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Table of contents
Introduction
Per the Encoder Guidelines, all video clips must be prefaced with an approximately two second encoder logo, prominently displaying "http://TASvideos.org", a notice that the movie is tool-assisted, and some distinctive means to identify the encoder. Some examples of current logos can be seen at SiteHistory/EncoderLogos.
An example of a still image that has the features of a standard non-animated logo can be seen here. The yellow highlights a decent amount of room given for pointing out that it is a Tool Assisted Speedrun, the green highlights the reasonably large link to TASVideos, the purple highlights that the above link can be used to find out more information on the speedrun, the blue credits the video encoder for encoding the video, and the red serves as an eye catcher to bring peoples attention to the logo in the first place. The highlights can be used as a general guide, but can be mirrored if it is convenient (In the case of the lower half of the logo) and some overlap is allowed regarding the image as long as it isn't distracting (As demonstrated). The image inside the logo shouldn't steal all the attention away from the text, however.
Creating the image(s)
The major constraint in creating your logo image apart from the above guidelines is that it must be the same resolution as the encode you are creating. A brief list of these follows; if your target platform is not listed here, you can either contact an encoder or publisher for advice or move on to Video Dumping and extract the target resolution from your encode.
| Platform | Resolution |
|---|---|
| NES (NTSC), SNES (NTSC), Genesis/MegaDrive low-resolution (NTSC), Super Game Boy | 256x224 |
| NES (PAL), SNES (PAL), Genesis/MegaDrive low-resolution (PAL) | 256x240 |
| Nintendo 64, PSX[1] | 320x240 |
| Sega Master System | 256x192 |
| Genesis/MegaDrive, 32X, Sega CD (NTSC) | 320x224 |
| Genesis/MegaDrive, 32X, Sega CD (PAL) | 320x240 |
| Saturn[1] | 320x240 |
| Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Gear | 160x144 |
| Nintendo DS | 256x384 |
| Virtual Boy | 384x224 |
| TurboGrafx 16[1] | (variable) |
| Arcade[1] | (variable) |
The simplest logos are still images; this guide assumes you are going to create a still image for use as your logo. If you are feeling ambitious you can created animated logos (the normal target for these is 120 frames, which corresponds to approximately two seconds on virtually all of the above systems).
TODO: decide on whether to have a sub-page instructing people on how to use Gimp to put together a logo, or guides for other software packages?
Once you're finished crafting your image, save it as a PNG and have a publisher look at it for approval.
Creating a video from your image
Once you have an approved logo image, you'll need to create two seconds of video based on that logo. If you are planning on using AVISynth as part of the encoding process, you can skip this step as AVISynth is able to embed the logo into the video as part of the pre-encoding and encoding steps; therefore no intermediate video file is required.
Otherwise, you will need a
.wav sound file matching the intended length of your logo (usually two seconds, but this can vary depending on the system frame rate) and having the same sampling rate and number of channels as your target system. This information is platform-specific and is included as part of the emulator configuration information on the next page.
You can also find a
.zip containing .wav files suitable for most platforms here: http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/10/7/2595840//WAV.zip
The next step depends on what software you wish to use to create the intermediate logo file:
Assuming your PNG is named logo.png and your audio clip is named audio.wav, use the following command line:
mencoder mf://logo.png -audiofile audio.wav -fps 0.5 -ofps 60 -vf harddup -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=ffv1:format=bgr32 -o logo.avi}}
Some notes on the options:
- mf://logo.png: instructs mencoder to read its input from the given input file(s). If you are using multiple frames, specify their names comma-separated, i.e. mf://logo1.png,logo2.png,...
- -fps 0.5: Tells mencoder what the input frame rate is. At 0.5 frames per second, one frame is two seconds, so for one image this yields an input lasting two seconds.
- -ofps 60: Specifies the target frame rate. This should be the same as the target console's frame rate, which is usually (but not always) 60fps; if in doubt, check a video dump from your emulator or consult the Video Dumping page.
- -vf harddup: Forces duplicate frames to be written to the file in their entirety; this is important for the above frame rate conversion to ensure that enough frames are written to satisfy the two second target.
- -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=ffv1:format=bgr32: Specifies that the output should be in the FFV1 lossless codec in the BGR32 colour space. Any other RGB lossless codec would work as well.
- -o logo.avi: Specifies the target file name.
If you are using mencoder from Windows, you can place the above command in a .bat file using your preferred text editor or run it from a command prompt.
Once you have run the command, you should have a usable logo.avi and can proceed to the next step in the process.
- Start VirtualDub. File -> Open video file. select your PNG and open it.
- Press Ctrl-a to select all, Ctrl+C to copy all frames, then ctrl+v multiple times until there are 120 frames in the video. If you go over 120 frames delete any extras.
- Navigate audio -> Audio from other file and select an audio file that has the same sample rate and amount of channels as the emulator dumped video.
- Video -> Frame rate. Select change frame rate the fps the video dump from the emulator runs at (Usually 60fps).
- Video -> Compression. Select ffdshow video codec and click configure, set FFV1 as the video encoder.
- Under audio make sure direct stream copy is selected. Under video make sure full processing mode is selected.
- File -> Save as avi. Name it logo.avi. Congratulations, you now have a logo.
TODO: Rewrite to make a bit more sense, specifically regarding audio.
[1]: These platforms have variable resolutions; what is listed here is the most common resolution. It is good practice in these cases to proceed to video dumping first and check the resolution afterwards.