the way you did your title text looks pretty bad in all the clips apart from number 3. you often don't even need to put title text in frag vids, especially if they're as short as yours.

Try to do more than just first person shots - use smooths and thirdperson. also, if you use stvs (like in number 4), try to make it less obvious that you're just controlling the camera in real time. (example of a vid with amazing stv use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COHoBK099QY)

anyway, this stuff is really good if you've only just started. i recommend watching a lot of good frag vids and trying to learn from what they do a bit, while also building upon your own style.

For the most part not too bad, but damn that text is atrocious.

I'm glad people still use my guide, even if it is a bit outdated and better methods now available. Thank you! Good luck with your editing future :]

As far as text goes, my favorite is probably the one I used in the intro of this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMKkiZ6fRlQ - It's nothing fancy or whatever, but I dig it.

I would suggest to not over do it with slow motion. While it looks nice and can go incredibly well with a chill song, too much of it will bore the viewers. You don't want that. Or maybe you do, but you shouldn't.

Smoothing takes time to learn, but I would 100% suggest you learn how to do them if you're going to try and use them. I wasn't digging the smooth attempt on 'Spoopy Ghosts'. I'm 95% sure that was STV made, and I don't care what anyone says, I absolutely do not see why you would use that method, much less go through the trouble of getting everything set up so that you can make it look halfway decent at best.

And as far as your color correction goes, I really have to suggest you not use any type of color correction that adds color over the entire video. No one wants to watch a video with a blue, brown, yellow or whatever other color tint. It bothers me that I cannot exactly remember which plugins for Vegas you should use to get the best out of your video in terms of colors, but I believe it's something along the lines of 'Levels', 'Brightness and Contrast' (might be wrong on this one since Levels basically does the same thing) and 'HSL Adjust'.

You want to complement the game's original colors in your video. You want to take those colors and make them the best they can be. The color scheme in TF2 is amazing and should be treated as such.

Keep up the good work, though. It's obvious you're serious about getting better. It takes time to get better. Ultimately, my #1 piece of advice I can give you is that, like I said, it takes time to get better, but you also need to take your time making sure your video is the best you can make it.

Aww fuck I thought it looked nice. Any suggestions?

I thought the color correction was off in all the videos but the 4th one, that one is ok. As kirby said, you should try to look for a specific plugin for color correction instead of one of the basic vegas filters, personally I use BCC Color Correction for most of my videos. Some will only change around the Brightness and COntrast as kirby said but others will change the highlights / shadows amongst other things so its good to have a look.

As for the text, it really looks very basic and nothing worth mentioning, I guess you can try to search for some tutorials online to work on your lettering on vegas.

As far as the recording process goes, I didnt notice anything wrong with the stuff recorded, so that should be cool.

I think the main problem with it is the black outline. Text almost never looks good with an outline like that. The font was nice, but the outline ruined it.

Also, slow motion is cool, but not for long periods of time. For instance in Touch, the slow motion should have stopped right when you fired the first shot on the medic. It would have synced very well with the music, and was what I expected to happen. Instead, you kept it a little too long it and felt off. Video #1 has a similar problem, but there it's just way to much slow motion in the beginning.

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not the best editor out there, but here is how I think slowmo should be used:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIxXZS-y6TQ&list=UU2D_jKdInSplZieAM1hnrHQ#t=41

I used it only to accentuate the kills, and only for a brief moment. Same later on here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIxXZS-y6TQ&list=UU2D_jKdInSplZieAM1hnrHQ#t=109

It's also really helpful if you can get it to sync up with the music. It's similar to how chord changes need to sync up with the beat in a song. If they do, it feels really good, but if it's off it's almost uncomfortable to hear. To me it's the same kind of thing with syncing in a frag movie. If it's not to the beat, it can feel a little off.

Edit: fixed linking, sorry if anyone saw it when it was all broken.

The biggest issue with your edits was how terribly slow everything was, just make it faster first and then focus on other stuff, add smooths and so on.

Tried to take the advice here into account when making this new one. Still have a few problems with it though, all feedback is welcome.

1. Smoothed through walls, it was lazy to leave it in but i messed up so many times. Won't make the same mistake now that I understand smoothing better.

2. The transition from the smoothed demo to the POV, wasn't really sure how to handle it. Does the black screen with text work or no?

3. Goddamn I have no clue how to get decent color correction. Any tips?

Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnPsZoWojNY&feature=youtu.be

Thanks for all feedback.

1. You shouldn't try to make a smooth using a demo from an actual game. Any time your character model jumps in the demo, your screen will bounce during smooths. You should also really keep the keys in the smooth the same amount of ticks apart. I used to do it with this method: starting_tick_first_camera_key -> skip 50 ticks -> add_new_camera_key -> repeat.

Of course, that method isn't the best when you want to smooth specific things, like following the character model of another player. Though honestly, even though I know how to smooth in TF2, I 100% prefer re-enacting scenes and creating smooths in SFM when applicable. It's so much simpler and easier. Made a mistake? You can go back and fix it with ease. I still suggest learning how to smooth properly in TF2 though. Some times SFM can't save you.

The reason why I suggested keeping the camera keys the same distance apart is so you don't force the camera to move one speed for a moment and then suddenly go to another position uncomfortably quick. It hurts to look at and won't please anyone if you keep doing it. Though you may want the smooth to match the song, which is possibly why you sped it up. That's fine; everyone has done it. What you want to do though, is that your smooth, put it in Vegas and slow it down there. Now you're going to want to slow it down or speed it up. Right click the video file (the smooth) and select "Insert/Remove Envelope", followed by "Velocity". This is the absolute best method for slow motion. Cutting up the video file and click+dragging to speed it up/slow it down causes ugly visual problems and should never be used.

You'll see a green line directly in the center of the video file. If you click* anywhere on the green line, a green box should appear. Once the video hits this specific frame, this is where the slow motion or fast forward will occur. Click on the green box and drag it down for slow motion and up for fast forward. You never want to go below either 0% or 1%. I can't remember which. Whatever value it is, if you go below it, the video will, instead of slowing down or speeding up, actually reverse. You don't want that. I believe I used to set it anywhere between 3% to 10%. Sorry, but I can't remember that either. What I do remember is that there is a percentage between 3% and 10% where you notice a sudden increase in slow motion. Find your fine line and use it. Of course, this percentage may change depending on how you want the smooth the flow.

In order to stop it from being in slow motion or from fast forwarding, create another green box and drag it back to the center. You will now have a "v" or "^" shape in between the green boxes. This is the timeline in which the slow down/speed up occurs. You can move the green boxes left or right to make it happen sooner/later and end sooner/later.

* - It's either left or right click. I really hope I'm not forgetting this too. Forgetting really doesn't help someone trying to learn.

2. No - just take your time with your editing and stop trying to rush videos out for people to see. I'm not really the best person to tell you that as I've done the same thing too many times, but it's advice you should take.

3. The best color correction is not using any color correction, or at least, very minimal color correction. The plugins you want to mess around with are Levels, Brightness & Contrast, Color Curves (might just be Curves) and HSL Adjust.

TF2 frag videos aren't drowning in colored tint anymore and so, there's no reason to do it either. As I said before, you want to complement the game's natural coloring, not forcefully change it. Trust me. Making the game's natural colors look better is much more satisfying to look at than a video tinted red, green, blue, yellow, whatever.