MAME Movie Maker released

[papercut]

Yeah I agree it can be risky... My 'theory' is though that there's less going on in memory during the beginning of an attract mode cycle so perhaps there's less to worry about with save states.  In other words, once you 'insert coin' you're in a whole new level of interaction with the system and I can see that causing problems... whereas in attract mode, maybe the games are in a 'calmer' state and can be captured safely without harming the little bits and bytes.

I'm SOOO technical...

[Silver]

Hi,

While its not save states, the idea to skip past the garbage/boot stuff has been around a while. Theres a patch around thats adds a couple of commands to mame - ssf and -fsf (its where the "ssf" name for the ssf.txt file came from originally). ssf skips a set number of frames (completely turns off rendering any video output, making it as fast as possible with a black screen) and fsf simply disabled the throttle for a set number of frames (fast as possible with video rendering).

It may be useful for where savestates fail.

[2600]

Yeah I agree it can be risky... My 'theory' is though that there's less going on in memory during the beginning of an attract mode cycle so perhaps there's less to worry about with save states.  In other words, once you 'insert coin' you're in a whole new level of interaction with the system and I can see that causing problems... whereas in attract mode, maybe the games are in a 'calmer' state and can be captured safely without harming the little bits and bytes.

I'm SOOO technical...

Sorry, but your theory is wrong.  The problem with save states is that a lot of drivers don't have them implemented.  Which means when MAME saves the states it doesn't know which bits and bytes to save for sake of a simpler explanation. 

-ssf and -fsf would work on all games if the frame start number of the attract mode was saved to a file.  Just a little something for Buddabing to implement in his long list of things to do.   Actually scratch that Buddabing doesn't need to do this, I want to do another run of attract modes so when I do it I'll output the romname and startframe to a file.

Silver do you have any desire to host this as well, although we should call it something else since people easily get confused about the difference.

[Buddabing]

In retrospect I think it was a mistake to call Silver's ssf.txt with the ending frame the same name as the other ssf.txt that just has the start frames. It has confused more than one person already. So I propose we change the name of Silver's file to something else.

Calculating a saved state and loading it will be superior to the ssf for the drivers that support it. Unfortunately I don't know how to tell which drivers have a good save state and which don't.

I will put fsf/ssf support in BuddaMAME, I think it will be useful for guests playing my cab.

[2600]

Buddabing it's your baby so I say go ahead and name it whatever you want.  If you change it I believe only you, Silver, and screaming would have to do any changes to anything.  If you put a blurb afterwards on the first post, all of us users can easily get by with any changes that are done.

Saved state would be superior and automatic save state bootup suport on top of that, but I don't think it is in good enough shape to be used.  I could be wrong though.  And the big problem is it's not like it's going to wave a big red flag saying it didn't work it.

[Silver]

I agree. Creating an ssf list for start frames has been on my to do list a long time (I think I mentioned it earlier on in the thread and got distracted...)

I'll change the 'ssf' list designed for movie generation to something else - Buddabing at the moment listgen looks for ssf.txt in the same dir, so lets rename that - just post what you rename it too.

Then I'm happy to host a new "original" ssf.txt which will just have something like romname,startframe.

If I recall though the patch available that implements ssf/fsf does not parse an external file. You have to speciify the frame in the mame command line. I think it would be great if you could add it to mame (is this easy?) so it reads ssf.txt and skips frames if the entry is present?

[Buddabing]

I agree. Creating an ssf list for start frames has been on my to do list a long time (I think I mentioned it earlier on in the thread and got distracted...)

I'll change the 'ssf' list designed for movie generation to something else - Buddabing at the moment listgen looks for ssf.txt in the same dir, so lets rename that - just post what you rename it too.

Then I'm happy to host a new "original" ssf.txt which will just have something like romname,startframe.

If I recall though the patch available that implements ssf/fsf does not parse an external file. You have to speciify the frame in the mame command line. I think it would be great if you could add it to mame (is this easy?) so it reads ssf.txt and skips frames if the entry is present?

I decided on "boundary.txt". It's a nice, descriptive 8.3 name.

I've compiled a new listgen and I'll upload it soon.

I'll add a separate option to read the ssf.txt file. That's easy.

[Silver]

Ok I'll change my website to generate a file called boundary.txt instead of ssf.txt.

Might not get to it till friday as I'm away with work, and not sure I can remember my ftp password for the webserver.....

[arcadegamenut]

Where is the makeleds.bat file supposed to come from?

I downloaded everything in the first post and ran it. I receive:

C:\MAME097>makemovies
'makeleds.bat' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Average FPS: 422.461897 (100 frames)

C:\MAME097>time /T
11:05 PM
error invalid value for moviestartframe: -movieendframe
error while parsing cmdline

I see in src\windows\input.c, the reference to makeleds.bat, but do not see the batch file anywhere. The only thing I do see is a program entitled ledmovie.exe.

Thanks

[Buddabing]

Where is the makeleds.bat file supposed to come from?

I downloaded everything in the first post and ran it. I receive:

C:\MAME097>makemovies
'makeleds.bat' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Average FPS: 422.461897 (100 frames)

C:\MAME097>time /T
11:05 PM
error invalid value for moviestartframe: -movieendframe
error while parsing cmdline

I see in src\windows\input.c, the reference to makeleds.bat, but do not see the batch file anywhere. The only thing I do see is a program entitled ledmovie.exe.

Thanks

Just create an empty file and name it makeleds.bat.

The batch file calls an external program to light up LEDs on your control panel, either with my LED controller or another.

So you can ignore that error.

Your problem is the "invalid value for moviestartframe". Check your makemovies.bat. It should have:

call batch 005 224x256 1 0 0

for a total of five argments after "batch".

[arcadegamenut]

So much for copy and paste.  Somehow, I missed the two zeros on the end.

Oh well.....

Thanks!

[big daddy]

Having issues with compression.  I try zookeeper and get 300MB file and from the instructions, it says it's an issue with XVID, but I've installed XVID.  (Koepi's Binary - XviD-1.0.3-20122004.exe ).  It installed succesfully and shows up in start-->programs-->xvid, so not sure what the problem is.

I'm wondering if I'm running the listgen correctly.  Here's the command I run and the output

C:\mame>listgen makemovie movieaudio=1 skip_warnings minmovielength=800 maxmovie
length=10000 movievideo=3 intmakectrl=1 extmakectrl=0 moviematchlength=10

Calling MAME to get version
MAME version is 0.92
Calling MAME to build listxml.txt
Calling MAME to build gamelist.txt
Calling MAME to build listfull.txt
Scanning XML game info
Processing catver.ini
Failed to find nplayers.ini, list may be inaccurate
Failed to find gameplay.ini, list may be inaccurate
Processing gamelist.txt
Processing listfull.txt
Writing intermediate file listgen.tmp
Reading intermediate file into filter database
Filtering database into result.tmp
Writing game list to makemovies.bat

It generates makemovies.bat which generates vid correctly, but zookeeper file is huge (not compressed). 

I'm also unclear on how to use the ssf.txt file that silver has.  Do I just put it in the mame directory when I run Listgen and it automatically works?

[Buddabing]

Having issues with compression.

[Silver]

Hmmm, thats the same release of Xvid I use (and the one used to set up stuff in virtualdub).

Try uninstalling and reinstalling Xvid. Also, Run virtualdub manually and try and compress any old video and make sure that the option to compress to Xvid is available to you - if its not, then its not been installed correctly on your system.

I've also noticed that I'm a bit out of touch - new versions of mame, Buddamame and Virtualdub are around. I'll make sure everything still works fine. I'll also update my website - I need to change the ssf.txt to the new name, update the romset list to 0.97, and clean up a couple of entries.

 I think there are around 50 tweaked entried now, and I've held back on most of the neogeo games as I'm trying to decide for certain if the nvram is remembering which cycle of the attract sequence the game ran last time....

[big daddy]

seems to be working now (zookeeper is 1.5 megs). 

I did 2 things.

1 - I rebooted.  Now that I think about it I never did that after the xvid codec install so maybe that could be the problem

2 - I put the listgen arguments in mame.ini instead of calling on the command line.  I'm still not clear if that's where they belong or not. 

So previously I was calling

C:\mame>listgen makemovie movieaudio=1 skip_warnings minmovielength=800 maxmovie
length=10000 movievideo=3 intmakectrl=1 extmakectrl=0 moviematchlength=10

with none of those settings in mame.ini

This morning I called

C:\mame>listgen makemovie

with the following in mame.ini
minmovielength          800
maxmovielength          10000
movievideo              3
movieaudio              1
intmakectrl             1
extmakectrl             0
moviematchlength        10

Which is the correct way? 

As I said, it seems to work now (1.5 meg), I'm just not sure if it's because xvid is the default or if it's actually getting my settings.

[Buddabing]

seems to be working now (zookeeper is 1.5 megs).

[jackhammerslam]

i need an full idiots guide on how to use this got some of it working but not all of it so HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPP
 
pls help me

[NIVO]

well i for one agree we need a better guide. I am no dummy, and i just read through 17 pages of corrected input lines, and folks bickering, and ok this has changed, go do this. And guess what!? Now I'm even more confused. So if someone would care to post the proper .bat files(knowing i need to make my own adjustments for directories) I'd be grateful. Everything I have tried is a no go. Again, im no dummy to following instructions, but when the instructions change on a continual basis, it does get overwhelming.

[2600]

Did you follow the instructions in the first post?

[NIVO]

absolutely, as well as 4 others in the chatroom, to no avail.

[Silver]

The bat files in the first post all worked when I last tried them...

Although I agree it is quite confusing - coming back to it after a while has me confused!

Could you highlight at what stage things are not working? If I recall you need to install the software (buddamame, virtualdub, Xvid codec) then run listgen with the right listgen.ini settings (this seems to be a sticking point) to create the makemovies.bat, then run makemovies to call the other bat for all your games....

I seem to recall seeing a .Net version of listgen around - I have no idea if this has the same functionality?

I started writing a VB6 frontend for this ages ok (when it was even more complicated, and required AVIsynth to get round various quirks which are now resolved). This should actually be quite simple now. I'll take a look at what I started with tomorrow.

[2600]

Like Silver said let us know where you are getting stuck.  Also, let us know the steps you have taken.

Although, I suggest leaving out listgen for the first go around.  Let's make sure you can first make movies and then we will help with listgen.

[NIVO]

error invalid value for resolution -nothrottle
error while parsing cmdline


and ive copy/pasted that bat file exactly. thx for the help fellas

[NIVO]

steps taken:
already had xvid in from long ago
grabbed virtualdub
grabbed buddamame97
made folder mame97
inserted batch.bat that was copy pasted into mame97
inserted folder called virtualdub into mame97
copy pasted mame.ini info and inserted into mame97 folder
altered rom path to rompath H:\mame_fullromset\Roms
click on batch.bat and thats where i get error posted above

[Silver]

ok the %2 in batch.bat should be the resolution. This is passed from makemovies.bat which should contain lines like:

@call batch 005 224x256 1 0 0
@call batch 005 224x256 2 100 200

or something like that. (ie romname followed by resolution followed by settings). I guess your makemovies.bat does not, which means its not being made by listgen.

For a test, make a makemovies.bat that contains:

@call batch 005 224x256 1 0 0

assuming you have 005 and it runs. replace for another game if you don't have 005, filling in the correct resolution. leave the 1 0 0 intact.

now run makemovies.bat and see what happens.

[NIVO]

just did and i saw a 005 movie, i actuially ran listgen and altered the ini file to find mame and roms, it made a makemovies.bat, which i then copied into mame97, and ran batch.bat. I saw the 005 movie. then it stopped

this was taken from cmd prompt:

Average FPS: 614.100897 (100 frames)

C:\mame97>time /T
11:03 PM
Could Not Find C:\mame97\moviesnp\005*.png
10-frame match detected between frame 403 and 1500
movie will run between frames 268 and 1380
Average FPS: 59.083971 (1440 frames)
The system cannot find the path specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.

C:\mame97>time /T
11:04 PM


now i know it says cant find 005.png  but that dir is there and the png is as well. im not seeing any saved movie file though.

[Howard_Casto]

With the recent addition of mng recording in mame and of course with wav recording beign supported for years, don't you think it's about time to submit the most basic of the mng recording function to the mamedevs so you don't have to maintain a custom build?

I'm thinking the very simple "-makemovie" tag would be accepted without a second thought.  The other command line tags, which really have no business in mame itself anyway, could be set in the batch file, rather than having mame pass it to the external apps it calls.

Silver's ssf.txt (yes it confuses me too, but you know what I'm talking about) could be used with the "-frames_to_run" tag and it would make the whole process external, save the conversion to mpeg of course.   

[Buddabing]

A couple of points:

The first post in this thread should be all that is necessary to be able to build MAME movies. It is not necessary to read the entire thread. I'll put a notice in the first post of this thread to not read all of it.

Second, I've made a web page of documentation for MAME Movie Maker. If it is incomplete or if you have anything to add to it, now's the time to suggest changes.

Third, I don't think the MAME devs give a hoot about demo loop videos. I could write something to take a subset of the new mng video with only the relevant frames, but that would take some kind of script and external program and we already need that. Nor do the MAME devs want the -ssf options in there.

The "Could not find xxx.png" is normal. It simply means that there were no png snapshots already in there.

You don't click on batch.bat. You have to call it with arguments. I guess I need to make it so that if the argument count is not correct in batch.bat it terminates.

The first thing to do after you change your rom path is run a game from the command line to see if it is right. Just "mame gridlee" with no movie options. Once that works, do what Silver suggested in his last post.

[Silver]

Ok, so I couldn't sleep....

I've thrown together a very quick app that will create the batch files for you.

You specify your mame rom dir, the location of:

Virtualdub (vdub.exe)
Buddamame (mame.exe)
Listgen (listgen.exe)

Select the options (video/audio encoder, minimum/max frames to check - "AutoSkip" option does nothing at all yet.)

Hit go and it will create a listgen.ini, batch.bat, mame.ini and then run listgen to create makemovies.bat. After that you should be able to quit the app and just run makemovies.bat.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

DO NOT just stuck listgen/buddamame into your normal mame folder. My program WILL WIPE your mame.ini. (Rubbish I know, but I'll improve it when I've had more sleep!)

buddamame/listgen/your roms do not have to be in the same folder, although it will create all the batch/ini files in the folder that you have listgen in. The easiest way to set this all up is to make a new folder (eg buddamame), put buddamame and  listgen in that, and create a subdir called movies as your output folder. Then you should be good to go.

From the listgen.zip, you only need listgen.exe and filter.sql in the dir (listgen will crash nastily if you don't have filter.sql there it seems).

Any problems/questions just post....

http://www.silverfoxy.plus.com/MovieBatch.exe

NB Regarding "ssf.txt"

We agreed a while back - for clarity - to rename this to "boundry.txt". If you download it from my website (http://ccgi.silverfoxy.plus.com/GetList.php) you will need to rename it to ssf.txt as listgen is still currently looking for ssf.txt. Buddabing maybe you want to change this?

[cdbrown]

I've just run the batch with the REM in front of the del lines and removed the @ from all the lines to see what is happening.  When it comes to running vdub I get
 C:\mame>\virtualdub\vdub /s"3in1semi.vdb" /x
The system cannot find the path specified.

vdub.exe is located in C:\mame\virtualdub\ so any reason why it's falling over here?  Also it's VirtualDub verion 1.6.10 if that means anything.

I can see a whole heap of png's in the moviesnp folder, also in mame folder 3in1semi.vdb and 3in1semi.wav have been created.

Cheers
-cdbrown

edit - Silver's batch maker changes the call for vdub to
@start /min /wait C:\mame\virtualdub\vdub.exe /s"%1.vdb" /x
from
@\virtualdub\vdub /s"%1.vdb" /x

Let's hope this works

edit 2 - Silver - the step for makemovies.bat just creates an empty batch file.

[Silver]

An empty makemovies.bat file means that whatever filtering listgen is doing, its not what you want....

I set the listgen.ini to audit roms (ie only try and make movies of roms you actually have) so if you are pointing the roms dir to a duff dir I expect you would get this result.

Also check the filter.sql file. there are lots of filtering options in here, but it should work fine if you leave it untouched.

Try running listgen from the commandline, change the "silent 1" to "silent 0" in listgen.ini to see what its doing.

[cdbrown]

I found that it wasn't using my roms folder for some reason - it actually didn't take my settings such as putting the avi's into movies folder.  But it did mean that vdub ran and I have changed the batch.bat file to the following which works

@echo %1
@if exist C:\mame\%1.avi goto end
@if exist C:\mame\nvram\%1.nv goto rungame
@mame %1 -window -noartwork -resolution %2 -nothrottle -ftr 100
: rungame
@time /T
@mame %1 -window -noartwork -makemovie -resolution %2 -wavwrite %1.wav -movieloops %3 -moviestartframe %4 -movieendframe %5
@if not exist %1.vdb goto end
@start /min /wait C:\mame\virtualdub\vdub.exe /s"%1.vdb" /x
@del %1.wav
@del /Q moviesnp\*.png
@del %1.vdb
@move /Y %1.avi C:\mame\movies\
: End

[Silver]

Could you highlight the bits you had to change so I can update the program?

Thanks

[NIVO]

I have to say after many headaches and long hours last night, I finally have this working. Big thanks going to cdbrown, who helped me setup some of the strings that were improper. Ill leave it up to him to get you the data Silver, as he is better at this than me   All in all, thanks for everyones help.

[Silver]

Ah spotted error#1:

@move /Y %1.avi C:\mame\movies\

I am missing the final "\" on the above line - thats why the movies where not moving (and probably overwriting each other).

I'll get this fixed asap. Apart from that, it seems to work with freshly download buddamame, listgen, vdub.

I was going to adapt the app to take control completely - no batch files at all, do all the configuring and program running directly, but actually I don't think there is much to be gained, and also this way allows easy tweaking of the files for anyone who wants and will make bug tracking far far easier.

Note there will be some games that do not make a successful vid (most do). If you come across any that are not listed in ssf.txt/boundry please let me know and I will get it sorted.

[Silver]

RE Neogeo games:

They all work fine, but often have very long attracts with several segments. Eg negeo logo, part1, neogeo logo, part2, neogeo logo, part3 etc..etc...

 Buddamame will make a nice vid of say just part1 (it detects a loop when the neogeo logo comes round again). This is fine, but there was a move to add details to ssf.txt/boundry.txt to make a complete "perfect" attract (which is much longer) for these situations. However I have noticed that sometimes neogeo games seem to start at different points of an attract - I am trying to determine if it is random or in fact based on the contents of the games nvram file (I think some of them remember where they got to on poweroff). If anyone knows that would be great....

NB for some games - eg driving ones that need analog config - you need to set them up so they boot properly before you can make an attract vid.

[Silver]

Quick fix:

http://www.silverfoxy.plus.com/MovieBatch.exe

Now adds the missing "\" so the movies are moved to the output folder after creation.

[Howard_Casto]

A couple of points:


Third, I don't think the MAME devs give a hoot about demo loop videos. I could write something to take a subset of the new mng video with only the relevant frames, but that would take some kind of script and external program and we already need that. Nor do the MAME devs want the -ssf options in there.

That's my point.... these command line options aren't needed inside mame they should be put in the script or external app.  No offense to you, but I don't want to use a crazy hacked build of mame to generate movies, I'd rather have the basic functionality in the main mame build (which ONLY needs to be the ability to record a mng and wav at the same time via the command line and use said function with teh already included "-frames_to_run").  Silvers's ssf.txt can then be applied to the external app which sets the "frames_to_run" setting when launching mame and cuts out any extra frames at the beginning in post.

I don't like the idea of having to be dependant on someone to maintain a custom mame build regularly (your only on something like version .96 now right?) when it's far more practical and possible to do it externally. 


BuddaMame's special loop detection code could still be kept up for the hardcore users, but the majority of people could just get away with silver's text file and a quick batch to mame.

[Buddabing]

Okay, I'll submit something to just add the -makemovie option.

I find it ironic that you call this utility "crazy and hacked up" when you had so much input into creating it. Some of the crazy and hacked up options were created at your request!

Someone else can work out the postprocessing steps to convert mng to avi and chop off the extra frames.

[Silver]

Just to clarify the "ssf.txt" (we should have really changed the name earlier!) only has a very small selection of games in it. The bulk of movies require the detection code.

It perfectly feasable for someone to run the detection and save all the vdb files, giving all the start/end frames, but that would still require someone external to update and maintain the list in it. At the moment its just for tweaked and games that don't detect properly.

MNG to AVI.

I have not looked in months, but I spent *ages* trying to find a Mng to avi converter that works(back when crastest released a torrent of mng videos). I never found a single program commercial or otherwise that could do it, despite several claims. I'd love to know one. Support for certain features in the MNG spec seems to be sketchy in several apps I tried. Personally I don't like the format, but thats because I'm scarred with not finding anything that could reliably decode them.

The only program I found that worked was the advmng.exe from the AdvanceMame tools package. This could save out an MNG to individual frames as pngs. You then had to used a hacked version of Virtualdub (VdubMod) to read these images along with an mp3.I wrote a quick program that automates the conversion:

http://www.silverfoxy.plus.com/MNG2AVI.html

However this is probably out of date - its possible I had to use the hacked version of vdub to support mp3 streams, so not needed here.

Anyway, if mame can save out mng's surely it can save out pngs? otherwise its compressing and decompressing for no real reason.