What is an easy way to take screenshots for a LP?

[Dusk Eclipse]

I am planning on doing a LP of Pokemon Emeral 386 (includes all Pokémon up to Gen 3); but I am not sure on what is the best way to take an organize the screenshots. Any suggestions?

[Whoracle]

Best way IMHO would be to FRAPS or otherwise record the sessions to video, then extracting single frames for screenshots.

Pros:
- No need to replay the thing if you manage to miss a shot
- Easy to get real GOOD shots
- Easy to get intermediate shots for when you're writing your next post and notice that you're missing a shot
- No distraction while playing since you don't need to hit the capture button all the time, although I guess that's not much of aproblem with a pokemon game

Cons:
- Lots of hard drive space needed

What exactly do you mean with "organizing"?

[Dusk Eclipse]

I am assuming FRAPS is a recording program? By organizing I was mostly thinking on the naming, say instead of image (or something like that) I could configure it to name the screenshot LPEMerald 1 and so on.

[dgnslyr]

Well, since you're playing on emulator, I'm assuming, the VBA comes bundled with video recording and screenshotting, so you can use that to record video. Then, once you've recorded, you can play back the video and take screenshots from the recording. Or, you can just take screenshots directly, and savestate before important events to make sure you catch the important shots.

[Whoracle]

Yes, FRAPS is a recording program*. You can use things like VirtualDub* (editing) to extract the shots later on. VirtualDub lets you even save a complete video to single images in batch, IIRC, although that MAY be overkill.

As for naming, I'd suggest the following:
Folder "LP"
> Subfolders "Session n" for each recording session
> Subfolders "Update n" for each update within that session. Of course, this only applies if you've got more than one update per session played.

Inside, name the images by their content, e.g.
arena_01, arena_02, fight_1_01, fight_1_02, shaving_my_pikachu_01, etc.

That lets you navigate the images with the keyboard.

Alternatively, let the numerals go first, in timing sequence, so your first update screenshot would be 01_shaving_pikachu, followed by 02_fight_1_01, then 03_fight_1_02 or the like.
Pros:
- All images in order from the start.
Cons:
- Have to rename all images if you want to insert one later on
- No easy keyboard navigation in windows explorer unless you know the picture number you're looking for.


* FRAPS costs around $30. There are freeware alternatives, AFAIK, but really, it's worth the money. It's a lifetime license and I find it handy to have a screen recording tool either way, even if you don't plan on doing any more LPs after that one. Granted, I do video LPs, but nontheless it's worth it.

** VirtualDub is freeware and good, so I wouldn't bother looking further than that, if you go my suggested route.

[snip]

Or do what he said. I had some major problems with the VBA recording feature lately, though. It would record fine, but would totally go out of sync and do some REALLY weird stuff when trying to play back/export the file.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I don't have $30 at hand to spend and I mostly want to do this on my free time, so thanks for the suggestion; but I think I'll go with the VBA own recording (I have to admit I didn't know it had that option.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Somewhat related (nooby) question. How do I change the folder the screenshots (taken with the VBA) are saved to? Currently they save themselves to my Downloads Folder and I want to re-route them to a specific folder for the LP.

[Whoracle]

In my version (VBA-M 1.8.0-SVN) it's "Options" > "Emulator" > "Directories" and there under "Screenshots".

[Dusk Eclipse]

Thank you very much.