"Let's Play" of Lighthouse: The Dark Being

[Expack3]

I've recently begun a "Let's Play" of Lighthouse: The Dark Being, and I decided to share it with you all! I'll be using SquirtTheCat's Windows port of the game, the video is part of an ongoing series, and over the course of the series I'll be playing through the entire game without using a walkthrough. Also, I am aware of the audio issues and the lack of a visible mouse cursor; thankfully, both are easy fixes and will be rectified by the next video.

Hope you enjoy!

[BBP]

Ohey! I'll look forward to seeing that: gave up on Lighthouse while listening to Lyril.

[Tawmis]

I need to watch this. I enjoyed Lighthouse.

[Rudy]

Always been wondering on how to record this one, given the many different paths and endings.

[Collector]

Always been wondering on how to record this one, given the many different paths and endings.

Might just have to have more than one go at it.

[Mostly]

Great idea for a playthrough!

I enjoyed Lighthouse very much. It's quite a challenging game.

[Tawmis]

Watched it. I'd recommend turning down the game sound quite a bit. There's time I can barely understand you (or perhaps you're just mumbling to yourself?)

[Expack3]

Watched it. I'd recommend turning down the game sound quite a bit. There's time I can barely understand you (or perhaps you're just mumbling to yourself?)

Yeah...my landlord, who I had watch the video, also made that complaint. I'm going to be doing a "sound check" before I release the next video - especially important since, in the next video, I activate the loud engines on-board the otherworld inventor's sub several times.

[Expack3]

I now have the second part of my playthrough of Lighthouse: The Dark Being up on YouTube! While I did fix the issue with my voiceover being hard-to-understand, I still can't seem to get the mouse cursor to show up.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the video!

[Collector]

Most screen capture utilities ignore the cursor. You could run the DOS version in DOSBox to get the cursor.

[Expack3]

Most screen capture utilities ignore the cursor. You could run the DOS version in DOSBox to get the cursor.

FRAPS, the recording software I use, does have an option to capture the cursor as well. Oddly enough, though, the option doesn't seem to work with SquirtTheCat's Windows port of the game. Also, I'd prefer to stick with SquirtTheCat's Windows version - it's higher-resolution than the DOS version and it removes the interlacing on the in-game cutscenes which have them.

[Collector]

It is not higher resolution, but jafa's installer does fake the removal of the cut scene interlacing with nearest neighbor via DirectX . Both use exactly the same graphics. The movies themselves are missing every other scan line. If you play the VMDs directly you can see that they are only half height.

[Expack3]

It is not higher resolution, but jafa's installer does fake the removal of the cut scene interlacing with nearest neighbor via DirectX . Both use exactly the same graphics. The movies themselves are missing every other scan line. If you play the VMDs directly you can see that they are only half height.

Good point. I can always de-interlace any affected cutscenes in post (short for post-production). The next point to solve is "how do I get DOSBox to output an HD image to a video file?" My first guess would tell me to simply tell it to output a fullscreen image at 1080p; is it truly that simple?

[Collector]

With "fullresolution= 0x0" in the [sdl] part of the conf, it will use the native resolution of your monitor for full screen. You can experiment with DOSBox's rendering modes if you want to try to reduce pixelization. DOSBox has a built in video capture, ZMBV, which is very good, but you would need to convert it to another codec for your purposes. Two drawbacks that you might need to consider, no audio and the output may not be as large as you want. For your purposes, a third party capture may serve better.

If you are willing to do things in post, you could export the VMDs to avi with the Sierra Resource Viewer. You would probably have fix the aspect. VAG's VMD Player can play them at double height for the proper aspect ratio, but has no export abilities.

Another advantage with my installer is that it make ISO images for disc-less play. Just press Ctrl+F4 to switch between CD 1 and 2.

[Expack3]

With "fullresolution= 0x0" in the [sdl] part of the conf, it will use the native resolution of your monitor for full screen. You can experiment with DOSBox's rendering modes if you want to try to reduce pixelization. DOSBox has a built in video capture, ZMBV, which is very good, but you would need to convert it to another codec for your purposes. Two drawbacks that you might need to consider, no audio and the output may not be as large as you want. For your purposes, a third party capture may serve better.

If you are willing to do things in post, you could export the VMDs to avi with the Sierra Resource Viewer. You would probably have fix the aspect. VAG's VMD Player can play them at double height for the proper aspect ratio, but has no export abilities.

Another advantage with my installer is that it make ISO images for disc-less play. Just press Ctrl+F4 to switch between CD 1 and 2.

In my experience, the ZMBV format does actually capture audio - I've actually used it before to record video and audio right from DOSBox 0.74 for The 7th Guest andThe City of Lost Children, both DOS games. The only caveat is the audio must be outputted by a DOSBox-emulated sound device, such as AdLib, SoundBlaster, or, if I use a custom DOSBox build, MT-32; otherwise, any audio not outputted by a DOSBox-emulated sound device, such an external MIDI device or a standalone MT-32 emulator, won't record (which is to be expected). However, getting DOSBox to actually output video at 1080p, not the game's original resolution, may prove enough of a problem that I'll end up using FRAPS to record DOSBox's audiovisual output. Either way, I'll actually be able to record the cursor next time!

If I do decide to export and put in the interlaced cutscenes manually - which I probably will - correcting their aspect ratio will be trivial. Thanks for the heads-up about the corrections needed if I do so, though!

Also, I already have my own Lighthouse: The Dark Being ISO images for disc-less play, so using your excellent installer would, unfortunately, be duplicitous for me - especially since the patches provided for the game on the main Sierra Help website are as simple to apply as overriding the old files with the new, patched ones in the correct order.