new file structure utilized in Patch 1.14 [personally tested as of 2016-06-06].


Tip: Don't forget to add "-direct" and "-txt" to the Shortcut Properties for the "Diablo II.exe", if needed, so that the end of the Shortcut Target line looks like this:
... \Diablo II\Diablo II.exe" -direct -txt


Enjoy - and See You In The Game sometime on BattleNet!



[Personal Log, Regarding Addons, Mods and Utilities: Just a quick mention of my remark regarding 'without any addons' above - I have used Addons, Mods and Utilities in the past, with games, and will likely do so in the future - however, mostly for security reasons, I normally do not and usually advise others against them at first. I realize that most of them are safe, hence my own usage of addons, mods and utilities at times; but because of the chance to encounter security risks, I usually advise against them initially, if people ask me for input. In the end though, most Addons, Mods and Utilities for most games are Safe and offer great functionality, the result of many hours of hard work that their creators have poured into them (if you use Addons or Mods or Utilities for games and you liked them, let their creators know, if you can)]


[Because this post is over a year old now, I have made a newer one (here at the blog, in June/July 2016) talking about this process again, with a bit more detailed instructions (a few screenshots showing the process) - along with my experiences of installing/playing D2 in Windows 10 - if it's not on 'the front page' anymore, that article can be located by going direct to the blog posting here.]

† [It seems that certain Runewords were not working for some people, according to various forum posts, using Add-Ons and other methods. For example, the Runeword EDGE, did not work for some. I have personally created INSIGHT and other Runewords, so this was puzzling. I investigated this potential limitation and found that it may be due to either limitations in the Add-On/Program being used, or the Runes.txt file itself containing Commas, which can occur if the file is opened in a Spreadsheet application (which may turn the file into a Comma-delimited format (using Commas to separate sections)) - be sure to utilize my methods above and the text direct from my Pastebin source (copying it into a Text file or downloading it as a Text file), or use the text I re-pasted into a 'Code' area at my newer article on this, here, copying it in to a Text file and placing it into the Data/Global/Excel subfolder. As of 2016-07-06 I personally tested the Runeword EDGE and it worked using these methods. I hope it works for you as well!] 

Game Tip - Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Changing The Game Display Resolution

Just a quick tip for Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 (and any Expansions you may have installed): To change the resolution to match your monitor's native rez or to bump it up higher, simply edit the Options.TXT file found at

Computer > [WindowsDrive] Disk C > Users > [UserName] > AppData > Roaming > Atari >RCT3

(See the screenshot just below, my 'username' was "Tr")

The location of the Options text file that allows you to edit the resolution the game will run in (Windows7)

Another way to get to this location in Windows is:

1. Click on the Start button, then click on Run [or press 'WindowsKey+R']
2. In the command box that comes up, type "%appdata%" (without the quotation marks) and it will open Windows Explorer at the folder >Roaming - then all you need to do is navigate into the Atari folder, then within that, the RCT3 folder - and you will be at the same location as the above, where the Options.txt file can be found

Note that you may have to show Hidden Files in Windows in order to see some of the folders (such as AppData). To do this:

• In Windows Explorer, click on the Tools pulldown menu and select Folder Options.
• In the Folder Options window, click on the View tab
• In here, under the Advanced Settings section, where it says 'Hidden files and folders', select the 'Show hidden files, folders, and drives' Radio Button
• Also, take out the checkmarks for the next 3 'Hide' selections (Hide empty drives, Hide extensions and Hide protected files)

Here's what the checkboxes, etc look like:

After the steps above, you should be able to now navigate to the RCT3 folder that has the Options.txt file with the resolution setting inside (open it with Notepad or your favorite text editor). You'll see the setting near the beginning of the file. Simply change those numbers to the resolution you wish to use - that's all.

Have fun and See You In The Game!

GTAM Minute Tutorial - Editing the Bouncy Yellow Text in the Minecraft Menu Screen and Fixing the 'ZWN BSF' Problem (and Locating the Minecraft.jar file)

Yes, I had to put absolutely everything in the title. As many of you already know, the yellow 'bouncy' text that shows up on the Main Menu screen of Minecraft ("Splash Text") can be edited to display whatever you want it to say. The problem is, when editing that text, one weird 'error' that can occur is, just before your personalized text, a little box with ZWN BSF (it's actually ZWNBSP) can show up. I've seen this problem talked about on many different forums for a while now and as I was editing the file myself, I figured out this way of fixing it and thought I'd share it with everyone:

In this GTAM Minute Tutorial, I'm editing the Splashes.txt file inside the Minecraft.jar source file [in Windows] to simply say, "Game Mode: Hardcore!", when working on recording some future Hardcore Mode Playthroughs. I show the problem as it pops up while editing [it's a one-take video] and then immediately show the fix for it. I don't think this is the only way around it, but it solves the problem and worked for me multiple times and since people are still talking about it; I thought I'd throw this out there to help others.



To locate the Minecraft.jar source file the game uses (for almost everything including Mods/addons), there are a bunch of ways, here are some [N.B. - (3) works on all operating systems]:

1) If you are playing Minecraft in Windows, you could do a couple of things**:

 - Open Windows Explorer and in the top Address Bar area, where it says your location on your computer, type in
%appdata%
and it will show the location of the ".minecraft" folder, where game files are normally kept. There is a "bin" folder inside, it should be in there

 - Click on the Start Button/Orb and where it says "Search Programs And Files" type in
%appdata%
and it will show the location of the ".minecraft" folder, where game files are normally kept. There is a "bin" folder inside, it should be in there

- Open a Windows Explorer window and navigate to C:\Users\<your user name>\AppData\Roaming and this is the location of the ".minecraft" folder, where game files are normally kept. There is a "bin" folder inside, it should be in there

 **You may have to 'show Hidden Files And Folders' in Windows by opening a Windows Explorer window and pulling down the Tools Menu and choosing Folder Options. In here, click on the View Tab and under the Hidden Files And Folders category, select the 'Show Hidden Files, Folders And Drives' Radio Button and click OK. You may also have to UNCHECK the 'Hide Extensions For Known File Types' checkbox in the View Tab if you want to see the '.jar' file extension/ending

2) If you are playing Minecraft on a Mac:

- Open Finder and in the Go To Folder section, type in
~/Library/Application Support/Minecraft/bin
and it should be in there

3) If you are on most other OS's (such as Linux):

 - Run the Minecraft game and go to Options, then Texture Packs and choose Open Texture Pack Folder
 - Go up one level to the ".minecraft" directory and there should be a "bin" directory inside, it should be in there

 Have fun editing the Minecraft Splash Text for your video projects and See You In The Game!