SimHQ.com - Air Combat Zone - Feature: How to Make Your Own Simulation Movies

Binding a key to start and stop online recording is a must, as we're going to make a new .ntrk file for each clip and angle. This file can be quite large. In this case over 4MB.

So we'll load the big track file first, ensuring we click on manual time compression and view:

Load the big track first...

We're going to have to introduce two of our protagonists right from the beginning to let folks know who's involved. The third plane is going to be a bit later on, as he didn't join the dogfight server until half way through the battle.

So once the track is loaded, we'll go to externals and make a track of both planes, the FW-190 and the Hurricane, pausing the sim to change views.

the Hurricane

We'll do a quick zoom out, pause the sim, switch views to the FW-190, and do the same. When we zoom out from the FW, we'll quit recording the track:

the FW-190

We'll fast forward and move to key points of the fight, including the first strike on the Hurricane, which took a big chunk out of my tail! If we're going to do more than just show the last few seconds of the fight, we'll need this bit for "continuity" in the movie, pausing and even slowing down the speed of the sim in order to ensure we get it as pleasing to the eye as we can.

Note that whatever you do at half speed will show twice as fast, so go slow! Using a TrackIR and built in views such as padlock and F6 are better than a mouse, as it's smoother. However, I am an unrepentant "mouse panner."

Once your tracks are ready for recording, it's time to set up the sim for it.

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