Request : guide to making an AAR

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> After Action Reports >> Request : guide to making an AAR

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Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 2:08:37 AM

Evrett

Posts: 142
Joined: 11/29/2011
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I'd love to make one of these..its good RP fun..but I have have Ms paint and I failed to even copy and paste a top hat on my forum avatar. What is the best free art program to edit photos and a free word processor to put together the doc ? Any suggestions for pre game/AAR recording prep?

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RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 2:18:45 AM

Gelatinous Cube

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Joined: 10/26/2011
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I use paint, and the "0" key on the numpad. This collects all the screenshots in the Uses/Username/Roaming/... /Screenshots folder.

Then, after I feel i've reached a good stopping point, I crop all the photos with Paint and save them in a separate folder, with names that remind me of why I took them (GreatKaltorFight2, or HeyLookIFoundABase, ect.). Then, I upload them into Photobucket and post them.

It's important to play a little farther than you post. I'm several sessions in front of my AAR, but I haven't written it all up yet.

< Message edited by Gelatinous Cube -- 12/13/2011 2:19:07 AM >

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RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 5:53:06 AM

feelotraveller

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Joined: 9/12/2011
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I use GIMP (it's free!) for picture editing but I suspect your skills far surpass mine in this medium.

If you want a versatile free word processor you can't go past OpenOffice. Text can easily be assembled in anything, though (I tend to use Notepad).

Probably the most important part of editing images is to make their save size small enough (JPG is probably preferred format) so that they load quickly and to resize them so that they are not too small to see but do not go over the edge of most screens (something many posters on this forum ignore). It is very frustrating to find only half an image on your screen and have to scroll across during an AAR when you have to do this frequently. About 900x600 will fit all screens including older laptops in my experience.

I have found that the best recording technique is to take a screenie of anything which comes up which might be interesting. At first you take much more than you need but then start to learn what is really going to make the final cut. Of course you can document events which happen without a screenie if you overlook it. I have even seen some quite interesting and successful AAR's made without images at all!

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Post #: 3

RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 7:21:08 AM

Nedrear

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I doubt 900x600 is a common format today. I always go with my 1024x768 window and guess what, people tell me I am only half as big as them. Therefore you can never do it wrong using this format today. Even I have to say 900x600 is so "early 2000s" that it hurts.

I use paint to cut pictures in size and export them as a PNG if they are JPG to make a transparent cut in GIMP. I combine backgrounds, make 3D turns and shadow effects in Adobe After Effects 3... though the last one is NOT free.

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RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 7:27:39 AM

J HG T

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From: Kiadia Prime
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I will probably use combination of GIMP and good ol' notepad to make my coming AAR;
Play the game, take screenshots of everything interesting, edit them, copy the edited pics to notepad, add descriptions, save the file and copy paste the content to the thread as seems fit. Add some more text if needed.

I guess that the most problematic thing in AARs is editing the pics and getting them uploaded properly. If you have the imagination (and which SciFi player doesn't?) writing should be rather fun from what I feel.

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RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 3:17:52 PM

Erik Rutins

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From: Vermont, USA
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Paint.net is also a good option for free image editing software. GIMP is fantastic as well.

The forum supports one image per post. If you want more than that, you can link them in but you'll need an external image library, like photobucket, etc.

Regards,

- Erik

< Message edited by Erik Rutins -- 12/13/2011 3:18:25 PM >

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RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 6:00:41 PM

DasTactic

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Joined: 10/10/2005
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For my AAR's I was using a screen capture program (can't remember which one) that allowed region cropping. I played the game full screen and then when I wanted to take an image I would position things where I wanted them and then took the capture. I had set the capture to save as jpeg - which keeps the size small. This way I had very little post production to do. From memory it even had simple tools to drawing. This really cuts down a lot of fiddling-about time.

If I had to edit then I used Photoshop. GIMP is great but fairly complicated if you don't know what you are doing. Picassa is a good free option if you just want to make crops etc.

Images were uploaded to Photobucket.

As far as writing is concerned, I used a notepad type editor called EditPad Pro but any text editor would do. Even better if it allows you to spell-check as you go. Notepad is much better than using Word because you don't want formatting in your content and it is easier to paste in the image code - as well as handling the forum font styling.

If you use Firefox as your web browser you can set spell checking to kick in at that point for when you paste in your content. I'm sure the other browsers can be set to do the same - but Firefox FTW!

I also set the game to autosave at 20 minute intervals so I can reload a save game if I missed something and need to capture it later.

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Post #: 7

RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 7:24:30 PM

Evrett

Posts: 142
Joined: 11/29/2011
Status: offline

How do you do the Lets plays friend ?

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Post #: 8

RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 9:27:36 PM

DasTactic

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The video details are here...

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2949378

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Post #: 9

RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/13/2011 11:52:27 PM

StarWolf

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Joined: 11/30/2011
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quote:

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller
I use GIMP (it's free!) for picture editing

This is what I use. It's a great free program and is always being improved. It has good help files as well.

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Post #: 10

RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/14/2011 2:35:16 PM

Grotius

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From: The Imperial Palace.
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I hear good things about GIMP, and you can't argue with the price. I try to keep my picture width to no more than 1024, just in case people are browsing with older PCs. Try to save them as a jpeg. I try to keep my file size under 250K, partly because I post at another forum that insists on files of that size or lower; they load faster. Again, you can do this by "save as" a JPEG in your photo-editing software.

Like the Cube, I keep my game well ahead of my AAR. That helps me edit out the boring parts later. :) Also it helps me construct a more coherent narrative. E.g., I might fight three little skirmishes that end up being insignificant, and one big battle that's huge. Rather than report on all four, I might wait til I'm further on to assess which (if any) deserve forum space and time.

Personally, I use Photoshop, but I use it and other artist software professionally; it's not necessary for this. I save screenshots with both numpad-zero and with FRAPS; I'm not sure there's any quality difference between the two.

Cube: new avatar, eh? You don't look as gelatinous.

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RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/14/2011 3:53:08 PM

Keston

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Some things to do in an AAR.

Provide "Chapter" headings with dates to organize things.

Recap what's happened from time to time in the epic sweep of history, tying back to past events ". . . as in the first Sluken War, we successfully struck first at their fleet base at Anorox . . . "

Markup the map with arrows, circles and explanatory notes. The suggested free software sound useful for this.

A good cycle is discussing the situation, what you are thinking, what you plan and expect other empires to do, then describe how it goes, what you thinkj about how it is working out and how you and your people react to it.

Frame some of it in terms of characters. Rename them and/or give them titles/ranks to make them easy for readers to remember. I do this anyway with characters, fleets, and sometimes significant ships (e.g., special patrols, some explorers) so I don't need to check their details when making transfers and assignments.

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Post #: 12

RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/14/2011 4:28:54 PM

Gelatinous Cube

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quote:

Cube: new avatar, eh? You don't look as gelatinous.

I feel this avatar more correctly displays my world view.

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RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/14/2011 5:05:28 PM

Whydmer

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Joined: 6/5/2009
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I wish the game had an auto screen shot feature that just took screen shots every 10 minutes... (lol) If I had been taking screen shots early on the game I am playing could be a decent AAR.

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Post #: 14

RE: Request : guide to making an AAR - 12/14/2011 5:07:07 PM

Gelatinous Cube

Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Whydmer

I wish the game had an auto screen shot feature that just took screen shots every 10 minutes... (lol) If I had been taking screen shots early on the game I am playing could be a decent AAR.

That's the way I feel about two hours into every good game. There's got to be something you could do in terms of updates or expansions with this kind of raw story material, but I have no idea what.

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