Game Capture
This guide covers some of the tools and techniques for capturing footage and screenshots in the Skyrim engine for Skywind.
Document created and written by Bustafooligan (Skywind). Contributions from ArcaneImpact (BS: Iliac Bay), Egrets (Skywind), Enoshima (Skywind), Heavy Burns (Skyblivion), and Lilum (BS: Atmora, Elsweyr).
Last updated May 30 2024.
Glossary
Some helpful definitions:
Actor: Any creature or character in the game that has AI, except the player.
Cinematic: Having qualities or using techniques associated with good movies, such as drama, emotional intensity, visual or sonic artistry, epic narrative, etc.
Game Capture: Capturing audio/visuals from the game, whether it be through recording software (Video Capture) or screenshots.
PC: Player character.
Video Capture: Using screen recording software to record the game.
Recording Requirements
You'll need:
Complete access to the current build of the mod and knowledge of what locations are ready to be shown off and are approved.
Familiarity with console commands (see below).
OBS free video recording software or NVIDIA ShadowPlay.
You can find OBS at https://obsproject.com/
NVIDIA ShadowPlay has been known to cause micro-stutters. Use at your own risk.
Do not use Xbox Game Bar.
A gamepad (Xbox/PS controller with joysticks).
Game settings set to Medium-Ultra, 60+ FPS preferred, 30 FPS minimum. You'll likely need a computer with decent specs.
A basic knowledge of composition.
Watch this video for a brief overview on recording footage.
Windows 10 or greater.
If staying on Windows 10, it is recommended to install this OBS plugin.
Optional Tool/Mod (Photo Mode)
This extra tool/mod isn't necessary for game capture, but is suggested to aid and speed up the game capture process.
Photo Mode. You will also need its requirements.
Console Commands
The console allows you to manipulate the game and player in many ways. Some useful commands help us take cinematic footage.
From almost anywhere in the game, pressing the tilde key (~) will bring up the command console. To execute a command after typing it out, press the Enter key. Below are useful commands.
You can repeat commands from your command history by pressing the Up Arrow key.
A Quick Reference sheet for these console commands can be found here.
For toggle commands, to toggle something back on, simply go back into the console and either type the same command again, or press the Up Arrow key until you find it, then press the Enter key.
Center on Cell (coc)
Teleport to any cell, interior or exterior, by specifying the editor ID. You will need to know the editor IDs or coordinates for locations in your game. If so, you can head straight there from the main menu. If not, typing and entering help "<General Name Of Cell>" 0 (quotation marks and zero included) and using the Page Up key on your keyboard will help you find it (look for where the line begins with “CELL:”). Typically, exterior cell IDs are followed by 00, or depending on how many exterior cells the location has.
help "seydaneen" 0
coc seydaneen00
coc seydaneenlighthouse
Field of View (fov)
Sets the field of view for the player by specifying the angle. Use smaller values for close-up shots (asset showcase, interior shots) and larger values for landscape shots.
fov 80
fov 45
Set UFO Cam Speed Multiplier (sucsm)
Changes the speed of the free camera. The default is 1.0, you may need to change this to your liking, depending on the shot.
sucsm 2.5
sucsm 0.5
Toggle Collision (tcl)
Turns off collision for all objects so the player can walk through anything.
Not recommended to use during video capture since footsteps and head bobbing is present.
tfc doesn't move the PC. To capture exterior footage, the PC needs to be in the intended cell since the game only loads cells the PC is in, so we need to instead use tcl in this case.
If you need to travel long distances to another cell you want to capture footage in, use tcl and set a high player speed with player.setav speed mult <#>. Toggle collision again when reaching the area.
While this command is active, it prevents any actors from moving and scripts from triggering.
tcl
Toggle AI Detection (tdetect)
Toggles detection by actors. Useful if you don’t want them attacking or looking at the player. This does not disable any scripted sequences.
tdetect
Toggle Free Camera (tfc)
Camera mode. Necessary for video capture.
tfc
Toggle God Mode (tgm)
Makes the player immune to all damage. Useful for dungeons or in areas where there are hostiles.
tgm
Toggle Menu (tm)
Hides all HUD/UI. Necessary for game capture.
tm
General Console Commands
Center on World (cow)
Teleport to an exterior cell via worldspace coordinates, though coc usually is easier to use. Specify the worldspace name and the coordinates. Use cow wrldmorrowind <x y> for Skywind. However, Skywind has a shortened cow command cwm <x y>. Thus, cow wrldmorrowind = cwm.
cow tamriel 10 -9
cow wrldmorrowind 14 24
cwm 14 24
Set Speed Multiplier Actor Value (player.setav speedmult)
Sets the speed value of the player. Default is 100. Must sneak or sprint to activate.
player.setav speedmult 600
Toggle Map Markers (tmm)
Adds all map markers to the map.
tmm 1
Play Idle Animation (player.playidle)
Has player character perform an idle animation. Here is a list of some idle animations, from u/Halex_222 on Reddit.
player.playidle <idle animation name>
Animator Camera (animcam)
Lock the camera in a 360 only rotation around the player. Works while walking or running. Toggles.
animcam
Environment Console Commands
Timescale (set timescale to)
Changes the speed of time for weather and environment. Useful for speeding up/slowing down the day, or cycling through different weathers. Default is 20.
Setting to a large number like 10000 will speed the time of day up to cycle through day/night, as well as weathers, but NPCs and creatures will behave normally.
Setting to 0 will freeze the time of day. This is useful if you’ve found a nice weather and time of day.
Do NOT fast travel while the timescale is set to 0, this will cause an infinite loading screen because the game is trying to advance time.
set timescale to 10000
set timescale to 0
Global Time Multiplier (sgtm)
Changes the speed of the game processing. Default is 1. Useful for slo-mo shots of things like NPC animations or asset showcases.
sgtm 0.5
Game Hour (set gamehour to)
Sets the game to a specific hour in 24-hour time.
set gamehour to 12
Force Weather (fw)
Forces weather to a specific type. Note that mod projects may have their own weather codes.
Add the argument "1" after the weather code to prevent the weather from changing.
fw 000C821E
fw 000C821E 1
Actor Console Commands
Note that you must have the actor selected/highlighted in the console by clicking on them before issuing many of these commands.
Play Idle Animation (playidle)
Forces actor to play idle their animation.
playidle <idle animation name>
Toggle AI aka Actor Freeze (tai)
Freezes actor in current pose.
tai
Toggle Combat AI (tcai)
Disables/enables combat AI for all actors. Cannot be toggled for a single actor.
tcai
Take Control (tc)
Take control of an actor's movements.
tc
Get Position (getpos)
Gets an object or actor's position as a numerical x, y, z value.
getpos <x,y,z>
Set Position (setpos)
Sets an object or actor's position from a numerical x, y, z value.
setpos x 450
setpos y 880
Get Angle (getangle)
Gets an object or actor's current angle. The z value is only useful for actors.
getangle <x,y,z>
Set Angle (setangle)
Sets an object or actor's angle. Unlike setpos, to update the new angle, you must exit the console command window.
setangle z 255
Set Restrained (setrestrained)
1 forces the actor to stand still, 0 sets the actor free.
setrestrained 1
setrestrained 0
Photo Mode
Download it here (remember its requirements): https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/91701?tab=files
powerofthree's Photo Mode mod is a helpful tool for game capture. Be sure to read the description on how it works and how to configure it to your liking.
For our purposes, it makes using the tm (toggle menu/HUD/UI), fov (field of view), set gamehour to, set timescale to, sgtm (set global time mult.), and fw (force weather) commands obsolete - all of these functions are configurable in Photo Mode's UI!
The HUD can be shown or hidden with a click of a button/key.
Time controls and FOV are slider adjustable.
Weather can be selected from a drop-down.
Pro tips/insights:
To keep free cam controls, toggle free cam (tfc) prior to entering Photo Mode.
By default, pressing the Back button on a gamepad or Esc key will exit out of Photo Mode and reset any changes you have made inside Photo Mode. You can reconfigure the button/key mapping in MCM.
OBS Suggested Settings
Download here: https://obsproject.com/
NVIDIA’s ShadowPlay is a good alternative to OBS if you prefer using that. Just make sure you have the quality set to High, resolution set to In-game, FPS set to 60, and the bitrate to 50 Mbps or higher. However, I don’t believe hotkeys are configurable. Do note that ShadowPlay has been known to cause micro-stutters, where a couple of frames drop, ruining the viewing experience.
Hotkeys
We will set up hotkeys such that you can stay in the game and press your desired hotkey to either start/stop recording or pause/resume recording, without having to Alt-Tab out!
Once you’ve clicked on Settings, you should easily find your way to the Hotkeys section.
Here, I have F11 to start and stop recording, and F10 to pause and unpause. Pausing and unpausing a recording can be useful if you don't want to end up with a ton of multiple clips of the same subject.
If you have a multi-monitor setup, the following may be useful for you. Shown are taskbar indicators of when OBS is not recording and recording.
Keep an eye on this in case you press the record hotkey thinking you've started recording when you've actually stopped it, and vice versa. Alternatively, you can have OBS set to Always Be On Top so you can explicitly see when you are recording, but I prefer to have this disabled.
Not recording
Recording
Video/Output Settings
Let’s head into the Video section on the left and apply the settings shown.
Make sure Base (Canvas) Resolution is set to your monitor’s native resolution, and Output (Scaled) Resolution is at least 1080p. If your output resolution is different than your base resolution, choose Lanczos downscale filter.
Then head into the Output section on the left and then to the Recording tab and apply the Recording settings shown. You might have to choose Advanced as your Output Mode to see these settings.
I've found that choosing FLAC for Audio Encoder corrupts the file, so stick with FFmpeg AAC.
Leave Audio Track 1 checked and Rescale Output & Automatic File Splitting unchecked unless you know what you're doing.
Note the warning about MP4/MOV.
Let's scroll down to the Encoder Settings.
We'll be using CQP for recording with a CQ level of nothing less than 14. 14 is basically is lossless, therefore making lesser values redundant. Obviously, the lower the number, the higher quality the video will be, the more space it will take up on your drive, the more taxing it will be on your system. Increasing the number will increase the performance at the cost of quality.
Settings for Preset, Tuning, and Profile should be selected based on what your computer can handle, how much storage space you have left, and what quality you want out of the videos.
If your computer can’t handle these settings, try unchecking Look-Ahead. This is mainly used for low-action, slow shots, and as far as I’m aware, it can cost CPU performance.
Apply these settings and head back to the main OBS screen.
Adding a Scene
Add a scene by clicking the plus button.
The next step is to name the scene. For this example, I'm just going to keep it as the default name, but I recommend naming it as "Skywind Game Capture." Although, you can use the same scene for multiple games you want to record in. Changing the properties of the source shown in the next step will let you do this, but we won't be utilizing that for this purpose. Click OK.
Adding a Video Source
Next we will add a video source.
Click the plus button under Sources and a list of available sources will pop up. Select Game Capture.
Here, we can select which capture method we want. Unless you have a very specific need, capturing any fullscreen application is what we will choose. Leave the rest default and click OK.
Adding an Audio Source
For Windows 10 users: We will need to install a plugin that allows application audio capture. It isn't totally necessary to record game audio, but it saves us the headache of accidentally recording other sounds on the desktop or other output. This is especially useful if you are in voice chat with others speaking while you are recording. Disregard this if you don't plan on using any captured audio and choose Audio Output Capture instead.
For Windows 11 users: Since OBS 28.0, the above functionality has been added. Add a Game Audio Capture source instead of Application Audio Capture (BETA). (This has not been verified)
Click the plus button under Sources to add another source. We will be adding the plugin we just installed.
Before we move onto the next step, we will start up Skyrim and wait until the main menu pops up.
Once Skyrim has started up, go back into OBS and choose Skyrim as your window. Leave the other option alone unless you know what you're doing. Click OK.
The end result should look something like this.
Now you're all set to start recording video capture! Watch the video below on a basic overview of capturing footage.