A few days ago, friends Sneak and Blak, with myself on camera, casted an stv of Mixup vs. LiT from the recent lan. We're all new to casting, so we were looking for some feedback from people with more experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbFUqJcFAHM
Some things I know about already:
-My internet was pretty shitty at the time of recording this, which is why mumble sometimes sounded glitchy.
-I forgot to disable my dot hud crosshair beforehand.
I guess I'll throw out some specific points I/we might need improvement on:
-My camerawork? I've been playing 6s for a couple years so I feel somewhat confident with where to put the camera when. I also tried to emulate tftv's casts from what I've noticed, but what could I improve on?
-Stream quality? I have pretty good hardware, but unfortunately my upload is not as high as I'd like. Is there anything I could do to improve the quality here? For specifics, I stream at 3000kb/s max bitrate, and 1920x1080 at 32fps. I don't really have the option to improve my upload at the moment.
-Any tips on avoiding talking over each other? I wasn't the one talking so I don't have much to contribute to this, but I did notice sneak and blak talked over each other plenty of times. Would it be good to have someone maybe be a sort-of priority speaker?
-Rules for referring to players? Squid and alfa both aliased in that match for instance, would it be better to say their alias or their actual name?
All I could really think of off the top of my head, but feel free to mention anything else you see problems with.
A few days ago, friends Sneak and Blak, with myself on camera, casted an stv of Mixup vs. LiT from the recent lan. We're all new to casting, so we were looking for some feedback from people with more experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbFUqJcFAHM
Some things I know about already:
-My internet was pretty shitty at the time of recording this, which is why mumble sometimes sounded glitchy.
-I forgot to disable my dot hud crosshair beforehand.
I guess I'll throw out some specific points I/we might need improvement on:
-My camerawork? I've been playing 6s for a couple years so I feel somewhat confident with where to put the camera when. I also tried to emulate tftv's casts from what I've noticed, but what could I improve on?
-Stream quality? I have pretty good hardware, but unfortunately my upload is not as high as I'd like. Is there anything I could do to improve the quality here? For specifics, I stream at 3000kb/s max bitrate, and 1920x1080 at 32fps. I don't really have the option to improve my upload at the moment.
-Any tips on avoiding talking over each other? I wasn't the one talking so I don't have much to contribute to this, but I did notice sneak and blak talked over each other plenty of times. Would it be good to have someone maybe be a sort-of priority speaker?
-Rules for referring to players? Squid and alfa both aliased in that match for instance, would it be better to say their alias or their actual name?
All I could really think of off the top of my head, but feel free to mention anything else you see problems with.
The casters at lan addressed who squid and alfa were during the match and then interchanged the usage of their actual alias and their current alias. Honestly it's better to just use their real name for newcomers to comp but w/e.
3 is also a crowd from my experience and from watching 3 men talking at the same time.
Also volume is pretty low for me in comparison to other casts.
The casters at lan addressed who squid and alfa were during the match and then interchanged the usage of their actual alias and their current alias. Honestly it's better to just use their real name for newcomers to comp but w/e.
3 is also a crowd from my experience and from watching 3 men talking at the same time.
Also volume is pretty low for me in comparison to other casts.
quality mic is good, no need to commentate the rollout,
intros are cool too
like introducing yourself, teams playing, what div, season, etc
not bad so far and im only like 1 minute in
comm who kills who and have more enthusiasm and hype towards it
oh dear god please DO NOT using the 3rd person cam, (weallknowwhodoesthis)
try to follow the action, like not watching flank when combo is pushing and doing work
not bad tho 6/10
didnt watch full, but id watch more if more enthusiasm
quality mic is good, no need to commentate the rollout,
intros are cool too
like introducing yourself, teams playing, what div, season, etc
not bad so far and im only like 1 minute in
comm who kills who and have more enthusiasm and hype towards it
oh dear god please DO NOT using the 3rd person cam, (weallknowwhodoesthis)
try to follow the action, like not watching flank when combo is pushing and doing work
not bad tho 6/10
didnt watch full, but id watch more if more enthusiasm
Watched a bit of it, looks okay. To answer some of your questions..
Re: Camera work..
If you know how sixes works, you will know about what is happening at any given time. You will want to capture moments such as a team building uber, preparing pushes and so on. You will need to take note of when teams will be going in for bombs or picks, and watching those classes. From this cast you seem to understand these things. At any given point in a match, there will be some combo or flanker that is "DOING" something - almost like phases. There should never be a "throwaway" camera switch, ideally.
For mids, some camera people like to take it onto free cam and hover above a mid point on initial mid, some don't. If you do it, make sure to turn your sensitivity way down and not shake around a lot. There are people on the forums and in the community who like this, and those who don't (probably leaning toward don't)
Oh also if you haven't already - hotkey every player. So you can switch to them without clicking all around. In general, a ton of camera switches is not desirable. Stay with one combo or flanker for a while if you can. It'll allow you to talk about what's going through their head/possible strats/etc.
And connected to that, to answer your question about talking over one another, it's not always easy. In an environment where you can't see visual cues from one another, it can be tough. If you do want to emulate TF.TV, alternate mids; one caster takes one mid, describes what's up, talk through most of the picks at mid while the other person doesn't speak. From there you try your best to alternate insight/calls/PBP/whatever. You can discuss this beforehand too so you both know what to expect from one another. Casting with a partner is never perfect the first time, but work at it and you will improve.
Re: aliases, in an environment like this, ESEA LAN, probably everyone knew who the couple aliasers were. But normally, you'd want to mention it a few times if you could i.e. "that's enigma on Scout, tagged up as 'woad ashe' currently" You don't necessarily have to mention that every time, just reminders if it's not an obvious alias. Sometimes if a whole team or 6-7 people are aliasing, it may be easier to just apologize and read out what peoples tags are - some players like to mess with casters in this way. It's great. Luckily ESEA and ETF2L have the client or rules that prevent waaaaacky nicknames.
But yeah you guys seem smart and seem to know the game, work on going back and forth (like a talking tennis match) and you'll see better results for sure. EDIT: And to agree with above, more enthusiasm in your voice is important. You may feel excited about the play, but need to use your voice as an instrument to demonstrate that. Your voice is all you have as a caster!
Watched a bit of it, looks okay. To answer some of your questions..
Re: Camera work..
If you know how sixes works, you will know about what is happening at any given time. You will want to capture moments such as a team building uber, preparing pushes and so on. You will need to take note of when teams will be going in for bombs or picks, and watching those classes. From this cast you seem to understand these things. At any given point in a match, there will be some combo or flanker that is "DOING" something - almost like phases. There should never be a "throwaway" camera switch, ideally.
For mids, some camera people like to take it onto free cam and hover above a mid point on initial mid, some don't. If you do it, make sure to turn your sensitivity way down and not shake around a lot. There are people on the forums and in the community who like this, and those who don't (probably leaning toward don't)
Oh also if you haven't already - hotkey every player. So you can switch to them without clicking all around. In general, a ton of camera switches is not desirable. Stay with one combo or flanker for a while if you can. It'll allow you to talk about what's going through their head/possible strats/etc.
And connected to that, to answer your question about talking over one another, it's not always easy. In an environment where you can't see visual cues from one another, it can be tough. If you do want to emulate TF.TV, alternate mids; one caster takes one mid, describes what's up, talk through most of the picks at mid while the other person doesn't speak. From there you try your best to alternate insight/calls/PBP/whatever. You can discuss this beforehand too so you both know what to expect from one another. Casting with a partner is never perfect the first time, but work at it and you will improve.
Re: aliases, in an environment like this, ESEA LAN, probably everyone knew who the couple aliasers were. But normally, you'd want to mention it a few times if you could i.e. "that's enigma on Scout, tagged up as 'woad ashe' currently" You don't necessarily have to mention that every time, just reminders if it's not an obvious alias. Sometimes if a whole team or 6-7 people are aliasing, it may be easier to just apologize and read out what peoples tags are - some players like to mess with casters in this way. It's great. Luckily ESEA and ETF2L have the client or rules that prevent waaaaacky nicknames.
But yeah you guys seem smart and seem to know the game, work on going back and forth (like a talking tennis match) and you'll see better results for sure. EDIT: And to agree with above, more enthusiasm in your voice is important. You may feel excited about the play, but need to use your voice as an instrument to demonstrate that. Your voice is all you have as a caster!
you stream at 1080p or you run the game at 1080p? truktruk and i run the game in 1080p but use 720p 60fps for stream settings, and we use around 3.5k bitrate (the max bitrate twitch recommends you to use). unless you have a pretty insane setup you should not use 1080p to stream an fps (always prefer frames per second to resolution, 720p 60fps looks better than 1080p 30fps for tf2). i'll watch the video and then edit my post.
you stream at 1080p or you run the game at 1080p? truktruk and i run the game in 1080p but use 720p 60fps for stream settings, and we use around 3.5k bitrate (the max bitrate twitch recommends you to use). unless you have a pretty insane setup you should not use 1080p to stream an fps (always prefer frames per second to resolution, 720p 60fps looks better than 1080p 30fps for tf2). i'll watch the video and then edit my post.
is streaming at 32 fps a typo or
is streaming at 32 fps a typo or