[update: since I wrote this, I've acquired a Sony Vaio laptop and I am getting better results on YouTube, but this is still a relevant topic.]
Nope, this isn't about the Patterson-Gimlin Film [bigfoot] or some UFO footage. This is about why I haven't been able to upload a single decent-looking video of the game I've been developing independently, namely Sentinel Sphere. After doing a little math, I figured out the visual problem.
The portion of the game I have been capturing on my PC [with FRAPS software] contains a skybox which is mostly a dark shade of red. It has a color gradient on the horizon which fades into the texture of the ground...it's called "fog"...go figure. Well, when optimizing video clips for upload to YouTube and the like, the overall color pallete of the video has to be reduced to a smaller number of colors.
In order to see the background colors for what they truly are, you need a huge pallete in order to get all those shades of red in the fog gradient from ground to sky. The optimized YouTube palette only allows a few colors in each primary group, so instead of the fine gradient of red for the back ground, you get a blocky 3-color gradient of red for Youtube.
I only figured it out after using the same techniques to upload video of a much more vibrantly colored game [Nightmare Apartments]. Which ended up looking great by comparison. I still think it could just be encoding limitations of the video capture software I've been using. If someone could recommend something besides FRAPS that they know works, I'd appreciate it. Although, my results are consistent with what I've seen out of other users who are using the same software (DarkBASIC and FRAPS) on YouTube.
See my YouTube Channel to see what I am talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=nurmweb
"Never completely discount the improbable."
~Dennis
