Howto: Demo recording and encoding + Tips!

[paperclips]

How do I record demos?
Look in menu -> "multiplayer -> demos" and check the "Record demos while playing".

How do I find my demos?
Look in " ~/.nexuiz/data/demos " in linux/OSX or " Nexuiz\data\demos " in windows.
You can also find demos HERE, since people have started to share them as education/eyecandy/just for laughs!
I posted some demos with relevant times in their filename so its easy to find the fun stuff: HERE.
How do I play demos?
Look in the demo menu pick the demo and press play. Or by writing in the console
" ply demos/filename_of_the_demo ". You can also use tab, so you dont need to write the whole demo name.
Check the excellent Nexuiz In Depth, for more tips & tricks! I really think you should check them out anyway! I guarantee that you will learn something useful!

Ok, so how do I record these?
Hold yer horses there, little laser-slinger! :3

First look here, for tips on setting up your config. Makes recording a whole lot easier!
My tip is play the demo and look for at what time the stuff happened that you want to record and when you want to end the recording, write the values down in case you get distracted.

Regarding terencehills demo menu.
This menu gives you easy access to the cam system (free cam/chase cam) and the playback speed of demos. I only use it for the cam settings.
Save the democam menu file in in nexuiz/data folder to enable it. Now you should have a new menu (Press F5).
Remember to delete or move this file to another dir when you are done with recording since ATM, it wont list servers if you want to play online.

Tip for really smooth videos
Since Nexuiz is such a fast game we need to capture lots of frames to make all around movement more fluid.
In your autoexec.cfg insert this: set cl_capturevideo_fps 90

Before you start recording, this is important if you have the setting under "Video" - "Wait for gpu to finish each frame" ON, THEN you can record with highres-everything-on-max-ultimate-oh by discordia settings and get really high quality video!
It will take some time to encode though, BUT then you end up with really nice smooth quality since you can have all settings max. It will look choppy as hell when you record, but be patient!
Just wait till you see the timer reaches when the stuff is over you wanted to record and press your rec key to turn off recording. Dont forget to deactivate "finish each frame", when you are not recording! Otherwise lag is inevitable.
Now you have a really nice quality video file in data/video, that you can play with in a video editor and/or encode!

"Dude how about a rewind feature!?"
I feel your pain bro. Oh have faith in these mighty devs among men that develop this awesome game and sooner or later, thou shall recive!

Ok, I recorded this part of a demo, how do I encode it to h264?
I always encode my videos with handbrake (remember to limit the framerate when you encode), and mkvmerge to join several clips together, so I myself have a good copy, then I upload to youtubes or whereever.

If you feel you have any other pointers/tips or the like, please don't be a stranger and share thy knowledge.

Have fun!

[GreEn`mArine]

Tipp 1: In case you decide to have a completely different config for recording than you have for playing, make sure that you check out the Episode 5 of the InDepth podcast. It shows you how you can create a second shortcut that will make Nexuiz to use/create configs in/from another folder. This way you can re-use your one and only Nexuiz installation (including the data file, demos, dlcache files) and don't have to copy them someplace else just to have another set of configs

Tipp 2:
This is my fast-forward/slow-motion control bind that I use while watching demos

Code: Select all

//demo controls
alias democontrols_toggle _democontrols_enable
alias _democontrols_enable "alias democontrols_toggle _democontrols_disable;in_bindmap 1 0;echo Demo controls enabled!"
alias _democontrols_disable "alias democontrols_toggle _democontrols_enable;in_bindmap 0 1;echo Demo controls disabled!"
in_bind 1 c "slowmo 0.2"
in_bind 1 v "slowmo 0.5"
in_bind 1 b "slowmo 1"
in_bind 1 n "slowmo 2.5"
in_bind 1 m "slowmo 5"
in_bind 1 , "slowmo 10"
in_bind 1 . "slowmo 20"
in_bind 1 PGDN "menu_cmd rpn /slowmo slowmo 2 / def"
in_bind 1 PGUP "menu_cmd rpn /slowmo slowmo 2 * def"
in_bind 1 [ "pausedemo"

How to use it:

• Bind a key of your choice to the execute the command democontrols_toggle - e.g. bind K "democontrols_toggle"
• When you play back a demo, hit that key, you will see the message "Demo controls enabled"
• use the keys c, v, b, n, m, and comma to fast-forward or slow-down the demo. the b key is "slowmo 1", that is, normal speed.
• As a memory aid, for me the b is in the center of my spacebar right below, so the two buttons left to b make the demo slower, while the buttons right to the b make it faster
• The [ key will pause or unpause the demo, feel free to change keys as you like
• the page up key will double the current slowmo value. The page down key will divide it by 2.
• Once you don't need the demo controls anymore, hit they that you bound to democontrols_toggle again.

You might have noticed my usage of bind maps. This way, you can have other stuff bound to the keys (c, v, b, n, ...) in your normal config, and then temporarily have the demo controls overwriting these binds once you press the key bound to democontrols_toggle

Cheers

[GreEn`mArine]

If you want to record many demos and also have them encoded in a batch-like process, check out the Nexuiz Demo Recorder tool.

[mand1nga]

More details about the demo camera here