Recording a game of NS2, WITH NS2.

Scythe

<div class="IPBDescription">A demo</div>I have no idea why recorded HL1 games were named "demos", probably inherited from quake, but the mystery remains.

Regardless, it occurred to me today that there's not been any mention of NS2 having the ability to record matches. I thought of this when I was remembering my attempts at writing an app that read in a demo file and parsed out the locations of all the entities as the game progressed, for the purpose of displaying a 2d map of the level for post-match investigation of tactics and suchlike.

I'd love to do something like this for NS2, but I don't know what format the recordings would be in (I think goldsrc demos were just a dump of the network data received by that client...), if it's even possible to take them.

--Scythe--

aeroripper

So far we have a movie making tool, but I am really hoping this feature is included too. I am hoping it would record all the good stuff (all voicecomms, alien and marine views, commander(s) view etc...)

I like watching demos of games where I commed a winning game to see what aliens did to counter, moves made etc... I learned a lot about the game that way.

Mr_Charisma

If there is no kind of "NSTV", I will be pretty disappointed. Sure this sort of functionality doesn't have to be live on release but knowing that it's something they want in or plan on implementing would be great.

puzl

Yeah, I think demo recording and a HLTV equivalent are essential. Demo recording for the initial release, if for nothing else, than to help demonstrate bugs

HLTV can come in a subsequent point release, but should not be too long after initial release.

One of the pervasive problems with demo systems is the changing version numbers of the rendering engine. It would be really awesome to provide a way to convert any demo playback to mpeg2 without the use of frapps. People can then compress and enhance their mpeg2 into whatever format they want.

Frogg2

<!--quoteo(post=1713593:date=Jun 23 2009, 02:06 AM:name=puzl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (puzl @ Jun 23 2009, 02:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1713593"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One of the pervasive problems with demo systems is the changing version numbers of the rendering engine. It would be really awesome to provide a way to convert any demo playback to mpeg2 without the use of frapps. People can then compress and enhance their mpeg2 into whatever format they want.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This would be nice. I have recently went on a nostalgia binge and I am basically having to trial and error which version each demo was recorded in.

Crispy

<!--quoteo(post=1713580:date=Jun 23 2009, 07:04 AM:name=Scythe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Scythe @ Jun 23 2009, 07:04 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1713580"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I have no idea why recorded HL1 games were named "demos", probably inherited from quake, but the mystery remains.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->They were called demos because in Quake the main menu overlaid a recording of actual in-game footage from various levels in the game for demonstration purposes. As we alll know, Half-Life used an adapted version of the Quake engine.

WhiteZero

<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=106615" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=106615</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=105100" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=105100</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=104774" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=104774</a>

Jiriki

Yes I hope to see the recording feature and NS2TV.

Would be epic to see the good old Europe vs rusty America game after the release, and get a bunch of specs to see the game

And yeah, we have something like 200 demos from previous seasons.

Really, one reason the competitive scene was able to last so long is because it has been to watch and shoutcast NS games. Its really a great feature.

wey

<!--quoteo(post=1713593:date=Jun 23 2009, 10:06 AM:name=puzl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (puzl @ Jun 23 2009, 10:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1713593"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It would be really awesome to provide a way to convert any demo playback to mpeg2 without the use of frapps.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A video output would be great, but it should be a lossless format (not mpeg2). Either bitmaps (bmp, tga, png) or lossless video (uncompressed, huffyuv, ...). Especially nice would be an extra output for the depth channel, like it's possible in <a href="http://myhannes.info/stuff/movie/Software/TGA_Hook_Latest.rar" target="_blank">Quake 3</a> and <a href="http://hhg-clan.de/hlae/" target="_blank">cs</a> by now - but that's not too important.

And yes, demos/HLTV is a key feature!

puzl

Well, if I had to pick one and only one codec I would go with mpeg2 as it is a good compromise between quality and utility. People serious about video editing will continue to use capture utilities like frapps anyway.

The feature is something that allows people to quickly convert a section of a demo to video for upload. However, depending on the library used, it might not be much additional effort to add additional formats like you suggest.

wey

People "serious about video editing" have and will never use Fraps, for exactly the same reason why a lossy video output (eg mpeg2) is a bad idea: You lose quality even before the first editing step (and in the case of Fraps: it's realtime - bad idea!). That may be acceptable if the loss is reasonable small (eg Alparysoft lossy), but mpeg2 is additionally a bad choice because it uses delta-frames, which makes it potentially slow in video editing.

(lossless) bitmaps are braindead simple and one of the best formats IMHO.

Jiriki

<!--quoteo(post=1713761:date=Jun 24 2009, 07:32 PM:name=puzl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (puzl @ Jun 24 2009, 07:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1713761"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well, if I had to pick one and only one codec I would go with mpeg2 as it is a good compromise between quality and utility. People serious about video editing will continue to use capture utilities like frapps anyway.

The feature is something that allows people to quickly convert a section of a demo to video for upload. However, depending on the library used, it might not be much additional effort to add additional formats like you suggest.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well all <a href="http://ensl.zanith.nl/mc/?r=movie" target="_blank">Movie Competition</a> movies were done using "startmovie" which makes bitmaps for every frame, atleast I strongly believe so. It eats hard disk quickly but provide superior quality.

Having the functionality to make quick videos with some codec would be cool too.

Bacillus

<!--quoteo(post=1713783:date=Jun 24 2009, 07:14 PM:name=Jiriki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jiriki @ Jun 24 2009, 07:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1713783"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well all <a href="http://ensl.zanith.nl/mc/?r=movie" target="_blank">Movie Competition</a> movies were done using "startmovie" which makes bitmaps for every frame, atleast I strongly believe so. It eats hard disk quickly but provide superior quality.

Having the functionality to make quick videos with some codec would be cool too.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm going to second this.

It would also be nice if the demos were a bit more precise than the ones recorded in NS. Right now lag seems to affect the demo quality here and there even if both the teams are from the same continent. As a result you can sometimes barely even see the aliens marines are hitting as the view backtracks heavily.

Proper HLTV controls for free roam camera are a must too if they decide to implement one.

FocusedWolf

It's an important feature for getting aimbotting fades banned. (yes aliens use aimbot in NS... check the <BAD> clan forum... their are reports of people banned for that)

Harimau

^ lol