The alternative custom gameboot tutorial.

[mmmmmm]

Hi. Welcome to my alternative tutorial for making custom gameboots.
I decided to make this tutorial because some folks are having problems working to the original virtual dub/winmenc method, and theres always more than one way to skin a cat.

This tutorial will guide you through the process of creating your own Playstation Media Files (PMF). These can be used for Gameboots, CIntros, and other stuff like animated eboot icons.
Here I will be concentrating on producing high quality full screen video for use as gameboots.

You can also apply this method for creating CIntro videos. As you read through the tutorial you will see that there are a few restictions for gameboots length and filesize. There are no such restrictions for custom intros. So, use the same settings for preparing your source, except you can use as many video frames as you want to, at any bitrate.


Required applications:

for preparing your source AVI
Easy Video Splitter - Download
Imtoo Mpeg Encoder - Download
TMPGenc 3.0 Xpress - Download

for encoding to MPS
Sony UMD Stream Composer - Download [from somewhere else]

to convert MPS to PMF
for gameboots MPStoPMF final - Download
for CIntro PMFCreator - Download


Preparing your source.

Pick a good clip that will last for a good 2 and a half seconds, if the gameboot is too short it will loop on playback. Too long and you wont see the end. Also, your game wont cut in as soom as the gameboot ends, so think about what your going to be looking at in that couple of seconds. Try to work with video with a decent resolution, idealy greater than 480x272.

Depending on the original source, if you want to cut a game boot from a full movie or whatever, use Easy Video Splitter to take a rough cut, Easy Video Splitter isn't very accurate so take a couple of seconds before and after the actual footage you want to use.
Now you have a small clip which will be easier and quicker to work with and re-encode.

The main video editing suite I use is TMPGenc 3.0 Xpress, it does not like compressed audio streams like LameMP3, so if your source is divx/xvid you will probably need to re-encode it to mpg or avi with mpeg2 or uncompressed pcm wav audio at 44kHz 16bit stereo, using Imtoo. You should also check the framerate at this point and set it to 29.97. You can crop and resize with Imtoo but the gui and tools in TMPGenc are much better.

Editing your source

Now you can open your source in TMPGenc. There are 3 screens for handling your source. Go to 'set source' and click the 'add file' button and browse to your file in the usual manner, as soon as it loads you will be taken to screen 1, the source info screen. You shouldn't need to change any settings here, except for if you want to use an alternative audio stream. Click the 'cut and edit' button at the top to go to screen 2.

Here you can cut your clip to the exact frames you need for the gameboot. You can display a maximum 73 frames at 29.97fps, or 2.43 seconds, before the gameboot freezes when played back on PSP, so you want to end up with 0-72 frames. Use the markers and buttons to select the frames you want to dispose of, or key a range of frames into the text boxes and press the cut button.
When your happy with your edit move on to the 3rd screen, filters.

Now you see why I use TMPGenc, this suite is sweet, the tools here are simple to use and the real-time preview makes it quick and easy to use. To use a filter, first select it on the left hand panel and then tick the check box next to the filter select icon or on the filter properties panel to activate it..
Once you have cropped to the correct aspect ratio click on the resize icon and set to 'centre custom size' and enter 480x272, once you've applied any other filters you want, click on ok at the bottom to return to the start screen. You can check your clips stats here, move on to 'set output' via the button at the top.

On the popup screen select AVI Output and press the 'select' button, now set the resolution to 480x272 Uncompressed RGB 29.97fps Progressive. Set audio to Uncompressed PCM, 44100Hz 16 bit, 2 ch stereo. Press the 'encode' button at the top. Click 'output preview' to check the aspect and such is correct, you can go back to the filter screen now to tweak it if you need to. When you are happy type in a save location and press the 'start output' button. Now you have your final source.

Encoding to MPS

Start the UMD stream composer and select 'new'. Enter a clip name and project name into the dialogue boxes and click next to go to the clip settings screen. Check the "PSP Movie Format for game" box and set a maximum clip size of 1MB, click finish.
Now click on 'video source', click open in the popup and browse to the source you prepared earlier, click ok to return to the main window. Because we multiplexed the video and audio streams already in TMPGenc there is no need to set the audio stream separately. All streams will now be displayed on the timeline. [If the audio stream does not show up, go to stream composer settings - environment, and check the box to enable 'insert audio and video data simultaneously']

You can control the quality and size of your output by altering the video and audio encode settings. Default is 1000kps average for video and 128kps audio. If you want to save some flash0 space, or you are making a gameboot to run on 30xOE, try reducing the video bitrate to 500kps avg, 600kps max. This will make your gameboot smaller than the original 196KB sony gameboot.

Finally, go to Run on the menu bar and select 'Encode and Multiplex'. Encoding will take a minute and when its done you can click close and exit the program.
Now you can browse to your stream composer output folder, probably at
C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\UmdStreamComposer\MuxWork
and check the filesize of 00001.MPS. Add 2kb to this to get the final filesize of your completed gameboot.

Convert MPS to PMF

Now on to the final stage, converting the MPS file that you encoded with stream composer into your final PMF. If you are making a gameboot use MPStoPMF. If you want to use your pmf as a cintro you should use PMFCreator

MPStoPMF for gameboot
To do this copy 00001.MPS from UmdStreamComposer\MuxWork\nameofgameboot\00001 to the folder where you extracted MPStoPMFfinal.

Rename 00001.MPS to gameboot.MPS and execute runme.bat. When the dos box appears
press any key twice, the dos box will close and you now have your completed gameboot.PMF


PMFCreator for cintro
Its nice and easy to use: Just run pmfcreater.exe to start the gui. Browse to your MPS, no need to rename it. Then browse a save location, name your intro as intro.PMF.

You will also need to enter a time length, the length of your intro in minutes and seconds. You can only use whole seconds though, so if your intro is 9.5 seconds, enter it as 10 seconds in pmfcreater.

Hit the convert button, a confirmation message will pop up when its done. Copy the intro.pmf to your PSP\SYSTEM\INTRO folder. You can preview your custom intro from the xmb with the PMF Player Test App, which comes with the CIntro download.



If you need more help with any of the above steps, check out these demo videos...
[rarred avis]
Easy Video Splitter... Download
Imtoo Encoder... Download
TMPGenc Xpress... Download
Stream Composer... Download

:)

and if you still cant do it, Heres some I made earlier :D
. .

[Teebor]

Nice, I was trying to work a simple way of doing it as well. So I'm glad you did it first :p

I had been trying to work with premier, and I was going to give pinnacle a shot since I had them laying around. But going to try TMPGenc now as it seems easier to work with frames rather than time.

Again, Nice one dude :) Gonna make things a WHOLE lot easier

[Keiichi1006]

Thanx For The Help Dude.. :)
It Makes Me Easier With This...
Cheers!

[Mason]

excellent thanks!

[mmmmmm]

Glad to help out. Comments about the tut are welcome, points you think I should elaborate on and such.

How about making this a sticky?

[Mason]

I just made my first gameboot today thanks to this tut!
Cheers buddy!

Its a crap gameboot, but i just rushed through it all to see if it works.
Sso i wont be showing it off, i'm just gonna keep working on a good one now...

[kando]

its because of this tutorial that i figured gameboots out :)

thanks a million!!

tmpgenc is one of the most useful programs i've ever used, it was the key for me...after i found out how to work that i was set =)

cheers!!

[mmmmmm]

:) your welcome.

Get some of your gameboots up on sendspace and share them with us.

[Sid3@rm]

Hay man that is one great tut but there is one thing you TMPGEnc Xpress.v3.0 Link does not work.. i can't Downlaod it so i Found this will it work the same TMPGEnc Xpress v3.3.8.117??

[mmmmmm]

The tmpgenc link is fine.
Yes, a higher version should work just the same. I think TMPGEnc Xpress 4 is out, so you can try that if you want.
You can use any editor that can output to the correct spec.