June 2008 - BB FlashBack Tutorials Used In Computer Games Industry
BB FlashBack screen recorder is proving invaluable in creating tutorials showing how to make game-ready content.
Computer game design is a complex process involving close collaboration between developers and artists, who use a range of software to create the virtual game world.
Objects within the game are generally comprised of polygons, which vary in number depending on how much detail is required. Once created, these 3-D objects have to be rendered, animated and placed within a scene.
Arteria3d, based in the UK, supplies the needs of the independent gaming community for ready-made 3-D media - and uses BB FlashBack screen recorder to create training videos on how to use the specialised applications involved in designing the 3-D game media.
According to Steve Finney, founder and owner of Arteria3d.com, there is a huge community worldwide of budding game developers using a multitude of game engines to produce their own computer games, some of which have gone on to become commercial successes.
The problem that many of these small companies suffer from is that whilst they have excellent programming skills, they usually have inadequate art resources, and to employ an artist to create 3-D media can be very costly.
In addition, in areas such as sound production and music, smaller companies have difficulty accessing commercial quality music and sound atmospheres.
This is where arteria3d saw a gap - producing a range of media for this niche independent market.
Steve Finney said: “Whilst there are quite a few 3-D media suppliers, most don’t cater for the specific needs of the independent game companies who need media for their productions.
“I realised that with my sound recording and art background, I could fill a need in the market by starting a company producing game-ready content.”
Since its formation, Arteria3d has expanded to provide renderwork and movies for games, as well as commercial quality music and sound atmospheres for use in games, education, simulations and movies.
An important part of Arteria3d is its training video area. “Many people would email me asking me how I made my 3-D media,” Steve said. “They wanted to know what programs I used to create it. I then realised it would be a great idea to produce some videos showing people how to make various 3-D buildings, and how specifically to use the various 3-D applications I used to create these assets.
“The only problem was how to create the tutorials,” Steve said, “and the search for a suitable program proved a nightmare.
“I needed a video screen recording program that gave me good, solid frame rates, with fluid sound quality. My experiences with Camtasia where not very good, and the other program I tested - Fraps ( a Windows application for real-time video capture and benchmarking) - only allowed screen recording in one open window at a time, so making it impossible to record my videos properly when working in a 3-D application with multiple viewpoints.”
Steve tried an assortment of screen recorder programs before finding BB FlashBack screen recorder.
“The minute I did my first test with FlashBack I new I had to have it,” Steve said. “I love the way in which FlashBack allows me to select the area to render…and its controls are superb. I always found Camtasia's version a little frustrating to use, whereas FlashBack allows for accurate screen area selection.
“In addition, being able to assign a hotkey to start and stop recording is very useful, allowing me to work intuitively. For me, the most important quality of FlashBack is that it allows me to get on with the job in hand, rather than worrying about issues within the program. It’s completely intuitive. FlashBack allows me to get on with my job, without having to learn the intricacies of the program.
“Stability is another important requirement for me. I’ve used FlashBack to shoot almost a days’ worth of training kit footage without it breaking once. This level of reliability is incredible!”
Steve added: “As well as this, I use FlashBack's superb Flash exporter to export real time movies of my animated characters that people can see from the web page. For people purchasing animated characters, a single picture isn’t good enough - they want to see a small movie showing how the character animates.
“I was truly amazed by the Flash exporter, which keeps files sizes to a minimum, whilst retaining quality. When I’ve used Flash exporters in the past, the quality is never very good. What’s more, FlashBack also provides all the necessary code so that I can simply paste it into my web page.
The whole process of exporting to Flash, and implementing in my web page, takes seconds!”
Steve finished by saying: “Since using FlashBack, the video series has proved so popular that I now intend to create a library archive of training videos over time, showing people how to make all kinds of 3-D objects using a range of applications.”
April 2008 - BB FlashBack 2.0 Launched
Blueberry Software's big release of BB FlashBack 2.0 screen recorder is an impressive combination of sought-after features and brand new technology.
Major developments in BB FlashBack Version 2.0 include Pan & Zoom, Precision Sound Editing, Webcam Capture, Action Buttons, Vista Capture Driver, Recording Wizard, Highlight Tool, Mouse Movement Correction - and a new recorder interface for one click recording, making it even easier to create polished tutorials and presentations.
"The release of Version 2.0 represents an important milestone for BB FlashBack in the product’s 5-year history," said Martin Green, MD of Blueberry Software. “We’ve extended functionality by adding a number of requested features, such as webcam and precision sound editing tools, whilst further simplifying the product’s ease of use. It is now more intuitive, giving it mass appeal to all users looking to create polished online tutorials, presentations or demonstration movies - or just screencasts.”
The software is able to output to all major movie formats, giving users more choice when creating and publishing high quality content. The use of compression techniques makes it possible to make movies at high frame rates whilst keeping file sizes small. The result is always slick to look at, even if the user has no programming or multimedia expertise.
BB FlashBack 2.0 records exactly what is done on a computer screen, what a user says, and how they interact with any Windows-based application or website.
The new picture-in-picture feature allows “talking head” presentations, where a video of a trainer can be shown talking the viewer through actions as they are performed on screen.
Multiple tracks of sound, music and commentary can be added. Sound tracks can be selected and manipulated in the same way as movie footage. Any portion of movie audio can be selected, cut, copied, pasted or dragged and dropped into new positions. Volume control is also provided, along with the ability to edit multiple soundtracks at once.
Key actions and areas of the screen can be emphasised by adding 'pan' and 'zoom' effects to your presentation for that professional finish.
Interactive Action Buttons are another welcome addition to the tools menu, allowing end-viewers of your movie to jump to any part of the presentation – or even open web pages. The Action Buttons can be set to display any desired information and perform a pre-programmed action on clicking.
The Highlight tool is a further new development, which allows transparent panels of colour to be positioned over selected areas of the movie to draw viewer’s attention to key sections of the screen.
For beginners, there is a helpful Recording Wizard, which gives the user a step-by-step guide to configuring recording options.
Once the interactive content has been edited, individuals can share it online in all popular streaming media formats, including Flash, AVI or WMV, as well as export to PPT or standalone .EXE files, for portable media players and CD or DVD.
Martin Green said: "Since the launch of Version 1.0 back in 2003, the range of applications for screen recorder based movies has grown enormously – from enhancing training, tutorials, manuals and websites, to multimedia training and presentations, teaching computer literacy or just creating screencasts for sharing on YouTube and Myspace.
“We’re pleased that the product has also earned a Microsoft 'Designed for Windows XP' certificate, so letting customers know that BB FlashBack has met standards of operating system compatibility, and will deliver a guaranteed level of quality and integration with Windows XP. In addition, BB FlashBack 2.0 is also Windows Vista compatible. It works in all Vista graphics modes and has an MS signed device driver for high performance recording.”
Blueberry Software is offering free upgrades of BB FlashBack 2.0 to all users who bought version 1.5 in the last 30 days prior to the release date of 2.0 (i.e. purchases made after March 1st, 2008), as well as free upgrades for anyone subscribing to the company’s Premium Support package.
For users who own an earlier version of BB FlashBack, purchased before March 1st, 2008, the price to upgrade to the new version is only $99 USD (usual price $225 USD).
For existing users of Blueberry’s entry-level screen recorder, BB FlashBack Express 1.5, there is a free upgrade available to the latest version of BB FlashBack Express 2.0.
For more information, see our BB FlashBack product page.
September 2007 - BB FlashBack Used In Research Study
Aberdeen University has been researching the ability of adolescents with Asperger Syndrome to multi-task, using BB FlashBack to record behaviour for later analysis.
A simple thing like making a cup of tea takes planning and organising, and where the pre-frontal cortex is damaged (such as in an autistic disorder) the ability to perform different activities concurrently can be seriously affected.
According to the National Autistic Society 500,000 people in the UK are affected by an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and despite major advances in the understanding of the condition, addressing the needs of this group remains a problem for Education Authorities, the NHS and Social Services.
Individuals with Asperger Syndrome pose particular difficulties because, like all people with ASDs, they are characterised by deficits in communication and socialisation and have restricted interests or repetitive behaviours.
Investigating this condition in the real world is naturally difficult. However, studies conducted in virtual environments provide a good solution by offering experimental control and a safe non-threatening environment for the participants, whilst still making real time demands on them.
Dr. Gnanathusharan Rajendran and his colleagues at the University of Edinburgh proposed using an adapted virtual environment called the 'Virtual Errands Test' to measure the multi-tasking performance of AS sufferers by watching them complete on-screen tasks to a set time limit.
The Virtual Errands Test (VET) involved giving volunteers tasks to do on a PC screen and recording the results for later analysis. The VET task involved scrolling through an office building with numbered rooms on three floors, performing office-based tasks such as “make a phone call in Room T1”.
If participants attempted the sequence of errands in list order, then the inefficient route meant they ran out of time before completing all the tasks. Performance was then scored by the number of errands successfully completed within the time-limit. The study predicted that individuals with autism would complete fewer errands than control participants because of their impaired ability to multi-task.
Dr. Rajendran said: “This kind of research is often done outside the laboratory, for example in schools, and without the use of screen capture software, we would have had to consider recording the onscreen events using a camera, video recorder and projector.”
“We discovered the superior alternative of using screen recorders by accident, and were given a copy of BB FlashBack by Blueberry once we explained to the company what we were trying to do.
“Now, it is a matter of un-intrusively running the program in the background and letting the participants work normally without being disturbed by the experimenter – a factor that can possibly affect results.
“Once the recordings have been made, it is a simple matter of burning the movie to CD and sending it to colleagues for further analysis.
“In my view, screen capture is a powerful tool in computer-screen based research, with the potential to be used in many future research applications of this nature.”
The initial findings of the report, entitled, “Investigating multi-tasking in Asperger syndrome using the Virtual Errands Task”, were presented at the British Psychological Society's Annual Developmental Conference in Plymouth at the end of August, 2007.
June 2007 - Medical Documentation System Uses BB FlashBack
Blueberry FlashBack screen recorder is to be used to create audio-visual demonstrations of an open source medical record system which will be used for clinical sites throughout the developing world.
OpenMRS, a non-profit open source medical record system developed for use in Africa and other third-world countries, will utilise Flash-based user-documentation, created using Blueberry FlashBack screen recorder.
Paediatrician, Paul Biondich, who initially contacted Blueberry regarding the use of BB FlashBack, said: "OpenMRS is a freely available medical record system, developed with the express intent of facilitating the care of HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria within developing countries. OpenMRS is based on the principle that information should be easy to store, summarise and analyse. At its core is a concept dictionary which stores all diagnosis, tests, procedures, drugs and other general questions and potential answers.
"When we contacted Blueberry, we were looking to provide easy-to-assimilate documentation for the system and found BB FlashBack screen recorder to be ideal for creating simple demonstrations of the system."
OpenMRS is a common framework on which medical information systems can easily be built. The application is not dependent on the types of medical information being collected, or on particular data collection forms, and so can be customised for different uses.
Because OpenMRS is a charitable project, Blueberry donated free site licences of the screen recorder to the venture, allowing the developers to create the documentation.
Dr Biondich said: "There are over 40 million people infected with or dying from HIV/AIDS in the world - most of them in developing countries. Prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS on this scale requires efficient information management, which is critical as HIV/AIDS care must increasingly be entrusted to less skilled providers.
"Whether for lack of time, developers, or money, most HIV/AIDS programs in developing countries manage their information with simple spreadsheets or small, poorly designed databases, if anything at all. To help them, we need to find a way not only to improve management tools, but also to reduce unnecessary, duplicative efforts. We believe OpenMRS is the right direction to go to help achieve these aims."
May 2007 - BB FlashBack SDK To Aid In Child Porn Detection
The China Grove Police Department in North Carolina, USA, is using BB FlashBack SDK to develop an evidence logging application for use in anti-child porn operations by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
The SDK will be used to develop a screen recording/IP traffic logging application, integrated into a suite of law enforcement tools, for use by the police department to aid undercover online investigations.
Roger Hosey, a reserve police officer with previous experience as a network administrator, first realised a need for a high-end, yet easy-to-use screen recorder, when he was attending an online investigations course taught by the North Carolina Computer Crime Unit. He observed that investigators were using off-the-shelf tools designed for general recording, which were unnecessarily complex for their needs, leading to confusion amongst some of the less experienced officers. In addition, as a result of tight budgets, many agencies were using the very cumbersome, but free, Windows media encoder for screen recording.
Roger said: “No standard toolset exists for capturing and maintaining online evidence. Because of this, Investigators rely on general purpose applications, which were not designed as law enforcement tools, but as general network management and desktop productivity applications.
“The lack of integration between tools can make maintaining and preparing evidence and tedious and time consuming task. Furthermore, lack of standardisation of tools can create problems for officers attempting to share data in a multi-jurisdictional case.”
Roger’s goal was to develop an integrated suite of freely available tools for sworn law enforcement officers to use in gathering, organising, researching, and presenting digital evidence in cases regarding the online exploitation of children. The core of the application would be the intuitive screen recording/IP traffic logging application.
Blueberry donated a free SDK licence for the application’s development.
Roger said: “A very gracious company donated an SDK license for a packet capture/traffic analysis component. With Blueberry’s donation as well, I should be able provide officers with an indispensable tool in the battle against the exploitation of children.”
Roger went on to describe the application he had in mind: “Once completed, the application will assist law enforcement officers in conducting undercover online investigations of child predators. The application will offer the ability, via the FlashBack SDK, for officers to record and log all chat and online interactions with the predators into evidence. In addition, the application will contain a system for case documentation and for maintaining the integrity of undercover identities. Finally, Integrated IP logging & traffic analysis will help officers identify the IP address and Internet Service Provider used by the offender.
“This information will be used, with a court issued subpoena, to obtain the subscriber information from the ISP. Once enough evidence is obtained, the officer can burn it to a disc and present it to a judicial official to obtain search and/or arrest warrants.”
The evidence logging application will contain several integrated components, allowing officers to:
- Log connection information to identify suspects IP address
- Determine the ISP used by a suspect
- Perform screen recording (via the BB SDK)
- Organize chat transcripts, screen recordings & case notes
- Maintain critical information regarding undercover online personas
- Verify case file integrity for aiding in court admissibility
- Print reports and records to assist in obtaining search / arrest warrants / subpoenas
- Burn video evidence (screen recordings) to recordable DVD discs for court presentation
In closing, Roger said: “In the battle against internet predators, screen recordings are an indispensable piece of evidence.
“When I began searching for a solution to provide this vital functionality to my application I focused on open-source offerings. After weeks of drudging through sparsely documented, feature limited, and unsupported code I was exasperated.
“As I evaluated professional developed components the answer to my problem became immediately apparent. From the moment I touched it, the Blueberry Flashback SDK has consistently exceeded my expectations. The components are well designed and intuitive. What few questions I did have were quickly resolved by referencing the included sample applications or the comprehensive, concise documentation. Within an hour I was able to add a working prototype to my application.”
Feb 2007: Military Computer-Based Simulation Software Makes Use Of BB FlashBack
Ternion Corporation in Alabama, USA, is Blueberry’s latest high profile convert to BB FlashBack Screen Recorder - using it to demonstrate state-of-the-art computer-based simulation software that is used mainly in military applications.
BB Flashback Screen Recorder came to the attention of Brad Spearing, President of Ternion Corporation, whilst he was evaluating a range of commercial screen recorder programs to see which would be most appropriate for creating a demo of their flagship simulation product called FLAMES (FLexible Analysis Modeling and Exercise System). The simulation was that of an airplane being shot down by a missile.
"I needed a program that could play the simulation like a movie," Brad explained. "It's key for us to be able to do this. One leading program we looked at primarily captured only still shots, so we were losing a lot of the action, such as animation in PowerPoint slides and 3D simulation visualization - making it useless for our purposes. The program also could not keep audio synchronized with video."
Then he tried BB Flashback Screen Recorder, which recorded everything he did and played continuously like a movie, with full audio and video synchronization. "Unlike the other programs we'd evaluated, BB Flashback has a great online help section that clearly addressed the technical issues we’d encountered with competing software, and gave directions on how to make BB Flashback specific to our requirement. It was all very simple and direct. It’s a tremendous product.
“If the competing software is a 5, then BB Flashback is a 20. The trial has made me confident in recommending it for use by anyone in the market for a screen recorder.”
Jan 2007: Product Update – BB FlashBack 1.5.4
BB FlashBack version 1.5.4 has been released following further product improvements and the implementation of new features. The most significant of these is the implementation of AVI 2.0 exporting, for AVI files larger than 2Gb; an option to recompress MP3 sounds, so avoiding clicks caused by editing operations; the ability to insert unsupported sound formats (i.e. other than mp3 or wav); a resynchronise sound feature to fix audio-video sync problems; and improved recovery of movies that have been unexpectedly terminated during recording. The update for BB FlashBack version 1.5.4 is now available for download.
Dec 2006: Blueberry Releases BB FlashBack SDK 2.0
Blueberry Software has released the latest version of its screen recording software development kit, BB FlashBack SDK.
BB FlashBack SDK 2.0 offers developers and software publishers an easy way to incorporate screen recording, movie playback and editing features into their applications, using plug-in ActiveX controls.
SDK 2.0 is based on the high-performance recording engine used in Blueberry's award-winning BB FlashBack screen recorder – a product which has been acknowledged for its performance level, its intuitive interface, and its sheer ease of use.
Three versions of SDK 2.0 are available: Basic, which allows the recording and playback of BB FlashBack movies; Professional, which adds movie editing and sound support; and Advanced, which has all the features of the BB FlashBack product. These include extensive editing functions that allow the user to add text effects, edit mouse movements, change the movie speed and add sound. The screen recordings can be exported to multimedia formats such as Flash, AVI, WMV or EXE for use on a CD-ROM.
SDK 2.0 is compatible with all major development environments, including Delphi, .NET and Visual Studio.
Applications include:
- Usability testing - create custom tools to record user interaction.
- Web conferencing - to allow recording of presentations over the Internet.
- In Call Centres - to help give operators feedback on their use of programs.
- In support systems - integrate recording of user actions to help debug programs.
A trial version of BB FlashBack SDK is available for download at: http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/bbflashbacksdk/download.aspx
BB FlashBack SDK Basic or Professional can be purchased online at: http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/purchase/onlinestore.aspx
Apr 2006: Product update – BB FlashBack 1.5
Our latest update to BB FlashBack, version 1.5, is now available for download. This is another completely free update, including improved support for multi monitor systems, better file size compression for movies, and the ability to import basic AVI files back into FlashBack (FBR) movies.
Upon opening existing movies, BB FlashBack 1.5 will update your FBR files to the latest file structure. This new file structure improves seek and editing speeds, and gives smaller file sizes.
To start using version 1.5 right away, download the latest installer from our website or run the check from updates wizard in your existing installation.
Jun 2005: BB FlashBack Selected as 'Best in Class' in Screen Recording Review Project.
Over the a period of two weeks the donation coder review team and their keenest forum members undertook a collective and detailed review to find the leading screen-casting software products from those available on the market. After examining a total of ten different applications BB FlashBack was awarded a "best in class" title.
The final report concluded: "BB FlashBack is a real head turner. This relative newcomer to the field is extremely capable, and has some tricks up its sleeves that we loved, which the other companies would do well to copy."
Click here to visit the donation coder website.
Jun 2005: Product update – BB FlashBack 1.4.5
After a number of months development time BB FlashBack 1.4.5 has been publicly released. This version includes a considerable number of improvements.
Download it from here.
New features include a recording toolbar for beginner level users, a batch movie export tool and improved navigation in the Player. Also in 1.4.5 Flash files now support streaming: movies exported to Flash format in this version or later will now automatically stream to your viewers when placed online.
Along with the new features technical improvements have been made to recording in a terminal services session, on a dual monitor setup or machines using older video cards. The full list of changes can be seen here.
We'd like to thank everyone who's sent us in feature suggestions and bug reports. It's this that lets us evolve our software, so please always feel free to get in touch with feedback.
To download the update simply run BB FlashBack and select "check for updates" from your recorder menu.
Apr 2005: BB FlashBack Awarded Listing on the Great Software List
BB FlashBack has now become listed on the great software list - a directory of the highest quality software products from every field of software. Awarding a listing in the Multimedia category, the list reviewer said: "While BB FlashBack is easy to describe, it's difficult to imagine a competing product coming near to its performance level, its intuitive interface, and its sheer ease of use."
You can read the full review here. The full great software list is available here.
Feb 2005: Product update - BB FlashBack 1.4.1
BB FlashBack 1.4.1 has been released. This is a minor release containing mainly bug fixes.
The main new feature introduced in this version is improved displaying and searching of key presses in movies recorded by BB TestAssistant.
A new interface allows you to easily view every key pressed during recording and offers a search function to locate the point in time a word was typed.
Also improved is recording on older operating systems: Windows 98, ME and NT 4.0. This now includes a 'performance test' to determine the best capture mode and speed for your PC.
Feb 2005: New product - BB FlashBack Express
This new addition to the FlashBack family is a feature reduced version of BB FlashBack that offers great value for users needing to make simple screen recordings. It has the same ease of use and recorder technology as its big brother, while leaving out the advanced editing and presentation functions.
Try it for yourself: Download BB FlashBack Express today and start making movies.
Oct 2004: BB FlashBack 1.4 Released!
Ever wanted to cut and paste footage between movies? How about cool textbox effects like transparency, shadows and colour fades? Maybe you'd like to edit the mouse cursor in your movie, or add in your own images?
Well you can do that and a whole lot more with our latest update: BB FlashBack 1.4. Better still, it's available as shareware, or free for existing users!
We've listened to what you have to say and in version 1.4 we've implemented nearly every feature that was widely requested by our users: so much so that there are 22 new options, features and tools! To see a full list of these new features visit our features page.
Try it for yourself: download FlashBack 1.4 today and start making movies |