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AN IMPORTANT NOTE: I couldn't decide where to put this, but it's pretty important, so I'll lay this out at first: DO NOT ADJUST THE VOLUME OF TABLETOP SIMULATOR AT THE SYSTEM LEVEL/IN THE CONTROL PANEL. If you need to make it lower (you shouldn't) then do so in VoiceMeeter. Make sure it is set to 0.0 db (no adjustments up or down) in OBS. Ensuring that game audio is "consistent" between multiple people's views is important!
Tabletop Simulator
1. Go to Configuration, then Graphics. Set resolution to 1280x720. I haven't tested it Fullscreen, so for best results, leave it off; you're free to try it out if you do a test recording, though.
2. After doing this, you should now be in a 1280x720 window. Do not increase the window size, as this will affect the recording area. This is to ensure everyone's HUD remains the same size. If you do mess this up, your video won't be unusuable, but I will be mildly annoyed and tell you to do better next time.
3. Go to Pointers, and unless you have some reason not to, use the 3D Pointer.
4. Go to Game, set Voice Chat to Disable Voice (since you'll be using something else), and make sure, under Miscellaneous, "Hover Highlight" and "Portraits" are on.
5. Familiarize yourself with Tabletop Simulator's controls. Know how to flip cards, use the right click context menu efficiently, move around, and use the scroll wheel to adjust the size of cards. In game, always zoom into a card as close as possible, for easier reading in the video. Don't jerk the camera around too much, as this can make some viewers motion sick.
VoiceMeeter Banana
Note: You'll need to do this for each recording session, unless you don't mind not having audio the rest of the time on your computer.
1. Open Control Panel, then Sound. Right click VoiceMeeter Input, and Set as Default Device.
2. In VoiceMeeter, under Virtual Inputs, make sure the >A1 light is active.
3. Play some audio on your PC. You may not be able to hear it, but you should see some bars bouncing right above the A1 button you just activated.
3. On Hardware Out, click the A1 dropdown, and select your output device. Choose the MME version of it. If you have a USB headset, it should be something like "Headset Earphone". If you use headphone ports, it may just be "Speakers". Experiment, until you start hearing some audio on the correct device.
4. After we're done with recording the session, you can close VoiceMeeter. After, in the Sound Control Panel, Set as Default Device to your previous preferred sound device, so you can use your PC like normal again.
Discord
1. This is what we use to talk to each both during games, and chatting outside of them. If you wanna know when a game is gonna happen so you can take part in it, it's a good idea to hang out.
2. For the purposes of recording, go to User Settings (the gear in the bottom left), Voice, and set Input Device to your mic and Output Device to your headset/whatever you're listening through. It should be the same device as A1 in VoiceMeeter.
Audacity
1. Look for the microphone looking icon on the taskbar. Make sure it is set to your microphone.
2. Right next to that, change it to Mono. I don't care if you have a Stereo microphone, no one needs to know where you're sitting relative to your mic. Either way, not a big deal, as I'll just mix it down to mono later, but it'll save you space, and save me time.
3. Press record, and make sure it picks up your voice and isn't picking up any other computer audio.
4. Make sure you can see a large difference in the waveform from when you are talking and not talking; test mumbling/talking in a low voice. As long as there's a clear difference between that and waveform of no audio, you're good. Make sure the waveform is not too large, as yelling may induce clipping. If it does, adjust the Recording Volume slider, which has the same microphone icon next to it.
Recording Option A: Fraps
+ Good quality, generally pretty easy to use.
- Super massive file size; you will need to reencode it before you send it to me. If this is too complicated for you, move along.
1. On the Movies tab, set the video hotkey to whatever key you want, as long as it won't interfere with Tabletop Simulator.
2. Set "Folder to save movies in" to a folder you'd like to use, on a hard drive with adequate space.
3. Set Video Capture Settings to 30 FPS and Full-size.
4. Ensure "Record Win7 sound" (or your equivaelent) is checked, and set to "Stereo". Ensure "Record external input" is not checked.
5. Unsure "Hide mouse cursor in video" is checked.
6. Optionally, click "Split movie every 4 Gigabytes". Positives to this: if something goes horribly wrong, you'll only lose 4 GB of video. Negatives: Stitching everything together is a massive pain in the ass.
7. Open Tabletop Simulator, and press your record button. Ensure Fraps' task bar icon has gone from yellow to red. Dick around for a bit. Test various objects, make noise. Press the record button again to end the recording.
8. Go to your Fraps movie folder and look at the recording. See if everything looks good and smooth and the noises are audible.
9. On recording day, you may want to do this again, with all programs active and Discord going, to ensure the Discord audio does not get picked up in the video. Generally you should be fine, but better safe than sorry.
Recording Option B: OBS Multiplatform
+ Once you have it set up, very easy to use. Not terribly resource intensive. Most likely will not require you to reencode video before you send it off to me.
- Quality can vary.
Note: These instructions assume you don't normally Stream or use OBS for anything else. If you do, you should know enough about OBS to figure out most of this.
1. Go to File, and Settings. Choose Video. Make sure Base and Outpot resolutions are both set to 1280x720. Set FPS value (where it says Common FPS Values) to 30.
2. Choose Audio. Set Desktop Audio Device to VoiceMeeter Input. Disable all other audio devices. If you use OBS normally and don't want to disable them, make sure they are muted in the OBS Mixer in the main window.
3. Still in Audio, make sure Channels are set to Stereo.
4. Choose Output. Video Bitrate to 2500 is fine, but if you can do higher, even better. Make sure that Recording is set to "Same as Stream".
5. Set Recording Path to wherever you want to save the video file to. Hit OK.
6. Under Scenes, click +. Name it whatever you want.
7. Open Tabletop Simulator. Under Sources, click +, then Window Capture. Name it whatever you want.
8. Under Window, choose Tabletop Simulator. It should appear in the preview at the top. Ensure "Capture Cursor" is not checked.
9. Tabletop Simulator's window should now fill the preview window, and should not be larger than it; it should fill it exactly.
10. Ensure VoiceMeeter is set up as it should be, as above. Press Start Recording. Dick around for a bit. Test various objects, make noise. Press the Stop Recording to end the recording.
11. Go to your OBS movie folder and look at the recording. See if everything looks good and smooth and the noises are audible.
12. On recording day, you may want to do this again, with all programs active and Discord going, to ensure the Discord audio does not get picked up in the video. Generally you should be fine, but better safe than sorry.
Recording Option C: Whatever you're comfortable with.
1. Make sure your recording only takes the VoiceMeeter Input audio source, and does not pick up audio from Discord or your microphone.
2. Make sure your video is 1280x720 and 30 FPS.
How to Sync on Recording Day
1. Ensure all programs are setup correctly as above.
2. Have all players connect together on the same TTS game. Feel free to load up the module, get everything in order, etc.
3. Start recording in Audacity. Speak and make sure your audio is showing up.
4. Once all players are recording, have one player say, in a steady, metered tone: "1, 2, 3, Sync." When that player says Sync, all other players should say Sync exactly in time with when they hear Sync. It may not appear to be in sync from your point of view, due to the way VOIP handles delayed. This is fine.
5. Start recording Tabletop Simulator using your recording program of choice.
6. Once all players are recording, [assuming all players have chat enabled] have one player press enter, type anything (a single letter will do; be aware that this may show up in the recording later), and then move their mic close to their enter key and forcefully press enter so that it is audible on the mic. It should send whatever you typed as a message in the chat. This will be used to sync up all players' videos with one player's audio (which will then be synced by audio). If one or more players have chat disabled, use an alternate sync method; such as having both players zoom in one player's hand cursor, and clicking on an object (while keeping your mic near enough to your mouse to pick up the clicking sound).
7. Introduce yourselves and begin playing! Try to be entertaining.