Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

The week is coming to a close and the Machinima projects are starting to take shape.  Most students chose to use a Valve product as their game of choice (Counter Strike, L4D and Gary's Mod), but some teams also opted for World of Warcraft.

In terms of the lab, the software and hardware worked well.  Fraps was used to capture video, then most teams selected Windows Movie Maker (it's on the lab machines already) to edit and add post production effects.  One issue that did arise: Fraps saves the video files in .avi.  For some reason, when students took their videos via a USB drive to other campus labs, Windows Movie Maker and Windows Media Player did recognize the files.  I had hoped any PSU imaged PC would be able to read the files, but apparently a Fraps codec is required for Windows media player and movie maker to work with the raw files.  Not a big deal for this small class, but something to look into for the Fall semester.

We also had a chance to test out the video switching equipment and flat panels.  We have five flat panels in the room, and any PC, console or laptop can be displayed on any flat panel.  This worked earlier in the week, but started acting spotty the last two days.  Part of the problem might be the room temperature, but we were able to stabalize that yesterday. 

Back for some final testing today, including a look at how the consoles are configured for online access.